Daomu Biji: The Southern Archives

While Zhang Haiyan was thinking things over, he suddenly had an idea. Seeing that the sentry hadn’t walked far away from him, he immediately stopped him.

“Wait.”

Zhang Haixian was very uncomfortable hiding in the corner, but just as he wanted to step out, he heard Zhang Haiyan call out. He had no choice but to shrink back and continue to hide.

When the sentry came back, Zhang Haiyan still didn’t turn around, but pretended to fiddle with the bottles and cans on the cabinet as he said, “There’s something I didn't tell you before, but I’ve thought it over. Since the situation is critical, I can’t lie to you anymore.”

“I’m listening, Lieutenant.”

“Have you heard of a man called Zhang Haiyan?” Zhang Haiyan asked.

Of course, there was no way the sentry would know of him. He shook his head. “I’ve never heard of him.”

Zhang Haixia, who was still standing in the dark corner, frowned. He had no idea what Zhang Haiyan was trying to do at this time.

“This person works in the South Sea Archives under the South Sea Maritime Affairs Office. He specializes in investigating strange cases in the South Sea area. He’s a famous master. The person who was on the Flower Reef just now was him. He’s my mortal enemy. I’ve lived in his shadow for a long, long time.”

The sentry was extremely puzzled, and hesitated before cautiously saying, “Oh. I understand. But… didn’t you just say that it was Zhang Qishan’s people?”

“I said that because I didn’t want to scare you. This Zhang Haiyan is a thousand times more troublesome than Zhang Qishan. I said it was Zhang Qishan because I was afraid you would piss your pants if you knew it was Zhang Haiyan.” Zhang Haiyan lowered his voice, trying his best not to laugh. He looked at Zhang Haixia, who rolled his eyes in the darkness.

It was obvious the sentry was more afraid of Zhang Qishan, so he was utterly confused at this time. “So—you want us to—”

“Blow the reef up. We can’t wait any longer. Even if the things inside are scary, we have to finish our work tonight and leave here!”

The sentry looked uncertain. “But—”

“I’ll take responsibility for everything. I’m ten thousand percent sure that Zhang Haiyan is already among us. If we can't finish it tonight, we’ll all die here.”

The sentry had no choice but to nod and quickly retreat. It seemed that he had been very well trained.

Zhang Haiyan turned around and closed the door before saying, “See? There’s a problem with being trained too well. If you had treated me like this, I would’ve drop-kicked you a long time ago. There’s no way I’d let this kind of trick succeed.”

Zhang Haixia came out of hiding, unwilling to talk to Zhang Haiyan at the moment.

Zhang Haiyan thought for a while and then pulled the needles from his throat. “Of course, ordinary people wouldn’t believe that someone could be this shameless. I also have to admit that I’m quite gifted.”

“There are still a lot of prisoners here. If you’re giving out orders indiscriminately, all those people might die.” Zhang Haixia said.

“This place is heavily guarded. These soldiers are well-trained and equipped with fearsome automatic pistols. They’ve made hundreds of hostages work as laborers. You still think we can get out of this unscathed?” Zhang Haiyan took a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. “In this kind of situation, we’ll all die. We won’t stand a chance unless we cause some trouble.”

Zhang Haixia inspected the corpse that the lieutenant had been handling before. “The matter isn’t as simple as you think. What do you think is locked in the ship?”

“Water ghosts? The yaksha Ye Sha? Nezha (1)? Oboi (2)?”

“The Dragon King of the East Sea is called Ao Guang (3).” Zhang Haixia corrected him. He picked up a pair of rubber gloves from the side and saw a stack of surgical masks nearby. He took one for himself, and then put a few in his pocket before he opened the mouth of the corpse on the table.

It was the scrawny female corpse of a Southeast Asian woman who had yellow hair due to long-term malnutrition. Her eyes were sunk so deep into the sockets that she no longer looked human, and there were wounds all over her body and feet that were caused by barnacles on the reef.

The female corpse’s mouth was completely damaged, and she had yellow and black decayed spots on her teeth. Her tongue had been cut out, and her exposed throat was filled with salt. As Zhang Haixia took a sniff, his face turned serious. “You'd better rescind your order.”

“Why?”

“This female corpse should be a passenger from one of those ships ten years ago. She was forced to work on the reef here, but she didn’t starve to death. She died of illness. The salt and concoctions are used to disinfect, which means the workers get sick and die during excavation. The lieutenant thought that the disease might be contagious.”

Zhang Haiyan thought for a while. “Are you saying there aren’t any living monsters on the plague ship, but only—“

“The plague.”

It was wudou disease, the most rapidly spreading plague.

Zhang Haiyan took a deep breath, immediately inserted the golden needles back into his throat, flipped through the phone book on the side, and said to Zhang Haixia, “Help me grab the phone. I’ll tell them to stop—”

Before he finished speaking, there was a loud noise outside, and the whole ship shook. All the bottles and cans were thrown to the ground, and the corpses outside swayed. The both of them had to hold onto the female corpse to steady themselves.

The two looked at each other, and then heard someone on the deck shout, “We made it! We made it!” Countless footsteps could be heard above, as if numerous people had rushed over to look.

“We’re screwed.” Zhang Haiyan rushed out, climbed the stairs, and went onto the deck that was now full of people ranging from laborers to soldiers.

The guards up top were no longer focused on keeping watch, and were all looking at the center of the reef. No one noticed as Zhang Haiyan squeezed through the crowd.

The heat from the explosion was still there, and some laborers were slowly leaning towards it.

It was obvious that the bombed hole was rapidly exchanging air with the outside, and the smoke kept getting sucked into it before being expelled again. The smoke and dust were visible to the naked eye as they started spreading towards the entire ship. Zhang Haiyan felt a burning in his eyes and fear in his heart. Many people started to cough.

Zhang Haixia, who had been behind him, helped him put on a mask before handing him the gloves.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No, you were right. We’ll die either way, but now is the time to clean up this mess. If we don't go to hell, who else will?” He rubbed disinfectant on his hands, revealing three or four buckets full of it at his feet. “Let's go.”

“I understand now. I was too reckless. Stop talking and let me reflect on it.” Zhang Haiyan picked up a bucket, and the two of them squeezed through the crowd, headed towards the reef.

Zhang Haixia said, “What you did just now wasn’t reckless. Signing your life away and going to the South Sea was reckless. Do you know godmother fooled you?”

“She had a reason for doing so.”

“Godmother fooled you because you’re easily fooled. Why didn’t she try to fool me then?!”

As the two of them arrived at the reef, they found that the heat from the explosion was still scorching. Some people started to react, but when they saw the two of them carrying the disinfectant so casually, they thought they were there on lieutenant’s orders. As a result, those people remained silent.

When the two reached the edge of the big hole, Zhang Haixia poured a bucket of disinfectant water down first. Based on the sound, they figured the bottom wasn’t particularly deep. They then proceeded to wipe the disinfectant water on their masks and bodies, before looking at each other and jumping down.

****

TN Notes:

(1) Zhang Haiyan started to name the characters in the story “Nezha Conquers the Dragon King”. Nezha is a warrior deity. The yaksha (aka malevolent spirit) Ye Sha worked for the Dragon King and found children for him to eat. The plot can be found here

(2) Oboi was a prominent Manchu military commander and courtier. Wiki link

(3) Ao Guang is the Dragon King in Chinese folklore. Basically, Zhang Haiyan wanted to say Ao Guang, the Dragon King mentioned in Note (1), but he said it wrong and said Oboi lol.