Resumen del episodio 8 de Archives: The Nanyang Mystery
> Resúmenes de Archives: The Nanyang Mystery
He Jianxi slowly regained consciousness after being in a coma for an entire day, only to find himself confronted by a startling truth. He asked the man before him if he was truly the infamous Plague. Zhang Hailou merely smiled, praising Jianxi’s incredibly sharp sense of smell, which allowed him to detect even the faintest trace of turmeric. The talent strongly reminded Hailou of his close friend, Zhang Haixia. Hailou had already packed up almost all of Jianxi’s belongings.
When Jianxi demanded to know why they were packing, Hailou explained that they could no longer remain on the ship. Jianxi argued that only Hailou was the one in trouble, but Hailou countered that everyone on board the Bowne now believed they were cousins. If Hailou left, Jianxi would be left behind as a target for anyone seeking vengeance, who would surely torture him for Hailou's whereabouts.
Jianxi tried to convince the surrounding passengers that he was not the Plague's cousin, but his pleas fell on deaf ears as the terrified crowd backed away. Hailou noted that the Plague only targeted those with a guilty conscience. Jianxi insisted his own conscience was perfectly clear because he was an honest accountant who always spoke the truth. Hailou warned him that such stubborn righteousness would only get him killed by the ruthless syndicates in Jinfan.
Seeing that Jianxi possessed extraordinary luck by surviving the recent ordeal, Hailou decided to keep him close, knowing he would need all the luck he could get for his next move. After leaving a chilling warning to the passengers on the Bowne, Hailou tossed Jianxi onto a prepared small boat and jumped in after him, rowing toward the steamship Nan'an. Jianxi was furious, protesting that he needed to get to Jinfan to find his family, not Xiacheng.
Hailou assured him that the Nan'an was far safer and promised to help him reach Jinfan after they took a slight detour. During their journey, they formally introduced themselves, with Hailou sharing his name, Zhang Hailou, and his alias, Zhang Haiyan. Once aboard the Nan'an, Hailou instructed Jianxi to wait in the dining hall and pretend to be a drunkard to avoid suspicion.
Hailou then sneaked off to investigate the ship's clinic, hoping to find the culprit spreading the Twilight Grass among the medical staff. To his horror, he discovered that the doctors and nurses were already dead. As he examined one of the bodies, he accidentally triggered a hidden mechanism, causing the corpse's mouth to open and release a dangerous cloud of Twilight Grass powder. Realizing it was a trap, Hailou found himself locked inside the room.
Meanwhile, Jianxi was apprehended by the ship's patrolmen for traveling without a ticket. Spotting Hailou through the clinic window, Jianxi desperately ratted him out to save himself. However, a group of mysterious assassins suddenly appeared and easily slaughtered the patrolmen. The chaos allowed Hailou to break out of the room, and he managed to escape. Jianxi was shaken but relieved to see Hailou alive.
Hailou teasingly pointed out that while he was a legitimate first-class passenger, Jianxi was the one who actually lacked a ticket. Jianxi's incredibly sensitive sense of smell picked up a bizarre, heavy scent of blood coming from the clinic, and he noted that one of the fleeing assassins was definitely a woman. They ventured back to investigate the clinic. Hailou realized the killers had set the trap specifically for him, rigged to poison anyone who came to investigate.
Inside, he recovered a storage device containing the deadly Twilight Grass. Jianxi panicked, fearing the killers intended to poison the entire ship, but Hailou deduced that their targets were specifically those trying to investigate the Twilight Grass on the Nan'an. This was the true meaning of the Pitcher Plant Project—a deadly trap designed to lure and eliminate investigators. Hailou handed the toxic device to Jianxi to hide.
Looking for more clues, Hailou searched the sailor duty room and examined the Nan'an's roster. He found Song Chai's name and discovered another name, Zhang Haiyun, confirming they were members of the Southern Archives. Hailou realized the entire ship was a massive trap orchestrated to hunt down Archives agents. At least fourteen agents had already been murdered in the first and second-class cabins alone.
He suspected this grand conspiracy was a retaliatory strike by warlords for his previous actions at the Panhua Reef, and that Zhang Ruipu had intentionally sent him onto the ship to die in his place. Fearing for the safety of Zhang Haixia, who was now of no use to Zhang Ruipu, Hailou resolved to turn the ship back to Xucheng. To flush out the assassins still hiding in the third-class cabin, Hailou decided to use one of the corpses.
He forced Jianxi to carry the body into the crowded cabin, reasoning that the killers would watch Jianxi out of curiosity, allowing Hailou to spot them. Jianxi's grand entrance with a bloody corpse triggered a massive panic among the passengers, who fled to find the ship's police. While observing the chaotic crowd, Hailou noticed two women who remained completely unbothered by the dead body. One of them was the female assassin, Bai Zhu.
Hailou approached them under the guise of flirting, but Jianxi ran over and loudly identified Bai Zhu by her scent, ruining Hailou's subtle approach. Realizing they were exposed, the assassins triggered a stampede by screaming that the ship was on fire, forcing everyone to flee toward the deck. In the darkness and chaos of the crowd, Zhang Haixia, who was also on board searching for Hailou but severely weakened by his own injuries, spotted Jianxi.
On the other side of the deck, Hailou was cornered and attacked by the assassins, including an elderly man and a child. During the frantic struggle, Hailou was stabbed with a blade coated in Twilight Grass poison. Knowing his time was limited, Hailou resolved to end the fight quickly to find the culprit before the poison took full effect.
Realizing he could no longer help Hailou directly, Haixia handed all his money to Jianxi, urging him to deliver it to Zhang Hailou and revealing that Hailou was actually the legendary Plague of Nanyang.
