Daomu Biji: The Southern Archives

A few events will be briefly mentioned here. In fact, many things had happened in Xiamen. There were still some interactions between Zhang Haiyan, Zhang Haiqi, and He Jianxi, but these incidents will be skipped.

After Zhang Haiyan and Zhang Haiqi rested for a while, they set off immediately.

For Zhang Haiyan, reuniting with Zhang Haiqi was like a dream that ignited a new hope in his heart.

The train to Changsha was traveling through the southeastern mountainous areas in rainy weather. Even though vast mountains were covered in mist and the inside of the carriages felt cold and humid, Zhang Haiyan felt a warmth in his heart.

He looked outside the window, watching the frequent rain bursts and lightning strikes as he thought of Zhang Haixia. He had always assumed that Haixia would’ve been here with them.

Both Zhang Haiyan and Zhang Haiqi’s feelings were complicated, so neither spoke.

Zhang Haiyan carefully considered how he should interact with Zhang Haiqi. The easiest way to communicate normally was to talk about work. When he first saw her again, he was surprised and had too many questions, so the communication had initially been very smooth.

But once they had settled down, he realized that their relationship was a little distant. The mother and son hadn’t seen each other for many years and it had been a long time since they lived together. His mother was the type of person who wasn’t nostalgic and was unwilling to talk about family life. It wasn’t easy for Zhang Haiyan to get along with her well.

If it were other people, Zhang Haiyan would normally go with the flow and not worry about it. But he couldn’t do that when it came to Zhang Haiqi.

When they were little, every child who faced Zhang Haiqi wanted her love and attention. They would all use different approaches, but Zhang Haiyan was the one who was responsible for not letting the situation become awkward.

Zhang Haiqi had been reading over the materials again. The person they were going to visit this time was called Zhang Qishan.

Zhang Qishan was the head of the Mystic Nine, which referred to the nine tomb robbing families in Changsha (the Mystic Nine’s specific background is very complicated, so there’s no need to know much about them here). Zhang Qishan was also Changsha’s defense officer. Not long after he took office, the Japanese activities in the southwest ramped up, so his transfer must've been related to confining the Japanese spies’ activities.

They weren’t looking for him because Zhang Haiqi knew him personally, but because Zhang Haiyan had recorded in the Flower Reef case report that the lieutenant had mentioned him. This was what had prompted Zhang Haiqi to investigate Zhang Qishan and learn something about him.

At that time, everyone already knew the name “Zhang Da Fo Ye”. But for Zhang Haiqi, a person whose surname was Zhang and had the word “shan” (1) in their name was someone she would definitely pay attention to in other aspects.

But Changsha was full of Zhang Qishan’s informants, and all the spies who went there to investigate were all tied up and sent out of the city the very next day. After this had happened twice, Zhang Haiqi received the Ningxiang’s specialty Weishan Maojian tea that was sent from Changsha to the Dong residence. There was a note saying: I won’t allow it to happen a third time.

As a result, she had stopped investigating him. Zhang Haiqi didn’t know how Zhang Qishan had learned of her existence, but it was kind of futile to conduct more investigations on him since he was the incumbent defense officer and someone who the criminals in the Flower Reef case were wary of. Plus, she might ruin whatever he had planned by doing so. As a result, she also sent a gift back to him that consisted of candied olives from Xiamen.

Her going to Changsha to visit him showed that she was desperate. If she had guessed right, then Zhang Qishan must have also been related to the Zhang family.

But if the other party really was related to the Zhang family, then their generation name must have been “shan”.

“There are a thousand years between the mountain and the sea. They are related, but they must not see each other.”

In the Zhang family’s proverb, the mountain and the sea were two groups of people who could never meet each other for the rest of their lives. When the mountain and the sea met each other, it meant that the Zhang family was certainly going extinct. This was a saying that she had heard a long time ago.

She didn’t know what unpredictable consequences would occur if she met Zhang Qishan. In fact, she was far away from the core force of the Zhang family and had lost power as one of the few people with the generation name “hai”. She didn’t understand much about the Zhang family, so she was both nervous and a little expectant about their meeting this time.

Meanwhile, He Jianxi had already stayed in a small hotel by the dock for three days. He watched people coming and going every day and quietly settled down. He eventually decided to stay in Xiamen.

He didn’t want to wander around anymore, but Xiamen’s development had far exceeded his expectations. An accountant like him wasn’t uncommon in concession regions, so it wasn’t easy for him to find a job. Moreover, foreign banks in Xiamen didn’t particularly trust Chinese people to be their accountants.

His money could last him for a while, but the prices in concession regions like Xiamen were very high. If he returned to his hometown, he knew that he could only do physical labor instead of something he was good at, which made him a little anxious.

As he spent the money, he habitually began to sort it so that he could count it and see how much he had left. That was when he saw the sketches on the money again.

At this time, he was surprised to find that the sketch of the plague god with blades in his mouth was Zhang Haiyan.

He had put these two things together a long time ago, but the things that had happened on the ship were so tragic that he only reacted now.

He felt strange all of a sudden. Why did this happen?Could it be that the person who prevented me from being beaten up knew the plague god?

He Jianxi thought about it carefully afterwards. He was grateful for what Zhang Haiyan had done. If it weren’t for Zhang Haiyan, he might’ve died a long time ago and wouldn’t have been alive to complain to him about what had happened. But Zhang Haixia was actually the first person to save him, because the money he had received from him may have been the key to his boss not killing him.

This seemed to indicate that He Jianxi might not have recognized Zhang Haixia’s body since the details of a corpse were so different from the demeanor of the living. But none of that mattered now.

He Jianxi thought of Zhang Haixia’s eyes at that time.

What does this sketch mean? Did he draw this randomly? Did he draw his friend’s face?

He Jianxi began to look at all the money carefully and soon found that there were sketches on almost all of it. It looked like Zhang Haixia had drawn it all in haste, so the sketches weren’t as obvious as the one of the plague god. There were even English words on one of the sketches that read: Pls deliver letters.

He Jianxi sat up and realized that this was the information the man in the wheelchair wanted him to help deliver. But deliver to whom? Deliver them to the plague god?

He looked at the money and saw that the pictures were all different. Some had English words, while others only had patterns. He found one that had a lot of English words on it that read: Killers are not ordinary people.

Killers are not ordinary people.

What does this mean?

Did he mean those killers?

For He Jianxi, anyone who was able to kill people was definitely not an ordinary person.

There was also a picture beside the words on the money. It was a child with an adult on his back, and there was a bigger person on the adult’s back. A strange face had been drawn on the child’s hand. No, it was actually a human face in the child’s palm.

Children carrying adults? Adults carrying giants on their backs? Or is it a small person carrying an adult, and a very small person carrying a small person. What kind of symbol is this?

What is the human face on the hand supposed to mean?

He Jianxi was puzzled. He thought for a while and then started copying all the patterns that were on the money. He was going to find Zhang Haiyan.

The money he received from Zhang Haixia wasn’t charity but a delivery fee, so he had to be sure to give the letters to Zhang Haiyan.

In this way, He Jianxi opened the riddle box Zhang Haixia had left before he died. No one knew how rich the information inside this box was. He Jianxi had just started to analyze and guess what it was, but the information he analyzed would change the course of this story many days later.

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TN Notes:

(1) “Shan” means “mountain”. “Hai” means “sea” in Chinese.