Daomu Biji: The Southern Archives

In the sky at dawn, clouds gathered to build a castle in the air. The castle referred to a mirage, and Hailou meant “mirage”.

Later on, Zhang Haiyan was very grateful for his salty nickname. Otherwise, his life may not be what he wanted if it was like a mirage.

Zhang Haiyan walked out the door. It was sunny outside the cabin and there were already children playing on the deck. He could see the sea from the corridor, and the sunlight reflecting off of it was so bright that it was impossible for people to look at it directly.

He could also see the deck from the corridor. If those “corpses” hadn’t been thrown into the water yesterday, they probably would have been discovered by the guests passing by in the corridor, and those people’s plan would have already begun.

There was nothing but some blood-like stains on the deck in front of him. They weren’t very noticeable from this height, and looked more like rust.

He was in a good mood as he faced the sea breeze and sorted out his thoughts.

He had no confidence that He Jianxi could guard Steven properly. Steven was a shrewd man and He Jianxi definitely wasn’t on par with him. But he believed that He Jianxi could hold out for at least an hour. It wouldn’t be a big problem. Zhang Haiyan only needed an hour.

First and foremost, his top priority was that woman.

When he was eavesdropping yesterday, the other party had mentioned a causal relationship: if it hadn’t been for someone spreading wudou disease in the South Sea, Miss Dong wouldn’t have appeared.

In other words, the plague was merely a plot to lure this woman out?

It was estimated that thousands of people in the South Sea had died from the plague. If it was just to lure her out, then what was her background?

The second question was why could the plague be used to lure her out? Was she a doctor? Was she someone who wanted to see corpses? Or was she someone who loved plagues?

With regards to the third question, a man named Warner was protecting this woman after she got on the ship, which meant that she had foreseen that there would be killers when she came here. If so, could it be said that she knew there was something off about the plague and knew that it had been spread by people wanting to lure her out? Whatever the case, she still came anyways.

This was a majestic woman who was confident in the fact that others were willing to spread a plague and kill thousands of people in order to lure her out.

This Miss Dong from Xiamen clearly had a lot of power. Zhang Haiyan knew how much effort it took to find the origin of the plague and spread it, so based on this, Miss Dong shouldn’t be an ordinary person. He had to meet her.

Of course, after Zhang Haiyan observed the terrain, he remembered what Zhang Haixia had said and didn’t act rashly.

He wandered around the first-class cabin area. In the restaurant’s waiting area, he saw a model of the Nan’an, along with the Nan’an’s design drawing on the wall behind it.

He stopped to look at it carefully and discovered that the first- and second-class cabins shared a post office. On the second floor below the deck, there was a small room where guests could send telegrams through this post office.

The second- and third-class cabins shared a fire escape, which was at the bottom of the ship. It was designed this way because there was always rainwater and seawater entering the ship. Part of it was directly discharged into the sea through the ship’s sewer system, but some of it would slowly accumulate at the bottom of the ship, which could be used to fight fires.

He came to stand in front of room 345 on the third floor of the first-class cabin, which was his original room. But he hadn’t claimed the key back then. He looked at his ticket, cleared his throat, and stopped a waiter who was passing by.

“My friend has been sleeping in my room since he got on the ship and hasn’t gone back to his original room. He forgot to claim the key. This is his invitation. Can you give me the key? I’ll pass it to him.”

The waiter looked at the invitation. It was obvious that this was against the rules, but Steven apparently had a special status on the ship.

The waiter thought for a while, “According to the regulations, that person should come and pick up the key himself, but Miss Dong has said that we must satisfy all the needs of Mr. Warner’s friends. I’ll get the key for you.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry for causing you trouble. I’ll wait for you here.” As soon as Zhang Haiyan nodded, the waiter trotted off and soon returned with the key.

Zhang Haiyan did the math. The key room was at the bow of the ship in the middle of the crew's quarters, which the waiter had to access using the ladder on deck. It had taken about ten minutes for the waiter to run over and come back.

If he was Miss Dong and knew that he had to find someone to protect him, he would definitely live on the fourth floor of the first-class cabin, which was the top floor of the ship.

Since the waiter took ten minutes to get to the key room, it may only take three minutes at most to travel from the third floor to the fourth floor.

The three floors could be reached easily, but those killers just couldn’t make it through the last three minutes needed to reach the fourth floor?

Why?

He moved his feet in the direction of the fourth floor. Since he was now disguised as Steven, he shouldn’t be stopped by any guards.

When he reached the fourth floor’s stairway and didn’t see any guards, he turned his head and looked around.

He immediately knew which room was Miss Dong’s, because there were more than twenty American guards sitting at the door with submachine guns. They all had their eyes closed, and were resting. He could tell at a glance that they had excellent skills.

When he walked over to the guards, someone immediately picked up their gun. “Steven, answer this question. Why did the white swan’s father disappear after swimming in the Mississippi?”

Zhang Haiyan was taken aback for a moment, and the other party said, “You have to answer immediately. Otherwise, we’ll have to shoot you.” With that said, he pulled the gun's bolt back. “Three, two, one.”