Chapter 1517 - Searching for the Brother-in-Law

Her thoughts churned in chaos. She knew that if she reported this, Lin Ming's status as a probationary Brocade Guard centurion would be more than enough to earn her a commendation. The recent arrests had netted many, but none held any real rank. Lin Ming was a proper court-appointed official—a probationary centurion of the Brocade Guard itself. His weight was entirely different from the small fry they had been catching. This single achievement could guarantee her promotion, perhaps even pave her way into the Political Security Bureau...

The realization of her own callousness made her shudder. Setting aside whatever spark had once passed between her and Lin Ming, kinship alone demanded better. He had done nothing to wrong her. Her days in Foshan had been among the rare intervals of freedom and happiness in her life. And yet here she was, contemplating serving him up for merit...

She could not do it. Besides, if she turned in her brother-in-law, what would become of her elder sister? Her sister had treated her well too...

But if she did not report him and he was captured anyway... She dared not imagine the consequences. Li Yongxun was quite pessimistic: Lin Ming would likely be caught before long. She knew all too well how formidable the Yuan Elder Court's enforcement agencies were. If he thought he could survive in Lingao on his bit of "street savvy," he was in for a rude awakening.

She had to find him quickly and persuade him to leave. Otherwise, if he were arrested, the consequences would be unthinkable. Though Lingao had no Imperial Prison, no dreaded Northern Garrison, once someone fell into the Political Security Bureau's hands, their fate was no better than falling into the Eastern Depot—except here the interrogation methods were "cleaner" and less likely to be lethal. Convicts labeled as traitors still had their lives squeezed for every last drop of value, ultimately consumed in mines and construction sites.

If something happened to her brother-in-law, she would first of all be failing her elder sister. And in Foshan there was still a large family. Without this pillar, what would become of them?

Moreover, once Lin Ming was arrested, her kinship with him would become a tripwire. Though her relationship with him was already clearly stated in her autobiographies, in such matters the Political Security Bureau always erred on the side of caution. She would surely be placed under suspension and isolated review as a "connected party."

The mere thought of being locked in the Study Class again—writing endless materials in that limbo where day blurred into night—made Li Yongxun shiver. With such a blemish on her record, whether she would even be allowed to continue as a police officer was uncertain, let alone someday joining the Courier Bureau.

But how could she find her brother-in-law now? If he had infiltrated to gather intelligence, he would certainly be using an alias. Lingao was vast, with nearly two hundred thousand permanent and transient residents—even in the Ming, that would count as a major city. With an alias, she would be searching for a needle in a haystack...

However, this did not stump Li Yongxun, who had been immersed in the police apparatus for years. She understood the Yuan Elder Court's investigative methods and thinking reasonably well. Combining today's observations, she began a careful analysis.

Lin Ming had been at Night Flower. Though not wearing his own clothes—he had on the establishment's bathrobe—he still wore his hair in a topknot, indicating he was not a naturalized citizen. He had likely entered as a voluntary immigrant or a traveling merchant.

Since he had not undergone purification, he could not be employed by any institution or enterprise under the Yuan Elder Court's control. Given that Lingao had no beggars or vagrants, and he was visiting a mid-to-high-end establishment like Night Flower, Lin Ming had clearly assumed a respectable guise—probably posing as a small merchant.

If he had entered as a merchant, he would have applied for a temporary identity certificate. Whether renting a room or staying at an inn, there would be registration records. Though he was certainly using an alias, since he was patronizing the pleasure district of East Gate Market, his lodging was likely also in the area. Combining these two points should yield some leads.

All such household registration materials were managed by the Household Registration Division. This was the advantage of being close to the source. Li Yongxun silently congratulated herself. She picked up her now-cold black tea, drained it in one gulp, and stood.

"Sister Li, are you leaving? Let's walk back to the dormitory together." The invitation came from her apprentice—a trainee recently assigned from the Women's College of Arts and Sciences who now shared her dormitory room. Though outwardly courteous to each other, Li Yongxun simply did not like this girl.

"No, you go ahead. I still have some work to finish," she said.

The apprentice obediently departed. Li Yongxun glanced around the office—the large space was nearly empty. She stood, tidied the documents on her desk, sorted and locked them away, then left.

After leaving the office, she went to the National Police records archive. The archive was located in the basement of the headquarters building, lit by electric lamps. In the corridor, the dim yellowish glow of low-wattage incandescent bulbs cast shadowy patterns on the walls, lending an air of mystery.

In the half-lit corridor, piles and bundles of materials and files were heaped haphazardly. These were documents not yet sorted and archived—everything was in short supply here, and qualified archive administrators were unheard of. The accumulation of files far outpaced the meager, untrained staff's ability to organize them.

The duty archivist was a retained clerk from the old county yamen's document vault. Though his experience had nothing to do with modern archival management, he was at least a professional who picked up new knowledge more readily, so he continued his old trade here.

Following Australian rules, he asked Li Yongxun to show her credentials, even though she had come here almost weekly for years.

He examined the credentials carefully, as if he had never seen them before, then stared expressionlessly at her face. The old clerk knew his new masters' preferences well: do everything by the book. As a retained person with a problematic history, he always strove to demonstrate perfect compliance.

Finally he took out a form clipped to a board, filled in her name, badge number, and the date of inquiry.

"Sign here." He handed back the form and credentials.

Li Yongxun felt a flutter of nervousness. Her query would leave a record on the log. But she came to check files every two or three days, and the files she queried were related to her job. It should not arouse suspicion.

After signing, she said, "I need to query the issuance records for temporary identity certificates over the past three months."

The duty clerk searched the shelf beside him carefully, pulled out a thick index ledger, licked his finger, and flipped through quickly. Before long he found the page.

"The materials you want are in B/61/L/18-39. Follow me."

They came to Storage Area B, where rows of tall wooden file cabinets loomed. The clerk quickly opened one of them.

"There are twelve boxes of files in total. Don't you have anything more specific?"

"I need to check them all..." Li Yongxun looked at the large boxes. If she was unlucky, she might not find what she needed until dawn.

Each box was the size of a large desk drawer, over a meter deep, made of heavy cardboard. The clerk brought her a hand truck, wheeled the boxes to the reading area, and turned on the dedicated lamp. Li Yongxun took a deep breath, opened the first box, pulled out a thick stack of paper folders, and began examining them.

She knew she was searching for a needle in a haystack. Photo identification had not yet been widely adopted, so the ID application records had no photographs—only fingerprints. She did not know Lin Ming's alias, which made the search much harder. After some thought, she could only flip through them one by one, looking for anything that resembled him.

What she knew clearly was that Lin Ming would inevitably have a Foshan accent, so his registered native place could only be a prefecture or county near there. Second, he was literate and came from a centurion's family, so nine times out of ten his registration would show "literate." Adding his age and sex, she could narrow the search range.

Li Yongxun began searching from the most recent dates. Her luck was good; she quickly found a file. The registrant's name was "Lin Min."

Apart from the name, everything else matched her brother-in-law's profile: sex, age, native place, and education level. Only the origin was listed as Kaohsiung—that was a bit strange. Occupation was listed as sailor—but her brother-in-law had never been a sailor... Yet looking further, Lin Min had disembarked from a Guangzhou-registered vessel, the Dongshan Ju. This seemed to corroborate a few more points.

She studied the sparse registration document several more times—there was nothing else to glean. After a moment's thought, she picked up a pencil, copied down Lin Min's temporary ID number on a slip of paper, and returned to the counter.

"I'd like to query this person's employment and household registration."

The clerk took the slip, busied himself among the index books and card files behind him for a while, and produced three more documents.

The employment registration was simple, but Li Yongxun still found what she wanted. Lin Min had registered at the Weimin Employment Agency in East Gate Market—this matched his appearance in the pleasure district. Looking at the employment record below, Lin Min had started work the day after registering as a clerk at a wholesale firm in East Gate Market called Haixing Store.

The second document was Haixing Store's temporary household registration: Lin Min, as an employee of the firm, had been registered to Haixing Store's collective dormitory.

Li Yongxun was now nearly certain that Lin Min was Lin Ming. Last night, while questioning a prostitute, she had happened to hear someone mention that a customer surnamed Wang was an employee of Haixing Store.