WBICDPH Chapter 20 Part 1

Chapter 20: First Signs Emerge

From the name of the small building alone, and then from the way the women inside were dressed, Lin Jin was able to guess what kind of place this was.

The madam standing at the entrance watched the farce coldly. Seeing Shuang’er wailing and stubbornly refusing to submit, she rolled her eyes in irritation.

“Brother, if it weren’t for the fact that your daughter looks passable, I wouldn’t have made this deal with you in the first place. Now she’s crying her eyes out here—how are we supposed to do business? Anyone who didn’t know better would think I was abducting an innocent girl in broad daylight. Thank heaven you’re still holding my money pouch. If you keep making a scene, you’d better return my money right now.”

Hearing this, the man froze for a moment, then immediately stuffed the money pouch back into his clothes. Afraid the madam might change her mind, he lifted his foot and kicked Shuang’er hard in the shoulder.

“I’m not dead yet—what are you crying for?! Hurry up, hurry up! Drag her away. If she cries again, beat her until she behaves. I don’t care whether she lives or dies—it’s got nothing to do with me anymore.”

After saying this, he didn’t look at Shuang’er again. He simply shoved his way through the crowd, cursing as he left.

After taking that kick, Shuang’er stopped crying. It was as if all life had been drained from her in an instant. Like a puppet with its strings cut, she collapsed numbly into the snow. Seeing this, the madam shot a look at the girls behind her. One of the courtesans stepped forward, helped Shuang’er up, and led her through the doors of Manting Spring.

With the spectacle over, the onlookers dispersed, leaving only a mess of footprints scattered across the snow.

“To sell his own daughter to a brothel for money?” Han Ao said angrily. “What was that man thinking?”

Lin Jin pressed his lips together slightly.
“In an era like this, it’s not that uncommon.”

“But I still don’t get it.” Han Ao crossed his arms. “In this world, girls can study and even become officials, right? So why does this preference for sons over daughters still exist?”

“Didn’t that waiter say earlier that women were only allowed to take the civil service exams in recent years? Prejudice like this runs deep—it’s not something that can change overnight. Just like in our own era: we’ve been promoting gender equality for decades, but don’t similar stories still show up in the news all the time?”

Lin Jin paused, then couldn’t help glancing back one last time before leaving.

Shuang’er’s white clothing had been dulled to gray by the dark interior of the building. Her thin figure looked like a cloth doll hanging under the eaves.

Just as Lin Jin had guessed, the City Administration Office was indeed an official institution, much like the government yamen of ancient times.

Inside sat an official with a protruding belly, a middle-aged man. After hearing their purpose, he lazily picked at his ear with his pinky.

“A missing persons case? No such thing. Where would that come from? Everyone in Zhongyun City is a law-abiding citizen. We’ve never had anything like that.”

“Perhaps you could think back a bit, sir,” Lin Jin ventured. “It might be a case from a few years ago that was forgotten.”

The fat official snorted.
“You said it yourself—something from years ago that’s already been forgotten. Who would still care? You two young immortals shouldn’t waste your time. Go back early.”

Lin Jin hesitated, then frowned.
“It’s not a waste of time.”

He cupped his hands in a respectful salute.
“At the very least, the families of the missing care.”

At that, the official’s hand stilled.

Only then did he finally look up and take Lin Jin seriously. He blew on the tip of his pinky and called out loudly, “Xiao Wu, take these two to look through the case files.”

A young clerk by the hall responded and led Lin Jin and Han Ao to the back courtyard as instructed.

The City Administration Office was quite large. Years’ worth of archived case files filled two entire warehouses in the rear. After leading them inside, the clerk left. The heavy doors shut behind them, leaving Lin Jin and Han Ao staring wide-eyed at a warehouse full of documents.

“Lin Lin, are we really supposed to find what we’re looking for by digging through all this paper?” Han Ao said in disbelief.
“Honestly, that fat official didn’t seem completely wrong…”

“Do what we can and leave the rest to fate,” Lin Jin replied.

He took off his cloak, folded it, and placed it in a corner of the warehouse. Then he pulled Qiuqiu out from inside his clothes, wrapped the puppy snugly in the cloak, rolled up his sleeves, and got ready to work.

“We’re not saying we have to find it for sure. Let’s just look back ten years. Our target is a ghost—anything beyond that probably can’t be traced clearly anyway. Come on, brave Ah Han, don’t fear hardship. Charge!”

With inexplicable enthusiasm, Lin Jin plunged straight into the mountain of files.

Han Ao took a deep breath. He looked at the towering stacks of documents waiting to be sifted through by hand, then glanced back at Qiuqiu sleeping peacefully in the fur-lined cloak. He broke down and shouted toward the ceiling:

“Lin Jin, I really want to be your dog—I’m not joking! And you call yourself lazy? You’re absolutely not!”

Grumbling as he was, Han Ao still resigned himself to standing beside the newly crowned “king of file-flipping.”

They spent most of the day rummaging through the warehouse. The characters in the files were tiny and hard to read, making progress painfully slow. By the time the sky outside darkened, the clerk surnamed Wu saw they were still at it and kindly brought them candles and food.

Both Lin Jin and Han Ao were in equally sorry states—hair dusty and disheveled, clothes covered in cobwebs and grime, even their faces smeared with soot.

There were no tables in the warehouse, so they cleared out a patch of floor by the wall, sat on the ground beneath the candlelight, and ate while reviewing the files they’d pulled out.

“This is way too hard to search,” Han Ao complained as he flipped through documents. “They don’t even bother categorizing anything. Out of every ten cases I read, eight are petty neighborhood nonsense—someone’s chicken went missing today, someone’s dog died tomorrow, and they all file reports. Can’t they at least separate civil cases from criminal ones?!”

Lin Jin found it amusing.
“The fact that they archive anything at all is already impressive. How many have you found? Let’s see what you’ve got.”

“Let me check.”
Han Ao stuffed half a steamed bun into his mouth and handed over the files.

“That fat official wasn’t lying—Zhongyun City really is pretty peaceful. The few missing persons cases were all closed early on, and the unresolved ones don’t involve girls, so they’re irrelevant. The only ones that barely fit are these three.”