Daomu Biji: The Southern Archives

Zhang Haiyan didn’t expect things to go so smoothly.

He thought Miss Dong would at least check it before giving him any kind of response. She had probably already known some of the information, which was why she had reacted so quickly.

When he went to the ballroom and saw that the preparations were already under way, he couldn’t help thinking that Miss Dong’s orders were very efficient.

He looked at his watch. The ball would begin this afternoon. All the posters had already been put up and the first-class guests could attend the ball for free.

The most conspicuous spot on the posters read: Miss Dong will personally award the best dressed at the ball.

Miss Dong.

Her image on the poster had been replaced with a black silhouette. Since no one knew what she looked like, it made her seem especially mysterious.

The ballroom was actually the restaurant, so there were booths upstairs, a dance floor downstairs, and a lot of dining tables placed all around. There was even a singing stage and a place for a band to sit on the side. Zhang Haiyan carefully looked at the structure and realized that this place only had two exits, which wasn’t suitable for their meeting.

Miss Dong would be surrounded by those gunmen. If he approached her rashly and didn’t handle the situation well, she might use this opportunity to arrest him or even have him killed immediately.

I have to think of a particularly ingenious way for me to communicate with Miss Dong on even ground. It’s best if we can be alone.

Zhang Haiyan was a killer, so he thought the whole thing was similar to plotting a murder.

The second floor of the restaurant here was directly connected to the fourth floor of the first-class cabin, so it would only take Miss Dong about a minute to reach the ballroom after leaving her room. The possibility of her being ambushed on the way was very slim, so if the killers wanted to do something, they had to do it in the ballroom.

He couldn’t pretend to be a crew member, service staff, or some other guest from the first-class cabin since Warner’s gunmen on the fourth floor would stop those kinds of people. In addition to that, the second floor was full of booths, so those people could only enter from the dance floor on the first floor. The whole setup was just like a jar. If there were any accidents, they wouldn’t be able to get out.

His best chance was when she came down to dance. But this was something that everyone would think of. Whether she came down to dance or not, he wasn’t even sure if she would dance with him since he was pretending to be Steven.

He needed an accident that would plunge the entire ball into chaos. When that happened, he could go up to Miss Dong and look for a chance to be alone with her.

He thought it over for a while and finally had a flash of inspiration.

The plague.

Zhang Haiyan had walked up and down the stairs twice, when he suddenly saw a girl walking past him. The way she walked was familiar. He took a closer look and realized that she was one of the killers from that time.

He didn’t know why, but when he saw her walking, he felt a sense of fear surge up in his heart. It had nothing to do with the murder that was about to take place, but felt more like a different kind of fear that he didn't understand.

Why didn’t he care that this girl was a killer? Why did he care more about the way she walked instead?

This sudden thought made Zhang Haiyan very anxious as he looked at the girl’s back. He wanted to go up and push her into a corner so that he could study her carefully in order to figure out what he was so afraid of.

But he held himself back.

He quickly left the ballroom and returned to his room, where he found the poison gas cylinders that he had emptied. There was only one of them that still had a little gas left in it, so he put it in his bag.

Zhang Haiyan entered the ballroom early that afternoon and put the bag on his seat. The ball had started about half an hour ago, and the relaxing music in the beginning had changed into a more joyous and cheerful melody.

He had been to upper class balls before. The foreign ladies were flamboyant as they looked for dance partners among all kinds of well-dressed men. There were some rich Chinese people, but they rarely danced. In principle, no matter how rich the Chinese were, it was more difficult for them to find a dance partner on this occasion.

People were showing up one right after another, and the corridor leading to the ballroom was packed. Many people were watching the sea and chatting while they waited for the fireworks that would be set off from both sides of the ship at the climax of the ball.

The environment was very complicated and he was feeling a great deal of pressure. He habitually turned his head again and saw a beautiful young woman behind him.

She walked over when he smiled at her. Zhang Haiyan nodded, and the two of them started to dance. It was Zhang Haiyan’s first dance of the night.

While spinning on the dance floor, Zhang Haiyan looked at the second floor from time to time.

The young woman laughed, “Sir, are you curious about the mysterious Miss Dong? I heard that all the men from the first-class cabin are talking about her.”

“Yes. It’s said that no one has seen this Miss Dong, and her bodyguards take things very seriously. She must be really ugly if she’s so afraid of meeting people,” Zhang Haiyan said in fluent English.

The young woman laughed again, “In your men’s eyes, are women only ugly and beautiful?”

“Then maybe she’s extremely beautiful, but she’s so proud that she feels like her face can’t be easily shown, which is also very annoying.”

It didn’t matter what he said. At that moment, there was a commotion in the ballroom, which immediately drew Zhang Haiyan’s attention. He turned his head and saw a beautiful but indifferent Chinese woman appearing on the stairs to the second floor.

Ms. Dong was wearing a satin cheongsam, and her shoulders were covered with a small gold silk openwork shawl (1). She looked very gorgeous. The close-fitting skirt showed her good figure, and the legs where the skirt didn’t cover were straight and slender. Her expression was cold and majestic as her eyes swept across the entire ballroom indifferently. Her aura was so strong that many people looked up at her for a while.

****

TN Notes:

(1) It’s a kind of shawl that looks like this (could maybe loosely be considered a vest):