Daomu Biji: The Southern Archives

This story is about two people and a corpse.

As usual, I won’t cut to the chase. I’ll start with something minor.

There were thousands of Malay aboriginal tribes scattered in the southern jungles of Perak. These southern jungles covered a wide expanse, including areas around Johor. The vast expanse of primitive rainforests gave birth to several fleeting civilizations.

Among these thousands of tribes, the natives in one tribe had a special tattoo. The extremely complex pattern had lasted for more than two thousand years. Western explorers who did research on tattoos and local customs couldn’t deduce the origin of this pattern. It wasn’t a symbol of productive activity, a mythological story, or an obscure spell or symbol.

In the seventeenth century, a piece of human skin with this tattoo on it was sold to England and accidentally seen by a priest in the Cardinal’s Court. This priest had been a cartographer before he decided to follow God. He was surprised to see the traces of advanced map-drawing skills on this tattoo that had been passed down generation by generation for two thousand years.

That’s right. The tattoo pattern was actually a two-thousand-year-old map that showed the entire archipelago around Borneo before the sea level rose.

At the end of the seventeenth century, research on ice ages appeared in Europe. During the third ice age, the water level was much lower than it was now and the shapes of all the islands at that time were different from the current ones. This information was enough to prove that this map was drawn very early.

In the native language of the local people, this tattoo was called “gonka”. Gonka was actually a psychedelic drug there. After taking it, the native people would rush into the fire and dance in it until they died.

Gonka was highly addictive and most people would commit suicide after taking it for three consecutive years. It was said that if those who tried to kill themselves were saved in the end, this map would appear in their minds. As a result, there was a saying that this picture came from the underworld.

The gonka basically went extinct eight hundred years ago and was rarely seen in the rainforests. Maybe there were still some in the depths of the rainforests, but no one had confirmed it. There were few people who remembered the process for preparing and consuming it. The question of whether they could see this map in a hallucination had also become a mystery that could never be verified.

What made people very concerned was that there was a strange mark on this human skin map.

The person who drew this map two thousand years ago made a mark at a certain location that was in the depths of the rainforests. What was there?

Since the seventeenth century, a total of five expedition teams had entered the rainforests in southern Perak to find this location. Three expedition teams didn’t reach their target destination before the rainy season. The other two teams didn’t reappear after entering the rainforests, so the final result was unknown. After that, people called the location “ghost spot”, and the expeditions stopped ever since.

At the end of the eighteenth century, the western countries rekindled their interest in the gonka map after gonka was re-discovered in western Perak. The Westerners took the gonka powder and saw the map when they were dying. Moreover, it was said that they even saw some images that had never been passed down in the world.

In order to reach the “ghost spot” on the gonka map and verify whether those images were true, gonka rewards were established.

In the end, the rewards were exchanged for two thousand photos. The rewards were then cancelled and these photos were sealed in the archives.

That’s it. Our story has an inextricable link with the gonka rewards.

*****

At the end of the twentieth century, Malacca, Perak.

Zhang Haiyan, who was known as the most despicable man in Southeast Asia's history, was perverted, spoke before thinking, and had no credibility at all.

His famous pet phrase was: I’m so shameless that I can carry a tree on my face and there’s big shit under men’s knees. (1)

He wasn’t like other Chinese people after he went to the South Sea. He didn’t start a family or run a business. He lived in the city, but no one knew what he was doing every day. Sometimes, he didn’t show up for three or four months, but once he did, he often shocked everyone with his actions.

Zhang Haiyan had done countless notorious deeds, but they were all undignified or disgusting. The most infamous incident was him robbing the dung truck. He robbed the dung trucks for six consecutive weeks, but no one knew what his purpose was.

Some said that he was actually very decent in private. Others had seen him looking at the sea from a big tree. China was on the other side of the sea in that direction, but no one knew who he was thinking about.

In physiognomy (2) terms, Zhang Haiyan’s eyebrows were curved like willow leaves, which made him look charming instead of frivolous. His eyes were as deep as bottomless pools, remaining smooth so long as it didn’t rain. If he felt touched, the ripples would go straight to the bottom of the pools.

In layman’s terms, you would see waves of emotions in his eyes, but his eyebrows rose and sank in a way that was provocative. As a result, his face gave off a sinister appearance.

Hua Qingzi, a Chinese fortune teller who built the first Taoist center in the South Sea, said that Zhang Haiyan’s face seemed like he was someone who carried a huge secret but didn’t reveal it.

A Chinese medicine doctor named Lao Ka, who was from Fragrant Herb Hall and lived next to Hua Qingzi, said that Zhang Haiyan’s face showed he had shenkui (3). He thought a lot and was often anxious, which damaged his heart and spleen. This became an illness that inhibited the blood flow in his veins.

This all implied that although he looked handsome, he had a dysfunction down there.

These rumors and criticisms weren’t important anymore because Zhang Haiyan was looking at the onlookers from the execution stage. He was naked and had his butt sticking in the air because his head was stuck in the guillotine. This guillotine had been used for a long time and was actually a soil slope in a market square. It was said that a wooden base guillotine would be built here in a few years.

You’ve guessed it. He was about to die.

The executioner hadn’t arrived yet. According to Zhang Haiyan’s previous experiences of watching people get beheaded, the executioner would arrive about an hour late since the sun was too bright today.

By the time the executioner showed up, most of the prisoners would be dehydrated and exhausted because of the sun. They would all be confused and unaware of what was happening the second before they died, so they wouldn’t make too many desperate moves. The audience would feel bored and leave quickly, which meant that the executioner could head back sooner.

There was a broken basket below him, which his head would fall into after it was chopped off. Without this basket, his head would roll all the way into the crowd.

The guillotine was surrounded by flies. Although the blood sprayed forward and the guillotine would be washed after that, there was always old blood stuck in the cracks of the wooden boards after years of use. It attracted a mass of flies, which were constantly buzzing next to Zhang Haiyan’s ears.

There are lots of flies today. Several people must’ve already been executed this month, Zhang Haiyan thought to himself. He knew why he was here.

Three months ago, some Chinese people were arrested for smuggling foreign wine. The four accomplices were released two weeks later and continued smuggling foreign wine.

Zhang Haiyan knew that they must have shared a cut of the smuggling money with the white people in prison. Later, high-ranking officials somehow learned about this situation and the four people were arrested again. They were to be beheaded, but only three people were actually executed.

It was apparent that one of them had bribed the sheriff. Since it was a gang of four, they simply needed to cut off four heads. It wasn’t like the white people at the top could tell the differences between Chinese faces.

As a result, Zhang Haiyan, an accomplice who had shipped foreign wine to the gang several times, was arrested. He could make up for the lack of the fourth person.

Zhang Haiyan usually behaved pervertedly, so now he was reaping what he sowed. He had no way to ask for help and could only silently accept his death.

Just as Zhang Haiyan was feeling uncomfortable under the scorching sun, the executioner finally arrived. There was a commotion among the crowd.

Zhang Haiyan saw the girl who lived next door to him standing there in the crowd and greeted her. A Bu was a girl who walked with a limp. She didn’t respond to him, but turned and hid in the crowd instead.

Watching someone’s head get cut off was exciting, but seeing your neighbor’s head get cut off was a bit too exciting.

“A Bin, remember to talk before you think when you get to the other side. Otherwise, they won’t allow you to have a good reincarnation. You might reincarnate as a pig and deal with shit again in your next life,” someone shouted from below, causing the crowd to erupt in laughter.

Zhang Haiyan was unpopular and infamous, so everyone was here to watch him get executed. His execution had become a kind of entertainment for them.

Zhang Haiyan even saw that a turnover pancake apam balik (4) stall that he used to frequent had been moved to the side of the guillotine. The stall’s owner was an old man who watched Zhang Haiyan while he sold the pancakes.

Zhang Haiyan laughed and looked at the old man. “It’s a long way home for me. I’ll have to pass the Dragon King’s (5) territory when I go to the netherworld from the South Sea. Since I’m so handsome, the Dragon King might take a liking to me and I’ll become his son-in-law. You’ll need to watch out when you go back to your hometown because I might climb onto your ships and drag you into the sea to be my guests.”

Everyone was shocked when they heard him say such an unlucky thing.

The other party had been mocked and wanted to scold him some more when Zhang Haiyan said, “I’m about to die. I’m so thirsty. I know some of you often do despicable and unlawful things. Perhaps it’s time for me to reveal what you’ve done since no one can verify your deeds after I’m dead. If you don’t want me to talk, go and get me some water.”

The expressions of many people in the crowd immediately changed and some looked at the execution officer, hoping that Zhang Haiyan would die soon.

The execution officer was a Malay who was checking the documents. It was obvious that he was still sleepy, so he ignored the confrontation.

Zhang Haiyan continued, “Where’s the water? Where’s water?”

The old man finally came back to his senses. He had probably thought of all his misdeeds and felt that Zhang Haiyan wouldn’t know them, so he regained his confidence and scolded, “Bullshit. Say whatever you want. You even talk shit before you die. The Dragon King will cut your head off again.”

Zhang Haiyan felt absolutely delighted and laughed as he scanned the crowd. That was when he saw someone he didn’t recognize standing there.

They looked at each other. The other party was a white man in a monastic robe, which meant he probably worked in the monastery here.

Zhang Haiyan looked at the man and shouted, “Hey, you! Who are you, friend?”

The white man ignored him and just kept staring at him.

At this time, the executioner’s attention was finally pulled back by all the noise. He squinted and looked around before he shouted a few times in Malay and walked to the guillotine with a machete in his hand. This machete was used to chop off the rope attached to the guillotine. With one swift cut, the blade of the guillotine would fall. After the blood was drained, they would bury the corpses with the soil on the side and that would be the end of it.

Zhang Haiyan had no choice but to turn his attention back to the final moment of his life. He took a deep breath and continued to look over the crowd. He discovered that the white man had disappeared and all the others were silent.

As the executioner came to stand next to the rope, Zhang Haiyan’s heart started beating faster and both of his hands held onto the wooden posts on both sides of the guillotine.

Now he understood what it was like to be executed. Now he realized that the last few seconds were the longest.

The execution officer obviously didn’t want to waste time, so he read through the death penalty statement quickly, his words slurring.

Zhang Haiyan stared at the crowd, looking at each individual face. Then, the machete swung and the guillotine’s blade fell in an instant. Almost at the same time, a man jumped onto the stage and caught the rope in mid-air.

The blade stopped right before it was about to cut through Zhang Haiyan’s neck. If it had been a quarter of a second later, the blade would’ve hit him.

At the same time, he heard a voice say, “How much is this person?”

Zhang Haiyan looked up with much difficulty.

Because of the backlighting, he could only see the silhouette of the person who was pulling on the rope that could end him.

Despite this, he was still able to recognize that it was the white man in the monastic clothes just now. He had long hair and a slender figure.

In Malacca, if the death row prisoners didn’t commit very serious crimes, they could be redeemed with money. The charges against them were clearly marked with prices, but the price of death penalty crimes like selling illegal alcohol was very high.

The price to redeem Zhang Haiyan was twenty-one shillings, which was about the price of two pints of rum. The white man obviously thought it was a high price since he began bargaining with the executioner.

The white man spoke very horribly about Zhang Haiyan and found countless reasons to belittle the “merchandise”. The most outrageous reason he came up with was that Zhang Haiyan had shenkui.

Throughout the whole process, he had been pulling on the rope. As long as the transaction failed, he would probably let it go immediately.

Finally, Zhang Haiyan was sold for ten shillings. As the crowd dejectedly dispersed, the white man flipped open the lock of the guillotine and released Zhang Haiyan.

Zhang Haiyan sat back against the guillotine. His neck was red and his entire back was sunburned and peeling. The white man smiled at him.

Zhang Haiyan’s first thought was to run before the other party started explaining why he wanted to buy him and why he wanted to save him. That way, the whole thing could be over. But when he looked at the shackles around his feet, he felt that he could wait until the other person started talking and uncuffed the shackles before he ran away.

The white man came to stand in front of him and introduced himself, “I’m Madison. I’m a missionary. Are you Mr. A Bin?”

“Can you uncuff me first?” Zhang Haiyan smiled at him, appearing very gentle and harmless. There was a dazed look in his eyes as if he couldn’t believe he got to survive this.

“No. The shackles are worth six shillings. You’re only worth four shillings. Breaking these means that it’s a failed transaction. You have to carry them with you until we reach an agreement,” Father Madison said as he squatted down and looked at the places where Zhang Haiyan’s hands had been gripping. The wooden posts were completely cracked.

Father Madison said, “It seems that Mr. A Bin didn’t need our help since he could have saved himself. You’ve got some skills. I shouldn’t have thought you’re only worth ten shillings. I should have agreed to buy you at twelve shillings just now.”

Zhang Haiyan squinted his eyes. Indeed, as Madison had said, he did have ulterior motives for doing this. It was risky to try and dodge the guillotine’s blade with his ability, but it wasn’t as risky as playing with fire.

But the people here had regarded him as a perverted madman for a long time. How did the white man know that he was actually an incredibly amazing boy?

“What do you want?” Zhang Haiyan asked.

Father Madison continued, “Mr. A Bin, I’ll cut to the chase. I bought you because I hope that you can give birth to a child for me.”

Zhang Haiyan had originally come up with a hundred possibilities of what this man would say, such as taking him to the rainforests to be his bodyguard or guide. This was because Zhang Haiyan had gathered a lot of information before, which could be useful should he choose to divulge it.

But when he heard such a request, he was still stunned.

“Huh? What? What do you mean?”

****

TN Notes:

(1) There is a Chinese idiom, “There is gold under men’s knees”, which means that men have dignity and shouldn’t beg others easily. I suppose Haiyan tweaked the idiom because he didn’t care about any of that.

(2) Physiognomy is the practice of assessing a person’s character or personality from their outer appearance—especially the face. Wiki link here.

(3) Shenkui was an idiopathic form of anxiety seen in China, which is accompanied by backache, fatigability, insomnia, vertigo and weakness; it is attributed to excess loss of semen or passage of whitish urine, sexual dysfunction, excess masturbation, intercourse, and nocturnal emissions. Link to dictionary definition here.

(4) Apam balik is a dessert common in many varieties at specialist roadside stalls throughout Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. Wiki link here.

(5) The Dragon King, also known as the Dragon God, is a Chinese water and weather god. Wiki link here.

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Tiffany’s Notes: The award of dramatic entrance once again goes to Zhang Haiyan lol.