A Different Quarry, the Color of Liver
Every other Duan inkstone in this series so far has come from 坑仔, Kengzai. This one comes from somewhere else: 北岭宋坑, the Beiling Song-pit — a different quarry, with a different historic association (the name ties it to the Song dynasty) and a noticeably different stone color, a deep liver-purple rather than Kengzai's blue-violet.
The markings are different too: 火捺 (the warm, fire-like cloud markings prized in Duan stone) and 彩带 (banded color streaks) both show clearly across the surface, set into stone the description calls 凝重而浑厚 — dense, weighty, settled. At 20.5 by 13 centimeters, it's also one of the larger pieces in the collection, sized more like a working desk tool than a display object.
Shaped, as always, by Liang Huanming's brother and finished by the same 1980s Zhaoqing factory veteran — proof that this craft pairing wasn't tied to one quarry's material, but to the stone itself, wherever in Zhaoqing it came from.