Tientsin Mystic Episode 17 Recap
> Tientsin Mystic Recap
Guo Deyou brought several cooked crabs to the police station. Maintaining his usual casual approach, he bribed two young police officers, using the opportunity to chat and subtly extract information. He learned that since the encrypted files had been stolen from the police archives, the "mother copy" of these files was most likely still at the station.
The officers revealed that the previous police chief was fascinated by Morse code and even required his subordinates to use it for leave requests. After his death, his wife buried his personal codebook, which he had studied his whole life, with him. However, many undecipherable encrypted files remained at the police station, simply taking up space. Meanwhile, at the Chamber of Commerce for Grain Transportation, a fierce confrontation with Yishengmen was looming.
Manager Hu had already set plans to launch a surprise attack on Yishengmen, instructing Yu Si to prepare everything. However, Ding Mao warned Yu Si vehemently, stating that no one, not even members of Yishengmen, should be harmed or killed. He insisted that the Chamber of Commerce, now under his leadership, must change its aggressive ways and abandon violence. Elsewhere, the shaman A-niang and Gu Ying were invited to Yishengmen to perform a ritual.
Gu Ying, ever practical, wondered aloud if they had been paid, noting the scarcity of Yishengmen members present. A-niang explained that Yishengmen’s leaders were at the British Consulate for negotiations, hoping that performing the ritual simultaneously would bring more success. At the British Consulate, both Ding Mao and Madman Cui (representing Yishengmen) presented their cases for securing sea transportation rights. Ding Mao was confident that the Chamber of Commerce's wealth and influence would secure the rights.
The Consul noted that while the Chamber of Commerce had shipping restrictions, Yishengmen had ample manpower but fewer ships and ports. Madman Cui argued that his organization could easily acquire more ships and boats, emphasizing that his true strength lay in the "lower end" businesses such as casinos, restaurants, and nightclubs, which provided guaranteed sales channels and generous profits.
He also boasted that Yishengmen had no restrictions on the types of goods they would transport and offered the Consul a tax rate "up to him." Ding Mao countered, highlighting the Chamber of Commerce's established position as the top shipping industry in Tianjin, with the lowest freight costs, best capacity, fastest delivery times, largest ports, and lowest risks.
He attempted to clarify a tax rate of 5%, but immediately sensed something was amiss with the interpreter, who seemed to misrepresent his offers. During the discussion, Madman Cui, in a bold move, offered the Consul 48 prime-location stores with a three-year rent-free contract as a token of Yishengmen's "sincerity."
He then maliciously defamed the Chamber of Commerce, accusing them of violent incidents resulting in over a hundred deaths and the spread of "living deads," warning the Consul against partnering with such a "sanctimonious" organization. Ultimately, the Consul, referencing Ding Mao's expressed intention to transform the Chamber of Commerce and implying dishonesty, decided to prioritize Yishengmen for the three-year sea transportation rights between Britain and Tianjin.
Following up on this information, Guo Deyou went to the ghost market to find the former police chief’s codebook. The grave robber, after initially claiming to have thrown out the "worthless" books from the chief's grave, pointed Guo Deyou to a stack of books under a table leg.
The grave robber then idly recounted how, a few days prior, an elegant old lady had bought ten freshly deceased bodies from him at an exorbitant price, which were then transported away in large wooden boxes. Guo Deyou retrieved the codebook and immediately took it to Xiao Lanlan, who confirmed it was the "mother copy" needed to decrypt the files. She assured him she would help in his investigation into the Demonic Cult.
Later, Guo Deyou tried to apologize to Gu Ying for his past troubles by bringing her spicy fried dough twists. Gu Ying playfully chided him for the uninspired gift. Guo Deyou then fabricated a gruesome story about "ghost fried dough twists" made with oil rendered from corpses, hoping to disgust her. This prompted Gu Ying to reveal that she had also heard the ghost market owner mention the old lady buying ten bodies.
More significantly, she recounted seeing ten large, "one-man-tall" wooden boxes being carried into Yishengmen while she was performing a ritual there recently. This new information solidified Guo Deyou's suspicion that Yishengmen was "raising corpses." In a shadowy encounter, a masked woman presented Madman Cui with a box of jewels, instructing him to deliver them to the British Consul to "completely break off" the British's ties with the Chamber of Commerce.
Guo Deyou, meanwhile, had disguised himself as an Yishengmen guard to infiltrate their compound. He spoke with another guard, who confirmed that the wooden boxes had been moved to the consulate as "gifts for the foreign devils." The guard also mentioned they were brought by an old lady, leading Guo Deyou to connect this to the old lady who bought bodies at the ghost market. Guo Deyou deduced that these "gifts" were likely the "fatal things"—the living deads.
Separately, Ding Mao received a phone call from his German biology professor. The professor confirmed that the method of cultivating the virus that turns people into living deads was effective, and a vaccine was now under development. He credited Ding Mao for his samples and information, calling it a significant breakthrough in biological research. As a gesture of gratitude, the German Consul, impressed by Ding Mao's contributions, intervened with the British Consul.
This led to a renewed invitation for Ding Mao and the Chamber of Commerce to attend a banquet at the British Consulate and discuss the sea transportation rights once more. Guo Deyou and Gu Ying arrived at the British Consulate for the banquet. When stopped by guards for lack of invitations, Wang Meiren, who was scheduled to perform traditional opera, smoothly vouched for them as "special VIPs," securing their entry.
Once inside, Guo Deyou, seeking to ensure Wang Meiren's safety during his investigation, "secured" her by knocking her unconscious and locking her in her dressing room, misinterpreting his previous instruction to "lock her up" if trouble arose. While Gu Ying became increasingly intoxicated at the lavish banquet, Guo Deyou continued his search. During the banquet, Ding Mao met with the British Consul. Over whiskey, they discussed business.
The Consul acknowledged Ding Mao's father as a respected businessman and Ding Mao’s efforts to reform the shipping industry. However, the Consul revealed that during Ding Mao's father’s time, the British Consulate maintained a profitable, secret opium trade with the Chamber of Commerce. He bluntly stated that if Ding Mao were willing to resume this opium transportation, he would "seriously reconsider" the sea transportation rights.
Guo Deyou soon found a distraught Ding Mao and warned him that the boxes brought by Yishengmen to the consulate contained "fatal things," possibly "living deads." Ding Mao was furious, suspecting a connection between the British Consul, Yishengmen, and the Demonic Cult. He instructed Guo Deyou to search upstairs for the boxes, while he watched over Gu Ying, who was now quite drunk.
Guo Deyou, however, deftly declined, suggesting Ding Mao was more experienced with handling intoxicated individuals, given his mentor’s fondness for drink. Meanwhile, Xiao Lanlan, back at the newspaper office, painstakingly worked on deciphering the mother copy. She made a breakthrough, identifying prime numbers in the code and eventually decrypting a crucial five-character phrase related to "Xiao Xiguan Prison" and mentioning "Huang Yu," who was currently incarcerated there.
As the banquet continued below, Gu Ying, unsteady from drink, stumbled into a dimly lit side room on the second floor. There, amidst stacked wooden boxes and flickering candles, she discovered a mysterious old lady performing a ritual. The old lady chanted verses, invoking practices to "open the mind and let soul return" and "lend me some life then buried me later."
Guo Deyou arrived, confronting the old lady about her "dead-reviving sorcery" and the "Bone Array" she was creating with nine corpses to exchange for one life—an evil, blasphemous art that would inevitably shorten her lifespan. The old lady responded that she didn't mind sacrificing years of her life if "Tianming" could call her mother. Guo Deyou, putting the pieces together, correctly identified her as Hu Furen, Manager Hu’s wife, a fact she acknowledged before greeting him as "Junior Tientsin Mystic."