Daomu Biji: The Southern Archives

The human skin mask that Miss Dong looked at was obviously much older than the other human skin masks. It had started to turn black in the glass cabinet and had cracks all over it. There was a very simple ancient tattoo on it that was monochromatic.

“This mask has several thousand years’ worth of history. Everyone in the Zhang family has tattoos, but the locations vary. This family has been around for many generations,” Miss Dong said. “They established the Western Archives more than a thousand years ago to investigate strange events that took place in Tibet and established archives everywhere after that. The South Sea Archives was the last one established and has only been around for sixty years.”

“Why is the Zhang family in so many people’s business? Wouldn’t Empress Dowager Cixi stop them? (1) Is there no farm work in the northeast villages or something?” Zhang Haiyan asked.

“No one knows why the Zhang family does these things. Some people say that they have something to do with grave robbing. Since they go tomb robbing all year round, they need to know about the legends and news surrounding the tombs. That’s why they set up the archives. In the beginning, the people in the archives were all from the main branch of the Zhang family. But ever since the last century, the number of the people in the Zhang family has decreased. They started to adopt orphans from the remote parts of Southeast Asia,” Miss Dong said.

Zhang Haiyan was silent as Miss Dong kept walking. “In fact, the people like us who work for them only know that there are tons of records sent to the northeast every year. In addition to helping the Zhang family collect information from various places, we also adopt orphans, train them, and then have them hunt down the traitors of the Zhang family. Zhang Ruipu was one such traitor. All of these traitors are difficult to deal with, which I believe you have experience with since you’ve dealt with him.”

It sounds just like a gang, Zhang Haiyan thought to himself. The Zhang family in the northeast is just a northeastern gang. They sound like an organization of hereditary “bandits” with a long history. It’s a bit like Elder Brothers Society (2). There may even be mysterious religious customs, so that’s why the archives were set up everywhere. They’re worshiping Huang-Lao(3)and catching ghosts while recruiting members at the same time.

Zhang Haiyan continued following her, and they soon reached a dark room. Zhang Haiyan glanced at the décor and saw that it was all archive cabinets. They were the same ones that were used by the South Sea Archives.

“This place was originally a part of the South Sea Archives’ expansion plan, but these are the only things left now,” Miss Dong said. She pulled at a white cloth that was in the middle of the room, revealing Zhang Ruipu’s body lying on a table.

Miss Dong hung an incandescent lamp over the corpse and took the corpse's hand before showing it to Zhang Haiyan. He saw that the corpse had three fingers that were very long, and there was a hint of deformity.

“One of the characteristics of the Zhang family is that they have some fingers that are long. Zhang Ruipu had three, so he was considered relatively mediocre among the Zhangs. The fingers are said to be used to break mechanisms when they rob tombs. Their fingers can reach smaller places that way.” With that said, she grabbed a file that was sitting off to the side. “This is Zhang Ruipu’s file.” She flipped through a few pages until she reached a photo.

An official from the Qing dynasty and Zhang Ruipu were both in the photo. “This was taken in the twenty-fourth year of Daoguang (4). Qiying was the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi and the Minister of Trade and Industry. The photo was taken in Macau during Qiying’s negotiation with France (5). This person is Zhang Ruipu, and this person is Qiying.”

Zhang Haiyan could tell that Zhang Ruipu was in his fifties in the picture, and he looked almost the same as he was now. Zhang Haiyan took the photo and compared it with the corpse. The picture was taken almost seventy years ago, so even if Zhang Ruipu was only twenty at that time, he should have been ninety by now. But Zhang Ruipu’s corpse still looked like he was in his fifties.

“Why didn’t he grow old?” Zhang Haiyan asked.

“People in the Zhang family almost never grow old.” Miss Dong took off Zhang Ruipu’s clothes, grabbed a bottle of brandy from nearby, soaked the clothes in the alcohol, and then lit them on fire. She put them on the corpse’s shoulder and patted them more than a dozen times before the fire went out. Zhang Haiyan saw a Qilin tattoo appear on Zhang Ruipu’s body.

Miss Dong then turned a page in the file, revealing a sketch of a Qilin tattoo.

“They all have tattoos on their bodies that are made from a special mixture of herbal medicine and poultry blood. The tattoos will only appear when the body temperature rises. Since everyone’s tattoos are different, this is the rubbing of his tattoo to verify that he is indeed Zhang Ruipu from the Zhang family.”

When Miss Dong held the document up to Zhang Ruipu’s body, Zhang Haiyan realized that the details of the tattoo were exactly the same as those in the document. The person in the picture was really the same person that was lying right before his eyes.

“You mean to say people in the Zhang family are immortal? It’s… a group of monsters?”

“There are rumors that they rob ancient tombs and set up archives to find the immortality elixir in ancient tombs,” Miss Dong said. “They’re all rumors, of course. It isn’t a good thing to be immortal. What’s the point of living if everyone you care about is dead?”

Zhang Haiyan remained silent. If he had heard this before he got on the Na’an, he might have been extremely excited, thinking that his superiors were a group of gods and he was their apprentice. But he only learned that people were able to be immortals after Zhang Haixia was dead, so now he had doubts and found the whole thing ridiculous.

What’s so good about being immortal? Zhang Ruipu was immortal and he ended up dead anyway.

“There aren’t any immortals in the world,” Zhang Haiyan said. “I’ve seen many sorcerers in the South Sea. They all said that they had survived the Portuguese era (6) and wouldn’t die even if they were buried in the ground. But after they were buried, I didn’t see them come out of the ground at all. The rice grew very well, though. There’s a possibility that this photo is forged.”

Miss Dong flipped through the file. All the photos were taken during the negotiation that Qiying conducted at that time. Zhang Ruipu was circled with a red pen in each photo. “Zhang Ruipu participated in this negotiation and obtained the exclusive right to manage all the rubber businesses. These photos are all from the French archives at that time. They wouldn’t help him deceive people.”

Zhang Haiyan shook his head. He wished he could believe these things, but all the mysterious things he had encountered in the South Sea over the years were scams. He had become a realist.

“You have to have more direct evidence,” Zhang Haiyan said. “If it were me, I could make a fake face based on the photo and you wouldn’t even be able to tell.”

Miss Dong smiled, “Of course there’s direct evidence.” With that said, she started walking again.

“Then what do you think?” Zhang Haiyan asked. “If you had to come up with a theory, what do you think the Zhang family set up the South Sea Archives for? Is it really for immortality? Do you really believe that?”

“They’re waiting for something to happen. Something major. I guess they knew more than a thousand years ago that this thing would happen, and have been waiting ever since. They also must have known that there might be various clues in various places before it happened. Those clues were rumored to be incredible events, so they set up archives to monitor the possibility of large-scale unexplainable phenomena.”

This was how Mo Yungao took advantage of the characteristics of the South Sea Archives and spread the plague.

Zhang Haiyan shook his head, but Miss Dong said, “You told me to come up with a theory, and that’s what I did. I already told you that no one really knows what the Zhang family is trying to do.”

“Since the Zhang family is so mysterious, will I be in any danger now that you’ve told me about them?”

Miss Dong didn’t answer.

The two of them continued walking, passing by numerous rooms that were all empty. By the time they reached the end of the passage and saw an iron door, they had gone deep.

Zhang Haiyan suddenly thought of a question and asked, “You said that the both of us are the only people left in the South Sea Archives. Do you know where a person named Zhang Haiqi is?”

“When you were in Malacca, Mo Yungao led troops to raid the archives. No one besides me survived,” Miss Dong said. “She should be dead.”

Zhang Haiyan shook his head again. “Impossible. My godmother is the most formidable woman I’ve ever seen. She wouldn’t die so easily.”

“Isn’t your good friend also dead?” Miss Dong sneered as she looked back at him. “Why would you think that the people you know are those favored by gods?”

Zhang Haiyan felt very uncomfortable. He knew that he would still deny everything, no matter how convincing the things behind the iron door were. This was because he knew that if he believed Miss Dong’s words, then he was really alone in this world.

****

TN Notes:

(1) Empress Dowager Cixi was a Chinese empress dowager and regent who was the de facto supreme ruler of China in the late Qing dynasty for 47 years, from 1861 until her death in 1908. Wiki link here. Basically, Zhang Haiyan thought that the authorities would’ve stopped the Zhang family if they were doing things on such a large scale.

(2) Gelaohui, usually translated as Elder Brothers Society, was a secret society and underground resistance movement against the Qing Dynasty. Every member allegedly carried a small hatchet inside their sleeve. Wiki link here.

(3) Huang–Lao was the most influential Chinese school of thought in the early 2nd-century BCE Han dynasty, having its origins in a broader political-philosophical drive looking for solutions to strengthen the feudal order as depicted in Zhou propaganda. It is generally interpreted as a school of syncretism, developing into a major religion – the beginnings of religious Taoism. Wiki link here.

(4) The 24th year of Daoguang = 1844 AD.

(5) Keying, also known by his Chinese name Qiying, was a Manchu statesman during the Qing dynasty of China. He concluded the Treaty of Whampoa (1844) with France. Wiki link here.

(6) Portuguese India Afonso de Albuquerque conquered the city of Malacca in 1511. Wiki link here.