A bomb exploding in the middle of the SID would have been more merciful. At least then maybe Zhao Yunlan could have gotten some funds to rebuild on top of the rubble. Now, though? Now they’re going to have to tidy. Zhao Yunlan glances at the precarious towers of folders, the treacherously slippery pools of files, and grimaces. They’ve hauled out at least fifty years’ worth of SID paperwork—more than Zhao Yunlan even knew they had—and even he will concede that having it covering every available surface makes the place… messy. But time is of the essence. Once they make it to the bottom of this, then they will tidy.
For now his team and Shen Wei are all scattered across the room like farmers bent over their fields, or fishermen over their nets. Or gold miners, maybe—panning the flood of paper for that one nugget of gold that they absolutely need. Because if they can’t find it—Zhao Yunlan squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. He doesn’t even want to think about what an unmitigated disaster that would be. For all of his careful calculations, he never thought the paperwork would take this much time. And if it takes much longer—
Someone gives an excited squeak, and Zhao Yunlan’s eyes snap open.
“Here it is!” Wang Zheng sounds triumphant, sitting on the floor surrounded by a barricade of paperwork, holding one single sheet aloft like a war banner. The room goes silent.
“It is?” Zhao Yunlan catches Shen Wei staring at the paper with scarily intent eyes. It wouldn’t do to be wrong.
Wang Zheng stands, with an arching of her eyebrow that makes Zhao Yunlan take a step back. “I mean. Fantastic job, you found it—everyone, Wang Zheng found it!”
Applause and cheers and a fwoomp as Da Qing flops down on his pile. “Finally!” he says irritably. “I missed out on two naps for this, Lao Zhao. You owe us.” He huffs and curls into cat shape.
While Wang Zheng navigates the treacherous surroundings to hand Zhao Yunlan the document, Shen Wei joins him to look at it as she holds it out. “Yeah, that’s it,” Zhao Yunlan confirms, and Shen Wei nods gravely to Wang Zheng.
“Thank you,” he says, and accepts it from her. He looks almost hypnotised by the single sheet of paper—Zhao Yunlan sees him run his thumb gently along the edge of it. Zhao Yunlan grins—he can’t even begin to guess which part of it has Shen Wei so enchanted, but that little smile on his lips is adorable. And distracting Zhao Yunlan from his own task—he quickly pulls up his phone and scrolls through the familiar website guide. It’s full of impenetrable text and ridiculously unhelpful links, but he knows there’s a PDF from the local civil affairs bureau with more information.
“Okay,” he says. “Once we have it, I think we had to turn it in to…” He brings the screen closer to see the blurry file a bit better. “Oh you have got to be kidding me!”
“What’s wrong?” Shen Wei’s eyes go wide with alarm. “Have we got the wrong form?” The question is level, but in his hand, the sheet of paper trembles slightly. Zhao Yunlan’s heart clenches at that proof of how much this means to Shen Wei, and he shakes his head numbly.
“No. No, it’s worse. They won’t process anything unless they have it in the system already—which means we have to send them a copy of the original so they can check.”
“I’ll call in a favor with the delivery service,” Wang Zheng says promptly.
“Send it by fax,” Zhao Yunlan says, with all the despair he feels. “Along ‘the phone number I wish to be contacted on’.” That stupid office is literally the only place that will put this particular stamp on their paperwork and move it forward, and they don’t even have an email address.
The gentle sounds of papers being stacked and gathered and Zhao Yunlan’s team bickering about who accidentally knocked over that one tower stops abruptly. Everyone in the room, including Sang Zan who can’t possibly know what a fax is, stare at him.
“What’s a fax?” Xiao Guo asks.
“Fax them? On a fax machine?” Wang Zheng asks, rallying. “The office used to have one. It was taking up space, so I put it up with the other boxes.” She bites her lip. “I am not sure I recall how it was connected, or—or how to make sure the message is properly delivered.”
“Don’t bother,” Lin Jing says with a triumphant grin. “I just downloaded an app for faxing.”
Zhao Yunlan relaxes. Of course there’s an app for faxing. He and Shen Wei bring the document over, and Lin Jing takes it to the scanner. “Hm. I swear some of the older models used to be able to fax, too,” he says thoughtfully. “But this one only has scan and print settings…”
“Well,” Wang Zheng says. “Just in case, how about we get the machine down. Xiao Guo and Sang Zan should learn about faxing.” They both nod eagerly and go along to help her, though Zhao Yunlan suspects that’s more because of Wang Zheng’s sweet smile than because they are curious about obsolete technology.
“There you go, Boss,” Lin Jing says, and a copy of the scan pings into Zhao Yunlan’s inbox. “You know,” he says, only slightly accusingly. “You should always keep scans of all your important documents.”
Zhao Yunlan rolls his eyes. “Look,” he says, not for the first time. “I didn’t know my birth certificate was in with my dad’s paperwork.”
Lin Jing ducks his head. “Of course not,” he says, in a way that makes Zhao Yunlan suspect there’s already running jokes about his birth being a case for the SID.
“It was before Wang Zheng!” Zhao Yunlan says. “I filed the old SID stuff with the older SID stuff and—how isn’t that a good system?”
Shen Wei gives Zhao Yunlan a disappointed look, but all he says is, “Lin Jing, can we now app your scan to the fax?”
Lin Jing keeps a very straight face as he says, “Mm-hmm. Yes. I just need to…” He scowls.
“What?” Zhao Yunlan asks.
“Watermark,” Lin Jing explains, and holds the screen so they can see. There is a fat, ugly logo reading FAXQIKAPP right through Zhao Yunlan’s father’s name.
“Well,” he says. “It’s not like it’s covering anything important—”
“Zhao Yunlan,” Shen Wei says sternly. “This does not look like a document anyone would accept for official purposes.
“Fine, fine,” Zhao Yunlan says.
“I’ll try another one,” Lin Jing says. “There’s got to be plenty of free services for this.”
Watching Lin Jing install apps is really boring—except for Shen Wei, apparently. Or maybe he’s simply making sure the smartphone doesn’t deface the birth certificate he’s holding carefully with both hands.
In the meantime, Wang Zheng has successfully located the office’s old fax machine. Sang Zan moves a printer from her desk, and Xiao Guo pokes cautiously at the dusty machine. “So,” he says. “You feed it paper and it goes… through the phone lines…?”
“Not the paper,” Wang Zheng explains patiently, “But the text, yes.”
“Oh wow! That’s so cool!”
Zhao Yunlan snorts. Faxing is not cool.
“And how do you set it up?”
“Well…” Wang Zheng steps back, and eyes the machine. “First it needs power, right?”
“Okay, here’s another one that could do it,” Lin Jing mutters. I’ll take the scan first, and—what? ‘File size exceeded’? But it’s a PDF!”
“When did the office close today?” Shen Wei asks Zhao Yunlan, and there is an edge to his calm demeanor.
“Um,” Zhao Yunlan says, and scrolls through the PDF he’s still got open. “We’ve got another—hour?” He offers a hopeful grin. But it’s Thursday already, and they were counting on getting this done before the weekend—
“Well, I am sure Lin Jing will continue to try his best,” Shen Wei says, and Zhao Yunlan is so proud of his level tone in the middle of this despair. He’s about to tell Shen Wei That’s the spirit when Shen Wei raises his voice to carry.
“Wang Zheng. Will you allow me to help?”
Zhao Yunlan blinks. Wang Zheng blinks. Lao Chu clears his throat. Da Qing, who Zhao Yunlan could have sworn was fast asleep, says, “You?”
Shen Wei walks over to the fax machine, and regards it thoughtfully while they all stare at him. “Would it be alright to disconnect this phone for a moment?” Wang Zheng nods, apparently at a loss for words. Zhao Yunlan hurries over to see—does Shen Wei have some sort of Dixing power that allows him to connect straight to the phone line? Because unlike faxing, that would be cool.
Instead he ends up watching as Shen Wei fiddles with the phone cable and the fax and then plugs in the power cable. In the background, Lin Jing’s phone plays a horrible recorded fax sound that culminates in one long beep. “What do you mean, number not recognized?!” Lin Jing yells at it, too caught up in his technology to witness the incredibly odd sight of Shen Wei confidently pressing some buttons on the fax machine.
“I haven’t given you the number yet,” Zhao Yunlan says gently, not wanting to discourage Shen Wei’s admirable effort.
“Oh. No, you see—the birth certificate is slightly thicker than standard office paper, so we need to change that setting,” Shen Wei explains. “Hopefully the cover page with your phone number will still make it through.”
“There’s… there’s a paper thickness setting?” Wang Zheng asks, in the tone of someone who has learned something that would have been extremely useful to know a very long time ago, and now isn’t.
“And you know how to change it?” Zhao Yunlan adds.
“Yes,” Shen Wei says simply. He carefully arranges the birth certificate in the fax’s cradle, then slides another paper behind it. Zhao Yunlan catches a glimpse of his own phone number written on it in a very legible hand. “There. Now, the number?”
Numbly, Zhao Yunlan rattles it off.
“Does that include the dial code?”
“Dial…?”
“No—you need two extra zeroes,” Wang Zheng says confidently.
Shen Wei nods, and presses buttons on the fax, which beeps happily at the attention. Then it starts whirring, and the birth certificate disappears—Zhao Yunlan’s glad Lin Jing just scanned it, because it sounds like it’s being chewed to bits—but then it reappears, still in one piece. It’s followed by the sheet of paper with Zhao Yunlan’s number, and then the machine starts its arcane, hissing melody.
“It’s working,” Zhao Yunlan says.
“Of course it is,” Shen Wei says. “Though we should wait for the receipt to be certain.”
“The what?”
“The document from the receiving fax machine that proves the recipient has a copy of our message waiting for them.”
Zhao Yunlan wets his lips. There has been many times in his life when he’s felt like the world has shifted underneath him, but—Shen Wei using obsolete technology with absolute confidence is… certainly one of the weirder things he’s ever seen. He stares at Shen Wei, who is waiting patiently as the fax quiets, and then starts whirring again.
“Ah yes. There we are.”
“Did—are you sure the papers were the right way up?” Zhao Yunlan asks, as Shen Wei checks the details on the flimsy sheet of fax paper. He hasn’t done much faxing, but he distinctly remembers payroll at his first job calling him up and asking if he’d really meant for them to list “Call me!” and a hot barista’s phone number as his bank account.
“Yes,” Shen Wei says with amused patience. “That is certainly a very easy mistake to make, but you’ll note the paper rest comes with this helpful illustration.” He points, and Zhao Yunlan can make out an engraving of a stylized paper, lines on one side and a corner folded to show a blank reverse side.
“Of course,” Zhao Yunlan says, still reeling, because Shen Wei can’t even send an email, but he seems to know the SID’s aged fax machine like the back of his hand. He’s already started taking the cables out and putting them back where he found them, like he’s done it all a million times already.
Or like he studied hard to remember how to do it all perfectly, and doesn’t actually forget anything he learns. Because he’s Shen Wei.
And because this was what they had, when Shen Wei first returned to Haixing. And then faxes aged into obsolescence, replaced by computers, which are now getting competition from smartphones. And after smartphones—well, there’s probably something else right around the corner. Technology waiting to take another leap, to surprise them all again.
All except Shen Wei, who relies on the analog, and on technologies that never change. Because then… then he won’t have to waste time learning something that he can’t master through his Dixing powers, only through diligent reading and memorisation of manuals. Manuals they don’t even make for operating systems, because they would have to write new ones for each system upgrade, and for every new make and model of laptop and smartphone on the market.
Oh.
Zhao Yunlan catches Shen Wei’s arm, and meets startled wide eyes with a grin. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Zhao Yunlan,” Shen Wei says, solemn.
Zhao Yunlan is about to say something more, but his phone buzzes with an incoming call. He hauls it out of his pocket with record speed, nearly drops it, then almost hangs up as he fumbles to catch it. Breathless, he slides it to answer and presses it to his ear. “Yeah?”
“Hello, this is from the Civil Affairs Bureau. We just received your fax, so I would like to confirm a few details for your marriage license…?”
There’s a moment when hearing all of those words and knowing it means his marriage, to Shen Wei, makes Zhao Yunlan’s chest grows so tight he can hardly breathe from the sheer thrill of it. He smiles dizzily at Shen Wei. “You did it, baby,” he says, and the tinny speaker voice says, “Excuse me?” and Shen Wei looks appalled. But that’s okay. Everything is fine now, and Zhao Yunlan can totally handle this.
“Yes, it’s me, I’m marrying the most wonderful man in the world.”
“Congratulations. Now, if—”
“He knows how to fax.”
“...right. Well. If you would please confirm the following details…”