Daomu Biji: The Southern Archives

Zhang Haiyan looked at the freshly discarded corpse, and found that it was still warm. It appeared the person had just recently been killed.

Those girls were very professional.

But there was one thing that immediately caught Zhang Haiyan’s attention—the corpse’s clothes didn’t fit.

Zhang Haiyan pulled the corpse’s sleeves and found that the clothes definitely didn’t belong to the person. They had been put on forcibly.

But why do this? Were they treating this corpse like a doll?

As Zhang Haiyan examined the other bodies and found that they all had the same problem, he suddenly realized that something wasn’t right.

“These people aren’t part of the crew,” he said to himself.

He Jianxi was still vomiting, so he didn’t hear a word Zhang Haiyan said.

These are passengers, not crew members. Zhang Haiyan thought to himself. For some reason, the killers put the crew members’ clothes on them after they were killed, and then left them here.

What exactly is going on?

Zhang Haiyan listened carefully to the sounds of music and voices coming from inside the ship. Everything seemed completely normal, and there were bright lights everywhere. But there were so many corpses piled up before his very eyes. After thinking about it, he suddenly understood why they didn’t throw the corpses into the sea.

The ship was still sailing along the ocean current, so everything would be washed back to the port’s beach. If the corpses were thrown into the sea now and someone discovered that they were from the Nan’an, they might send a telegram to the ship, which would alert everyone on board.

It was a big deal to be killing so many passengers on the ship. And they even dared dump the corpses directly on the deck, which indicated that they were very confident no one would discover them in a short amount of time.

Did they rob the first-class passengers one by one? Or…. As he was thinking this, two more people dragged another corpse over. But this time, it wasn’t those two girls.

Zhang Haiyan once again dragged He Jianxi back to the pile of corpses and hid.

The two men put the corpse down and immediately headed back. One of them stepped in He Jianxi’s vomit, but it was so dark on the deck that he didn’t realize he had stepped in something.

When Zhang Haiyan stood up again, He Jianxi also got up and started vomiting again. This time, however, there was nothing but bile coming out of his mouth.

Zhang Haiyan thought it over for a while and decided that no matter what their reason was, he would destroy their plan first. He immediately picked up a corpse and threw it into the sea.

He Jianxi was shocked when he saw Zhang Haiyan helping those people destroy the evidence. He wondered whether Zhang Haiyan was doing it for the virtue of being a fellow killer, but he had become numb to Zhang Haiyan’s strange behaviors, so he didn’t bother questioning him.

After dumping the corpses, Zhang Haiyan pulled He Jianxi onto his back and followed the vomit footprints. He was hungry, cold, sleepy, and tired, but there was no other way to do it. Even if he was allowed to investigate freely after tonight, he wouldn’t know who transported the corpses.

Moreover, he was full of curiosity. What the hell’s going on? Is this boat really so lively? He wanted to know now.

The following story requires you to have a very thorough understanding of the ship’s structure. It’s difficult to explain the structure here, so you’ll have to use your imagination.

This ship was smaller than Titanic, and had a building on the deck with a large chimney above it. This building was where the high-class guest rooms, restaurants, and ballrooms were located.

The best guest rooms were placed on both sides, where they had balconies and views of the sea. Swimming pools and restaurants were located below the first-class cabin’s deck. In other words, the upper and lower floors of the middle section of the ship all belonged to the area of the first-class cabin.

The middle section of the ship had passages and cargo holds exclusive to those in the first-class cabin, meaning that the first class-cabin wasn’t at the bow of the ship.

What kind of place was the bow of the ship? It was an open activity area for the third-class cabin, so there wasn’t a direct passage between it and the first-class cabin area.

Of course, you could climb over the bow’s wall and get to the first class-cabin area that way, but that has nothing to do with the structure of the ship.

Although the bow was the third-class open platform, it was now full of goods. In other words, the Nan’an used the third-class open platform to transport overloaded cargo.

Zhang Haiyan and He Jianxi were currently in this open area full of goods.

The people who had dragged the corpses over had gone down a nearby ladder, which was a vertical ladder that could reach the bottom of the ship.

A ladder had been placed on both sides of the deck, and people could use them to enter the space below the deck. That was where the true colors of the ship really showed.

The second-class cabin had four people to a room, while the third-class cabin had a variety of wide beds, boiler rooms, and cargo holds. All of these places were located below the deck.

You can understand how much filth needs to be hidden in order to maintain the luxurious appearance on deck.

The first two floors next to the ladder were the third-class cabin and crew members’ quarters, but the doors leading to the corridor were locked. This meant that people couldn’t reach the third-class cabin by using the ladder, and those in the third-class cabin couldn’t use this ladder, either.

The lower floors were made up of two levels of cargo holds, while the bottom was the fire-fighting passage and pipeline level.

Zhang Haiyan followed the wet and smelly footprints to one of the cargo holds. There weren’t any lights on in the hold, so it was pitch black. Before going in, Zhang Haiyan understood what was going on.

The third-class people couldn’t use the open deck at the bow of the ship because it was full of goods. As a result, the door next to the ladder that led to the open deck was locked. In this way, no one except for the crew could entire cargo area (unless there was someone from the first-class cabin who jumped off the building and fell to their death on the bow’s deck).

This area was closed off. As he snuck into the pitch-black cargo hold, he heard someone say, “The bodies have been displayed. The fake wounds and clothes have all been set up. As soon as day breaks, the people on the observation deck will see the bodies and alert the ship and that woman about it. That woman will definitely examine the bodies. Our people have taken pills that can fake their deaths, so they won’t wake up before they enter the morgue. But once they’re moved, the devices in their stomachs will be activated, and the antidote will slowly be released. They’ll all wake up after an hour. As long as the woman enters the morgue by then, it will be her death.”

Zhang Haiyan thought for a while and felt that something was wrong. After thinking about it again, he suddenly showed a horrified expression.

Those people weren’t corpses. They were killers who faked their own deaths in order to kill some woman.

No. Oh, no. All, all of them were thrown into the sea!

****

Merebear note: Lord have mercy. Haixia, come get your boi. Little Brother Zhang is a hot mess without you reigning him in. He literally just (unintentionally) killed a bunch of killers lol