Sun Tribe ARG

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The Dark Legacy of the Sun Tribe
Completed
Type Official
Creator Red Candle Games
Discovered 2025-09-09

List of Investigations > Sun Tribe ARG

The Dark Legacy of the Sun Tribe was an ARG run by Red Candle Games, involving their game Nine Sols.

Sun Tribe Exhibition

From October 12-27, 2024, Red Candle Games hosted an exhibition of historical artifacts at the Pier-2 Art Center in Taiwan.[1]. These artifacts were purportedly from the Sun Tribe: a legendary civilization that possessed technologies and knowledge far beyond its time.

After the exhibition concluded, Red Candle Games posted security footage taken from the exhibition hall to X.[2] In the footage, two masked individuals are visible: one person uses a hammer to break open a display case and steal a clay tablet, while the other person marks the display case with graffiti of a sea turtle. Additionally, the overlay of the footage is written in the Solarian language from Nine Sols.

Hours after the security footage was posted, an X account named @DiverYuuki07 replied to the security footage.[3] Notably, this new account had a profile picture that matched the sea-turtle graffiti design. The reply linked to this website, titled "Truth Beneath Shadows: Unmasking the Fusang Conspiracy".[4]

According to the website, Fusang was a secretive organization working to unlock the potential of the Sun Tribe's artifacts. Allegedly, Fusang silenced others that tried to investigate the Sun Tribe, including an archaeologist named Wu Haimin. Fusang also shares its name with a primordial entity from Nine Sols.[5]

The final page of the Fusang Conspiracy site[6] hosted an image that concealed two faintly-visible halftone designs:

The Google form asked visitors to leave their name and email address.

Trailhead

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The trailhead for the ARG

On September 9, 2025, Red Candle Games posted a video entitled "The Dark Legacy of the Sun Tribe" to their YouTube channel.[8] The narrator of the video introduces themselves as Yuuki, and takes credit for the break-in at the Sun Tribe exhibition.

In the video, Yuuki tells the story of Wu Haimin, an amateur archaeologist. Through unofficial channels, Wu Haimin acquired ancient bamboo scrolls, dating from around 200 BCE. Wu Haimin thought the scroll was written by Xu Fu, a prominent alchemist who lived during the Qin dynasty. At the emperor's orders, Xu Fu had sailed east in search of the secret to immortality, and had never returned. According to Yuuki, Wu Haimin became obsessed with the scrolls.

One night, Wu Haimin awoke to find an old man beside his bed, who told him to journey to the "immortal island." After this hallucination, Wu Haimin realized that Xu Fu had been in search of the Sun Tribe, an unusually advanced civilization that existed around 8000 BCE. Wu Haimin formed a research team to continue investigating the Sun Tribe, and received a threatening call from the Fusang Foundation. After this, Wu Haimin became paranoid, and eventually disappeared. Furthermore, in every photo where Wu Haimin once appeared, his face had been scratched out.

Xu Fu's bamboo scrolls were recovered from Wu Haimin's house, and eventually landed in Yuuki's posession. In the video, Yuuki translates a portion of the scrolls, and they mention the "ancient capital" Penglai, which shares its name with the Solarian home planet from Nine Sols.[9] Yuuki asked viewers to join him in searching for Penglai, and explained that there is a way to contact him hidden in the video.

Yuuki's video included a key that allowed the substitution of symbols with English letters. Throughout the video, these symbols appear near Yuuki. By excluding symbols where Yuuki is not holding up his hands, the following text can be translated with the substitution cipher: 

DRAGONPALACEM

By combining this text with the Tumblr logo hidden at the end of Yuuki's video, players discovered the Tumblr user @dragonpalace4, which used the sea turtle design as its profile picture.

Tumblr Blog

Yuuki's first post on the Tumblr blog included a more complete translation of Xu Fu's bamboo scrolls.[10] In the post, Yuuki asked for theories on where the location described in the scrolls might be. Based on the description of stone tombs in the translation, commenters suggested the location could be Gangwha Island. Yuuki travelled to South Korea to visit Gangwha island, and kept a log of his travels on the Tumblr blog.

South Korea

First, Yuuki visited the Gangwha Dolmen Sites (the stone tombs mentioned in the scrolls) but found them to be a dead end.[11] However, Yuuki was followed by a strange person who tried to speak with him in Korean before vanishing.[12] Yuuki then tried to track down the "fermented dried fish" mentioned in Xu Fu's scrolls by visiting a fish market, where he identified the dish as hongeo before being kicked out of the market.[13] Yuuki felt he was being followed again, and headed into a café.[14] Yuuki fell asleep at the table, and when he awoke, he was holding a drawing of same the sea turtle he used as his profile picture.[15]

While visiting a museum, Yuuki had his wallet and passport stolen by a pickpocket posing as a "private tour guide."[16] Yuuki traced the thief to his address and met the thief's grandmother, who apologized profusely for her grandson's behaviour.[17][18] After understanding that Yuuki was looking for hongeo, the thief's grandmother gave Yuuki a note to pass to the same fish vendor that had previously kicked Yuuki out of the fish market.[19][20]

The hongeo vendor set up a meeting between Yuuki and the hongeo supplier.[21] After a night of drinking with the hongeo supplier, Yuuki recovered a painting passed down by the supplier's ancestors, and recognized that the painting pointed to the next point of interest a shrine in Japan.[22]

Japan

Four days later, Yuuki travelled to Japan to visit an unnamed shrine in the Kansai region of Japan.[23] While investigating the shrine, Yuuki was again followed by the same man from South Korea.[24] Yuuki confronted the man, who revealed that he disliked Fusang as well.[25] Yuuki had another conversation with the man over Steam, where he introduced himself as Michael. Michael convinced Yuuki that their interests were aligned.[26]

Continuing his investigation of the shrine, Yuuki met the youngest child of a family that had kept the shrine for generations. The child, whom Yuuki calls "Shiro," introduced Yuuki to the rest of his family.[27] Shiro's family allowed Yuuki to search through documents pertaining to the shrine's history, and Yuuki discovered that Fusang had driven Shiro's family away from the shrine.[28] Yuuki also learned that Shiro's family had preserved the Solarian language, calling it "the gods' script."[29] Shiro revealed to Yuuki that before she passed away, Shiro's grandma had buried a stack of papers under a tree, near the summit of Mount Takamikura.[30]

Yuuki attempted to climb Mount Takamikura, but got lost on the trail.[31] Yuuki called emergency services, and the operator repeated the phrase "go down," then disconnected the call.[32] Michael found Yuuki on the trail, and together the pair agreed to return to the base of the mountain.[33] Michael suddenly started screaming at Yuuki, then Yuuki passed out.[34][35] At this point, posts containing "下去" (or "go down") were added to the Tumblr page.[36][37]

Yuuki was woken up by Shiro, who guided Yuuki to the summit of the mountain, then disappeared.[38] Under a tree near the summit, Yuuki discovered the Solarian notes that had been left there by Shiro's grandmother.[39] Yuuki returned to Shiro's house, but Shiro had no memory of finding Yuuki on the mountain trail.[40] After translating the notes, Yuuki's next target was "Xianyu."[41] This pointed back to Taiwan, where Yuuki was originally from.

Taiwan

After returning to Taiwan, Yuuki got a taxi.[42] The driver revealed that they worked for Fusang, then asked Yuuki to come with him to their headquarters.[43] After escaping from the cab driver, Yuuki left one final post on the Tumblr blog, thanking the community for helping him reach this point.[44][45]

Yuuki Mindscape

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A playthrough of the "yuukimindscape" beta branch of Nine Sols
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Fusang Research Center footage, revealed after Yuuki's mindscape reached 100%

Minecraft Server

Sources

  1. ↑ Red Candle Games [@redcandlegames] (October 11, 2024). "🌞 The Lost Sun Empire Exhibition in Taiwan!" (Tweet). Archived from the original on November 26, 2025 – via X.
  2. ↑ Red Candle Games [@redcandlegames] (October 28, 2024). "Strange men. Took clay tablet on 27th. I. provide. footage. please. watch." (Tweet). Archived from the original on November 26, 2025 – via X.
  3. ↑ Seaturtle_Yuuki [@DiverYuuki07] (October 28, 2024). "You’re looking for me, aren’t you?" (Tweet). Archived from the original on November 26, 2025 – via X.
  4. ↑ "Truth Beneath Shadows: Unmasking the Fusang Conspiracy". Archived September 10, 2025 from the original.
  5. ↑ Nine Sols Wiki. Fusang.
  6. ↑ THE LOST CITY OF PENGLAI. Archived September 17, 2027 from the original.
  7. ↑ Join me if you also seek the truth. Accessed November 26, 2025.
  8. ↑ Red Candle Games [@RedCandleGames] (September 9, 2025). The Dark Legacy of the Sun Tribe (YouTube video).
  9. ↑ Nine Sols Wiki. Penglai.
  10. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 9, 2025). Congrats on making it here. (Tumblr post).
  11. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 12, 2025). So this is the stone tomb Xu Fu wrote about in the scroll. (Tumblr post).
  12. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 12, 2025). Something weird happened. (Tumblr post).
  13. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 12, 2025). At the fish market now, going after Xu Fu's dried fish. (Tumblr post).
  14. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 12, 2025). I just dropped into some random café and grabbed whatever. (Tumblr post).
  15. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 12, 2025). Back. Had to bounce, just left the café. (Tumblr post).
  16. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 13, 2025). Finally got a second to type. (Tumblr post).
  17. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 13, 2025). Pulled the audio, traced the guy to his registered address. (Tumblr post).
  18. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 13, 2025). Can’t believe shit like this actually happens... (Tumblr post).
  19. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 13, 2025). Got a little too emotional last night. (Tumblr post).
  20. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 13, 2025). There’s some weird gravity pulling me back to this place... (Tumblr post).
  21. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 13, 2025). Just left the market. (Tumblr post).
  22. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 14, 2025). Done. Back somewhere safe. (Tumblr post).
  23. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 18, 2025). Made it to the shrine. (Tumblr post).
  24. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 19, 2025). Something happened. Keeping it short. (Tumblr post).
  25. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 19, 2025). Got him. (Tumblr post).
  26. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 19, 2025). Nothing to do, so I fired up Steam. (Tumblr post).
  27. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 19, 2025). At the shrine. (Tumblr post).
  28. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 19, 2025). Searched the storage. (Tumblr post).
  29. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 19, 2025). Did another loop around the house. (Tumblr post).
  30. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 20, 2025). Took Shiro to the convenience store. (Tumblr post).
  31. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 20, 2025). Fuck! I turned on GPS like you said and this happened. (Tumblr post).
  32. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 20, 2025). This isn't right! I dialed 110. (Tumblr post).
  33. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 20, 2025). Thank god. Michael found me. (Tumblr post).
  34. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 20, 2025). Michael suddenly said his throat was itchy, (Tumblr post).
  35. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 20, 2025). I slipped and fell. (Tumblr post).
  36. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 20, 2025). 下去 (Tumblr post).
  37. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 20, 2025). 下去下去下去 (Tumblr post).
  38. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 20, 2025). Finally awake again, (Tumblr post).
  39. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 20, 2025). Found it. (Tumblr post).
  40. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 20, 2025). The descent was normal. (Tumblr post).
  41. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 20, 2025). Translation's done. (Tumblr post).
  42. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 26, 2025). Got a taxi. (Tumblr post).
  43. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 26, 2025). It's Fusang. (Tumblr post).
  44. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 26, 2025). Damn it! (Tumblr post).
  45. ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 20, 2025). I know where Penglai is now. (Tumblr post).
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