The virtual XML contains all searchable items (objects in the system etc.) at the root level - this means that is not a valid standard XML because it has multiple root elements, but that does not matter for GNQuery and makes the query expressions simpler.

The GNQuery expressions are evaluated assuming that the current node is the root of the virtual XML – this means that the expressions

gn4:story

and

/gn4:story

are equivalent – they both match all ‘gn4:story’ elements under the root, i.e. all stories in the system.