Chapter 10: The Missing Persons File
Broken Bridge looked different when Han Feng returned for the second time.
It was not the patched walls, the narrow streets, or the buildings assembled from stones taken from half a dozen regions that made the town seem unfamiliar. What had changed was the tension spreading through its inhabitants.
Merchants spoke in lowered voices. Cultivators avoided lingering at street corners. Regional Council guards inspected wagons with a frequency that would have provoked protests only a few days earlier. Three new banners hung above the eastern gate, each bearing the Council's emblem and a warning against the illegal transportation of materials recovered from Convergence Zones.
Han Feng passed through the gate without attracting attention.
His ordinary appearance, dark robes without insignia, and carefully suppressed aura offered little reason for a closer inspection. Nevertheless, he noticed two guards examining travelers with small metal discs. The instruments reacted to fluctuations in spiritual energy, but they did not appear capable of penetrating a well-executed concealment technique.
Han Feng passed them without changing his pace.
He did not need to prove that he could deceive every surveillance system in the region.
He only needed to avoid becoming the person someone remembered seeing.
The metal identification token he had taken from Shen Rui remained in a separate compartment of his spatial pouch. Since leaving the injured man in the village, Han Feng had examined it three times without attempting to activate it.
Its surface contained no conventional spiritual array. The numbers engraved on its reverse, however, followed an organized sequence divided into groups of seven. A dark vertical line ran through every group, interrupting the sequence without erasing any of the symbols.
It was a small detail, but an important one.
The line did not appear to have been added after the token was manufactured. The numbers had been engraved around it, as though its presence had been accounted for from the beginning.
Han Feng disliked objects whose functions he could not determine, particularly when other people were willing to kill to recover them.
Before searching for the woman Shen Rui had mentioned, he headed toward a teahouse near the market.
He chose a table away from the windows, ordered an inexpensive drink, and spent several minutes listening to the conversations around him.
The incident at Seven Lantern Depot had already produced consequences.
The Council had temporarily suspended the movement of materials recovered from the old road. Inspection teams had been sent to establishments known to purchase artifacts of uncertain origin.
The official explanation concerned the prevention of smuggling.
A merchant sitting two tables away offered a simpler interpretation.
"The Council lost something important," he muttered to his companion, "and they have no idea who has it."
Han Feng finished his drink without showing interest.
The merchant was probably correct.
But being correct did not mean he knew what had been lost.
When Han Feng left the teahouse, he headed toward the medicinal market.
The market occupied several streets covered by patched awnings. The smell of dried herbs mingled with medicinal oils, crushed roots, and alchemical preparations. Some vendors sold legitimate remedies. Others dealt in substances of questionable origin, including powders capable of temporarily altering the circulation of spiritual energy.
Since the Convergence, demand for such products had increased sharply.
Cultivators who had once relied on familiar techniques now faced fluctuations capable of undermining years of training. Even experienced practitioners were discovering that the rules they had trusted were no longer entirely reliable.
Han Feng moved between the stalls without haste, searching for someone who matched Shen Rui's description.
The woman supposedly worked alone, changed locations frequently, and maintained contact with people interested in the missing depot personnel. Those details were not enough to identify her in a market this large.
There was, however, one additional clue.
She had served as an intermediary for a message mentioning the gray-mantled man.
Someone involved in an operation of that nature would rarely remain in a crowded marketplace without some form of protection.
Han Feng found his first lead at a stall selling medicines for internal injuries.
The vendor was a thin man with yellow stains on his fingers. He interrupted a negotiation when he noticed Han Feng looking at a small plaque hanging behind his head.
The plaque bore a familiar symbol.
Three curved lines converging toward an empty space.
The symbol had been drawn in ordinary ink.
Han Feng looked away and selected a bottle of low-grade pills.
"What is that plaque for?" he asked casually.
The vendor accepted the payment and tucked the coins away.
"Decoration."
"Unusual decoration."
"There are many unusual things in this market. If I had to explain every one of them, I wouldn't sell enough medicine to pay my rent."
Han Feng nodded and put the bottle away.
"Then I won't waste any more of your time."
He left the stall but did not leave the street.
Instead, he entered a side passage and watched the vendor through the reflection of a polished metal surface.
The man waited several moments before removing the plaque and placing it inside a box beneath his table. He then called over a young worker, handed him a small package, and discreetly pointed toward the northern end of the market.
The messenger departed.
Han Feng waited until the boy had gained some distance before following him.
The young man crossed two streets, passed over a wooden bridge, and entered a closed shop advertising the sale of measuring instruments.
He emerged through the rear door a short time later, no longer carrying the package.
Han Feng continued following him until the boy disappeared into a crowded street. Only then did he return to the shop.
The front entrance was locked.
Behind the wall, however, Han Feng sensed a slight disturbance in spiritual energy, followed by a metallic click.
He did not attempt to force his way inside.
A direct intrusion would be unnecessary and might alert everyone involved. Instead, he circled the building and found a narrow window partially concealed behind several crates.
Inside were measuring instruments, formation components, and tools used to examine artifacts recovered from fissures.
At the back of the shop, a staircase descended into a basement.
Han Feng waited until someone entered the lower level, then moved to a ventilation opening that offered a view of the room below.
Three people were gathered around a table.
The first was an elderly man with a metallic prosthetic replacing part of his forearm.
The second was a woman with her hair tied back. She wore a brown robe and had several identification tokens laid out before her.
The third sat with their back to the entrance, their face partially concealed by a veil.
"The Council is closing the routes," the elderly man said. "If we keep moving the records, we'll soon run out of intermediaries willing to cooperate."
"Then stop using the same intermediaries," the woman replied. "We can't recover the token if all our contacts are under surveillance."
"The token isn't our only problem. The man who took it defeated a capture team without revealing his true ability."
The veiled figure remained motionless.
"Describe him."
"Dark clothing. An ordinary-looking aura. Precise movements. He didn't use any technique we could identify. The team leader believes he could have killed all three men but chose to leave them alive."
The veiled figure tilted their head slightly.
"That doesn't describe a cultivator's appearance. It describes his decisions."
The elderly man lowered his head.
"What should we do?"
"Nothing. The token has already served part of its purpose. If he really possesses it, he will eventually look for a way to understand the records. When that happens, we need to discover whether he can read what is hidden."
The woman frowned.
"And if he hands the token to the Council?"
"Then we'll have lost an intermediary, not the record."
Han Feng's eyes narrowed slightly.
The token mattered, but perhaps not because of the information physically engraved upon it. It might grant access to an archive, identify a specific file, or serve as a means of recognizing people connected to the operation.
The veiled figure's lack of concern over the token's possible recovery suggested that it also served as a selection mechanism.
He was preparing to leave when the woman with tied-back hair placed another object on the table.
A small stone plaque.
Its surface had the same irregular texture as the object Han Feng had found near the old road. A partial inscription crossed its center, though the words were impossible to read from his position.
"We recovered this from one of the secondary depots," the woman said. "The pattern matches the records from the old road."
For the first time, the veiled figure stood.
"Do not bring it near the token."
"We already conducted the tests."
"And the result?"
"Three seconds without any energy readings. Then the plaque disappeared from the examination container. No explosion, no detectable spatial displacement, and no residue."
The silence that followed was different from the earlier pauses.
Han Feng did not need to hear anything more to recognize the significance of the report.
The same interval of three seconds had appeared in the accounts concerning the black container and the missing instruments.
The repetition made an ordinary measurement failure less likely. It did not prove that the phenomena shared the same origin, but it demonstrated that different people were encountering similar results while examining certain objects.
The veiled figure approached the table but kept a careful distance from the plaque.
"How many have been found?"
"Four. Two were confiscated by the Council. One disappeared during transport. This is the last one we managed to recover."
"It isn't the last one," the figure replied. "There is still one that isn't in our custody."
Han Feng remained perfectly still.
The woman looked at the veiled figure.
"The one carried by the traveler?"
"Probably."
The elderly man shifted uneasily.
"Should we capture him?"
"No. If the plaque is reacting to him, an attempt to capture him could provoke a response we cannot control. First, we need to determine whether he understands what he possesses."
The veiled figure returned to the seat.
"Prepare the transfer of the records. The Council will discover that the token is missing before it realizes that part of its archives has been copied. By then, we'll already be gone from Broken Bridge."
Han Feng withdrew from the opening.
He now had enough information to establish a working hypothesis.
The Threshold Society was involved in the disappearance of the depot personnel and the transportation of artifacts connected to the old road. Some members appeared to understand the risks, while others treated the objects as experimental instruments.
The gray-mantled man, meanwhile, did not seem to answer to this particular cell. Yet he knew its methods and could influence its decisions.
More importantly, records existed that might reveal what had happened to the missing personnel.
Han Feng had no intention of leaving Broken Bridge without discovering where those records were kept.
The opportunity presented itself before he had to search for long.
When the woman with tied-back hair left the basement, she carried a narrow leather folder. She was unaccompanied, and her destination appeared to be a small inn in the western part of town.
Han Feng maintained a safe distance.
He had no intention of intercepting her in a crowded street.
The woman entered the inn and climbed to the second floor. Several minutes later, she came back outside without the folder.
She walked to a carriage parked near the gate and spoke briefly with the driver. The carriage departed north, but the woman remained in town.
Han Feng waited until she entered an empty alley.
"The folder," he said, appearing behind her. "Where is it?"
The woman spun around immediately, gathering spiritual energy in her palm.
Han Feng was already too close.
He touched her wrist, interrupting the technique, then pressed two fingers against her shoulder. Her energy circulation faltered, leaving her unable to complete the attack.
"If you shout, the guards will come," he said. "If you try to fight, you'll lose. I'd prefer that you choose a third option."
The woman glared at him.
"You have no idea who you're dealing with."
"That sentence is becoming remarkably common."
He retrieved the folder from inside her robe and opened it.
The pages contained registration numbers, transportation routes, and partially encoded names. Among them was a record detailing the transfer of three Seven Lantern Depot employees to an underground facility east of the region.
The address had been replaced with incomplete coordinates, but one geographical reference remained legible: an old observation post near the old road.
Han Feng recognized the location.
It was the same region where he had discovered the point at which a thrown stone had disappeared without leaving a trace.
"Who authorized the transfer?" he asked.
The woman pressed her lips together.
"I'm not answering."
Han Feng examined another page.
"The document was altered twice. The first alteration removed the facility's name. The second replaced the person responsible for transport. You participated in the second alteration, but not the first."
The woman went still.
"If I were here simply to capture you, I wouldn't have followed your route to the inn. I could take these documents to the Council and let them determine why a Threshold Society operative was carrying confidential records."
The woman drew a slow breath.
"You don't understand. The Council is no better than we are."
"I didn't ask whether it was better."
For several moments, she appeared to struggle with her decision.
Finally, she spoke.
"The facility doesn't officially belong to the Society. It was built before the Convergence, and nobody knows who constructed it. We found it while investigating the changes along the old road. The employees were taken there because one of them managed to interpret part of the inscriptions discovered at the site."
"What did he discover?"
"I don't know. After the first transfer, all communication stopped. The only information we received was an order not to open the second door."
Han Feng stored that sentence in his memory.
It was the same warning Shen Rui had received in his message.
"Where is the observation post?"
The woman indicated the direction with a small movement of her head.
"Two days away if you follow the main road. Less if you cross the northern ravine."
"And the folder?"
"I was supposed to deliver it to a contact. If it doesn't arrive, they'll realize I've been intercepted."
Han Feng closed the folder.
"You'll return to the inn. You'll say you lost it while moving through the market. You won't mention my face or my clothing. If you do, both the Council and the Society will come looking for you."
The woman stared at him in disbelief.
"You're letting me go?"
"You're not the person I'm looking for."
He released her shoulder and stepped away without waiting for a response.
There was no reason to kill an intermediary who might prove useful later, particularly when she lacked complete information. Her reaction also suggested that she feared her own organization. Frightened people made mistakes, but they could also reveal things that the more loyal would never disclose.
Han Feng returned to the inn and examined the documents in an empty room.
Most of the records were administrative. Three pages, however, contained symbols that did not belong to any cultivation system he recognized.
Curved lines converged toward empty spaces. Small vertical marks appeared in the corners. There were no formulas, instructions, or complete diagrams. Instead, the symbols seemed to record positions, intervals, and relationships between objects.
Han Feng compared them with the inscription on his own stone tablet.
There was no perfect match, but several lines shared the same structure.
The tablet and the records might belong to the same tradition. Alternatively, someone might have copied the symbols from one artifact into another document.
He had no way to determine which explanation was correct.
What he could do was follow the only concrete lead: the observation post.
Before leaving, he examined the metal token one final time.
When he brought it near one of the pages, the dark vertical line grew slightly deeper in color.
There was no pulse, flash, or change in temperature.
The effect lasted less than an instant, but Han Feng noticed that the numbers engraved on the token corresponded to a partially obscured sequence in the document.
The token did not open a door.
It identified a particular record.
That distinction might prove important.
Han Feng separated the objects and destroyed the pages containing useless information about commercial routes. He kept only the documents connected to the underground facility and the personnel transfers.
He had no intention of handing the entire collection to the Council, nor would he allow the Society to recover everything without difficulty.
By nightfall, he left Broken Bridge through the western exit.
This time, he did not immediately take the road toward the old route. He first circled the town and observed the inspection posts from a distance.
Two patrols were searching wagons. A third team was questioning travelers who had been near Seven Lantern Depot.
The Council was looking for someone, but no notices carried a precise description of Han Feng.
That meant the organization had not yet connected his presence to the incident.
He intended to preserve that advantage.
When he finally turned north, the Celestial Diagram remained silent.
It did not point toward the observation post. It did not react to the token. It offered no indication of what lay behind the second door.
Han Feng accepted the silence without insisting.
The Diagram was not a tool that could be forced to answer every question.
Yet as he crossed the first hill, he sensed a distant change in the energy of the world.
It was brief, almost imperceptible. This time, however, it did not occur only near an anomaly.
For an instant, the spiritual energy around him seemed to align in an impossible direction, as though two currents originating in distant places had briefly shared the same channel.
Then everything returned to normal.
Han Feng continued walking.
The Convergence had changed the world, but cultivators still treated each new phenomenon as an isolated problem. The Council wanted to control the resources. The Threshold Society intended to exploit them. And individuals like the gray-mantled man seemed to be pursuing paths that neither organization fully understood.
Han Feng had no intention of correcting the mistakes of the entire world.
He wanted to understand what was happening, grow stronger, and prevent unknown forces from deciding his fate.
Ahead, the old road disappeared between the mountains.
Somewhere beyond them, three employees remained missing. A second door waited to be opened. And a group of people believed themselves sufficiently prepared to handle what they had discovered.
Han Feng tightened his cloak and quickened his pace.
This time, he would not travel merely to observe.
He would find the facility, discover what had happened to the missing employees, and take whatever information he could understand before the Threshold Society or the Council arrived first.
And if the second door truly existed, he would do everything he could to prevent anyone from opening it without understanding the price.