"What? You wanna pull up the Abnormality Institute's records from the early last century?"
In Site-CN-21, seated at the terminal in the data dispatch center, Chen Ping eyed the unfamiliar man before him with suspicion—a stranger he'd never encountered at the site before.
"Correct. I'm currently working on a research project that requires data from that period. I'd appreciate your assistance."
Chen Ping felt a surge of irritation. Retrieving the Abnormality Institute's records was notoriously cumbersome. The records were fragmented and heavily restricted by varying access levels. His rare moment of downtime as today’s duty officer vanished instantly.
"Fine, fine. Which period? What clearance level? Where’s the request?"
"1910–1930. Level 4. The application and authorization documents are here. "
Twenty years. Chen Ping curl his lip. This guy was asking for the moon. Big shots never considered how much trouble it was for a nobody like me to pull together two decades' worth of data. Complaints aside, he was eating at their table. Chen Ping scanned the application—stamps, approvals, all in order. The authorization documents were flawless. With a sigh, he opened the terminal and began searching, the process as familiar as breathing.
Really tedious, he thought. Might as well kill some time by asking what this application is even about. "Hey buddy," Chen Ping casually asked, waving the application in his hand, "could you tell me what this project is for that needs twenty years' worth of data? Your application doesn't really say much about it."
"Huh? Oh. It's to track down a Kuiyang Sect Taoist reverend adept at the Arts of Necromancy, Astrology and Medicine. They say he was born during the Tongzhi1 era and has lived from the late Qing dynasty until now." The man shrugged as he spoke.
"The Abnormality Institute must be seething with hatred for him. They've been hunting him down since the late Qing dynasty, decades before the Foundation was even established, but never once caught his fox's tail at all. Now it seems he's resurfaced—he even brazenly walking in earlier to take the Foundation's containment object."
"Wow, that sounds pretty interesting." The man's words piqued Chen Ping's curiosity. "Mind elaborating?"
"He's a master of disguise. In most records today, he operates under the same name but with a different appearance each time. My project attempts to compare records spanning those twenty years to see if we can identify patterns in his behavior, helping the Foundation track him down sooner. "The man stepped forward and handed over his card. The ink on the card is somewhat blurred.
"Document Department researcher…Shi Jiamin. I see. But why specifically these twenty years?" Chen Ping took the card and studied the characters carefully. Perhaps because the printing was so blurred, his eyes grew heavy, and he couldn't help a yawn.
The man smiled faintly and continued, "Because that was when he was most active. In the twenty-first year of Guangxu2, he left the Kuiyang Sect for Hong Kong. At that time, he hadn't yet mastered the Arts of Necromancy, Astrology and Medicine. Filled with patriotic fervor, he followed several masters, participating in uprisings across the land. After witnessing too much bloodshed and futile struggle, he returned to Kuiyang Sect, practicing in seclusion until the second year of Xuantong3, when he emerged once more."
"In the third year of Xuantong, the Arts he mastered turned Wuchang4 upside down, followed by Hanyang, Hankou5, Chengdu, and Nanjing. By the time the Sir he revered returned from France, he had already secretly arranged everything in order. It was also during this period that the Abnormality Institute began to take notice of him. The Abnormality Institute still striving to salvage the crumbling Qing dynasty, was enraged by his use of Kuiyang Sect's Witchcraft to foment unrest. They regarded him as a thorn in their side, a thorn in their flesh."
At this point, the man let out a few self-deprecating chuckles.
"From smearing him through spies planted beside the Sir, to deploying bizarre artifacts recorded in the Bamboo Scroll, to countering his Arts with curses—amidst the myriad obstructions of the Occult Society's forces, his arts proved powerless, only watched helplessly as the Sir's influence crumbled, as Sir was forced to resign, and as the position he had prepared for Sir was handed over to that damned Yuan Shikai6, propped up by the Abnormality Institute."
The man's unusually vivid narration began to take on a tinge of emotions. The terminal before Chen Ping had entered automatic operation phase, commencing the download of selected data. In an instant, a wave of drowsiness swept over him as if days of fatigue had suddenly accumulated, leaving him feeling profoundly sleepy.
"By the third year of the Minkuo7, his Arts could no longer aid Sir in securing victory. The revolutionary army were crushed by the Beiyang Army, who had been bolstered by the support of the Abnormality Institute. The Sir, swayed by the slanderous words of the Institute's petty schemers, distanced him. Discouraged and disheartened, he journeyed far to Japan, where he became a disciple of an Onmyoji. Little did he know that Sir himself had also fled to this land before."
"In the sixth year of the Minkuo, he accompanied Sir back to the country. Thereafter, he devoted himself to serving at his Sir's side, routing the likes of Lu Rongting and Chen Jiongming into disarray. The sculpins of the Abnormality Institute could find no trace of him, leaving only a trail of baseless rumors and unverified accounts until Sir's passing in Beijing during the fourteenth year of the Republic."
The progress bar seemed to be nearing its end. As the man spoke in a steady, measured tone, Chen Ping's rationality could no longer resist the rising wave of drowsiness.
The Sir has passed away, and his once-boiling blood elapsed with him. Afterward, he returned to Kuiyang Sect once more, observing the rise and fall of the Kuomintang8—the very party Sir had nurtured—as a member of the Kuiyang Sect. His immortality has sustained him to this day. Little did he expect that one day, the defunct Abnormality Institute would reignite as a far more formidable organization. After failing to infiltrate Kuiyang Sect's esoteric Arts, they now sought to ensnare him once more, weaving a net as intricate as the one cast a century ago."
Watching Chen Ping slumbering before him and the terminal interface displaying to be completed, the man slowly approached, withdrew the spell disguised as a name card from Chen Ping's grasp and began skillfully modifying the retrieved data, murmuring softly:
Little did they realize that the person they feared no longer stood out as prominently as a century ago. Instead, he had quietly infiltrated their ranks, even entrusting the task of investigating him to himself—so ironic.
Only the clatter of keyboards, echoed through the silent data dispatch center.