Daomu Biji: The Southern Archives

Zhang Haiyan’s attack lasted for seven minutes. Based on his previous experience, the battle should have been over in an instant, but he didn’t expect that the two assassins were able to ward him off. Even though it was absolutely clear that Zhang Haiyan had the upper hand, the two killers didn’t panic at all.

For ordinary people, two fists, two feet, two elbows, and two knees were just a few of the parts that could be used to kill their opponents. But Zhang Haiyan also had blades under his tongue.

When Zhang Haiyan completely focused on attacking, he was like an animal. Not only would the blades suddenly shoot out from his mouth, but they would also slash the opponents’ throats and wrists. It was impossible to fight him using ordinary people’s reaction speed. But seven minutes later, the two killers already had more than a dozen injuries and still weren't panicking.

Because he had inhaled the poison gas, Zhang Haiyan’s attack soon came to a halt. His lungs started to burn, and his movements gradually slowed down. The two assassins finally found a chance and threw their daggers. As soon as Zhang Haiyan dodged, the two immediately rushed out of the corridor, ran to the restaurant, and started clapping their hands.

Zhang Haiyan chased after them. There were numerous doors to the restaurant, so the two killers had quickly separated and rushed into the darkness.

Zhang Haiyan picked one of them and moved to give chase, but his lungs suddenly hurt and he knelt down. He took a few deep breaths, coughed a few times, and instantly calmed down.

His opponents were too well-organized.

I shouldn’t chase them. Since they clapped their hands just now, there may be a second trap. Moreover, I've been exposed and my internal organs are hurt.

Zhang Haiyan immediately returned and helped He Jianxi up. He Jianxi leaned against the wall, looked at the policemen’s bodies, and started to throw up.

“You really went and reported me, cousin,” Zhang Haiyan said.

“They found me when they were patrolling. Stowaways are going to be incarcerated. I don’t want to be incriminated because of you. I’m going to San Francisco. I don’t have the money to buy another ticket.”

“You should realize that you are the stowaway on this ship. I have a ticket.” Zhang Haiyan pulled the ticket stub from his pocket and looked down at the policemen’s bodies. They had all been killed in an instant. “You had no intention of killing them, but they died because of you.”

He Jianxi was obviously shocked and sad, and didn’t know what else to say.

“What happened on this ship?” He Jianxi asked him. “What the hell is going on? Who are you?”

“I already said that I would tell you. These people might be pirates. We have to put aside our personal grievances for now. Otherwise, the money on the ship will be stolen, and the women will be ruined.”

“The women won’t be ruined,” He Jianxi said. "Those people were women."

“Women?” Zhang Haiyan froze for a second. The fight was so intense just now that he didn’t even notice.

“I can tell that they’re women by their smell.”

Zhang Haiyan clutched his chest as he looked at He Jianxi and asked, “What do women smell like?” He had no idea what kind of life people with a good sense of smell were living every day. 

He Jianxi stayed silent as he watched Zhang Haiyan pick up the gas mask and drag the policemen’s bodies into the infirmary.

“If they’re pirates, we have to warn the people on the ship. What are you doing?”

“Keep dreaming, cousin.” Zhang Haiyan said. “We may die before we get the chance to warn anybody.”

He Jianxi was shocked. He pulled himself up, stood against the wall, and took a deep breath.

Zhang Haiyan put the bodies down and stood right outside the infirmary, watching the poison gas dissipate. He could tell that it was a trap as soon as he saw the sailor’s corpse. The people who set up this trap knew about his relationship with Zhang Ruipu’s sailor, and had their eyes on him ever since he stepped foot on the ship to investigate the plague.

If it hadn’t been for the fact that Steven wanted to kill him, which resulted in him jumping into the sea to escape, then he would’ve been anxious to go to the infirmary before the ship set off. He could’ve been dead by now. The gods had blessed him by having Steven interrupt his investigation. As a result, he was nearly two days late when he reached the trap those people had set up for him.

This was a difference between heaven and earth. The assassins knew that he would fall for the trap at that time and were ready. But after he jumped into the sea, the assassins waited for a long time and didn’t see him. The situation became one where they didn’t know when the prey would show up.

They had been hyper-aware during the initial situation, but would start to lose focus and gradually slack off during the latter situation.

The biggest difference was that when he returned to the ship, he brought back stubborn He Jixani who insisted on reporting him. 

If this series of coincidences didn’t occur, he would be dead right now.

But what surprised him the most was that all the ship’s doctors were dead.

During his previous investigation, he suspected that three of the ship’s doctors were spreading the plague. But now these people were all dead. In other words, in addition to the ship’s doctors, there were people on the ship who also participated in spreading the plague. These people had very strong combat skills and were very ruthless. It was possible the ship’s doctors may have just been taken advantage of, but either way, they had all been killed.

As the poisonous gas in the infirmary gradually dissipated, he put on the gas mask and told He Jianxi not to go in. He then went in himself and opened one of the ship doctor’s mouths, which had a gas cylinder stuffed inside. The cylinder’s pin had been punched through the back of the corpse’s head and was connected to a steel wire that led from the foot of the chair to the door.

When he first came in, the people outside pulled the steel wire, and the poison gas poured out of the corpses’ mouths.

He reached a hand into the corpse’s throat and pulled the gas cylinder out. There were German words written on it, and he could tell that it was military-grade poison gas produced in Germany.

He looked at the gas cylinders and thought for a while before he finally had a flash of inspiration. He started searching everywhere and finally found a lot of these gas cylinders in the room's medicine cabinets. There were fifty or sixty of them, and they had all been placed in various corner cabinets.

Zhang Haiyan understood what was going on.

When he walked out of the infirmary carrying the gas cylinder, He Jianxi asked, “Tell me, can I still go to San Francisco?”

Zhang Haiyan showed him the gas cylinder. “This is a military-grade gas cylinder. It’s very difficult to come by and is worth a lot of money.”

If the murderers noticed him investigating the plague on the ship and wanted to kill him, then they would shoot him or poison his food at most. Why would they use professional gas cylinders?

He could tell that these had been specially prepared in advance. It meant that the murderers targeted him and wanted to kill him from the beginning because they knew he had excellent skills. That was why they had planned to kill him like this.

But why? Zhang Haiyan couldn’t figure it out. He hadn’t been thinking in that direction at all. Could it be that Zhang Ruipu and the other party agreed to kill him? But if it was the case, Zhang Ruipu could have killed him before he got on the ship.

If it wasn’t Zhang Ruipu, then—

When Zhang Haiyan saw that there were more gas cylinders in the cabinets, he had a sudden epiphany and finally understood the logic behind everything.

What if he wasn’t the only person that the killers were after?

What if the killers wanted to kill all of those who were investigating the plague on the Nan’an?

If so, the obvious clue he had found wasn’t accidentally left by the murderers. Instead, it was a honey-coated thread that was deliberately placed (Nepenthes secrete a sweet thread in order to hunt insects. Ants will follow this thread and enter the Nepenthes’ cage).

So those who investigated the plague would eventually board the Nan’an, find this clue, and then enter their poison gas trap.

If that were true, then he had an even more terrifying thought.

He ignored He Jianxi and the corpses and said, “Find a place to hide.”

He rushed all the way to the sailors’ duty room that was opposite his room. The sailors inside had already gone out to patrol the buildings, so he found the list of their names and began to flip through it.

Song Chai. Song Chai. Song Chai.

He found the name Song Chai. There was a note saying that he was of Chinese and Vietnamese descent. His Chinese name was Zhang Haiyun.

This was the naming rule the Southern Archives used. Their last name was Zhang and the character in the middle was “hai”. The last character would come from a poem.

The Nan’an was a Nepenthes! Song Chai had been warning the spies who showed up after him that the entire plague incident was a Nepenthes thread used to lure the spies sent by the Southern Archives and hunt them down.