Chapter 23: The Name Erased from the Records
The past did not disappear simply because people stopped speaking of it.
Han Feng understood this better than most cultivators in the Gu World. Ancient organizations could destroy documents, eliminate witnesses, and turn embarrassing events into convenient legends. But traces always remained.
An inscription forgotten beneath a layer of moss.
A note concealed inside an old book.
A name removed from a record, leaving behind an empty space no copyist could explain.
The problem was not finding these traces.
It was determining which had survived through negligence—and which had been preserved because someone wanted them to be found.
Seated in his mountain shelter, Han Feng studied the three maps spread before him. The flame of a small oil lamp flickered, casting uneven shadows across the stone walls.
The metallic fragment remained sealed inside his storage ring, separated from his other possessions. Since the Celestial Diagram's last reaction, he had not examined it again.
He had no desire to turn a passive investigation into another attempt at contact.
Tonight, his attention was fixed on a name.
Shen Dao.
The researcher who had disappeared more than a century ago had left behind records describing structures that seemed to operate according to a sequence of four stages. His last known work mentioned the Return Station, while an inscription discovered in Qingshi suggested that he had understood the danger of the fourth knock.
But Han Feng still did not know who had funded Shen Dao's research, why the later Council had erased part of his history, or how a man studying spatial anomalies could disappear without leaving a body.
More importantly, if Shen Dao had discovered a way to interrupt the process, where had he hidden that knowledge?
Han Feng picked up Qin Yue's notes and read them again.
The first point records the absence.
The second compares the difference.
The third accepts the passage.
The fourth seeks that which can answer.
The sequence suggested a progression, but not necessarily the construction of a door. It might describe an observation procedure, a complex formation, or a system that used events themselves as stages of activation.
He did not have enough evidence to determine which interpretation was correct.
So instead of returning to the structures, he would investigate the origin of the records.
The Nine Axes Workshop had supplied instruments to the mine.
Shen Dao had worked for an organization that predated the current Council.
The Threshold Society preserved documents it refused to share.
Three different groups were connected to the same mystery.
Han Feng suspected there was a fourth piece.
The person who had decided to erase the names.
By morning, Han Feng had left the mountains and taken the road to Linhe, a smaller city north of Yunhai.
It was neither a major cultivation center nor a place rich in spiritual resources. Its importance came from the commercial archives that had survived the collapse of several local organizations.
For generations, merchant families had kept records of transactions, transport contracts, and material orders—even when the buyers disappeared.
It was exactly the kind of place Han Feng needed.
Official documents could be altered by an authority.
Commercial records were harder to erase completely. A single transaction often left copies in several different hands.
Han Feng reached the city at noon.
He rented a modest room, secured his belongings, and spent the next few hours walking through the market. He did not ask directly about the Nine Axes Workshop. Instead, he approached old merchants, shops selling formation materials, and vendors dealing in instruments used by researchers.
Most had never heard of the workshop.
Some knew only rumors of an old company that manufactured precision instruments.
One white-haired man, the owner of a shop specializing in measuring tools, reacted differently.
" Nine Axes?" he repeated, arranging small bronze compasses across the counter. "That name hasn't been used in a long time."
Han Feng pretended to examine a bronze piece.
"I found an old tool bearing this symbol. I wanted to know whether it had any value."
"What symbol?"
Han Feng drew three intersecting lines on a scrap of paper, leaving out the circle.
The merchant stopped working.
His reaction was slight, but sufficient.
"Where did you find that?"
"Among some old goods."
The man glanced toward the shop's entrance before answering.
"If that really is a Nine Axes mark, don't show it to just anyone. The workshop disappeared under strange circumstances. Some families lost their money. Others lost their heirs. For a while, rumors circulated that the craftsmen had been accused of manufacturing forbidden instruments."
"Accused by whom?"
"Nobody spoke openly about that."
Han Feng placed several coins on the counter.
"Do you know anyone who worked with them?"
The merchant hesitated.
"Perhaps. But I don't know if he's still alive."
He pulled a small wooden slip from a drawer. An address had been written on it.
"Look for the old Pei family records house north of the city. If the documents haven't been burned, you might find something there."
Han Feng pocketed the address and thanked him.
He asked no further questions.
The merchant had already provided more information than he probably intended. Pressing him might only make him regret speaking.
Han Feng left the shop and walked two streets before entering a covered market. He bought food, observed the entrances and exits, and checked whether anyone was following him.
He found no clear signs of pursuit.
Still, he did not go directly to the address.
He spent the rest of the afternoon in a teahouse, listening to merchants' conversations. Only after nightfall, when the streets began to empty, did he approach the old Pei property.
The gate was closed.
The sign above the entrance had lost nearly all its lettering, and vines had overtaken part of the wall. The property appeared uninhabited.
Han Feng examined the lock.
It was old, but there were recent scratches around the mechanism.
Someone had entered within the last few days.
He did not try to open the gate. Instead, he circled the property until he found a section of wall that had partially collapsed. He slipped through without disturbing the loose stones.
The inner courtyard was covered in dry leaves.
The main house showed signs of abandonment, but one of the rear windows had been repaired recently. Han Feng approached, checked the interior, and found a room containing empty shelves, a table, and several wooden boxes.
Most had been opened.
The documents were gone.
He crouched beside the first box and examined its bottom. Rectangular marks in the wood showed where books and records had been stacked for years.
Someone had deliberately emptied the archive.
Han Feng crossed the room without touching anything. On the opposite wall, he found a wooden board listing former employees of the Pei family.
Several names had been crossed out.
One remained legible.
Pei Zhen.
Beneath the name was a short note:
Responsible for verifying external instruments and preserving unofficial copies.
Han Feng read the phrase again.
Unofficial copies.
Pei Zhen might have kept commercial records that buyers could not alter. If the Pei family had handled transactions for the Nine Axes Workshop, he might have known who had ordered the instruments.
Han Feng continued searching.
Behind an empty shelf, he found a small opening in the wall. Inside lay a thin book protected by a hardened leather cover.
It was not a complete commercial ledger.
It was an index.
The pages contained transaction numbers, dates, and buyers' initials. Several entries had been marked with black circles. Beside some of them, the same note appeared:
Delivery completed without identification of the recipient.
Han Feng found three transactions connected to the Nine Axes Workshop.
The first concerned metal instruments used in the construction of formations.
The second mentioned bronze plates bearing incomplete circles.
The third had been recorded shortly before the workshop disappeared.
Its recipient was not a family, sect, or commercial organization.
It was only a designation:
Return Project.
Han Feng remained motionless.
The name did not prove that the project was related to the Return Station. Still, the coincidence was too significant to ignore.
He examined the date of the final transaction.
The order had been placed two months before the Echo Ridge mine was closed.
The quantity of material was far greater than what a single formation would require. Moreover, the buyer had requested that the instruments be manufactured in separate parts and delivered to different locations.
It did not resemble an ordinary order.
It looked like the preparation of a system that had to remain hidden until it was complete.
Han Feng closed the index and stored it in his ring.
Then he heard footsteps in the corridor.
He extinguished the lamp he had found on the table and moved behind a wooden partition.
The door opened.
Two men entered.
The first was thin, with a long face and plain clothing. The second wore a dark robe and carried a small wooden box attached to his belt.
"The index should be here," the robed man said.
"It was here yesterday."
"And now it's gone."
The thin man scanned the shelves.
"Perhaps Pei Zhen hid a second copy."
"Pei Zhen died eighty years ago."
"Then someone found what he left behind."
The robed man placed the box on the table.
"The Council is demanding the Return Project records. If they discover that the Pei family preserved a copy, all our old agreements will be examined."
"And if the copy has already been taken?"
"We'll find whoever took it."
The man opened the box.
Inside lay a small metal plate bearing three intersecting lines and an interrupted circle.
Han Feng watched without moving.
The object was not identical to the fragment from the mine, but it possessed the same basic structure.
The robed man placed the plate on the table and removed a low-grade primordial stone.
He brought it close to the object.
Nothing happened.
Then he placed a small piece of paper beneath the plate.
The primordial stone lost its luster almost immediately.
The man retrieved it and frowned.
"It's getting worse."
"What is?" the thin man asked.
"The effect. Before, the plate only consumed energy when a complete mark was on the paper."
The thin man leaned closer.
"Does that mean the fourth point is active?"
"We don't know. What we know is that the Return Project was interrupted before its completion. If something is reacting now, we cannot guarantee it's the same phenomenon."
The robed man put the plate away.
"Let's go. If someone found the index, they've already read the reference."
The two men left.
Han Feng waited until their footsteps faded.
He did not follow them immediately.
Their conversation had confirmed three important details.
First, the Return Project was connected to the metal plates and their abnormal energy consumption.
Second, the men knew about the phenomenon but did not understand how it worked.
Third, they feared that the Council might discover the existence of records preserved outside official archives.
The Nine Axes Workshop had not merely supplied instruments.
It had been involved in a project whose completion had been interrupted.
And someone had apparently continued preserving parts of that work for decades.
Han Feng left the property through a different route. He crossed several streets before stopping at an empty lodging house, where he examined the index again.
The dates, transaction numbers, and delivery locations formed a pattern.
The plates had not been sent only to the mine.
One portion had been delivered to a structure north of Yunhai.
Another to an observation post absent from current maps.
The final order, however, had no delivery location.
The corresponding field was blank.
Beside it, Pei Zhen had written a single sentence:
The recipient refused identification because it had not yet been recognized.
Han Feng closed the book.
The sentence was unsettling, but it could not be interpreted in isolation. Perhaps the recipient was a clandestine organization unwilling to leave records. Perhaps it was a coded reference to a person.
Or perhaps it described something that did not fit ordinary commercial categories.
He stored the index.
He needed to find Pei Zhen in the family records, discover who had preserved the copies, and understand what the Return Project meant.
But not that night.
He had already obtained enough information to know that his investigation was approaching people who were still active.
And active people could react.
The following morning, Han Feng visited a genealogical archive maintained by a small association of scholars in Linhe.
He did not mention the Nine Axes Workshop. He asked only about the old Pei family records and paid a fee to consult the available documents.
The association possessed birth, marriage, inheritance, and death records for several merchant families. They were incomplete, but they allowed Han Feng to reconstruct part of Pei Zhen's history.
The man had died at an advanced age.
He had no children.
Two years before his death, he had moved to a rural property near the northern border and left all his documents to a distant nephew.
The nephew was named Pei Rong.
Unlike Pei Zhen, he did not appear in the commercial records. His only reference was a note indicating that he had worked for a time as an assistant to an independent researcher.
Han Feng requested the following documents.
The last reference to Pei Rong was a travel record to a mountainous region in the north.
The destination matched the area where Shen Dao had conducted his expedition.
Han Feng fell silent.
The connection might have been accidental. Pei Rong could have worked for several researchers without knowing the details of their investigations. Still, the proximity of the dates and locations suggested that the Pei family might have been involved in the Return Project from its beginning.
He requested a copy of the record and left the archive.
This time, he noticed no observer.
That did not mean he was alone.
As he crossed the market, he saw the same gray-clothed man he had encountered on the road days earlier. He stood before an instrument stall, examining a small compass.
His travel bag remained slung over one shoulder.
Han Feng continued walking.
He did not look back.
When he reached the city's exit, he diverted onto a secondary trail and waited beneath the trees. A short while later, the gray-clothed man appeared on the path.
This time, he did not pretend to be a distracted traveler.
He stopped at a respectable distance and raised his hands, showing that he did not intend to attack.
"I didn't come to fight," he said.
Han Feng remained silent.
"My name is Lu Jian. We've met on the road, though we never spoke."
Han Feng recognized the name.
Lu Jian was the independent researcher he had encountered during his initial investigation of the ancient structures. At the time, he had shown interest in spatial anomalies without revealing the extent of his knowledge.
"What do you want?" Han Feng asked.
"To know whether you found Pei Zhen's index."
Han Feng's expression did not change.
"I don't know that name."
Lu Jian exhaled briefly.
"Then I'll put it another way. Have you found any records about the Return Project?"
Han Feng studied him for several moments.
The man did not appear particularly powerful. His aura was well controlled, but there were no signs of concealment comparable to the Art of the Celestial Veil. Still, the way he positioned himself showed experience. He maintained a distance that allowed him to retreat easily and did not block Han Feng's path.
He was no amateur.
"Why are you looking for this project?" Han Feng asked.
Lu Jian hesitated.
"Because my master disappeared trying to complete it."
Silence stretched between them.
"Who was your master?"
"Pei Rong."
Han Feng showed no surprise, but the information rearranged several pieces of the puzzle.
Pei Rong had inherited Pei Zhen's documents. He had worked for an independent researcher and traveled to the region of Shen Dao's old expedition.
Now his disciple was searching for the same project.
"When did he disappear?" Han Feng asked.
"Twenty-three years ago."
"And what do you know about the Return Project?"
Lu Jian looked toward the northern mountains.
"I know my master believed the ancient structures weren't built to allow travel. They were built to prevent an incomplete connection from becoming permanent."
Han Feng remained still.
The claim matched his own hypothesis, but that did not make it true.
"How did he reach that conclusion?"
"He found Shen Dao's records. He discovered that the first expedition hadn't failed because of a lack of energy or knowledge. The mechanism had worked exactly as designed."
Lu Jian tightened his grip on the strap of his bag.
"The problem was that no one knew what it was trying to return."
Han Feng felt a faint pressure in his consciousness.
The Celestial Diagram remained quiet.
"And you believe your master is still alive?"
Lu Jian took time to answer.
"I don't know if that question makes sense."
Han Feng narrowed his eyes.
"Explain."
"Pei Rong disappeared while investigating a structure that wasn't on any map. We found the camp empty, the records destroyed, and the instruments intact. There were no signs of a struggle, blood, or escape. Only a sentence written on the wall."
"What sentence?"
Lu Jian looked directly at Han Feng.
"If I return, do not recognize me."
The wind moved through the trees.
Han Feng did not answer immediately.
The sentence did not prove that Pei Rong was connected to the current phenomenon. But, considering Shen Dao's warnings, it suggested that the researcher understood the danger of being recognized by a structure capable of altering the relationship between identity and destiny.
Perhaps he had tried to prevent the mechanism from identifying him.
Perhaps he was warning whoever found the message not to accept his return as proof that he had survived.
Or perhaps he was describing a condition that could not be explained in ordinary terms.
Han Feng studied Lu Jian.
"If you know Shen Dao's records, you know that answering certain manifestations can be dangerous."
"I know."
"And you're still searching for the structure."
"I've spent twenty-three years searching for my master."
The answer held no desperation, only exhausted determination.
Han Feng understood that kind of persistence. He did not necessarily consider it virtuous. Often, the inability to abandon a question led someone to waste their life.
But Lu Jian did not seem to be searching only for a person's return.
There was something else in his behavior.
"Do you know where the structure is?" Han Feng asked.
"I have an approximate location."
"Then why did you seek me out?"
Lu Jian lowered his eyes for a moment.
"Because, over the last three days, one of the plates I inherited from my master has begun reacting. It doesn't point toward the structure where he disappeared."
"Where does it point?"
"Toward you."
Han Feng did not move.
Inside, however, every hypothesis shifted in importance.
The gray-clothed man possessed a plate that had reacted after the experiment. The plate carried by the man on the road had pointed toward the trail where Han Feng had been hiding. Now Lu Jian claimed that an object inherited from Pei Rong pointed directly at him.
Three different occurrences.
Three instruments.
A similar direction.
Coincidence could not be ruled out, but ignoring the repetition would be foolish.
Han Feng did not know whether the plates detected his presence, the Celestial Diagram, or some alteration in the environment caused by his passage through the structures.
He also did not know whether Lu Jian was telling the truth.
"Show me the plate," he said.
Lu Jian removed a small wooden container from his bag. He opened it carefully, revealing a darkened metal piece marked with an incomplete circle.
Unlike the Council's instruments, this plate did not possess four lines.
It had only three.
However, one line seemed to have been engraved twice, as if someone had tried to erase a mark without fully removing it.
Han Feng did not touch the object.
The plate remained still.
"Does it react only when you're nearby?" he asked.
"Not always. Sometimes the line moves when I'm alone. At other times, it remains inactive for days."
"You brought it here knowing it might react?"
"Yes."
Han Feng looked at him.
"That was reckless."
Lu Jian accepted the criticism without protest.
"Perhaps. But I needed to know whether the plate was pointing toward a person or a place."
"And what is your conclusion?"
The researcher partially closed the container.
"I still don't know."
Han Feng looked at the plate again.
The Celestial Diagram showed no visible reaction. Even so, the sensation of recognition returned, weak and distant, as if something were trying to connect information that should not belong to the same system.
Han Feng immediately stopped concentrating.
He would not allow the plate to turn their conversation into an experiment.
"I won't help you activate that thing," he said.
"I didn't ask you to."
"I also won't accompany you to the structure without knowing what you intend to do."
Lu Jian nodded slowly.
"Then allow me to show you my master's records. If you're investigating the same phenomenon, perhaps we can avoid repeating his mistakes."
Han Feng considered the offer.
Refusing outright would be safe, but it would waste an opportunity to obtain information about Pei Rong and Shen Dao. Accepting without conditions, on the other hand, would mean trusting someone who had just admitted to possessing an instrument capable of reacting to Han Feng's presence.
There was a third option.
"You'll show me the records in a place of my choosing," Han Feng said. "You won't try to activate the plate while we're together. You won't ask about my origins or cultivation. And if you notice any change in the object, you'll tell me immediately."
Lu Jian agreed.
"I accept."
"If you lie about any of those conditions, our cooperation ends."
"Understood."
Han Feng turned toward the trail.
He did not trust Lu Jian.
But for the first time in several days, he had found someone with firsthand information about the Return Project and a direct connection to the researchers who had disappeared.
That did not solve the mystery.
It merely made it possible to investigate from another direction.
That night, in an abandoned shelter in the mountains, Lu Jian spread Pei Rong's documents across an improvised table.
There were incomplete maps, descriptions of ancient formations, and pages torn from books whose titles appeared in no known catalog. Some of the material was written in the technical language used by formation researchers; the rest consisted of personal notes.
Han Feng examined the documents without touching the metal plate.
One sheet contained a sequence of symbols similar to those found in the Qingshi shrine.
Beside them, Pei Rong had written:
The first point records what is missing.
The second determines whether the absence corresponds to a real difference.
The third allows two conditions to be treated as connected.
The fourth does not search for a person.
Han Feng stopped reading.
The next sentence was partially destroyed.
A few words remained distinguishable:
It seeks that which can occupy the place of the absence.
Han Feng read the passage again.
This interpretation differed from the hypothesis that the fourth point sought a person or place. Perhaps the mechanism did not search for a specific destination. Perhaps it sought something capable of fulfilling a condition the system recognized as incomplete.
But that raised an even more unsettling question.
What was absent?
A coordinate?
A connection?
An identity?
Or something that should exist within the system itself?
Han Feng continued reading.
On the next page, Pei Rong had drawn a circle with four interruptions. Three aligned with the intersecting lines. The fourth pointed toward the center.
Beneath it was a small note:
The mistake was not opening the passage. The mistake was assuming the passage needed someone to cross it.
Han Feng raised his eyes.
Lu Jian watched him silently.
"Did your master write this?" Han Feng asked.
"Yes."
"Do you know what it means?"
"I believe he discovered that the structures weren't made to transport people. But I never found a complete explanation."
Han Feng returned to the page.
If Pei Rong was correct, the opening in the mine might not have been a passage in the conventional sense. The Threshold Society might have created a connection between two distinct conditions, allowing something to be recognized on the other side.
The idea remained incomplete.
But it explained why the instruments reacted even when no one crossed the opening. It also explained why the Return Station altered objects attempting to enter, and why the structures seemed to respond to events occurring in distant locations.
Perhaps the system did not need to transport anything.
Perhaps establishing a correspondence was enough.
Han Feng closed his eyes for a moment.
The Celestial Diagram did not react.
Good.
He did not need more signs. He needed proof.
When he opened his eyes, he found one final note at the bottom of the page.
The handwriting was different from Pei Rong's—older and more irregular.
Han Feng recognized the signature.
Shen Dao.
The sentence was written in characters so small they nearly disappeared between the lines:
If the system finds a complete correspondence, do not attempt to interrupt the response. Interrupt the recognition before it finishes.
Han Feng became motionless.
For the first time, he possessed an instruction that might be turned into a method.
He did not know how to interrupt recognition. He did not know whether the advice still applied to the current phenomenon. But the sentence indicated that someone in the past had understood the difference between interrupting a passage and preventing the system from identifying what it sought.
The opening could be closed.
The search, perhaps, could not.
Han Feng carefully stored the sheet.
Outside, the wind moved through the trees.
Lu Jian gathered the remaining documents, but left the metal plate on the table. The object remained inactive.
For several moments, the two men sat in silence.
Then the plate made a low sound.
A single knock.
Lu Jian went pale.
Han Feng raised one hand, preventing him from approaching.
The plate remained still.
No line moved.
No spiritual energy was released.
But at the center of the incomplete circle, a small dark mark appeared.
Han Feng recognized the pattern immediately.
It was not a fourth line.
It was only a point.
A point that had not existed before.
And slowly, it began moving toward the center of the circle.
Han Feng did not touch the plate.
He did not release primordial essence.
He did not try to use the Celestial Diagram to discover the meaning of the change.
He simply watched until the mark stopped.
Then he covered the object with its wooden container.
"From now on," he said, "we're not going to search for the structure where your master disappeared."
Lu Jian raised his head.
"Why?"
Han Feng secured Shen Dao and Pei Rong's documents.
"Because perhaps the structure has already found what it was searching for."
Lu Jian stared at him.
Han Feng extinguished the lamp.
In the darkness, his voice remained low and controlled.
"And if that's true, we need to discover what it recognized before someone tries to complete the process."
Far away, beneath a buried structure absent from every map, a stone plate shifted for the first time in more than a century.
The circle engraved on its surface remained incomplete.
The three lines stayed motionless.
But the central point, once empty, now bore a mark.
And in the silence that followed, a fourth knock echoed from a place that should have had no connection to that structure.
This time, no other knock answered.
Because somewhere between two realities that remained separate, something had stopped searching at random.
It had found a partial correspondence.
And it was beginning to learn the difference between finding a path...
and finding that which could cross it.