Chapter 2923: The Registry Office
Chapter 2923: The Registry Office
Registry Office
Inside, the room was lined with scroll shelves from floor to ceiling, and stacks of documents rested on every table. The smell of old parchment 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 times do I need to say not to disturb me 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 moment, his demeanor did a complete reversal.
"Ah! Honored Daoist Lin Mu!" he exclaimed, rising to his feet.
"I apologize for disturbing you like this," Lin Mu said politely.
"Ah! There’s no disturbance at all. Someone 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 Merchant 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 symmetrical rows, and smaller cabinets held ancient documents 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 methods.
He began by focusing on the attackers from the banquet. The masked figures had distinctive attire and strange symbols on their cloaks—something 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 came 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. Someone like that appearing so openly—during an ambush no less—had to mean something. It was either brazen confidence or a calculated message.
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 document, dated nearly four hundred years ago, listed them as a "neutral fringe sect with unknown affiliations."
Another, older by several centuries, described them as "formerly inactive, currently reemerging 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 deemed 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 meticulous 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 some time.
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, something 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 documents there were stuffed in haphazardly—rolled scrolls, torn pages, even fragments bound together with string.
Curious, Lin Mu stepped closer and reached out.
"Excuse me," 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 madmen. 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 moment.
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 documents 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 mentioned valleys, shadows, or strange cult-like behavior. After what felt like an hour, he nearly gave up.