Haixia never left to begin with..
Heyyyy, so I decided to torture myself by rewatching the final episode of *Archives: The Nanyang Mystery*... and I noticed a few things that led me to this theory that "Haixia never left to begin with". Follow me through the rest of this post to see why I believe this.
Do you remember what Sanshu (the novelist/screenwriter behind the series) posted a while back?
So... everyone has to believe that he's dead for him to be able to return as himself—as Zhang Haixia (more on this in my previous post).
Now, let's take a closer look at the final episode and how the scenes are arranged.
Right after Hailou stabs Haixia and pulls him into a tight embrace, that's the last time we ever see Haixia... or rather, the last time we see him in his own physical form or appearance.
The door closing here feels very intentional to me. It's almost as if the show is saying, "There are some things we're not ready to show you."
From this scene alone, we can't say with 100% certainty that Haixia died. (For a more detailed breakdown, check out my previous post.)
But once you pay close attention to what happens next... that's when things start to get really interesting.
This 👆 is Hailou after the incidents in that tomb. Now compare this Hailou to this👇 one:
Here... several years have passed since Haixia's assumed death. This is the moment when Hailou receives a letter. Yet instead of reading it in his own voice, he hears Haixia's voice.
Now... what does that actually imply?
Does it simply mean that Haixia wrote the letter, which is why we hear his voice? Maybe. But I can't help feeling there's something much deeper going on here.
What if the "Hailou" we saw here... is actually Haixia himself... disguised as Hailou? (Further... we're all aware of Hailou and Haixia's skill in putting on masks).
Haixia disguised as Hailou
Now let's look at the next scenes:
Compared to the images above (Haixia disguised as Hailou), THIS Hailou still seems weighed down by sadness and grief. If you look closely, even his fashion choices are different as well.
In the previous scene with Hailou—the one I believe is actually Haixia in disguise—he's wearing a black-strapped watch and repeatedly slips his hands into his back pockets. That's not something Hailou had ever done before.
But who *does* do that, over and over again?
Even the way Hailou (left side image) carries himself is different. This "Hailou" doesn't have the same composure as the Hailou we saw earlier (right side image). To me, the differences in his demeanor, body language, and even his styling all point to one conclusion: these aren't the same person.
In other words... I don't think these two are the same person.
When I put all of this together with Sanshu's post, everything suddenly clicks into place for me.
I highly recommend watching the final episode yourself, because, my God, Zhang Xincheng's performance is phenomenal. You can clearly see the change in his demeanor between these two scenes—it's subtle, but impossible to miss.
And I provided the link to my previous post where I pointed out reasons for Haixia being alive. If you like you can check it out :)
I'd like to hear your ideas as well :>
