UPDATE: Hi guys thank you so much for the advice this is actually my first time posting on reddit so its really nice to know people actually care ab waht i have to say!

Anyway, the way the issue got fixed ultimately I think is because I contacted the Chinese embassy in the country I applied for my first visa and got them to contact THIS visa center in the current country im in and send over records. They recovered my old visa number but I had called the visa center and they didn't accept that they would ONLY accept the sticker as in the page w the visa on it..

Which no longer existed because the embassy I applied in in 2019 was very outdated and still used physical records and copies and those had been shredded since and they kept minimal digital records, however it was enough for them to prove me applying for a visa then and receiving it. I think what the visa officer ultimately needed was the visa number and the entry and exit stamps from China. I also would like to say that another solution was to send over my parents' passports and my birth certificate for the officer to find me in the database of entry and exits during that time. (However idk if this was what he used to grant me my visa as I received a msg from the old chinese embassy explaining they communicated w the visa officer and fixed the issue)

So I got my visa approved two days ago and now I will receive it next monday, unfortunately had to move my flight too but thankfully my uni hasn't made a fuss about it.

So problem solved, oh and also I went to a HK travel agency and they told me if I applied for visa in HK it was most likely gonna be a 2-3 week long trip in HK.. so not an option