Chapter 370: Going in Circles

After arriving at the village, since we had been away for quite some time, we had to go back to our respective places to check on things. So we made a plan: Fatty would be in charge of preparing equipment, while I would continue gathering information.

Back in Hangzhou, I started to implement my plan.

When Fatty and I were making the plan, I still hadn't figured out how to gather this information. Later, after thinking it over, I realized that to learn about Poker-face's background, I might need to start through official channels. Previous investigations had shown that people in the underworld didn't know much about him. He might have participated in an archaeological team in the 1980s, and the organization should have records. Back then, participating in such projects required a clean background. I might find clues in old archives in Changsha, at least to locate his organizational ties, and from there find one or two people who knew him, or any fragments of evidence. So I decided to pursue this angle.

However, city archives, especially personnel files, are all confidential. Old files in particular can't be accessed without official approval. This archaeological team was formed in the early 1980s and had incidents, so it was likely classified. Getting to see it wouldn't be easy.

Also, to find the files, the best way was to start with the research institute that dispatched the archaeological team back then. Only about twenty years had passed, not too long, so it should still exist.

I didn't know exactly which institute in Changsha it was, but back then there wouldn't have been as many different names as there are now. There might have been only one institute related to archaeology. Most of them were students at the time, so it could also have been a university unit. It shouldn't be hard to verify.

After several searches, it turned out as I thought: there was indeed an old institute matching my description. It had now been merged, and its old site was on the campus of a well-known university.

That university was about to relocate. When Wang Meng and I went there, the entire row of buildings was covered with huge "demolition" signs. The land had probably already been sold to a real estate company. If we came a few months later, we would probably just see a flat empty lot.

So at least I had a lead. After the institute merged, the archives might have been merged into the new institute, or they might still be in the old university's archive room. I knew how government agencies worked: I didn't believe that anyone would still care about archives from over twenty years ago.

But this wasn't easy to inquire about. I called in favors, went through a few connections in Third Uncle's old network, and found someone working in the institute. His surname was Du, and his given name was quite interesting: Juanshan. I gave him two cartons of Zhonghua cigarettes and asked about the situation. He said the offices had moved, but the archives were still at the school. The institute had connections with the university—many of its members were also lecturers at the university. If I wanted to take a look, he could take me in. Apart from the entrance being inconvenient, it was relatively lax inside. But old archives were hard to search, so he told me not to get my hopes up.

Without further ado, I went that night.

The old university building looked like it had been converted from a hospital. The archive room was in the underground level of the main hall, about a hundred square meters, basically a warehouse. Without much trouble, Du Juanshan and I went down the low, narrow corridor. There were no lights below—pitch black. With a flashlight, I saw rows of wooden shelves filled with archive folders wrapped in kraft paper, thick and thin, intact and torn, placed horizontally and vertically. Most had a layer of dust on them, and there was a smell of paper getting damp.

Du Juanshan told me that frequently used archives from after 1995 had all been moved away; the ones left were those that hadn't been touched for years and would probably go straight to disposal without anyone ever looking at them.

Seeing this scene, I felt a bit eerie. But it was just as well: the temperature in Changsha in August was quite high, so it would be cooler at night, and this gloominess made it pleasantly cool. Holding the flashlight in my mouth and fanning myself, I carefully searched through the old wooden shelves.

Speaking of which, I knew Tsinghua University had a library science department. I had always wondered what there was to learn about library management. Seeing the scale of this archive room, I finally understood: the people who could manage such things were geniuses. Looking at these shelves, an ordinary person would definitely feel dizzy. And this was just the archive room of one institute. If it were the National Archives, with terabytes of data, how many people would be needed to handle it?

Du Juanshan was afraid I would cause trouble for him, so he stayed by my side to help me search and asked me some details to help filter. For some special reasons, China's archive system was quite complete: as long as you followed a certain system, if the archives still existed, they could definitely be found. Unfortunately, I was like a headless fly, only knowing the approximate years, not even the number of the archaeological team. I had to flip through everything.

After searching for a long time, I found nothing. My idea was to search by year. All the archives here were sorted by year and category, so as long as I looked between 1980 and 1985 for similar expedition files, I could get the participants' information. Changsha was in the ancient Chu region, and although there were relatively many archaeological activities, the absolute number wasn't large; one shelf was enough to hold them. But I finished going through five years' worth of archives without seeing any folder related to the Xisha archaeology.

I was puzzled and asked Du Juanshan, "Is there anywhere else?"

He shook his head. If they weren't here, then basically they didn't exist, unless the files were in a classified archive room, which wouldn't be stored here. Otherwise, they might have been specifically destroyed.

I thought that was unlikely. Even if the archaeology was classified, it wouldn't be classified to that extent.

He comforted me, saying this was common. Maybe, as I said, the archaeological team disappeared later, which was a big deal, so the files were disposed of for secrecy.

We straightened the archive folders, feeling quite frustrated, but I had already anticipated that things wouldn't be this easy.

We walked out of the archive room dejectedly, feeling sorry for wasting two cartons of cigarettes, and wondering what to do next. If this path also led nowhere, then it really was as Poker-face said: he was a person who had no intersection with this world.

At that moment, I suddenly noticed that the stairwell continued further down, as if there was another level underground. The staircase had an iron door with a thick, rusty chain locked around it, and next to the door was a seal from who knows when.

"What's down there?" I asked.

"That's the pre-1950s archive room."

"Really?" I shone my flashlight and clearly saw that the rusty chain had been cut; it was just hanging there for show. If you didn't look carefully, you wouldn't easily notice.