Records of Records

The scrolls mostly contained information of the commissions given to the manor workshops, the various materials needed for the requested products, and the output, with all actions costed and financed from materials to labour.

There were attendance records, food records, pay rises, promotions, pay bonuses, and all else that would be expected from the institution tucked away in the wing of the manor.

It operated similar enough to the Luo Family Textile business: hiring artisans from the local area and having them work on both commissioned pieces as well as more generic products to be sold outside the manor as an additional source of income - those pieces carted out to surrounding towns, including one order from the Moon Temple.

A set of robes and cloaks, in all the customary cheapest colours and fabrics possible with minimal refinery and a request to keep the costs under a certain number.

Lee searched for the date of the scroll, and found that there was none on it.

He pulled out the sheet of paper below it and searched for some indication of the time the documents were made.

There was no date here either.

Lee's brows furrowed downwards and he scanned through each and every paper on the desk for some scant reference of a date.

Lee eventually found one, embedded within the headings of a letter from the manager of the industrial wing of the mansion to a silk trading company which Lee had never heard of before.

The man who ran the in house production team, Zhang Yuan, was attempting to procure a shipment of silk for the mansion, as demanded by the lord of the manor's daughter, to be used in a series wedding dresses to be prepared as gifts to all the children of the mansion, including the children who were worked as the staff.

A large boom in profit had come about recently due to some sort of supernatural miracle occurring in one of the towns that the manor sold its wares in - the divine incident involving all the fires in the city turning a deep, purple colour on the night of the conclusion of a particular court case where a business man was accused of the murders of one of his smaller competitors.

The Moon Temple had been consulted on the omen and reported back that the town would be blessed with prosperity and wealth, prompting a grand celebration which the industrial wing of the manor had to produce a large volume of celebratory garments cheaply for.

Lee pulled out his own map and mapped the names of the town mentioned in the letter.

The purple fire celebration town was the same town that Lee would be in if he had continued on his way without taking the detour that he was now on.

The incident mentioned in the letter was recorded to be four years ago in the middle of the summer.

If this letter was written four years ago, then the town had then gone from a bustling industrial hub to a decaying wreck extremely quickly.

Lee scanned through his memories, searching for some sort of cataclysmic event that would could have caused this sort of decay, his mind coming up blank as he remembered that all the harvests within his living memory were not particularly bad.

The destruction of the town couldn't be from the weather then, but there were still a variety of reasons that could decimate a region.

There didn't seem to be any real damage from violence or raids, but considering all the underwater buildings, it was likely that the town had suffered an apocalyptic flood, mostly drowning the workforce of the town, forcing the survivors to leave and take their worldly possessions with them.

Lee opened all the draws and searched around the office for any blank paper, ink, or brushes he could use to note down what he had learned, finding an abundance of empty scrolls on several shelves. He laid them all out and rolled them all up into one tight, coiled bundle, and folded up the letter about the incident, tying it to the rest of the paper with string.

Lee continued on with his search and found himself a large inkstone that he would be able to carry with him, as well as several brushes, all in pristine condition.

He carried all his newly acquired materials into one corner of the room, near the door and decided to continue combing through the room.

He pulled out the top drawer in the desk the full way, determined to rummage through and find something worth either recording down or taking for himself.

The people who once lived here were now long gone, Lee rationed to himself as he flipped through finance report after finance report, all carrying dates prior to four years ago, hoping to find something interesting.

A small, slip of paper fell out from one of the sheets, falling to the bottom of the draw, forcing Lee to pause as he took a look.

He pulled it out, pulling most of the papers up with one arm.

The paper held the expertly drawn image of a crane, standing regally with its head held up high in a river.

Lee flipped it over to look at the back and saw a date from approximately a decade before the letter.

"Try six," Lee mumbled out, reading the text at the back.

He blinked as he realised that the manager here was an aspiring artist, attempting to be able to draw the crane in the river as best as he possibly could for his own personal satisfaction, rather than any real business venture.

Lee imagined a man sitting at the desk, his tongue sticking slightly out of his mouth as he attempted to keep his hands as still as possible, drawing out the gentle, delicate strokes needed to perfectly convey the awe inspiring, powerful, royal image of the bird, before contrasting it to its softer surroundings in an attempt to create a classic.

The image of an all powerful being descending down on Earth, while gazing upwards again, was a striking image that firmly placed all of humanity underneath him.