Daomu Biji: The Southern Archives

When Zhang Qishan returned, the Flower Reef case was closed.

Mo Yungao was on the verge of death when he met an extraordinary person. This person didn’t seem ordinary and even used his own blood to save Mo Yungao.

Afterwards, Mo Yungao set up his headquarters in Beihai and life went on. The years passed by, but he still couldn’t forget about that extraordinary man.

At that time, he asked the extraordinary man if his remarkable abilities were congenital or acquired. When the young man told him they were acquired, Mo Yungao felt that it was unfair. After he gained power, he had obtained many things that he was afraid of losing. As a result, he hoped to meet that extraordinary man again and ask how he had acquired those abilities. It was for this reason that he spread the plague and did whatever it took to force the extraordinary man to appear again.

In order to obtain the same plague that had broken out that year, he studied various materials and hijacked ships in the South Sea in order to dig up a sunken ship by the reef. In the end, he managed to obtain a strain of the Wudou disease.

But the South Sea Archives obstructed his efforts, so he planned the Nan’an incident to test the spread of the disease and slaughter the Archives’ agents.

Zhang Haiyan and Zhang Haiqi were the lucky survivors, and they obtained evidence of Mo Yungao’s actions on the train that year.

Changsha defense officer Zhang Qishan went to Beihai, took over Mo Yungao’s territory, replaced the soldiers with his own men at lightning speed, and killed the ones Mo Yungao trusted.

After Mo Yungao returned to Beihai from Nanjing, he found that Beihai had undergone a change in leadership. When Zhang Qishan surrounded him at the dock, Mo Yungao fled into the depths of the Guangxi mountains. No one knew what became of him after that.

Mo Yungao was keen on researching nerve gas, which meant that many unnamed corpses were found in his mansion. Several of the corpses were believed to be people from the Zhang family, but their hands were cut off and they were so decomposed that they were unrecognizable.

Now that the story has developed like this, we can breathe a sigh of relief.

Zhang Qishan returned to Changsha, hoping to incorporate Zhang Haiyan and Zhang Haiqi into his defense force and help them rebuild the South Sea Archives. But Zhang Haiyan didn’t feel that he could be a soldier. He couldn’t bear the weight of the real military uniform, so he rejected the job offer. But he did gain a somewhat formal uniform, so he could be considered a law enforcement officer.

They didn’t get to avenge Zhang Haixia since Mo Yungao escaped capture and went deep into the mountains, but there would be a series of follow-up events to wrap it up.

Despite all this, the threat was ultimately lifted. All the plague teams and disease strains were confiscated and burned.

Meanwhile, He Jianxi was looking for Zhang Haiyan in Xiamen. As he was searching, he happened to find Haili Bank and got hired as an assistant there. He was still trying to crack the mystery sketches that Zhang Haixia had left on the money. He Jianxi’s story has just begun, and these sketches play a very important role in the follow-up story.

But I have to emphasize again that this isn’t the time to tell this story.

If this is truly the end of the story, then it’s too perfect. There are always painful moments here and there throughout life.

Zhang Haiqi slept for seven days and seven nights. The military doctor gave Zhang Haiqi nutrient solutions to prevent her from becoming dehydrated. He also told Zhang Haiyan that she was in a deep coma.

Zhang Qishan brought back all the information Mo Yungao had left in Beihai, which was how they discovered what was causing Zhang Haiqi’s condition. But because the records were missing some volumes, they couldn’t identify the specific information they needed. They could only come up with a general guess about what had happened, but there was a chance the facts were more complicated.

It turned out that what they thought was German nerve gas wasn’t produced in Germany at all. They didn’t know where it came from, but it seemed to specifically target the Zhang’s family blood. Mo Yungao only briefly mentioned in the records that he acquired this by accident, and he only found one cylinder of it. They could only figure out what the specific situation was if Mo Yungao was captured.

The way Zhang Haiqi was aging at an alarming rate was just like those mysterious and strange folktales. Based on the military doctors’ estimations, she only had two months to live.

It was difficult to figure out where the Zhang family came from and why they could live so long. Even people from the Zhang family probably didn’t know the truth.

Zhang Qishan reminded Zhang Haiqi and Zang Haiyan that they had lost contact with the Zhang family in the northeast. The only way they could turn this thing around was to find the patriarch, and luckily, they knew where he was.

Zhang Haiqi didn’t want to go to Southern Xinjiang anymore. She had lived a long and wonderful life, and now that she was suddenly facing death, she felt calm and expectant.  

Long-term youth was an endless enjoyment. In fact, longevity wasn’t that disturbing. But when you had lived long enough to see lots of people leave you, you would more or less look forward to the time when you would be able to meet them again on the other side. You wouldn't fear death at all by that point. 

But Zhang Haiyan couldn’t accept it. He had just come to terms with the fact that his godmother would stay young forever, but now this miracle was going to end in two months.

Zhang Haiqi hoped to be buried in a cemetery in Xiamen with those she had sent off. She also hoped that she could help Zhang Haiyan rebuild the South Sea Archives before her death so that he had a place to return to.

Zhang Haiyan was devastated. He had been all alone before he met Zhang Haiqi. Many people had come and gone in his life, but only one or two had a special place in his heart. Now they were drifting away from him like duckweeds. He stared at the Xiang River blankly, unable to understand it all.

At this time, a fortune teller friend of Zhang Qishan’s made a prediction about this matter.

Those familiar with him know that his name is Qi Tiezui.

Qi Tiezui told the two people that the north, east, and west were places of death, and the south was a dangerous place. They should go to Southern Xinjiang. There was no chance of finding resurrection in the places of death, but there was a chance of survival in a dangerous place.

The hexagram said: The old woman blooms. As the fallen leaves meet the spring, the branches come alive. You gain something as you lose something. All the grievances and love return to the sea. The dead branches fall under the tree and roll three times. This journey is full of gains and losses.

This was the most mystical hexagram in Qimen’s Eight Calculations. Qi Tiezui had seen this no more than three times in his life. This hexagram meant that Zhang Haiqi’s best and worst states of her life would reach their peaks at the same time.

If you have an understanding of people, fate, and life, you can probably infer what this kind of state was. But Qi Tiezui also knew that people who could have such a life must not be ordinary. It was like killing the one you loved the most in order to get what you wanted most.

When Qi Tiezui checked Zhang Haiyan’s fortune, all he saw was an unpredictable situation.

Qi Tiezui advised Zhang Haiqi that it was fine is she wanted to die, but she wouldn’t have asked him to make a prediction if she really wanted to. Those who asked for their fortune to be told usually still had a desire to live. She wanted a reason to live no matter what that may be, and since she knew what she was looking for, she should go to Southern Xinjiang. People and things changed, so if she suddenly didn’t want to die, it was best that she was already on her way to trying to save herself.

In the end, Zhang Haiqi agreed to go to Southern Xinjiang with Zhang Haiyan. They made an agreement not to talk about her illness as they made their way there. They would treat it like they were going on a trip. Zhang Haiqi had no choice but to comply.

Southern Xinjiang covered a vast territory and there were hundreds of thousands of mountains, so it wouldn’t be easy to find the patriarch.

If Mo Yungao had to release the plague across the country in order to feel just a glimmer of hope, Zhang Haiyan could only take it one step at a time.

The two prepared enough dry food and money for the journey while Zhang Qishan gave them the customs clearance documents so others could help them along the way. The last two agents of the Southern Archives embarked on the road to find their boss.

At this point, the Flower Reef case was closed and the Southern Xinjiang Potluck case had officially begun.

If we look closely at Qi Tiezui’s hexagram, there are still many oddities that can be analyzed.

How would Mo Yungao, He Jianxi, and everyone else interact with each other under fate’s arrangement?

What was it about the tusi (1), the bride, and the Yi village? What was the real purpose of the mysterious Zhang family? Would they be able to find the patriarch? Why was the truth about Potluck Capital hidden for hundreds of years?

We will slowly watch the events unfold.

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TN Notes:

(1) Tusi, often translated as “headmen” or “chieftains”, were hereditary tribal leaders recognized as imperial officials by the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties of China. Wiki link here.

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Tiffany’s Notes: Mwahahaha, this is the end of Flower Reef Case. It’s okay if you find the last paragraph a bit confusing because the author is just dropping hints here and there about the next story, which is New Years Special 2018. (It’s actually an unfinished story. Can you see the tears running down my face? lol)