Daomu Biji: Tibetan Sea Flower Novel – Book 1 Summary

Table of Contents | Daomu Biji Universe

藏海花 1
Tibetan Sea Flower (Book 1)

So, hello guys, Michelle is finally back to the Daomu Biji summary business (￣▽￣) I actually had to re-read the whole thing to do this summary, for I realised that I remember very little about the sequels. Ouch, my brain cells… But anyway, enjoy~

Wu Xie started by briefly telling the story of his grandfather, Wu Lao Gou.

Wu Lao Gou was a successful tomb robber who left behind a very strange will. He passed away like a normal old man. In Wu Xie’s memory, on his deathbed, Wu Lao Gou said this to his children: “I couldn’t believe that finally I could die.”

Thereafter, he wanted his corpse to be burnt within 2 hours after death and that no one was allowed to stay within a 30-miles radius of the burning site.

After that, Wu Xie continued telling a story about this “strange event” in Ma An village, Ma Ba town. This was a town famous for having many tombs dating back to Qin Han period. There was a lord named Ma Pingchuan who was very wealthy and whose family occupied a lot of tombs in the region. As such, Ma Pingchuan employed soldiers to protect his family’s tombs.

One night, the plants on a number of fields in the village mysteriously withered. 

Thinking that it must have something to do with feng shui, Ma Pingchuan invited some masters over to examine, but the cause was never found out. Thereafter, he decided to transfer his forefathers’ tomb below the fields to another location with ‘better’ feng shui. 

When he dug up the tomb, to his astonishment, no coffins could be found. 

Enraged, Ma Pingchuan killed all the soldiers, but still ended up unable to find the coffins. 

One day, while he was in his yard, a young boy of about 12-13 years old was seen sitting on the wall. The young boy said he could help Ma Pingchuan locate the missing coffins.

Even though he was extremely suspicious, Ma Pingchuan was curious about the young boy’s overwhelming aura and calmness, so he decided to listen to the boy. The boy brought him to the fields and asked him to look carefully from a height. It turned out that all the withered plants formed the shape of a giant scorpion. 

The boy then explained that below these produce fields lay a tomb. Because the secret mechanism inside the tomb had been activated by a tomb robber, it released a poison that caused the plants to die overnight. Upon being asked how he knew, the boy nonchalantly replied: “Because that tomb robber is me.”

Angry but knowing that this boy wasn’t simple to deal with, Ma Pingchuan continued to hear what he had to say. The boy explained that the coffins inside had all been ‘eaten’ by the tomb, and that there existed something very powerful below that the boy needed to destroy.

He warned Ma Pingchuan that within 20 miles from here, many years from now, no plants would be able to grow. He mentioned that his teammates were still stuck in the tomb and he needed to get back into it to rescue them. After that, he gave Ma Pingchuan a letter, asking Ma Pingchuan to help send it to the recipient written on the envelope if he didn’t appear after 7 days. Then the boy disappeared and never came back after 7 days.

Ma Pingchuan tried to dig up the tomb but only found an iron scorpion of about 6.7 meters in length. Scared, he stopped the excavation completely.

Many years later, Ma Pingchuan followed the recipient address to arrive at a huge mansion, but no one stayed there anymore. The neighbours told him that it used to belong to the famous Zhang family, who suddenly went down in status and completely vanished at one point.

Now Wu Xie moved on to tell another “strange event”.

There was a man named Chen Xuehan who travelled to Motuo, Tibet following a dream he had since he was very young. There, he befriended a Tibetan monk named Za Ji. One day, Za Ji had to cross the snow mountains from his monastery named Gila to another monastery named Mapu in the midst of very bad weather. Chen Xuehan asked him why it was so urgent, to which Za Ji replied: “Because the chief monk wanted me to inform the other monastery that that person has come back.”

Surprised, Chen Xuehan asked Za Ji if it was a traveller from outside. But then, what sort of traveller would travel to a monastery in the middle of a remote mountain in Tibet in this kind of weather? Za Ji then replied: “He isn’t from outside. He comes out from inside the snow mountains.”

Saying so, Za Ji bid Chen Xuehan goodbye and continued his journey to Mapu monastery.

Wu Xie then continued to talk about himself and his life in recent years. Many things had happened post the events in Main Story, and Wu Xie had gradually hardened as both a businessman and as an heir of the Wu family, a major force of The Nine Gates. After taking over Third Uncle’s business, Wu Xie had been continuously refining his underlings and the antique business, helping it to flourish. Throughout this time, he had started to become a lot more confident in his capability. 

One day, Golden Tooth once again turned up at Wu Xie’s shop in Hangzhou. He brought with him a notebook that he obtained through his antique valuation trade and wanted Wu Xie to take a look. The notebook was actually found by Ma Pingchuan’s grandson and depicted the “strange event” between Ma Pingchuan and the mysterious young boy.

Upon hearing about that event, Wu Xie immediately felt that the young boy must be Men You Ping. He also learnt that the Ma family later went down in status and eventually relocated to Nepal. 

Intrigued by the story and believing that it would lead him to learn more about the origin of Men You Ping, Wu Xie immediately set off to Nepal. Here, an antique trader who used to buy items from the Ma family informed Wu Xie that he might be able to find clues in Motuo, Tibet. 

After spending some time in Nepal, Wu Xie travelled to Tibet. While checking out a traditional post office1Using the word “traditional” here because this isn’t actually a standard post office. Due to the remote nature of this land, professional courier service is hardly available. Thus, the people here employ any man or carriage that is travelling in and out of Motuo to help transfer letters and packages., Wu Xie chanced upon an oil painting of Men You Ping wearing a lama costume and standing against a snowy backdrop. He traced it back to the artist, who was Chen Xuehan, to learn that this painting was created more than 20 years ago, and it was in fact a copy of another painting drawn by the chief monk of a monastery deep in the snow mountains. The artist was asked by the chief monk to copy it, and was told that the man in the painting was an honourable guest of the monastery.

Chen Xuehan brought Wu Xie to the monastery. There, the chief monk recounted his encounter with Men You Ping 20 years ago.

One day, Men You Ping turned up at the monastery gate wearing some sort of military pardessus with Tibetan patterns on it. He told the chief monk (back then, the chief monk was just a normal monk, so let’s call him The Monk at this point) that he travelled out from inside the snow mountains. The Monk found this unbelievable, for no human could possibly walk across such dangerous mountains, but out of courtesy, he invited Men You Ping inside. While bringing Men You Ping to tour around the monastery, Men You Ping suddenly asked if there were 127 rooms here, which had The Monk completely astounded because it was indeed correct. Men You Ping then mysteriously mentioned that he felt very familiar with this place. That night, he stayed in the monastery.

The next morning, Men You Ping asked to visit one specific room, to which The Monk agreed. To his utter shock, there was a dried corpse in that room. Men You Ping then told him that this was the corpse of Monk De Ren, one of his old friends .

Men You Ping spent the next few months in the monastery. Meanwhile, The Monk searched the historical records of the monastery to learn that there was indeed a Monk De Ren in this monastery many years back, and in fact, there were many generations of Monk De Ren after that. Men You Ping then mentioned that every 10 years, he would come out from the snow mountains to bring “a great secret” for Monk De Ren to record it down. The secret needed to be recorded because Men You Ping had a memory issue, due to which he would forget things after 10 years. 

At this point, The Monk understood that all this while, the different generations of Monk De Ren had always been here to wait for Men You Ping to come out every 10 years. However, the last Monk De Ren passed away suddenly but didn’t manage to find a successor. As such, this time, Men You Ping chose to tell The Monk why he travelled into the snow mountains. He went there to look for a person.

The Monk went on to tell the story of this man from Zhang family who travelled deep into the Himalayas one day with a team of Indian, Bhutanese and Chinese tomb raiders. No one knew his real name. The team called him Dong Can. 

The expedition became extremely dangerous half-way and had the team trapped inside a valley. In this valley, they saw a huge black metal ball the height of a three-storey house. Surrounding this huge ball were tens of thousands of tiny balls the size of an egg, each made of a different metal including gold. 

Excited, the team decided to pick up as many gold balls as they could, but Dong Can didn’t lift a finger. He only stared at the huge ball, as though his soul had been engulfed by it. 

After much struggle and many casualties, the team managed to escape from the valley and got out of the Himalayas. Dong Can went missing, but before that, he left a letter to Monk De Ren. Inside the letter was a star map that drew out the direction to the valley with the huge metal ball.

Passing through many hands, the letter however ended up missing. As such, the Zhang family sent a young man to Motuo to investigate. This young man was none other than Men You Ping. 

Arriving in Motuo, Men You Ping tracked down Dong Can’s residence, but the man was nowhere to be found. Inside his house was a painting that depicted a breathtakingly beautiful lake that reflected the snow mountains on its surface. No one knew where this lake was located or if it was even real.

With the help of Monk De Ren, Men You Ping employed a few men to help him travel to the center of the snow mountains.

Half-way through, they encountered a group of Germans who perished under the harsh weather of the mountains. Rummaging through the belongings, they found two gold balls stuffed next to a very carefully-packed black metal ball. Men You Ping also picked up a notebook with a lot of random drawings and captions written in Tibetan language. One of the drawings depicted a giant bronze gate, with a caption that read “World of The Ultimate”. Upon closer look, next to the gate was something that looked like a turquoise corpse, with 8 smaller turquoise corpses and a number of things that looked like tiny tentacles scattering around it.

Moving forward, they spotted a group of tribesmen dressed in Tibetan clothing and carrying something that emitted a green light. Believing that following these tribesmen would lead them to the mysterious lake inside Dong Can’s painting, Men You Ping’s team immediately chased after them. The chase lasted for almost three days and they indeed ended up at a giant lake the size of two mountains, its surface looking like an ethereal layer of silver. In the distance, a small boat was coming. 

The group of tribesmen boarded the boat, but one man stayed behind. He turned around, staring straight at the spot where Men You Ping’s team was hiding, and after a while, he waved at them to signal them to walk over. Men You Ping however decided to stay put. After 20 minutes, the man stopped waiting for them and got on the boat.

Thinking carefully about his waving, Men You Ping figured out that the man wasn’t waving at them but something behind. At this moment, a man in the team got dragged into the snow by something but Men You Ping rescued him in time. Thereafter, the team took a detour around the edge of the lake to arrive at the very end, at which point they discovered a very tall temple whose base was a single giant column that rooted deep into the lake.

Climbing into the temple, Men You Ping found a young woman whose four limbs had all been chopped off and her eyes destroyed. She sensed Men You Ping’s presence and asked if he was a Han person. She threatened Men You Ping to bring her out of here, else she would scream and signal other people to capture him. Men You Ping then knocked her unconscious. A moment later, two Tibetan men walked in to light up the incense burner and place some items next to the woman, including a wool carpet. From them, Men You Ping could smell a very strong smell of corpses. 

Studying the wool carpet, Men You Ping saw the drawing of “Yama2阎王 [Yan Wang] Also translated as “Yama”. This refers to the King of Hell in Chinese culture. Rides The Corpse”, which depicts a Yama that rides a woman’s corpse to cross a mountain. The corpse crawled on her knees and elbows, her eyes blind. This drawing was often used in Tibet to shoo away evil. At this point, Men You Ping started to wonder why the amputated young woman was here, and if her presence had anything to do with the drawing. Was she perhaps a sacrifice to be made to Yama?

Suddenly, the young woman woke up and groaned in pain, seemingly because of the peculiar smell that came out from the incense burner. She immediately crawled very fast and climbed up a special staircase that was apparently made for her. Right at this moment, a Tibetan man popped up and attacked Men You Ping. After Men You Ping defeated him, a group of Tibetan men appeared and knelt down to him. They gave Men You Ping a black-and-white photo of Dong Can, saying that everything here had been arranged by him. At the back of the photo was a line: “The secret is right here. They can help you.”

These tribesmen called themselves the Kam Ba Luo people and mostly consisted of Tibetan race. They lived in a valley deep inside the snow mountains. The lake that Men You Ping saw earlier was called Kam Ba Luo lake, translated to Mandarin as “Blue Snow Mountain”. In the middle of a lake was a steep staircase leading to a village of the Kam Ba Luo people. 

Arriving at the village, Men You Ping entered their worshipping room and recognised the face of their previous chief on a wool drawing. It was Dong Can, a man belonging to the Han race. Before Dong Can passed away, he revealed to the villagers that he had placed a seal on the giant Bronze Gate deep within the mountains to lock away “the secret”, but one day it would definitely open again and bring disaster. However, another Han person would arrive here and help them eliminate this disaster.

When asked what “the secret” actually was, the villagers only told Men You Ping that it was The Demon.

Men You Ping continued to ask about the identity of the amputated woman he met earlier, but no clear answer was given. At this point, it could roughly be guessed that she was Dong Can’s lover, but she was meant to be sacrificed.

The villagers went on to tell Men You Ping about how there used to be an aircraft that crashed near the lake 3 years ago. It remained unknown why this aircraft travelled to the Himalayas, or who it belonged to.

That was the whole story that The Monk told Wu Xie. Hearing all this, Wu Xie decided to stay in Motuo for a while more to investigate further. One day, Wu Xie walked out of his room to find the monastery visited by a group of tourists from Hong Kong. Then, while walking around the monastery, Wu Xie spotted a statue of a man sitting with his head lowered and seemingly crying. It shocked Wu Xie that the man looked exactly like Men You Ping. 

Someone had placed a windbreaker atop the statue. Curious, Wu Xie took it back to study and found a piece of paper written in German, with mention of the number 02200059. Wu Xie engaged a translator and the content of the paper could be summarised as follows:

“To Mr. Zhang,

I’ve opened the strange box that you sent us. I understand that you want to tell me about the changes that are taking place in “the world”. As I said earlier, I hope your family’s method would be effective at least in the short run, since this isn’t something that could be handled within our generation alone. 

The number used to open the box is 02200059. This is the last time. I really want to meet you or your men. If you ever see this letter, please reply to the address above.

To whomever that may see this letter, please leave it in its original place. We want it to arrive at a very important person.”

Thereafter, Wu Xie made a call to Pangzi, who was still staying in Banai following the death of Yun Cai, and recounted everything he knew to Pangzi. Pangzi remarked that something seemed off about the whole thing and urged Wu Xie to be careful. Wu Xie sensed that he must be followed by someone and paid special attention to the group of tourists from Hong Kong, noticing that they seemed a lot more well-built than average men. Wu Xie decided to get out of the monastery to rent a hotel room instead, and he set up a fingerprint trap in the room to see whether anyone tried to break in. 

The next day, Wu Xie indeed obtained a set of several fingerprints, which he then sent to a friend in China to find out the person’s identity. The result was a woman that Wu Xie had seen earlier in the group of Hong Kong tourists. Digging deeper, Wu Xie learnt that her surname was Zhang and she worked for a sports training center in Hong Kong, and what was even more peculiar was that 80% of the training center’s staff also carried the surname Zhang. 

At this point, Wu Xie was summoned by The Monk to go to the monastery. Upon arrival, he saw a man sitting opposite The Monk, his back facing Wu Xie. Wu Xie shockingly discovered that the man looked exactly like him!

Right then, the group of Hong Kong tourists rushed in. The head of the group was a middle-aged man named Zhang Longban. The second-in-command seemed to be the woman who sneaked into Wu Xie’s room, whose name was Zhang Haixing. They captured both Wu Xies and brought the two to a room, where they revealed that they were a branch of the Zhang family who migrated to Hong Kong and established a successful business there. 

However, the group had no idea who the real Wu Xie was between the two of them, so they wanted the two Wu Xies to play a guessing game. On the table, there were 7 heads of Wu Xie, and the two Wu Xies needed to pick the one that looked like Wu Xie the most. Wu Xie found no differences between these 7 heads and picked a random one. Zhang Haixing claimed that his answer was wrong, therefore he must be fake. Wu Xie thought they would kill him but it turned out that all this was a set-up to tease him. The fake Wu Xie was in fact a man named Zhang Haike, who had been wearing Wu Xie’s mask for the past 20 years, to the point that it couldn’t be taken out anymore.

Zhang Haike revealed that they were looking for Wu Xie because they felt that he was the only one who could save the collapsing Zhang family. There was only one man who could destroy all the foundation and influence that the Zhang family had built for that last thousand-or-so years, and he was Wang Zang Hai3You can refer back to Main Story Book 4: Heavenly Palace on The Clouds to know who Wang Zang Hai is., the ambassador that was kidnapped by Dong Xia kingdom to help them build Heavenly Palace On The Clouds.

Knowing this, Wu Xie formed the theory that there existed three main powers in China: The first was the Dong Xia kingdom who lived deep in Changbai mountains and ruled upon “the secret” hidden behind the Bronze Gate, the second was Zhang family who tried to keep Dong Xia kingdom in control while guarding the secret behind the Bronze Gate, and the last one was Wang Zang Hai, the man who discovered the role of the Zhang family and wanted to reveal the secret behind the Bronze Gate to the whole China. 

Zhang Haike and other family members wanted Wu Xie to travel with them into the snow mountains to bring out something that Xiao Ge left behind. Wu Xie agreed to the request but wanted to bring at least one man of his own. At this junction, Pangzi miraculously appeared. It turned out that since earlier, he had suspected that his communication between him and Wu Xie had been tapped, thus he travelled to Motuo but decided to remain silent to keep watch on Wu Xie and whoever was tailing behind Wu Xie.

Suddenly, the room was attacked by a group of German snipers. The next thing Wu Xie realised was that the whole group of Zhang family members and everyone in the monastery disappeared without a trace, leaving only Wu Xie, Pangzi and a young monk behind. Wu Xie wanted to bring them to his room in the monastery to take shelter, but Pangzi thought it was a dangerous idea. Eventually, they  headed to the chief monk’s room.

Entering the room, the young monk told them to listen to what he said if they wanted to stay alive out of this ordeal. He first asked them both to take out their shirts, then he looked outside to see that a giant wave of bugs had suddenly appeared. The moment Wu Xie and Pangzi freaked out because of the bugs, the monk splashed a whole bucket of charcoal ash onto Wu Xie and Pangzi, while he himself ran out of the room. Immediately, the bugs attacked the two men, even crawling under their skin. 

Deducing that these bugs were attracted by charcoal ash, Wu Xie and Pangzi decided to burn everything they could grasp to lure the bugs away from them. Thereafter, Wu Xie cut his palm and splashed the blood on the floor, successfully shooing away the remaining bugs. 

The two ran to the statue of Xiao Ge that Wu Xie spotted earlier because Wu Xie felt that “it should be safer wherever Xiao Ge is around, even though it’s just his statue.” Reaching the garden with the statue, Wu Xie and Pangzi found the corpse of the monk from earlier, who had been bitten by the bugs till his whole body was no longer recognisable. They came up with an idea, which was to use the straw baskets in the monastery to cover themselves then run towards the foot of the mountain. After charging through the icy cold mountains with not even a shirt on, both of them randomly banged into a shop in the nearest town and went unconscious.

Some time later, Wu Xie woke up to find himself lying in the same monastery! It turned out that the whole thing was an illusion the Zhang family members created by ringing the bronze bells. They did so in order to test whether Wu Xie and Pangzi would have enough tenacity to survive the harsh conditions inside the snow mountains. 

Zhang Haixing moved on to tell Wu Xie about their plan once they entered the snow mountains. Four of them, including Zhang Haixing, Wu Xie, Pangzi and a German man recruited by the Zhang family members would be the only people attending this trip, while Zhang Haixing would be the group leader. Wu Xie then asked Zhang Haike if he knew Men You Ping personally, to which Zhang Haike replied that the two of them had known each since they were very young kids.

Men You Ping’s father once went to Nepal to transport something. He stayed there for a while, and by the time he went back, in his arms held an infant – who was none other than Men You Ping. Back then, the main branch of the Zhang family stayed at a large mansion in Jinling mountain range, while the extended branches lived in the surrounding village. Zhang Haike was part of the extended branches and occasionally visited the main branch mansion. When he was 5, he first saw Men You Ping, who was 3 at that time, and noticed that Men You Ping was a strange kid that never mingled with the other kids and never spoke a single word.

Ten years later, they met again at the Zhang family’s “Release Into The Wild” event. “Release Into The Wild” was a tomb-raiding test for the Zhang children when they reached the so-called independent age, which was roughly 12-15 years old. In this test, the Zhang children had to raid a tomb and bring back some valuables by the next New Year, all while completely surviving by themselves. Seeing that Men You Ping was thin and seemingly feeble, coupled with hearing about the fact that Men You Ping’s father had passed on 5-6 years ago, Zhang Haike sympathised with the boy and decided to team up with him. They went along Changbai mountains all the way to Shanghai, moving to Hangzhou then to Xuzhou. On the way, they did find a couple of large tombs but they had all been wiped clean.

Moving further to Shaanxi, they met with three other Zhang children and together, they made a risky decision to raid the tomb of Ma An village. Entering the tomb, they chanced upon a free-hanging safe zone, which they believed was made by another group of tomb robbers who had previously entered this tomb. After passing through the vertical tunnel below the safe zone, they reached a small landing space covered with rock walls on all sides. Taking down the rock walls, the 5 children reached the other side to discover a large number of corpses lying in a pool of mud, all clad in Republican China clothing. Upon closer inspection, they realised that these corpses were all Zhang family members (due to their long fingers) who had the marks of Zhang family killing techniques on their bodies. This meant that they were the victims of an infighting within the Zhang family. Men You Ping’s father was also among these people. 

Men You Ping then informed the others that right below this was 3 other layers of an ancient city submerged in mud mixed with mercury, then he rushed off, telling them that the next part of the journey should be carried out by him only and that his final goal was to obtain something from the deepest layer of this city. Zhang Haike and the other three stubbornly followed but lost tracks of Men You Ping. At one point, they spotted a map of the entire city. On the map, the city was surrounded by an outline shaped like a scorpion. Zhang Haike could also deduce that this city frequently suffered earthquakes. 

As they walked in the mud, leeches started to enter and lay eggs in their bodies, putting them all in a life-threatening state. Zhang Haike decided to detonate a bomb every 2 hours to signal to Men You Ping to rescue them, but this series of explosions also destroyed the tomb structure, leaking the mercury and thus killing the plants on the ground. They were later rescued by Men You Ping.

Coming back to the present day, Zhang Haike told Wu Xie that following that event, he barely had the chance to meet Men You Ping again. His own research later showed that the ancient city used to be a site of an infighting between two parties in the Zhang family, likely raised after an attempt to assassinate the current family head. After that, the dam broke and the overflowing mud completely buried the city. The thing that Men You Ping wanted to obtain was the family head’s bronze bell, which was known as a bell that had the power to calm people’s mind (in contrast to other bronze bells, which often made people go into a daze or become crazy). Men You Ping successfully got the bell and later learnt about the secret of “The Ultimate” behind the Bronze Gate. 

Wu Xie then asked Zhang Haike why Men You Ping entered the snow mountains many years back, to which Zhang Haike replied that it had something to do with the bronze bell, and that obtaining the bell would help them finally learn the truth about “the secret” that the Zhang family had been protecting for so many years.

The next day, the group of four set off. As they passed through a frozen lake, a giant creature that looked half-fish and half-worm swam below their feet, but it didn’t attack. The group got into an argument because Zhang Haixing and the German man (called Feng) insisted on walking in the middle of the lake, while Wu Xie and Pangzi walked on the side. After a while, Zhang Haixing and Feng somehow lost their mind and started taking off their clothes, hence Wu Xie and Pangzi had to cross over to help them.

Walking forward, they found a few dozens of German corpses buried under the lake, all of which were naked. They then reached the temple that Men You Ping once stopped at, the place where he found the amputated woman. Zhang Haixing and Feng got back to their senses and told Wu Xie that they were under the influence of the bronze bells below the frozen lake. Feng went on to say that those Germans who perished in the lake weren’t related to him, but they also came here in pursuit of “The Ultimate”.

The group of four looked out from the temple to find the valley that the Kam Ba Luo people used to live was now buried under the snow. Feng pointed out that the mountain next to the village must have changed and became hotter, hence melting down its snow peak and creating an avalanche. 

Heading towards the mountain, the group found lots of skeleton with Kam Ba Luo clothes still on. A thick smell of sulfur lingered in the air. They arrived at a crevice and spent the night there. The next 4 or 5 days, the group climbed down the crevice, which became larger the further they went down. Numerous bronze chains were hanging across the two sides.

As they reached the bottom, the group discovered a giant bronze gate that was seemingly the same as the one inside Changbai mountains.

[End of Tibetan Sea Flower – Book 1]