In the tavern, Zhang Haiyan ordered a piece of bread and slowly dipped it in beer as he ate. Outside and around the tavern, a crowd of fellow townsfolk lingered, clearly eager to see how things would unfold.

The long-haired priest, Ma Dexun, rested his chin on his hand as he watched him, making Zhang Haiyan gradually feel uncomfortable. As he continued to eat, he noticed his appetite slowly fading. He still had his shackles on, and many people around him were pointing and whispering. Zhang Haiyan didn’t mind this; he had lived this kind of life for a long time. However, for the first time, the look in Ma Dexun’s eyes made him feel out of place.

“A treasure of the human world,” Ma Dexun exclaimed after observing him for a while, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You truly are a treasure of the human world. Thankfully, we saved you; otherwise, the world would have lost a gem.”

As Zhang Haiyan chewed on the bread, the murmurs around him became increasingly irritating.

“I’m a worthless person, Father Ma. Unless you collect worthless people, your achievement today has reached the pinnacle of the world, otherwise I’m of no use to you,” Zhang Haiyan replied.

Ma Dexun pushed another glass of beer toward Zhang Haiyan and said, “Mr. ABIN almost got his head chopped off earlier. Now, every sip of beer he takes is measured the same. I’ve been watching you for a long time; each time you take a sip of beer, the amount going down is almost the same. Mr. ABIN is an extremely cautious person, and the life-and-death situation has no effect on you.”

Zhang Haiyan glanced at his beer glass, thinking, is that so? He remained expressionless but immediately understood that Ma Dexun was right. He was drinking beer this way because he planned to run away soon and didn’t want to drink too fast and give himself away. Moreover, his mouth was different from others; he couldn’t chug it down.

This habit of eating steadily had been formed when he was in Xiamen.

Should I just kill this foreigner instead of running away? A thought flashed through his mind.

Ma Dexun, unaware that the other party was contemplating killing him, continued to speak to himself: “No one can see it, but I know that you, ABIN, are not an ordinary person. You must have many stories in China before coming to Nanyang.”

I didn’t want to come, Zhang Haiyan thought to himself.

Ma Dexun pushed the newly ordered beer toward him again, “Have you thought about it? About having children?”

Zhang Haiyan looked at the fellow townsfolk surrounding them and whispered, “And let me reiterate, that character is pronounced ‘shen,’ not ‘sheng.’ They have different meanings.”

When Ma Dexun had first mentioned having a child, it had scared him half to death, making him think he had some special ability to get pregnant. Or perhaps Ma Dexun wanted him to have a child with some strange woman for some Western magic. He had heard many legends about such Western practices, and like some Chinese herbal medicine, the key ingredients were often things like goat’s feet or the skin of a five-toed lizard, which were nearly impossible to find. Perhaps Ma Dexun’s magic required a mixed-race child of a yellow-skinned person and an island woman.

Later, he realized that Ma Dexun meant interrogation.

Zhang Haiyan had an unfortunate childhood and didn’t want to put children in difficult situations, so he didn’t plan to continue the conversation.

Ma Dexun kept waiting for his answer, blinking as he looked at him.

Zhang Haiyan glanced at the several pieces of bread and the remaining cup of wine, not wanting to flee immediately. He asked, “Why are you interrogating this child? Just give her something to eat, and she’ll say anything.”

“No, she can’t speak,” Made Xun said, looking at Zhang Haiyan as he pulled out a black-and-white photograph from his pocket.

In the photo was a beautiful Chinese girl, about ten years old, held in Made Xun’s arms. Surrounding him were a dozen or so Chinese children, both boys and girls, the youngest seeming to be only three or four years old, while the oldest were around fifteen or sixteen. Made Xun was smiling happily, and in the background was a simple church. It must be his church.

“When I was in England, I was a telegraph operator. One day, I had a dream that I was sick, and an old man with a white beard was praying for me. I went to the hospital and found out I had a tumor in my left lung. Because it was detected early, I was cured. While in the hospital, I saw that old man.” Made Xun pointed to his crucifix, “He was on the cross, looking even more pained than I was. So I became a priest and came here.”

He gestured towards the church in the photograph, “It’s small, isn’t it? I took three years to build it. There are also rooms behind it that can house over twenty people. When I arrived, these children were still very young. I heard that there was a high rate of abandoned infants here, so I told the villagers that if they didn’t want their children, they shouldn’t throw them in the river; they could bring them to the church. All these children are my adopted ones. This girl, her name is Nanre. She is the most understanding and the prettiest. The other children have various disabilities, but her illness has been cured, so she is very grateful to God.”

Made Xun looked at the photograph and continued, “She calls me ‘Daddy.’ I was supposed to return to England after a year, but Nanre called me ‘Daddy.’ So I stayed. She is truly a good child and makes delicious pancakes. If I took her back to England, she could definitely support herself with this skill.”

“Is this child the one you want me to interrogate? What happened to her? Is she possessed by a devil?”

“She’s dead,” Made Xun said, looking at Zhang Haiyan, “just two weeks ago.”

Made Xun took out another photograph, which showed a group of white men.

“This is my friend, Mr. Herman, and his friends. He is the governor of Malacca, and these are his English friends—twelve in total. This one is a leatherworker, this one is a brewer, and this one is an actor. They were heading deep into the southern rainforest to find a strange place. It’s said that Mr. Herman got a peculiar map from an old library in England, which secured funding from the Royal Academy of Sciences. Just two weeks ago, before they entered the rainforest, they stopped by my church to visit me and drink the beer I brewed. He saw Nanre, and there was a birthmark shaped like an angel on the scalp behind her ear. They thought Nanre could bring them good luck, so I let her pray for them. But they were all drunk at the time, and right in front of me, they gang-raped her. Then that leatherworker skinned the birthmark off her scalp and sewed it onto his saddle.”

Made Xun smiled as he looked at Zhang Haiyan.

“My children heard the cries of Nanreng outside the door, and they attacked Herman with a manure fork. Herman and his friends, twelve of them, shot all my children dead with guns.”

“After that, Herman gave me 100 shillings to keep quiet; they took Nanreng’s scalp and went into the rainforest.” Made Xun still smiled, but Zhang Haiyan slowly put down the bread in his hand.

“Do you know? Nanreng really liked white people. She thought all white people were kind, just like her father. So before her scalp was taken, she didn’t even know what was happening; she was just very scared but didn’t resist at all.”

Zhang Haiyan looked into Made Xun’s eyes, and for the first time, he realized that the gaze of this long-haired foreigner was not murky; there was a deep-seated hatred in his eyes.

“I spent 20 shillings to get here, and I bought you for 10 shillings. This meal costs 30 shillings, and I still have 40 shillings left, enough for us to return to my church. Mr. ABIN, I hope you can examine the corpse of my poor Nanreng to find out where my white friends went and in which direction. Then, I hope you and I can go into the rainforest and kill all twelve of those white people, bringing back their scalps.”

Zhang Haiyan frowned; he was not good at handling such situations.

“I want you to remember that the 10 shillings that saved your life today were exchanged for a girl’s scalp. At the very least, you should go see Nanreng; if you see her beautiful hair, you will agree to help me.”

Zhang Haiyan looked at the photo of Nanreng; she was indeed a very beautiful girl, with short black hair, a typical Chinese. He handed the photo back to Made Xun: “I can agree to you, but you need to tell me in detail how you found me and where you heard about my existence.”

Zhang Haiyan had lived in Penang for a while, so the locals called him ABIN. He speculated that Made Xun had learned about him from Penang. In Perak, Zhang Haiyan’s nickname was “the most despicable person in Nanyang,” but in Penang, he had another name, Huang Wen. Huang Wen referred to the plague spread by Chinese people or the massive migration of Chinese immigrants, and it was a very derogatory term. Zhang Haiyan had this name because he did a job that was different from others there.

Coroner.

In other words, Zhang Haiyan could hear the voices of the dead.

Of course, he couldn’t actually hear them; that was completely nonsense. But that didn’t matter, as Made Xun speculated, Zhang Haiyan always had his own ideas.

Zhang Haiyan himself didn’t even know what his job really was. He could write a thick book about his experiences coming to Nanyang and what he did here. He had once summarized it.

He was actually a spy.

He didn’t serve any authority, nor was he employed by anyone. But every month, someone would give him some tasks, and he would complete them, then transport the results—information he had gathered—back to his homeland on a large ship. However, the things he investigated had nothing to do with political interests; he looked into strange phenomena and rumors from various places.

The institution he served was called the Southern Archives, and the people and background behind its establishment were not clear. He entered this archive when he was only a few years old. He only remembered that the person who trained him had told him that this archive held all the “truths” of southern China. The purpose of collecting these truths was very simple: the founders of the archive believed that whenever there were great conspirators in the world, their devious actions, strange phenomena, and legends were indispensable. If someone was hiding in the world and orchestrating a grand conspiracy, investigating all the strange phenomena would be an excellent way to expose the conspiracy.

Reflecting on his past experiences, Zhang Haiyan felt a sense of longing; he hadn’t returned to his homeland in so many years. He stood by the sea for a long time, lost in thought, unaware of when he would return. However, it must be said that many incredible events had indeed occurred in the South Seas. When he first arrived, most of what happened were rumors and some folk conspiracies, but in recent years, countless bizarre events had erupted. It seemed that “that event” the Southern Archives had been waiting for was about to happen.

A group of white men suddenly entered the southern jungles of Perak, searching for a location marked on an ancient map. As a member of the Southern Archives, he had to take a look.

The two of them spent three days returning to the small church in Madexun, where they found Nanre’s body. The little girl lay with her eyes closed, covered in blood.

Madexun looked at Zhang Haiyan and asked, “Can you hear her speaking?”

Zhang Haiyan nodded, “She said, ‘Daddy, thank you.'” He picked up the already stiff body and walked into the house.

“Don’t follow me. Let me ask her questions alone,” Zhang Haiyan said, but Madexun had already crouched on the ground, tears streaming down his face.

Zhang Haiyan looked at Nanre’s face; the little girl had been severely beaten, with dark bruises on her wrists and a large patch of her scalp torn away.

“Fortunate angel. With the scalp of a fortunate angel, yet it attracts the plague god.” Zhang Haiyan placed the little girl’s body on the ground, opened his bag, which contained a set of special instruments, and began to calmly measure the little girl’s features.