Resumen del episodio 17 de Archives: The Nanyang Mystery
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Zhang Haixia and Zhang Hailou spent the evening drinking together at home. After Hailou drank too much and lamented that things might have been different if he had been the one crippled, he fell asleep at the table. Seeking some fresh air, Haixia went out into the streets. There, he came across a group of drunk thugs viciously tormenting a helpless beggar.
The thugs kicked the beggar and went so far as to pour alcohol on his legs and set them on fire. Horrified by the cruelty, Haixia quickly used a nearby cloth to smother the flames on the beggar's leg, allowing the victim to escape. His intervention enraged the three thugs, who turned their aggression toward him. Noticing Haixia's physical condition, they began to mock and insult his disability.
As they threatened to tear his arm off, the dark, menacing voice in Haixia’s mind resurfaced. Overcome by a sudden surge of violent rage, Haixia fought back brutally, easily overpowering the thugs and accidentally cutting his own hand in the process. Terrified by his sudden ferocity, the men fled into the night. Haixia returned home, where Hailou was still sound asleep. As Haixia headed to his room, a servant noticed his bleeding hand and tried to offer assistance.
Still consumed by lingering anger, Haixia harshly pushed the servant away, warning them not to come near him. Later that night, Haixia was plagued by a terrifying nightmare. In the dream, the servant wiped his face while mockingly telling him that a cripple belonged in bed instead of wandering around. Driven to a frenzy, Haixia murdered the servant, only for Hailou to witness the horrific act.
Fortunately, Haixia woke up in a cold sweat, deeply relieved to realize it was just a bad dream. The next day, Haixia encountered a blind fortune teller on the street. The blind man claimed to sense a stagnant aura about him and warned of approaching misfortune.
When Haixia dismissed the reading as a lazy attempt at trickery, the fortune teller explained that while he was blind, his heart was not, offering to read his fortune for free if he was wrong. He correctly divined that Haixia’s troubles came from within and that he had recently recovered from a long illness. Intrigued, Haixia confessed that since his recovery, he had been tormented by a recurring, uncontrollable urge that he feared would eventually destroy him.
The fortune teller advised Haixia to stop fighting the urge and instead follow his heart to find the answers he sought. Knowing that giving in to the dark thoughts would be disastrous, Haixia realized the advice was flawed. Declaring the reading inaccurate, he took back the silver coin he had intended to offer and departed. Upon returning home, Haixia found Hailou busy curing fish.
When Hailou noticed the injury on his hand, Haixia brushed it off as a clumsy fall from drinking too much. To change the subject and clear his mind, Haixia asked Hailou to take him out for a walk. As they strolled through the streets, Hailou happily chatted about their future, suggesting they purchase a nearby grocery store and convert it into a pig farm to ensure they would always have food.
His lighthearted welfare plans were interrupted when a group of neighborhood children approached, calling Hailou their chief. Among them was a young boy named Yuanbao, who pointed at Haixia and accused him of being a villain who tried to kill his cat. Hailou assumed it was a simple misunderstanding and playfully told the children he would settle the matter later, leading them away to play. However, Yuanbao lingered behind and threw a stone at Haixia.
Haixia wanted to apologize to the boy, but as he bent down, his nose began to bleed. The sight of blood triggered his violent alter-ego once more. In a trance-like rage, Haixia grabbed Yuanbao by the throat. Terrified, Yuanbao shrieked and managed to escape, hiding in the distance. Hearing the boy’s cries for help, Hailou rushed back. Clearly unstable, Haixia snapped at Hailou, shouting at him to stop playing childish games all the time.
While Hailou tried to pacify the crying children and send them away, Haixia, still under the influence of his dark persona, prepared to strike his brother from behind. Fortunately, Zhang Haiqi arrived just in time to defuse the situation and called an immediate meeting. Haiqi solemnly informed them that they were the only survivors of the Southern Archives. She explained that Mo Yungao, the Beilian warlord responsible for the slaughter of the Archives, had withdrawn from Xiacheng.
Having quickly risen to division commander and seized independent control of Beilian, Mo Yungao had become extremely powerful and well-guarded, making a direct confrontation nearly impossible. Haiqi then discussed the secret letter Haixia had memorized on the ship, which revealed Mo Yungao’s Pitcher Plant Project to eradicate the Archives and proceed to his next phase.
Haixia explained that the warlord had encrypted his plan, using four illustrations as a cipher that corresponded to an ancient prophecy book called the Hongmeng Prophecy. Because the book was stored inside one of the Archives' highly secure mechanical lockboxes, which would destroy its contents with acid if forced open, Haixia had to fake his death to safely retrieve it.
By mapping the timeline of the Nanyang Twilight Grass poison outbreaks, they traced a trajectory pointing to several mainland locations, including Changxiang. Realizing the Nanyang tragedies were merely a trial run for a full-scale attack on the mainland, Haiqi decided they must travel to Changxiang to seek help and gather manpower from a knowledgeable contact.
Since the journey would be highly dangerous, she instructed Hailou to travel with her, while arranging for a trusted escort to send Haixia ahead separately the next morning. Later that evening, Haiqi administered acupuncture to Haixia's legs, which were finally beginning to regain sensation after three years. As they spoke, Haiqi revealed the dark reality behind the fake-death drug. She explained that the antidote was actually a secondary poison that severely affected the brain.
She shared that the first agent who had been revived by the drug quickly lost his mind, became violently erratic, and slaughtered an entire village without warning. Haiqi warned Haixia that anyone who used the drug ultimately had to be killed by her own hand to prevent further tragedy, leaving Haixia to quietly ask if she would eventually have to kill him too.
