Daomu Biji: The Southern Archives

Zhang Haixia’s corpse sat silently in the Dong’s living room. He was no longer alive. His life had broken away from the world and was heading towards reincarnation.

Zhang Haiqi wiped the paint from her hands and came to stand in front of Zhang Haixia. She squatted down and touched his cheek. He looked as if he was merely sleeping.

Time. She couldn’t count the number of times she had sent her children off.

“Let’s go home, Shrimp,” she whispered to Zhang Haixia.

This child had been quiet and obedient since he was little. Other than spoiling Zhang Haiyan, he had never caused any troubles. He always looked at Zhang Haiqi’s eyes during class or when he was about to fall asleep. He never fought to be her favorite child. He only observed and recognized what his mother needed.

The flowers by the bed had never withered and the children she brought with her had never been lost. The neighbors had never complained and they had never burnt food.

When Zhang Haixia was around, everything worked precisely like clockwork.

Zhang Haixia was afraid of losing that kind of peace and happiness, so he guarded everything firmly.

Zhang Haiqi placed her forehead against his. Her child’s forehead was as cold as a northern winter and not at all warm like a Xiamen summer.

She picked Zhang Haixia up and walked towards the backyard. She buried him in the cemetery amidst the numerous tombstones. Each one was another farewell. There were countless times when she thought she had gotten used to it.

Truth was, she never liked this kind of moment, no matter how long she had lived.

Zhang Haiqi stood in the cemetery for a long time that night, listening as the wind blew past the tombstones. It almost sounded like people were crying all around her.

When Zhang Haiyan woke up, he was lying naked and face down on a bed.

He tried to think about what happened earlier. Most people’s imaginations would run wild if they were in his position, but he immediately thought of Zhang Haiqi.

“Mother.” He muttered to himself in a daze. He saw Zhang Haiqi reading the newspaper on the sofa opposite the bed, ignoring him.

Zhang Haiyan felt pain on his back and arms, but when he looked back, he found that there was nothing there.

“Mother, what happened to me? What did you do to me?” With that said, he pulled the nearby blanket over to cover himself.

“I helped re-treat the wounds on your back,” Zhang Haiqi said.

Zhang Haiyan had just breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the door was open and a servant was bringing breakfast in. Since Zhang Haiqi wasn’t wearing a human skin mask, Zhang Haiyan reflexively wanted to spit out a blade, but he found that there weren’t any blades in his mouth.

The servant left quickly, and Zhang Haiqi said, “Stop it. I can use both mine and Miss Dong’s faces here. I’m Miss Dong’s friend now.”

Zhang Haiyan wrapped himself in a bedsheet and got out of the bed to look for his clothes. There was a set of pajamas by the bed, so he hid in the corner to put them on and then said, “Mother, what’s going on? How can you be Miss Dong? Why didn’t you reunite with me on the ship? Are all the things you’ve told me yesterday true?”

Zhang Haiqi flipped through the newspaper. “If I’m not Miss Dong, do you think it’s possible for me to be Mrs. Dong? How could I be sure you didn’t become a traitor like Zhang Ruipu while you were in Malacca? You were mixed up with his people, so I highly suspected that you had become disloyal. Of course I had to observe you for a while.”

“You have so little confidence in me. Would I really be disloyal to you, my mother?” Zhang Haiyan said.

“Of course I wouldn’t have confidence in you when you show up alone.” Zhang Haiqi put down the newspaper.

Zhang Haiyan’s eyes dimmed, “I didn’t get to save Haixia.”

“That’s enough. Eat.” Zhang Haiqi sat at the dining table. “Didn’t I tell you a story when you were little? I told you that it’s essential to look at how things will turn out in the long run. Do you still remember that?”

Zhang Haiyan shook his head. He was familiar with his godmother’s routine. When she usually said something like this, she must've never told the story before, and would make it up on the spot.

“You’ll eventually die in a hundred years. Long-term regrets and repeated sorrows don’t mean much to later generations. Those things will ultimately disappear, so you can get over them now. You just need to know that nothing can change the fact that the two of you once existed at the same time and in the same space,” Zhang Haiqi said.

Zhang Haiyan thought for a while. As usual, he didn’t understand her words whenever she said something for the first time. Zhang Haiqi handed him a stack of materials. “Give yourself a deadline to be sad. During this period of time, you can be as sad as you want. But after that, you’ll have to get down to business.”

Zhang Haiyan looked through the materials. They contained the same information about Zhang Ruipu that he had read yesterday, but there was also information about Mo Yungao. There were even photos of him wearing a military uniform, which made him look like a very capable person. The words “the platoon leader of the Southwest Phnom Penh (1) Army” were written in the materials.

“This is before he got promoted. He was quickly promoted to division commander and took control of Beihai later. Now he is a warlord under the jurisdiction of the coalition military government, but he still autonomously controls the army. His relationship with the government is very delicate.”

“So what you said yesterday is true?” Zhang Haiyan still didn’t believe her.

“Do you think I look any older?” Zhang Haiqi retorted.

Zhang Haiyan took a closer look. Not only did Zhang Haiqi not grow old, but she also looked younger for some reason. Maybe it was because she never went outside when she was on the ship?

But such a thing was impossible. She had been out and about for so long that there was no way there wouldn’t be any signs of her aging.

“You’re over a hundred years old?” That would put her at like a great-grandmother’s age. He didn’t believe her one bit.

Zhang Haiqi obviously didn’t expect him to believe her, so she didn’t bother explaining it. “It’s fine. You’ll believe it someday.”

“If the Zhang family is so powerful, wouldn’t they send people from other archives to seek revenge after the South Sea Archives was wiped out?”

“We haven’t been able to contact the Zhang family in two years,” Zhang Haiqi said. “But there have been several times in history when we’ve only contacted each other again after more than ten years. The Zhang family will enter a state of silence from time to time. You can’t count on them.”

“Argh, the bosses are really capricious.” Zhang Haiyan ate some bread, feeling uncomfortable eating without blades in his mouth. “For me, Mother is the South Sea Archives, so you’re the boss. What are you planning to do, Mother? Should we avenge Haixia?”

“Mo Yungao has been managing his forces in Beihai for many years. The way he does things is very mature. He isn’t like ordinary warlords who just want to collect taxes for a few years and then leave after occupying a place. That’s why the coalition military government is so focused on appeasement and won’t specifically stimulate him. Since there’s only the two of us, it’ll be very difficult for us to deal with a city full of soldiers. Besides, there are many ethnic minority masters around him,” Zhang Haiqi said. “But he spread the plague in the South Sea, so no matter how I look at it, I feel like he’s doing some experiments. What he really wants to do hasn’t been revealed yet, but I’m worried he’ll—”

“You’re worried he’ll spread the plague in China?”

Zhang Haiqi nodded. “His purpose is unknown, but this Mo Yungao is behaving pervertedly. If we don’t investigate this matter, I’m afraid it won’t be a simple matter of revenge.”

“When we reported the Flower Reef case to the top, didn’t the Archives continue investigating it at the time?” Zhang Haiyan had been thinking about this question for a long time.

Zhang Haiqi looked out the window. “The Zhang family shut the case down.”

“Why?” Since the Zhang Family monitors strange occurrences, why stop investigating such a strange thing? This northeastern gang is too willful.

Zhang Haiqi didn’t speak. She actually knew that there was only one possibility for the Zhang family’s interference with the investigation: the case was shut down because it had something to do with the Zhang family’s patriarch.

“We have to rebuild the Archives and get rid of Mo Yungao. He already knows of the South Sea Archives’ existence, so logically, he can’t be left alive anyways. But the two of us aren’t strong enough right now. We must go to Changsha first and find someone to help us.”

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TN Notes:

(1) Phnom Penh is the capital and most populous city in Cambodia. Wiki link here.

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Tiffany’s Notes: The part where Zhang Haiqi described what Haixia was like when he was a child hit me right in the feels. (Ｔ▽Ｔ)

And I wonder who they can possibly look for in Changsha…( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)