Chapter 110 Strange Murals. A Learned Mummy.

Xia Zhu's brain was racing. Ying Huo was indeed the last one. She even counted again, starting from Ji Yinxiu, and wondered if Feng Mian had caught up because he was bored. She tried to convince herself not to make a fuss, but those legs were so dark and thin, and the skin looked like old tree bark, with a hint of cracking. No matter what, it didn't look like a normal person. She couldn't convince herself that Feng Mian had suddenly become punk.

Xia Zhu even felt a sense of familiarity; the texture of this skin was very similar to the charred man she had seen in her first dream.

What's wrong with you?

When Ying Huo saw her staring at him and winking, he suddenly remembered something, his face flushed, and his eyes darted to the side.

"It's alright, you look good with or without glasses."

What? Xia Zhu was so nervous he almost vomited. What nonsense was he talking about?

"later.."

Ying Huo realized he might have misunderstood something. He frowned and stared at Xia Zhu's lips.

"What's behind? What's behind..."

He suddenly snapped out of his daze, and tremblingly swallowed the last word back down.

"Phew~"

A gust of cold air blew behind his ear, freezing Ying Huo stiff from head to toe. He also heard a rustling sound that made his hair stand on end, like an invisible long-legged caterpillar slowly crawling along his earlobe.

"Lower your head!"

Ji Yinxiu's voice came from behind, and Xia Zhu immediately reached out and pulled Ying Huo down. A cold light flashed and disappeared above their heads, but no sound of anything hitting anything was heard.

Xia Zhu looked up and saw the monster, its limbs resembling those of a charred human, crawling up the wall like a spider to the top of the cave. She flicked the light in her hand, shining it on the thing's face, and found that it was indeed a dried corpse, its flesh shrunken and clinging to its bones, like a piece of charred, dried bamboo. When the light swept across its eye sockets, Xia Zhu saw something flash in the center of its two shriveled eyeballs.

"Giggle giggle giggle..."

The monster's body made a snapping sound as it nimbly crawled over the heads of the group, disappearing into the tunnel with only a trail of afterimages.

"Is that the female clown?" Feng Feng shouted, "Quick, chase after her!"

Xia Zhu quickly drew his small sword and followed behind them.

The group raced through the narrow passage, relying only on the crawling sounds of the monster and the occasional glimpse of its withered hind limbs. Just as they were about to lose it, Feng Feng raised his hand and swung out a vine, which precisely wrapped around the monster. However, the monster was so strong that they could only follow it but could not pull it to a stop.

The road gradually widened, and a fork suddenly appeared ahead. Fortunately, with Xiao Feng's vines, everyone followed the left entrance without hesitation.

After turning a corner, the view suddenly opened up before them. It was no longer the narrow tunnel they had just come from, but a hole in the ground that was about the same size as where they had fallen.

There were two or three more openings around the perimeter, but the monster had long since vanished, leaving only a broken vine with scattered cuts lying on the ground.

Feng Feng angrily picked up her vines. "It actually got away! By the way, what exactly was that thing? And..." She looked around in all directions, "Where is this place?"

Since there was no large hole in the ceiling, the light was much dimmer. Shining a flashlight around, I discovered that many transparent strips of cloth were hanging from the ceiling all around, and the fishy smell was even more intense here.

What are these?

Xia Zhu also raised her hand to look at it, and tore off the nearest piece of "cloth" in front of her. She held it in her palm and saw that it was grayish-white and dry, and felt slippery to the touch.

“It’s a snake’s shed skin,” she said.

These strips of cloth, hanging all over the cave and piled up everywhere, were actually snake molts of varying sizes and ages, fluttering mournfully like ghost banners in the eerie wind.

Moreover, it's not just ordinary snakeskin.

She picked one up and held it up in front of her eyes. She could clearly see that the snakeskin, with its scaly texture, was covered with countless tiny holes, like air pores.

Generally speaking, snakeskin doesn't have this kind of thing on it.

She tore off another one to check, and it was the same.

"Why are these snakeskins covered in holes?" Feng Feng also noticed the problem. She shook her hand, her expression turning grim. "Regardless of how these holes formed, this place is clearly a snake den! So many skins could feed a whole leather goods factory! How many snakes must there be…?"

As she spoke, she shivered.

"I have another bad feeling."

Ying Huo chuckled behind him, "Great, this guy always keeps his word."

Then Feng Feng rolled his eyes at him.

"That's bad, we've lost track of the monster, and we don't even know if that thing is the ugly woman we're looking for." Feng Feng put his hands on his hips and pointed to several cave entrances next to him. "Come on, friends, let's pick a hero or a hero, boys or girls, and keep charging forward."

As he spoke, he began chanting a spell.

He stopped abruptly halfway through reading.

“Wait a minute…” Feng Feng walked towards one of the walls, reached out and peeled off the snakeskin stuck to it, “There seem to be paintings here too.”

"A painting?" Xia Zhu curiously leaned closer and shone the light from Ji Yinxiu's hand on the earthen wall. Indeed, there was a painting on the wall.

A real painting is not one haphazardly smeared with blood, but rather a painting made with decent mineral pigments, which, apart from the presence of slime, can even be described as having vibrant colors.

The area where the snakeskin was peeled back was painted with green, leaf-like patterns. Xia Zhu felt that the patterns looked somewhat familiar. Before she could figure it out, Feng Feng suddenly became excited and cleaned up the wall within a one-meter radius around it, exposing the patterns to everyone's eyes.

As the image gradually took shape, Xia Zhu felt a tingling sensation in her palms; it was indeed something she was very familiar with.

"Jianmu." The two said in unison.

To be precise, the image depicting the wall is the Jianmu totem of the Chunhuang Feng family, which is exactly the same as the talisman pattern hanging on their ears at this moment.

"Why are my family's totem here?"

Ji Yinxiu, who was standing to the side, had an idea and began to clean the rest of the walls. Sure enough, in addition to the Jianmu totem, there were also the symbols of the other seven families on the walls, including the dragon pattern of the Huangdi Ji family and the phoenix of the Ying family.

Not one was missing, except for the comet of the Chiyou tribe.

Xia Zhu glanced at Ying Huo beside her and saw that his expression was not good.

That's good, she thought. If he could just say something straight, everyone wouldn't be running around like headless flies in the hole.

Oh no, those scurrying around in the burrow are rats.

Xia Zhu moved closer to the wall, trying to use her all-powerful fingers to rub the paint on it, but found that the paintings seemed to be embedded in the mud and could not be moved. Where the paint was not covered, the mud could be easily scraped off, but where there was paint, it was like a steel plate, and not even a little powder could be ground off.

This was quite strange; she had never seen any mineral pigment that could alter the texture of an adherent in this way.

This means that if someone could cut these patterns in one piece, they would obtain a substance that looks like soil but is not.

"Everyone, come take a look. There seems to be something strange about this painting..."

Ji Yinxiu squatted by the cave entrance, casting all his light on the corner of the wall, where there was a small painting that could only be seen by crouching down.

This series of paintings is more like a narrative mural, no longer just totems, but featuring a variety of figures.

The painting technique was also better than the red marks they found in the tunnel. To be honest, Xia Zhu even thought it was lifelike, and the colors were exceptionally rich.

The painting depicts a group of smaller figures surrounding a table, on which lie two taller figures, who appear to be a man and a woman, each with something resembling a blade or a tube inserted into their chest.

The scene was somewhat eerie, and the characters were so vividly portrayed that you could see the indifference on the faces of the group of little people, but their eyes, which were all looking at the two people in the center, were full of longing or even madness.

The whole picture seems to be trying to express something like…

A murder, or...

"Research."

Xia Zhu suddenly spoke, startling Feng Feng.

"A-Zhu, what did you say?"

She pointed to the painting in the corner and said, "It looks like Frankenstein is studying something."

Following her gaze, Feng Feng stared at the mural for a long time. He first chuckled and agreed, saying, "It does look somewhat like it." Then, he immediately hugged his arm nervously and whispered, "But why do I feel this is so eerie?"

"No matter how you look at it, these paintings look like they've been preserved for a very long time. I think they're at least ten years, no, twenty years, thirty years old, and they're still in this strange cave, depicting the totems of several major families. What does it all mean?"

"Also, I don't know if you've noticed..." She tremblingly pointed to one of the "little figures" in the painting, and slowly said, "They all seem to be wearing modern clothes..."

Xia Zhu suddenly felt a chill run down her spine. Whether it was the habit of drawing on walls or the ancient painting techniques, she had already preconceived notions that these things were left behind a long time ago. Although she had felt that something was wrong before, she immediately realized it when Xiao Feng pointed it out.

The figures in the painting are indeed wearing clothing similar to what they would wear today.

"Could this be a prank left here by some family?" Ji Yinxiu immediately dismissed the idea. Unless someone had nothing better to do than play a prank in this godforsaken wilderness, it was only during special times and for special people like them to happen to be passing by and fall into her trap.

This wasn't right, and that wasn't right either; as a result, the entire cave seemed even more eerie.

Rather than a prank, these things do seem more like relics from a certain period.

However, since they are not professional historians, they cannot make a definitive conclusion about which period it is. They are just judging from their feelings, and this place is full of inconsistencies.

They decided to split up and search again to see if there were any similar murals.

So the group searched along the base of the wall and actually found a few pictures for them, but they not only failed to understand their meaning, but were even more confused and bewildered.

"I suddenly have an idea!"

Feng Feng stood in the center of the open space and asked Ying Ya to take a flashlight and illuminate the murals one by one according to her instructions. She then slowly circled around to observe them. After doing this several times, she suddenly excitedly pounced on Xia Zhu.

"I know! It's a comic book about a human murdering a god!"

Seeing Xia Zhu's blank expression, she simply snatched the flashlight from Ying Ya's hand and led Xia Zhu to look at the pictures one by one.

The first one.

Long, long ago, an ancient tribe on a remote plain lived in peace and harmony. Men, women, and children each had their own duties, working at sunrise and resting at sunset…

The second one.

"Suddenly one day! A great fire fell from the sky and spread across the plains. This fire was so fierce that ordinary people could not put it out at all. They fled in all directions, but no matter where they went, the flames were raging and overwhelming!"

The third and fourth pictures.

"The high priest of the tribe asserted that this was the result of the anger of the gods in the sky, so they began to pray to the heavens and offer countless sacrifices in an attempt to appease the wrath of the gods. But the result was that the gods completely ignored them and did not care how many lives were lost on earth. Such indifference to life gradually made mankind angry!"

"Although the heavenly fire eventually went out, humanity began a millennia-long plan to kill the gods..."

The fifth and sixth paintings.

"Through the changing times and the shifting tides of human history, we have arrived at the technologically advanced modern era. Humanity has finally captured the gods, imprisoning them in their laboratories, dissecting their chests in an attempt to understand the difference between those born as gods and humans..."

Feng Feng grabbed Xia Zhu and gesticulated wildly, speaking with great emotion, almost making her believe him. Although it was far-fetched, Feng Feng had indeed connected those murals, and even did so in a serious and eloquent manner.

"Why would someone who paints go to such lengths to come here and create a story or myth?" she asked.

"Mythological stories?"

"Neither of us has ever heard of such a legend, and you are descendants of gods who have lived in your family since childhood. If this story is really related to the gods, wouldn't you have no clue about it?"

Feng Feng pondered for two seconds, "That makes sense."

“But the story you told is quite interesting. Tell me about the part about the heavenly fire.” Xia Zhu said, suddenly putting her arm around Feng Feng’s shoulder, leaning her head close to her ear, and whispering, “The cave on your left.”

Feng Feng glanced in that direction briefly, and immediately understood.

“Okay, okay, let me tell you more about this heavenly fire…” she said, shaking her head as she walked towards the mural on the left. “It is said that when this heavenly fire descended, the human world was plunged into misery…”

A vine whizzed through the air and flew straight toward the hole on the left.

While Feng Feng was engrossed in the story, Xia Zhu suddenly noticed the strange figure. It stood there straight, and no one knew when it had appeared. It seemed to be completely absorbed in the story about killing a god.

Caught off guard, the black figure swayed and was still entangled in Feng Feng's vines. Seeing that something was wrong, it turned to run away, its strength so great that it even dragged Feng Feng along.

Xia Zhu rushed over and kicked the thing in the chest. It didn't even flinch, taking the blow head-on. Its shriveled head tilted to one side due to inertia.

For some reason, she felt the mummified corpse looked a bit silly, as if it only knew how to imitate and run away but not how to attack. Seeing that they had discovered its presence, it tried to twist its body and transform into a "spider" to escape.

Ji Yinxiu quickly stepped forward, drew the Xuanyuan Sword, and plunged it straight into its abdomen. The mummified corpse fell backward, twitched for a moment, and then remained motionless.

"Is that all the fighting power you have?"

Several people gathered around and examined the legendary "corpse of the ugly woman".

"What a fine, dried-out corpse," Feng Feng commented.

“I do find it a bit strange,” Ji Yinxiu said. “This texture doesn’t look like a corpse, or rather, it doesn’t look like it’s made of flesh.”

"What is that?" Xia Zhu asked. Actually, she thought so too, after all, she had seen a real charred corpse in the dream at the toy factory.

"I'm not sure, maybe it's..."

“Stone,” Xia Zhu continued. Thinking about it, she simply reached out and pinched the female corpse’s arm. “Even the touch is so similar.” Like the texture of some kind of mineral.

She suddenly drew her small sword and brandished it on that arm.

"What are you doing?" Ying Huo squeezed in from behind and grabbed her hand.

Xia Zhu looked up at him blankly, "Take some samples back and study them."

"Aren't you afraid it might actually be a corpse? Besides, it can move, right? How can something made of stone move?"

Before Xia Zhu could speak, the mummified corpse on the ground suddenly convulsed violently a few times. The group of people subconsciously took a step back, and saw three red hairy snakes as thick as an arm forcefully emerge from the corpse's eye sockets and slide into the darkness with lightning speed.

"..." Feng Feng felt his hair was probably standing on end.

Xia Zhu turned to someone and gestured, "Can we take some samples back now to study them?"