Daomu Biji: The Southern Archives

Swimming skills were the first thing the Southern Archives considered whenever they selected trainees.

People either liked water or were afraid of it. Zhang Haiyan’s and Zhang Haixia’s heartbeats would slow down when they were in the water, and they felt more comfortable in it than when they were on shore.

That was why the word “hai” (1) was included in their names, so people could better distinguish who they were. In the South Sea Maritime Affairs Office, those who had “hai” in their names would have an extra bundle of bacon for lunch and an extra steamed bun, which was very enviable.

The two people were like fish in the water. Every time they went underwater, they advanced more than ten meters before poking their heads above the surface again. They seemed to do it effortlessly based on their movements, but only they knew how they had achieved such skills.

On the reef west of Gulang Island in Xiamen, there was a pit about twenty or thirty meters wide that was so deep, it seemed bottomless. The pit would be full of water whenever the tide rose, and would become a deep pool whenever the tide ebbed. Even though this deep pool and the sea weren’t connected, fish and shrimp came and went with the tide every day.

Zhang Haiyan remembered that there were so many crabs in the deep pool, they couldn’t catch them all. At that time, his godmother would fish a snapper out of the sea and throw it into the deep pool after the tide had receded. She would then have them try to catch the snapper with their bare hands. If anyone succeeded, they got to sleep in the bed with her.

How could you possibly catch something like a snapper with your bare hands?

Eight months later, these children’s shoulders and abdominal muscles looked as if they had been chiseled with knives. Of course, no one had ever caught the snapper, and it often ended up being scared to death.

What Zhang Haiyan still remembered most clearly was that under the blue sky by the blue sea, a group of little kids gradually grew into adults. They stood on the edge of the deep pool, no longer feeling frustrated that they couldn’t catch the snapper. Those years were so wonderful, and he often found himself missing those days. These experiences also enabled him to move among the sea waves like a fish.

Soon, they could no longer see Flower Reef. They were completely surrounded by the sea, and the waves were becoming bigger and bigger. Every time Zhang Haixia surfaced from the water, he would correct his position and continue moving forward without hesitation. They swam about four or five kilometers before they saw lights on the sea.

The lights were a cyan color, and were used by pirates during sneak attacks. The lights were made from dried rotted eggs that were mixed with oil. When seen from a distance, they looked like the moon reflecting on the sea’s surface, so they weren’t easily noticeable.

The two of them approached slowly and found that it was a large iron passenger ship. They could see that there was more than one of them, and they were all of varying sizes. Four or five of the big ones and more than a dozen small ones were chained together to form a ship formation.

The ships were very old, and obviously lacking maintenance since they had barnacles and rust all over them. They could vaguely see that the ship closest to them had the word “Ru Sheng” painted on it. Zhang Haiyan remembered that it was one of the passenger ships that had disappeared ten years ago. More than two hundred passengers had disappeared with the ship at that time.

A dozen anchors had been thrown into the sea around the ship formation. The waves here weren’t very high, so Zhang Haiyan knew that the water was shallow and there were reefs on the seabed below.

The two of them used one of the anchor cables to climb out of the water, and while they were hanging upside down, they heard someone talking on the ship. The two climbed to the ship’s railing and stepped on the anchor cable to investigate. First, they saw four or five guards on top of the passenger cabins, all wearing military uniforms and holding rifles.

Various words could be heard coming from different places on the ship, and they listened intently.

“Why are they talking with a Guixi accent?” Zhang Haixia asked.

There were many warlord factions in Guixi that were constantly plotting against each other. They had heard of warlords ordering fishing boats from the Gulf of Tonkin to conduct piracy and collect military pay and provisions, but this place was too far from the Gulf of Tonkin. What did the Guixi warlords come to Malacca for?

The two listened attentively for a while. They didn't understand the Guangxi dialect, but they were sure that these soldiers worked for a warlord.

Zhang Haiyan saw that their rifles were all German-made Mausers, and not Hanyang-made. This was a big deal among the warlords and indicated that the soldiers here had a high rank.

A closer look showed that the soldiers were even equipped with German-made pistols. Zhang Haiyan had taken over the import of these kinds of pistols during one of his missions. Twelve of them had been transported from Malacca back to Xiamen for the officers in the South Sea Maritime Affairs Office to use, so he knew how powerful they were.

“A Guixi warlord came to Malacca to be a pirate. Is it possible they’re the remnant forces of a defeated warlord, and they hijacked these ships to make a living?” Zhang Haixia asked.

Zhang Haiyan took a closer look at the ship formation. The ships had been hijacked ten years ago, but were still here. The hijacking was already a strange case back then, but it was even more strange to chain these ships together into a formation. And they had even managed this place for ten years. They were able to hide the cases that took place on international routes for ten years, and were still active at the crime scene.

If they were conducting things on such a large scale, then the boss behind the whole thing should be some sort of conspirator! How could a man with this kind of ability be a defeated warlord? Moreover, the chains and ship formation looked very logical, and the sentries were clearly distributed and strictly on guard. For ten years, the sentries on Ru Sheng didn’t slack off for one bit, which showed that the boss here certainly wasn't an ordinary person.

Zhang Haiyan said to Zhang Haixia, “Look at the ship formation. There’s no ship in the center, and it’s shaped like a square. It seems like the ships are surrounding something in the middle.”

The two of them boarded the ship. Zhang Haiyan hid in the shadows and looked up at the sentry above. The sentry's position was well designed and the deck was clearly illuminated by sixteen reasonably distributed lights. It would be impossible to pass without being noticed.

Zhang Haiyan calmed himself down, took a deep breath, and spat out three blades, managing to extinguish three of the blue lights. The guards were immediately attracted by the sudden change in lighting, and as soon as their attention had shifted, the two men sprinted without hesitation. They ran across the deck, reached the other side of the passenger ship, and retreated into the darkness.

There was another ship’s railing right behind them, which was where the area surrounded by the ship formation was. They could see that the lights on the outer edge were denser here, and there really was something in the center.

The two secretly investigated and found that the ships were surrounding a reef. A huge hole had been dug in the reef, and there were mining equipment and scaffolding all around it. This hole seemed to have been dug by people, and it went very deep.

These soldiers used so many ships to surround a reef in this area, and then dug a hole in it.

There were a lot of people in non-military uniforms and shackles working on the reef. Zhang Haixia covered his nose.

“What do you smell?” Zhang Haiyan asked.

“There’s an unspeakable smell coming from that hole.” Zhang Haixia said. “It smells very unlucky.”

****

TN Notes:

(1) “Hai” means “sea” in Chinese.