Chapter 285 The confrontation between Tachibana Masamune and Lu Mingfei
Caesar and Chu Zihang walked forward in the deadly divine way, and footsteps echoed in the narrow passage, and the bronze candlesticks on the walls on both sides were beating with dark candlelight, reflecting their twisted shadows on a series of huge paintings like mountains.
"Didn't you notice it? Although the screen wall depicting the Black King's arrival is huge, it only occupies less than one-tenth of the length of the entire wall. There should be more secrets in front of it." Chu Zihang whispered.
Caesar nodded, and he turned the flashlight, and the light spread across the ancient stone walls.
The colors of vermilion and indigo blend together, so beautiful that it makes people sigh and look dazzled. Thousands of years of history spread in front of their eyes like a scroll. The two of them looked like they were immersed in the long river of thousands of years, swaying with the waves.
The monsters with human faces and snake bodies formed a team of endless sight. Some of them held up torches and knelt on the ground to the sky, as if they were worshipping; some hugged each other, and their long huge tails were entangled together, as if they were intercourse.
The male snake people are tall and mighty, while the females are enchanting and charming. They dance around the huge skeletons, surrounded by burning bonfires. In the sky, the giant dragon with wings on its back soared in the clouds. The sun and the moon shine on the earth at the same time, illuminating the bones. In its dark holes, one of them flowed out golden water, and the other one with a storm of raging flames, solidifying into mineral veins and magma in the distance.
Demons and giants started a war on the wasteland. They held long swords and halberds, and the flames shone the sky red, as if the world was ignited...
It is hard to imagine that those golden rivers were really paved with melted real gold, and the swords were truly refined bronze. Blood-red or emerald green agate stones and finely carved crystal jade can be seen everywhere on the walls, which are luxurious and radiant.
This is a craft work that people worship, as if they incorporate all the violence, anger and sins in the world into this wall. When they see the painting, they seem to ring the war drums and roars from thousands of years ago in their ears. They smell the blood of war, and feel the hot temperature of the flames burning on their skin... The picture is so beautiful that it is thrilling, so beautiful that it makes people cry.
There are more than a hundred paintings like this on the long corridor. Caesar and Chu Zihang, who looked up at the murals, were shocked by this luxurious but extremely real beauty. They seemed to be silent in the indescribable world depicted in the painting, and walked a long way in silence.
"It seems that the meaning of this layer is to store these murals. Each of them has a history of at least a thousand years. If you take it out for auction, it would be unimaginable and sky-high." Chu Zihang couldn't help but stroke a mural with his fingers that carved the earth and the king of the mountains.
"It's really terrible for Japanese people to be extravagant." Caesar couldn't help but sigh, "In Tokyo, where every inch of land is valuable, it uses such a wide floor specifically for storage room, hiding this treasure in a hidden floor where no one steps into the foot, and using the legendary mermaid oil as a candle for lighting."
"Although these paintings have high artistic value and painting skills, exquisite materials, and proper preservation methods, for the Bazi of the Snake Qi, what is precious should not be the murals themselves, but the history hidden in these paintings. The part we just visited should describe ancient myths and legends." Chu Zihang looked ahead, "What really made the Bazi of the Snake Qi look like treasures should be not far ahead of us."
Caesar shone the light of the flashlight towards the ceiling and looked up at the top of his head. They were passing through a Torii.
Two thick wooden pillars support Kasagi and Shimaki that run across the entire space. They do not seem to be spliced together, but are made from an ancient tree that is huge enough to carve it at one time. The vermilion paint on it is already dark and mottled, revealing the original ancient wood color. There is an ancient word "Shen" written on the middle of Torii Masato's forehead.
"The atmosphere here is very strange." Chu Zihang frowned slightly, "The smell of blood is even heavier."
"This is the end of Shinto, where there is the real secret of the Snake Eight Family." Caesar obviously also smelled the smell of burning incense and blood mixed in the air, and his expression became serious.
The candlestick made of mermaid oil suddenly broke here, and tall withered images stood in the dark, made of solid wood.
Each withered statue has a white curtain hanging on its face, some are gods holding swords, and some are hideous evil ghosts. The difference is that each god has a stone platform under its feet, and the evil ghosts are surrounded by long white ropes.
This kind of rope woven with paper is called "banners", which refers to the banner on the brake. If it is a hanging curtain or a streamer decorated on a paper umbrella, it means holiness. If it is a wrapped rope, it means sealing the evil soul.
This place is completely different from the walls on both sides of the Shinto. The screen walls behind Torii are horizontal. Each screen wall almost has a length that runs across the entire floor. On both sides of the front stand giant elephants and shrines similar to worship. The things depicted on the screen wall are between gods and ghosts and demons, recording the war between gods and demons, the barren land and ancient cities.
"Betta, do you understand? Which history does these things record?" Caesar asked Chu Zihang.
"I can only tell from the pigments and materials of these murals that their origins are at least two thousand years ago. This not only involves the history of the birth of mixed races, but also the mythical wars and some dragon tribes' secrets, which are very profound." Chu Zihang stroked these priceless ancient stone walls. "The Eight Snake Qi Family has never published this content to the college, and there are no relevant documents on this history in the college's library, so it is difficult to interpret. I can only understand the very small part of the surface."
"A part of the surface? I can understand it," said Caesar. "These screen walls are all very good and valuable, and they are antiques."
Chu Zihang ignored this 25-5 joke and walked deeper: "But what I can be sure of is that the deeper the contents of these murals are more important to the Eight Schools of Snake Qi, and the biggest secret should be hidden in the deepest part of this layer."
Caesar and Chu Zihang had already walked very deep. Looking from the gap between the screen wall and the wall, the Shinto with mermaid oil illuminated became a light ball of a lake. The two of them were like lost travelers falling into the depths of the underworld, becoming more and more distant from the real world.
"Caesar, give me the flashlight." Chu Zihang stopped in front of a towering and wide screen wall and stretched out his hand towards Caesar.
"Only this time, next time, don't give orders to me like an assistant who takes your luggage for you!" Caesar reluctantly stuffed the flashlight into Chu Zihang's hand.
Of course he was very unhappy. The young master of the Gattuso family had never been called by others, let alone the annoying guy Chu Zihang was the one who commanded him.
But he knew in his heart that his accumulation of historical knowledge was far inferior to that of Chu Zihang. At this level, that guy could act as a half expert, and he was more like a nouveau riche who thought it was valuable when he saw anything. He couldn't help but be curious about the secrets hidden by the Bazi family of Snake Qi, so he had to condescend Chu Zihang to order him once.
Chu Zihang adjusted the brightness of the flashlight to the maximum, twisted the aperture to the widest, and tried to retreat to the distance so that the aperture could cover as many parts of the screen wall in front of him as possible until his back was pressed to the back of the previous screen wall.
Most of the murals were illuminated, and this screen wall carved a huge map.
The forests and lakes are dotted like stars on the map. There are towering ancient cities between the mountains and forests. Four huge thrones stand at the four corners of the northern area of the mural. The most central part of the throne is the supreme emperor, the Black King Needhog.
The central part of the mural is carved with a sharp dragon shadow, pale all over.
The white dragon held up a golden scepter and sat upright on the white throne, confronting the black king in the north, radiating from the light emitted from the scepter to the north, crossing the mountains and the ocean, illuminating the great black king, leaving fire-like scars.
It is not difficult to see that the white dragon is the well-deserved protagonist of this mural.
"So that's it. What we saw at the bottom of the sea was her. Her city was when we destroyed it." Chu Zihang stared at the white dragon and said a meaningful sentence.
"Bai Wang?" Caesar said in a daze, "The biggest secret of the Eight Snake Family...is the White King?"
"By the way, I remembered it! We have seen these human faces and snake bodies before, right?" Caesar suddenly said, "We have seen this Torii, the city in the murals, and even the withered image of the White King, not long ago, in Jiyuan, Gaotianyuan, in that lost undersea city."
Chu Zihang nodded.
"It turns out that what Lu Mingfei said is true, and what Xia Mi said is true. The Japanese mixed races have different origins from other mixed races. Their history is indeed a mythological history. The screen walls we just saw were not pictures imagined by the painter for the sake of artistic quality. They are all real, and are recorded by historians. A brilliant civilization that existed on this land, a brilliant civilization... a civilization independent of the world ruled by the White King!" Chu Zihang said in a deep voice.
"They believe in the White King?" Caesar frowned, "just like Christianity believes in Jesus?"
"No, it's not just faith." Chu Zihang pointed to the huge picture in front of him, "Although the historian records a history that requires justice, it will inevitably have strong background colors and personal emotions. Haven't you noticed that the Black King is the leader of the Dragon Clan, and the White King is just the priest of the Dragon Clan, and is the existence of the Asuka Black King. But the image of the White King on this mural is more majestic than the Black King... What kind of mixed-race species thinks that the White King is greater than the Black King?"
"In ancient times, the Gaotianyuan on the bottom of the sea was part of Japan before the land sinks. It was a city that worshiped the White King. There were huge statues of the White King standing in the center of the city. Those corpse guards were all refined from ancient mixed-race species that had died. Even the Bronze and Fire Kings, who were best at alchemy among the four kings, did not have such ability. Who has a stronger alchemy than the Four Kings?" Chu Zihang analyzed the truth for Caesar in a cocoon. "In Japanese, Shinto means tombs, which should be worshipped in coffins, but there are only these murals here. Genji Heavy Industry... Do you think anyone would put other people's tombs or spiritual positions in their own homes?"
"These murals enshrine the ancestors of the Japanese mixed-race species? So..." Caesar looked at the white dragon shadow in the middle of the mural, "Damn it, the ancestors of the Bazi family of Snake Qi were the White King? They are the blood descendants of the White King, this is their biggest secret!"
"This is of course their secret, but maybe it's not the biggest." Chu Zihang moved the flashlight away from the White King's mural. "This is not the last layer of screen wall. There are several layers behind it. The things recorded may be more shocking than the secret of the White King's Bloodborne."
"And I can smell the bloody smell spreading on this layer came from behind this mural." Chu Zihang patted Caesar's shoulder, "Next we must remain vigilant."
"Don't show your subordinates the expression, I'm the team leader, okay? And... I've told you to call the code name, bastard!" Caesar followed Chu Zihang's pace and walked towards the deepest part of this layer.
...
The huge freight elevator parked in a mezzanine at the bottom of Genji Heavy Industry.
This floor is called a "question room". The entire floor is a dark room and compartment with soundproof walls. It is generally used to interrogate or temporarily detain family prisoners. There is no surveillance probe set up here and is not open to people outside the family. Only magnetic cards with authority of the deputy minister or above can reach this floor.
The four of them walked out of the elevator and came to the dimly lit aisle. Lu Mingfei looked at the back of Jumasato, and a bad premonition flashed in his heart.
"Mr. Masato, come to the torture room late at night, what's the point?" After walking for quite a while, Sakurai Nankai finally couldn't help but ask.
"Actually, I just wanted to visit the children of the ghosts brought back by Zhisheng. Although they all bear the fate of ghosts, it is also the original sin of blood. After all, each of them was a family child." Speaking of this, the Seizumasa Sect suddenly stopped, "But I suddenly changed my mind because before visiting those children, there was something more important that forced me to care about."
Behind him, Inuyama Ka, Sakurai Nankai and Lu Akihi, who was disguised as researchers, also stopped. Both heads of the family looked at Masatori and waited for the following.
Jushimasato turned around, but did not look at the heads of the previous family, but stared at the figure in the white coat and slowly spoke: "Who are you?"
Chapter completed!