Chapter 84 – Registration

Chapter 84 – Registration

Handling identity registration for two girls who might not even qualify as “human” — this was quite the novel experience for Yu Sheng. But the moment he sat down in front of Hu Li’s form, he realized it was only novel to him. In the eyes of the Special Operations Bureau, this was probably nothing unusual at all.

Because the first line of the form read as follows:

If the registrant belongs to a long-lived species (average lifespan of 1K or above, inclusive), the age field should be filled in as a percentage, with the species’ average lifespan noted in the space provided; if the registrant’s species does not possess the concept of biological sex, the gender field should be blacked out; if the registrant is unable to use pen-like instruments for writing, or primarily uses pheromones or other special secretions as identifying features, staff will assist with sample collection or form completion. For other special circumstances, please note them in the supplementary form and have staff review and sign off.

This was immediately followed by a string of disclaimers, which could be summarized in a single sentence: the Special Operations Bureau acknowledges that this place has all manner of strange and bizarre beings, and we have done our best to accommodate everyone’s wildly varied life forms and species taboos — if you still feel offended, take it up with the Council.

Yu Sheng sat at the desk staring at that massive wall of disclaimers and instructions for quite some time. It wasn’t until he flipped to the second page that he finally found the section for actually registering name, gender, age, and address…

He looked up and glanced at Ren Wenwen sitting beside him. “…The forms for registering ordinary Boundary City residents definitely aren’t like this, right?”

“Of course not,” the young Bureau clerk nodded immediately. “The forms for ordinary people are much simpler. This one is specifically prepared for non-human ‘guests’ who need to reside long-term in the Borderland. The identity documents we’ll be preparing for the two young ladies afterward are also a special version — they look about the same as regular ID cards on the outside, but they contain information that can only be read by specific equipment in specific departments. If they run into trouble in the future, it also serves as a channel for ‘special residents’ to seek help and receive preferential treatment.”

“Do you handle this kind of ‘business’ often?” Yu Sheng asked, somewhat curious.

“Definitely far fewer than regular resident file registrations, but we still get several thousand to ten thousand new files a year,” Ren Wenwen answered without any attempt to hide it. “The Borderland being what it is, there are always ‘travelers’ from various places applying to stay for all sorts of reasons.”

Yu Sheng listened attentively, and a strange sense of… being moved gradually welled up inside him.

This form with its many bizarre entries suddenly made the fantastical Borderland — that world beyond the everyday — feel real to him.

Nearby, Eileen had already grabbed a ballpoint pen that looked absurdly oversized in her hands and was sprawled next to the form, laboriously filling it out. This was quite the difficult task for her — the pen was nearly as long as her arm, and a single sheet of A4 paper was close to half her height — but this time she showed no intention of asking for help. Instead, she wrote with utmost seriousness, looking positively enthusiastic about it.

Yu Sheng also lowered his head and carefully wrote “Hu Li” on the form in front of him.

Then he got stuck on the very next field.

“Benefactor?” The fox girl noticed Yu Sheng’s hesitation and spoke up curiously.

“…How old are you?” Yu Sheng looked at the fox-spirit girl before him with a somewhat strange expression, but the moment he finished speaking, he felt something was off. “Uh… wait, I need to first ask what the average lifespan of your species is… no, that’s not right either — does ‘one year old’ in your species’ age system correspond to ‘one year’ in the Borderland?”

Hu Li tilted her head, her large silver-white fluffy ears twitching in the air, as if she hadn’t quite processed the question.

After two or three seconds, she hesitantly spoke: “Around… two hundred-something? We come of age at one hundred and eighty, but I don’t know how long I can live. Mom and Dad said that when you’ve lived until you no longer want to, you go to ‘return to the Great Dao’ — but they said that’s not dying, it’s becoming one of the Celestials…”

Yu Sheng: “…”

He looked pleadingly toward the clerk sitting beside them.

Ren Wenwen raised her hand and pointed at the age field. “Just write ‘exceptionally long-lived.'”

Yu Sheng: “…That actually works?!”

“If you don’t think that’s formal enough, you can just write ‘unknown’ — that works too,” Ren Wenwen said with complete seriousness. “Plenty of people fill it in that way every year, because some species are just exceptionally long-lived without any clear concept of lifespan. There are also species that rapidly cycle through life and death in periods of just a few years — they don’t even measure their age in ‘years and months’ at all, but by ‘generations.’ They can’t even figure it out themselves.”

Yu Sheng opened his mouth, then looked at the next field. “…What about ‘place of origin’? She doesn’t know where she’s from — how do I fill that in?”

Ren Wenwen maintained her serious expression. “Then write ‘elsewhere.’ Anyone from outside the Borderland with an unknown origin can be filed under a unified category.”

Yu Sheng’s expression went slightly blank. “…And the ‘species’ field?”

Ren Wenwen pointed. “Check the box for ‘supplementary form,’ then flip to the last page. There’s a supplementary form there — take a look and see if anything seems like a good fit.”

Yu Sheng flipped to the last page of the stack of forms, and a densely packed array of checkable options crashed into his field of vision.

The first thing that caught his eye was a “Note” written at the very bottom of the form: If your species possesses variable characteristics, please select “Mimicry Order.” If your species does not fall under any available category, please write “Pending Addition” and we will create a new classification for you as soon as possible.

A look of wonder crept onto Yu Sheng’s face, and when he raised his head to look at Ren Wenwen, there was even a hint of admiration in his eyes. “Your day-to-day work must be pretty… complicated, huh?”

“It’s not bad, actually. I’m in the logistics department — it’s the Special Archives Division that directly manages all this stuff. They really are busy. Male or female, none of the staff there have much hair left,” Ren Wenwen said, then raised her hand to point at one of the options in the selection area. “Pick this one — ‘Beast-Spirit or Humanoid Shapeshifting Species.'”

Yu Sheng scanned it and frowned slightly. “Why not ‘Immortal-Spirit Extraordinary’? I think that fits too…”

“There are ethnic group benefits — half-price subway tickets,” Ren Wenwen said casually. “And her tail leans a bit more toward the ‘Beast-Spirit’ side anyway. But it doesn’t really matter. If you don’t think it’s appropriate, you can pick something else — just choose from within the ‘Humanoid’ major category, and generally nobody looks into it too closely.”

The more Yu Sheng wrote, the more amazed he became. He sneakily craned his neck to peek at Eileen’s side, and saw the little doll earnestly checking the box for “Advanced Doll or Alchemical Humanoid,” and even specifically writing in the notes section: “From Alice’s Cottage.”

After quite a while, the forms were finally complete.

Honestly, this wasn’t even easier than doing Little Red Riding Hood’s homework — the forms were filled with so much bizarre and outlandish content. There were many entries that Yu Sheng couldn’t have even imagined being used on an “identity registration” form if he hadn’t seen them with his own eyes and heard Ren Wenwen’s explanations. No wonder you needed a Bureau clerk present to assist — without help, just the “cognitive type” and “neural evolution classification” fields alone would have kept Yu Sheng busy for an entire day…

But on the other hand, many entries on these two forms were lenient to an almost unbelievable degree. For quite a few fields that were genuinely impossible to fill in, Yu Sheng simply followed Ren Wenwen’s guidance and wrote things like “unknown,” “random,” or “any” — and by the end, he was even starting to doubt the Bureau’s professionalism…

“You really don’t need to worry. This form was designed according to the principle of maximum adaptability. Generally speaking, when an ‘outsider’ registers their identity in the Borderland, being able to fill in just a quarter of the form’s content is already sufficient to accurately describe their origin, purpose, and personal characteristics,” Ren Wenwen patiently addressed Yu Sheng’s doubts. “We can’t expect a single registration form to exert sufficient binding force over outsiders. The fact that the Borderland has been able to operate smoothly up to now is thanks to an extremely vast and effective management system working in coordination.”

As she spoke, she produced a small device and placed it on the table. “Next up is biometric information collection. Since you’re both classified as humanoid, shall we collect fingerprints?”

Eileen raised a finger. “I don’t have fingerprints.”

Ren Wenwen froze for a moment. “…Then blood… dolls don’t have blood either… Then hair sample collection? Uh, dolls seem to really object to that… How about scraping some surface material? From the arm would be fine.”

Eileen let out a sigh. “If you scrape it off, it just turns into lotus root starch.”

Ren Wenwen: “…?”

“It’s a long story,” Yu Sheng said, holding his forehead. “Her current body is temporary. You’d better skip the collection — you won’t get anything useful anyway… It’s all materials bought from a supermarket.”

“Then… alright, the Bureau Chief did instruct us to be flexible,” Ren Wenwen said with a somewhat peculiar expression. She picked up the two forms and gave them a quick once-over, then sighed and looked at Eileen. “Miss Eileen, you cannot write ‘good-looking’ in the ‘standard form or physical characteristics’ field. You should write ‘humanoid’… Never mind, I’ll just redo this entire page for you. You’ll just need to sign to confirm at the end. Also, you two get ready — I’ll need to take your photos in a moment. Miss Hu Li, can you hide your ears?”

Hu Li casually plucked off her own ears and tossed them into her tail.

Ren Wenwen: “…Huh?!”

The next second, the young clerk suddenly realized exactly what absurd thing she had just witnessed, and whipped her head toward Yu Sheng. “Mr. Yu, she-she-she-she just t-t-took…”

“Calm down,” Yu Sheng had long anticipated this scene, and now found himself in the position of reassuring her instead. “You work at the Special Operations Bureau — you should try to keep a more open mind.”

Ren Wenwen: “…”

After struggling to compose herself for quite a while, the young clerk finally managed to control her expression. Then she pulled out another stack of forms and placed them in front of Yu Sheng.

“Um, these are the registration documents you requested. Before the two ladies’ identity documents take effect, you can go ahead and fill this out first.”

Yu Sheng’s heart stirred at once, and he immediately took the printed pages.

Borderland Independent Operating Organization / Group / Agency General Registration Form

A smile spread across Yu Sheng’s face.

It was finally time for this.

(End of Chapter)