Daomu Biji: The Southern Archives

Zhang Haiyan poked his head out again, but didn’t glean any more information. He retreated back into the darkness and wondered, “What's under this reef?”

“What do you think? Have they just been digging one hole on this reef for the past ten years, or have they been digging holes all over the reefs here?”

Zhang Haiyan nodded. He knew what Haixia meant, but what could be under this reef? Reefs were structures formed by coral reefs on top of undersea mountains, after all.

If they had dug all over the reefs here, then did that mean there were special minerals in the reefs? Or did it mean that precious treasures were stuck in the aged coral reefs?

“Should we go down and have a look?”

“It’s not possible. Look. These guard posts form a ring. There aren’t any blind spots, and the lighting is very sufficient.” Zhang Haiyan said. He wondered if the workers were passengers from ten years ago. If so, it was truly miserable to be abducted and then ordered to work here for ten years. “We’ll do the usual. Catch someone and ask what’s going on.”

Both of them looked around. There was only one conning tower (1) on the deck of this steamship, along with two huge chimneys. The main superstructure was arranged in the middle of the hull, and the cargo hold was placed between it, the bow, and the stern. The bow was straight and shaped inward just below the waterline, which was typical of North Atlantic bows (2).

The guard tower was on top of the superstructure and there were about seven or eight guard posts around the two large chimneys. There were probably hundreds of ropes hanging down, all connected to the ship’s railings, and clear lanterns had been hung three or four meters apart. The deck was very clean and no one was around.

They could see that in addition to the bow, the windows of the cabin and superstructure were both dark. It seemed like no one was around, but Zhang Haixia shook his head. “I can smell them moving around inside. There must be people in the cabin.”

“You’re smelling people going to the toilet again?” Zhang Haiyan looked at Zhang Haixia empathetically.

Zhang Haixia huffed, “It’s the smell of wine.” As he enunciated each word, he pointed to the bow, where someone just so happened to come out to check the extinguished lights. But the bow was quite far away from them, so it was very easy to be spotted if they tried to go over there.

The person who had come out was dressed in a military uniform. They looked at the broken glass on the ground in confusion, and then said something in the Guixi dialect to the guards posted above.

These people were also Chinese, and it was well known that when it came to Chinese and Malays, Chinese were more difficult to deal with. The closer the Chinese were to the mainland, the harder they were to deal with. But Zhang Haiyan was able to understand a few words this time. They were saying that they had just met two people with amazing skills on the reef over there, and now that there was a strange situation here, it was probably related to them.

After they were done speaking, the sentries nodded and raised their guns, aiming them at the deck. Soldiers with loaded pistols also appeared on the deck and started searching.

Zhang Haixia looked at Zhang Haiyan sullenly. It was obvious that he had an opinion on Zhang Haiyan’s reckless handling of the lights.

Zhang Haiyan listened to the approaching footsteps in the dark. Although the two of them had incredible skills, he also knew that they had absolutely no chance of fighting back against those kinds of automatic pistols. It was the sorrow of the changing times.

Mind racing, Zhang Haiyan quickly raised his head and took aim at the cyan-colored lantern hanging in the middle of the hole on the reef. He spit out a blade, and the precise hit caused the lantern to shatter. Sparks and glass fell to the ground, causing a commotion below.

The most interesting thing about Zhang Haiyan was that he never made a fuss like normal people and almost never came prepared for situations. But while “normal people” always thought one step ahead when something happened, he didn’t. He lived in those twenty or thirty seconds right before people could come up with another idea. In those twenty and thirty seconds, he was the absolute king.

The reef below was more important than the ship, so if the light on the reef had been broken, that meant someone may have snuck over there. Everyone would become nervous, which would create a twenty-second cognitive buffer.

Twenty seconds was enough.

As all the guards and search team members looked towards the reef, Zhang Haiyan grabbed Zhang Haixia’s hand and pressed his other hand against the ground. With a move that was extremely difficult for humans to do, Zhang Haiyan threw Zhang Haixia out.

Zhang Haixia landed on the bow of the ship, pressed his hands against the deck, and then slid into the nearby door.

Zhang Haiyan followed behind with a barrel roll, but their movements were too conspicuous. A sentry upstairs turned his head and almost caught the both of them, but Zhang Haiyan quickly spit out a blade. It flew across the deck and hit the sole of another soldier’s shoe. “Ouch!” the soldier cried out.

When the sentry turned his head towards the cry, Zhang Haiyan used that moment to slide through the door.

Zhang Haixia caught him. “They’ll discover us in a minute.”

“Is a minute not enough?”

They were in the ship’s observation room, where they could see a set of stairs in the middle leading down to the cabin area below. That was also where the cargo hold was. The two of them went down and discovered countless salt-covered corpses standing there.

The hundreds of corpses were covered in salt scabs, which created a sight that was both spectacular and terrifying. The corpses were of varying shapes and sizes, and ranged from men, women, children, and old people. Their eyeballs had withered away due to dehydration, and the empty sockets were looking down at the ground, which was very creepy.

There weren’t any lights in the cargo hold, and all the windows had been sealed shut from the inside, preventing any external light from coming in. There was only one light source they could make out, which was coming from the deepest part of the cargo hold where a door had been set in a partition. The door was open, revealing an orange-colored light that was very bright and warm.

The two of them walked through the pile of corpses and went towards the partition, where they saw a man with a significantly different military uniform and rank.

He was wearing a mask and gloves, and injecting something into a corpse. Zhang Haixia covered Zhang Haiyan’s mouth and whispered very quietly, “The smell is very pungent. I don't know what kind of concoction it is. What is he doing?”

Zhang Haiyan pushed Haixia’s hand away and also whispered quietly, “Ask him directly.” Just as he was about to move forward, however, he heard the phone ring.

The officer picked it up and took off his mask, revealing a very young and handsome face. He listened to the person on the other end of the phone for a while before saying in Mandarin, “No one can swim here from Flower Reef. If they can, they must be working for Zhang Qishan, which means you won’t be able to find them like this. Get the submachine guns out.” The phone call seemed to be from the people on deck.

Zhang Qishan?

Zhang Haiyan was stunned, but didn’t hesitate. Whenever someone answered the phone, they were at their second most vulnerable.

He immediately burst into the compartment and rushed in, but the officer suddenly turned his head just as Zhang Haiyan was about to subdue him. The officer drew his pistol and aimed a shot at Zhang Haiyan’s head. A loud bang sounded, but Zhang Haiyan reacted very quickly and leaned his head to the side to avoid it.

The scorching bullet grazed his face, causing him to break out in cold sweat. It wasn’t the bullet that made him sweat, but the fact that the officer didn’t hesitate. Based on his actions, it appeared he had been prepared and waiting for Zhang Haiyan to attack.

It was in that moment that Zhang Haiyan realized he had underestimated the enemy. He didn’t know how long it had been since he had been in this kind of situation, but at that moment, the mentality of underestimating the enemy made him feel a deep fear.

The source of his fear didn’t come from the enemy, but from how his godmother had taught him before. She would always give out the most terrible punishments for underestimating the enemy, because for their clan, doing such a thing was an absolutely unforgivable mistake. Yet he had still forgotten that ten years after he had left.

While Zhang Haiyan was dodging the bullet, he reflexively shot the blade out of his mouth. It penetrated the officer’s mouth and went through the back of his head in an explosion of blood. The officer stumbled and fell to the ground.

Zhang Haiyan knew he hadn’t controlled his strength well. He immediately supported the officer’s neck with his hands, kicked the gun away, and asked, “Who are you guys?”

The officer’s mouth was full of blood, and he looked at Zhang Haiyan with pain in his eyes. When he tried to push Zhang Haiyan's hands away, Zhang Haiyan said, “If I let go, you’ll die. Tell me the truth, and I’ll sew the wound up for you. In the future, you’ll just have to go to the toilet several times at night. Everything else will be fine.”

The officer’s eyes fluttered. He kept looking at a cabinet on one side of the room that was full of formalin bottles and drawers. Zhang Haixia leisurely walked in, closed the door, and started looking through the drawers, which were full of documents.

The officer's blood was flowing all over the floor, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head as if he was about to go into shock. Zhang Haiyan had no choice but to let go.

Zhang Haixia found a stack of documents from the cabinet and flipped through them. “The soldiers above will come down soon. You'd better prepare for that. One more thing. Look at this. I know what they’re looking for.” He tore one of the documents out and showed it to Zhang Haiyan. The words written on it were “Research on the Ming Dynasty Plague Ship in the South China Sea”.

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TN Notes:

(1) It’s a raised platform on a ship or submarine, often armored, from which an officer in charge can conn the vessel, controlling movements of the ship by giving orders to those responsible for the ship's engine, rudder, lines, and ground tackle.

(2) It’s a bulbous bow (aka a protruding bulb at the bow of a ship just below the waterline). The bulb modifies the way the water flows around the hull, reducing drag and thus increasing speed, range, fuel efficiency, and stability. Looks like this: