Daomu Biji Novel – Book 9 Summary (Part 1)

Table of Contents | Daomu Biji Universe

Book 9: 大结局
The Grand Finale (Part 1)

Wu Xie, with the help of a face transformation artist introduced by Xiao Hua, put on a mask of Third Uncle and assumed his identity. In a few weeks, Pan Zi taught him how Third Uncle carried himself and acted around his underlings. It was also during this period that Wu Xie understood Pan Zi must be going through a hard time, emotionally and financially, as Third Uncle was missing. As the D-Day arrived, Xiao Hua and Huo Xiuxiu also arrived from Beijing to render help. Wu Xie met with most of Third Uncle’s partners and Ya Jie, his apparent lover in Changsha. He exposed one of the partners for forging financial records, then one word led to another and the people at the meeting started fighting each other.

Things quickly spiralled out of control and a conflict among Wu Xie and other groups erupted in Changsha. At this point, Xiao Hua tricked Wu Xie into drinking until he passed out. When Wu Xie came back to his consciousness, Xiao Hua and Pan Zi had taken care of the entire situation. Power had finally come back to the hands of Third Uncle.

With Third Uncle’s now-enabled connections and resources, Wu Xie mobilised a force to go to Banai to save Men You Ping’s team. This team consisted of Wu Xie (still under Third Uncle’s disguise), Pan Zi, Xiao Hua, Huo Xiuxiu, Ya Jie and a number of underlings. Arriving at Banai, Wu Xie met with Qiu Dekao’s group still stationed near the lake. Qiu Dekao, being under the impression that he was talking to Third Uncle, presented Wu Xie with the blade that Men You Ping was using. When asked where he picked up the blade, Qiu Dekao said that a dying member of his group was holding on to this blade when he was found. This person, for some reasons, was strangely morphed. He liquified into a puddle before Wu Xie had any chance to ask him what happened.

Wu Xie’s team went on to explore the mountain around the lake and found Pangzi unconscious inside a crack. On his stomach was a bloody map that showed the path to the Zhang Family Mansion, created by Pangzi himself. Xiao Hua and Panzi took half of the group and went ahead according to Pangzi’s map, while Wu Xie stationed behind to wait for Pangzi to wake up and obtain more information.

Ya Jie took care of Pangzi and he gradually recovered. Intuitively, Pangzi could recognise that it was Wu Xie behind Third Uncle’s mask. Discussing what happened, Pangzi said that when they received the sequence from Wu Xie, everything went smoothly until the third wall. After they passed the first two walls, they ended up outside of a mountain, but after the third wall, they were led into a cave filled with toxic smoke. Men You Ping was able to break through the smoke and brought everyone successfully into the Zhang Family Mansion, however, Pangzi was subdued and did not follow with the group. When he regained consciousness, there was a large mirror in front of him, inside which he saw the mansion and Men You Ping’s group in it. While trying to find a way out, Pangzi met with the black shadows and used dynamites to blow them all up. He then followed the path that the shadows crawled out from, then lost consciousness mid-way and was saved by Wu Xie eventually.

That night, Pangzi took Ya Jie to Qiu Dekao’s team to steal guns and witnessed them being attacked by a group of wild cats and a mortar that was controlled remotely by a mysterious person. This person also used the mortar to destroy the cave crack that Panzi and Xiao Hua went through. Because of that, Wu Xie and Pangzi needed to find another way to enter the Zhang Family Mansion. 

Amid the chaos, Wu Xie and Pangzi encountered a man with the exact same face as Wu Xie in Qiu Dekao’s team. They decided to kidnap the person and interrogate him. The person insisted that he would tell the truth only to Wu Xie, so Pangzi had to stay away.

The person claimed that he was Xiao Hua’s underling, and that he often visited Wu Xie’s shop in Hangzhou to familiarise himself with Wu Xie’s personality. After a while, he also became a close friend of Wang Ming, Wu Xie’s shop assistant. After he was done talking, the person attacked Wu Xie and knocked him unconscious. The next morning when he woke up, Wu Xie found himself in a totally unfamiliar place in the forest and met a man with stooped shoulders – the same figure that he saw through the window at A-Gui’s house, whom A-Gui claimed to be his son. Wu xie followed him inside a cave, where he found Pangzi being tied up in a corner. Pangzi was captured by this person while he was looking for Wu Xie.

Because this person’s body had been morphed so badly that he could hardly be identified as a living man anymore, Wu Xie gave him the name “Ghostman”. Ghostman recognised Wu Xie as Third Uncle and started asking him questions about the past and ‘which side’ Third Uncle was on right now. Wu Xie, having almost no knowledge of what he was talking about, tried to drive the conversation around to hide the fact that he wasn’t Third Uncle. But one thing was certain: this Ghostman was well-acquainted with Third Uncle, and at one point in time, they probably worked together.

Looking around, Wu Xie found a crater of skeletons, to which Ghostman nonchalantly mentioned that he had been killing everyone who tried to break into the Zhang Family Mansion. He went on to explain that the entire mansion was filled with alkaline-based toxic smoke, so if anyone dared to enter, their body would start deforming then quickly melting into liquid. Ghostman was actually a member of the archaeologist group that came with Chen Wenjin and also the only surviving member after everyone else was killed either by the toxic smoke or by Pan Ma and his cousins.

Ghostman was in fact rescued by Pan Ma and had been staying hidden in this mountain for 30 years. Through the archaeologist team’s investigation, they found out that this mountain used to be a hunting ground of the Yao people, the original inhabitants of the mountain. The strongest hunters carried a complicated tattoo on their body, which was in fact the map of the entire mountain. Thereafter, a Han tattoo artist blended into the community of the Yao people and made modifications to the tattoo, and gradually, the tattoo took on the shape of a Kylin-like creature. This was exactly the tattoo that Men You Ping had. However, no one alive could effectively read this map anymore, and Ghostman was certain he was the only existing person to be able to maneuver around this mountain unharmed.

The black shadows that Wu Xie and Pangzi encountered earlier were called “Mi Luo Tuo“ by the Yao people. They occupied the entire mountain and ate living creatures, including humans. They could excrete a stone-like substance to trap humans inside, then feeding on them over time. This was how the mysterious cave where Wu Xie, Men You Ping and Pangzi got trapped inside was formed. The Zhang family raised these creatures for the purpose of collecting stones from them to use for construction. The Mi Luo Tuo were afraid of alkaline, so the Zhangs put up a layer of alkaline around the mountain to prevent the creatures from being able to crawl out of the wall. That said, the Mi Luo Tuo were easily attracted by the warmth of human presence, so when people entered the mansion, these creatures would swamp around the entrance of the building. This activated a trap: A stream of alkaline would flow into the mansion, forcing the Mi Luo Tuo to retreat. An alkaline toxic smoke would also form inside the mansion, killing anyone that came into contact with it. That was the reason why Ghostman was deformed so badly. 

Ghostman claimed that the Zhang Family had risen to power since a long time ago and held a strong influence over many events in China’s history. They could even plan for things that happened hundreds of years later. It was likely that after moving around for an unknown amount of times, during the Ming Dynasty¹, the Zhang Family Mansion was established here to be the final burial ground of the family members. Apparently, Ghostman was aware of one groundbreaking secret about the Zhangs but he insisted that humans should not know about it.

¹ Ming Dynasty ran from 1368 to 1644. We could thus roughly estimate that the Zhang Family Mansion has stayed in Banai for between 361 – 637 years.

Through the conversation, Wu Xie learned that the archaeologist team did not go to the lake for surveying, rather, they were tasked to transport something into the mansion. Ghostman, however, had no idea what that ‘something’ was, but Wu Xie deduced that they were actually bringing a coffin that held a Zhang family member.

It was then shockingly revealed that Ghostman’s real name was also Zhang Qiling. He recalled that 30 years ago, there was a nation-wide search for everyone named Zhang Qiling. There remained no record of how the search turned out to be, but Ghostman seemed to be the only Zhang Qiling that eventually ended up in the archaeologist team. He then explained to Wu Xie that Zhang Qiling was in fact not a name but the title given to the head of the Zhang family. ‘Qiling’ also literally meant that the person had to carry the bodies of Zhang family members to their final burial ground. 

After hearing that Wu Xie and Pangzi were trying to enter the mansion to rescue another Zhang Qiling, Ghostman decided to show them the way. He warned them that whether they stayed inside or outside the mansion, the risk of dying was equally high. Outside, they might be attacked by the Mi Luo Tuo, yet inside, they might get knocked down by the toxic smoke. 

Ghostman took them to a cave entrance and asked them to look for the ‘most different’ black shadow. If they poured oil at that shadow, a path would form and they just needed to follow that path. Wu Xie and Pangzi entered the cave and studied the many shadows on the wall. Eventually, they met a huge shadow with peculiarly long arms and decided that this must be the one. Pouring oil on it, Wu Xie noticed the oil flowed along a pre-carved pattern on the cave wall. They quickly followed the path and ended up turning into a tunnel, where they saw a faint light emitting from a corner.

It turned out that the faint light came from Xiao Hua’s mobile phone. In a video message found on the phone, Xiao Hua informed that the map that Pangzi drew could not be followed anymore as many entrances had been blocked. It seemed that someone was aware of Pangzi escaping and had immediately destroyed the original path to prevent others from using the same path to go into the mansion. Right now, Xiao Hua and Pangzi were surrounded by a lot of Mi Luo Tuo and they would likely be attacked soon. The situation was extremely dire.

At this point, Wu Xie and Pangzi turned around to see an incredibly large creature poking out from the end of the tunnel.

[End of Book 9 – Part 1]