Registry Office
Inside, the room was lined with scroll shelves from floor to ceiling, and stacks of docunts rested on every table. The sll of old parchnt and ink filled the air. At the largest desk, an elderly man sat hunched over a chaotic sea of paperwork, his face buried in a scroll.
"Registry Elder, I've brought a guest," the clerk announced.
Sigh
"How many tis do I need to say not to disturb until I've finished reviewing these—" the man began in a tired tone.
"I know, Elder, but the guest..." the clerk said nervously, casting an apologetic glance at Lin Mu.
"Just who is it that you've—" The elder looked up mid-sentence and froze.
In the very next mont, his deanor did a complete reversal.
"Ah! Honored Daoist Lin Mu!" he exclaid, rising to his feet.
"I apologize for disturbing you like this," Lin Mu said politely.
"Ah! There's no disturbance at all. Soone like you would never be turned away!" the elder replied, voice filled with admiration.
After all, it was no secret among the officials of Golden Scales City that Lin Mu and his companions had prevented a far greater tragedy at the banquet. Had it not been for their swift action, the rchant Union might have suffered an irreparable loss of reputation and influence.
And so, the Registry Office flung its doors open to Lin Mu—both literally and symbolically.
The Registry Elder, still beaming with exaggerated courtesy, waved his hand toward the sprawling shelves of scrolls and books.
"Please, feel free to search as you please. If you require assistance, just ask."
Lin Mu gave a polite nod and walked deeper into the archive.
The registry chamber was dimly lit with floating orbs of soft blue light that gently hovered above the reading tables. Tall scroll racks lined the walls in symtrical rows, and smaller cabinets held ancient docunts sealed with wax or bundled in string.
Despite the visual neatness, Lin Mu could sense the disorganization beneath the surface—decades, if not centuries, of recordkeeping done by different hands with differing thods.
He began by focusing on the attackers from the banquet. The masked figures had distinctive attire and strange symbols on their cloaks—sothing that should have left a trail if they had ever affiliated with a known sect or group.
He pulled scroll after scroll from the shelves, checking for terms like "black masks," "red thread," or "Crimson Thorn Eye symbol." He searched the records under "unorthodox sects," "suspected cults," and even "criminal organizations."
Nothing conclusive ca up.
He changed strategies and looked directly into entries related to the Hollow Eye Sect. After all, Elder Mingshi's presence had been no coincidence. Soone like that appearing so openly—during an ambush no less—had to an sothing. It was either brazen confidence or a calculated ssage.
Scroll after scroll passed through his hands, but the information was sparse at best. The Hollow Eye Sect was listed in only a handful of records, each entry short and vague.
One docunt, dated nearly four hundred years ago, listed them as a "neutral fringe sect with unknown affiliations."
Another, older by several centuries, described them as "forrly inactive, currently reerging with unclear intentions."
The most recent entry, no more than fifty years old, simply said:
Location: Believed to be in the Shadow Whisper Valley.
Status: Reclusive. No known diplomatic or trade relations. Approach with caution.
The ink was faded, as if the scribe themselves hadn't deed the information important enough to preserve well.
'They're like ghosts,' Lin Mu thought grimly. 'Old enough to have been forgotten, careful enough to remain that way.'
After several hours of ticulous searching, he finally leaned back and sighed. His fingers were ink-stained, and the subtle stiffness in his spine reminded him that he hadn't moved in quite so ti.
Nothing useful.
He stood and prepared to leave, politely bowing toward the Registry Elder as he passed his desk. But just before he reached the door, sothing caught his eye.
To the left of the entrance stood a crooked shelf half-swallowed by shadow. Dust coated the scrolls like a thick skin of age, and spiderwebs clung to the wooden beams. The docunts there were stuffed in haphazardly—rolled scrolls, torn pages, even fragnts bound together with string.
Curious, Lin Mu stepped closer and reached out.
"Excuse ," he called to a passing clerk. "What is this shelf?"
The clerk glanced over and gave an indifferent shrug. "That? It's the Burn Shelf."
"The what?"
"We call it the Burn Shelf because everything on it's either too unreliable, unverifiable, or outright false. Old complaint letters, baseless rumors, wild accusations, and random gibberish from wandering madn. Stuff that doesn't deserve to be archived."
"And you just… leave it here?"
"We collect them until the pile gets too big. Then we burn it."
Lin Mu stared at the shelf for a long mont.
Everything about the Hollow Eye Sect had been deliberately elusive. If there were any real records about them, they would've likely been scrubbed, altered, or suppressed. But false reports? Mad ramblings? Those would be dismissed… and perhaps overlooked.
"I'll take a look," Lin Mu said quietly.
The clerk blinked. "Uh… sure. Knock yourself out."
Lin Mu approached the shelf, his footsteps soft on the aged stone floor. The docunts here felt different—neglected and forgotten. He pulled out a few at random and began scanning their contents.
The first scroll was a crude complaint about a neighbor's chickens being possessed. The report was clearly baseless as the chickens were just normal spirit chickens.
The second was a letter claiming that the moon had been stolen and replaced by an imposter. This didn't even need to be debated.
The third described a "floating nose demon" that had terrorized a coastal village. This didn't make sense since this region had no sea or ocean near it.
Most of the contents were, indeed, absurd. But Lin Mu kept digging.
He scanned quickly now, only pausing for anything that ntioned valleys, shadows, or strange cult-like behavior. After what felt like an hour, he nearly gave up.
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