mural
In this small town, the only person who could sabotage us secretly while we were together seemed to be that person. But that sinister idiot was still stuck on the bus.
"Let's look at the murals first." I couldn't come to a conclusion right away, and I didn't intend to force myself to think about it.
"Since the people who took action only dared to do small things in private, we should proceed at our own pace. First, we need to understand... the true face of the Snow Mountain Underground Palace and the Nian family at the foot of the mountain."
Outside the window, night has fallen. But looking from afar, whether it is the platform, the bar, or those tall and short buildings, they are still as clear as in the daytime.
It now appears that, under the influence of the migrating mice, day and night may not alternate according to common sense.
After experiencing the inverted rule of moving the mouse, I have always suspected that here, day and night coexist. The reason why we entered the night without any signs may be that after our cognitive deviation, we slipped further into the world of night.
It is worth mentioning here that there are large patches of cloud patterns in the background of the murals. In the initial narrative, the image of the banyan tree appears frequently, and it seems to have a sacred color.
In the night depicted in the mural, the banyan tree is particularly active.
Under the lush banyan tree with its intricate root system, there are paintings of little people crawling on the ground. Although the facial features are very simple, they vividly depict their pious and greedy expressions.
Could these people be the original generation of Nian people? They discovered the banyan tree and started primitive worship.
But the second painting made me gasp.
Because the content jumps directly into the fight between people and banyan trees.
The little men surrounded the banyan tree, and outside the banyan tree, all the grass and trees turned over and fell, and the tree roots danced like giant pythons. Then the little men danced, threw the broken weapons into the fire, and poured the molten metal outside the banyan tree.
In the next scene, the originally lush banyan tree has disappeared, and there is only a group of little people singing and dancing, and only a hollow metal banyan tree that was cast in a mold stands in the corner.
It can be clearly felt that the focus of this picture is all on the little people. All other lines are rough outlines, and the torsos and limbs of the little people are a bunch of black lines piled together in a mess. Only the faces are extremely detailed and have a high degree of completion.
At this point, the photo was too small to zoom in too much to see the details. I was itching to get up, so I went down to the first step of the stairs and started looking at the murals from the beginning, comparing the photo in my hand with the panoramic view.
Those colors are so bright that they are almost poisonous, which makes people dare not look directly at them. But when I look closely, I find that the uneven surface of the paint seems to be deliberately designed.
At the odd angle of elevation provided by the steps, I kept my toes pointed directly at the center of the building and looked straight ahead. Some kind of deflected reflection made the mural shake slightly. The little people inside seemed to come alive, and their expressions were very vivid.
The faces had different expressions, some were laughing, some were crying, some were sad, some were happy, some were greedy, some were vicious, some were treacherous, some were ignorant, some were sad, and some were furious. All kinds of emotions were ready to burst out, as if they would jump out of the murals at the next moment.
My feet shook and I almost lost my balance. I was still scared.
"The ancients often had a lot of metaphors in their narrative murals," I said, my heart pounding. I pointed it out to Zhang Tian and said, "Do you feel that... the positions and relationships of those little figures and banyan trees are reversed?"
This is not just speculation, but as we slowly climbed up the stairs again, one step at a time, we saw more and more lines representing shadows under the feet of those little men.
The banyan tree in the painting never appeared in the center of the picture again, and was only represented by a rough blue-gray color. Instead, the little people's body movements in the dance became larger and more exaggerated, and the distance between people began to blur, as if they melted and stuck together.
The following scenes become increasingly chaotic. Amid the vast expanses of dazzling colors that are so bright that they seem to be dripping, the limbs have been distorted into unrecognizable shapes, guarding the vivid human faces.
I had a very awkward feeling that my initial preconceived interpretation of the mural might be flawed, and I couldn't help but look down at the seemingly calm metal floor below us.
Underground, the huge "man" is still there.
"If... according to the definition of the moving rat, this is what a human is..." I said uncomfortably, "The original banyan tree in the mural may be a beautified metaphor, not a real monster with the characteristics of a banyan tree."
Zhang Tian thought about it and said, "Are you trying to say that the first scene in the picture is actually a human sacrifice? The tree with many branches is just the outline of many human sacrifices thrown together and piled up."
I nodded. This was a massacre, but the horrific state of the dead was beautified and concealed.
It's like the witch hunt in the Middle Ages, where witches were equated with black cats, and they were burned or drowned, and only death could prove that they were not witches, but ordinary people who were framed. The logic is completely cruel and unreasonable.
"In a war between two tribes, one side claimed to be the spokesperson of God, while the other side was scorned as a monster and a beast." Zhang Tianyi also nodded, "We can accept this conjecture for the time being."
Such a large-scale massacre, if the bodies were not handled in time, it would easily cause plague. I also pointed out the large amount of melting metal in the picture, and said that this should be an exaggeration. It is very likely that some roughly processed ore and quicklime were used to bury and destroy the whole thing.
But the hollow banyan tree that was cast was preserved after all, and gradually changed from a metaphorical symbol to a real object used in some kind of sacrifice.
"Based on previous casting techniques, I suspect the initial version of this tree was yellow mud plaster, and later copper, aluminum and the like were mixed in. However, the metal content would not be too high because the technical level and price did not allow it."
But there was one question that I couldn't put into words right away. I just felt a little scared and said:
“The theme of this mural is very strange, it’s always about those little people, and the banyan tree is just a trophy or prey that represents military power.
But this was peeled off from the outside of the Yishu Underground Palace. Logically, the focus of this kind of sacrificial narrative painting should be on the Yishu. But there is no symbol representing the gods in this mural, which is wrong. "
Thinking about what Zhang Tianyi said just now, these steps of the small building seemed to be prepared for those long people with many hands, the contradiction and anomaly became even more serious.
Where is the "God"? In sacrificial paintings, the gods should not be missing.
The discussion got stuck here, so we thought about it and came up with a few more conjectures.
The most acceptable guess for me is that the contradictory information conveyed by the small building is because the Zhang family made some revisions and changes to the platform building after taking over the town. After all, the murals were not supposed to be here originally.
The original platform building should have only had a hollow banyan tree and many-armed elongated figures who would take refuge in the banyan tree during severe storms.
Therefore, the construction of the steps and the banyan trees are all for the service of the long people.
Murals are different. The position of the painter may be the opposite.
From the painter's perspective, those dancing figures are praised. The gradually horrifying and exaggerated treatment later on seems to be some kind of primitive, bloody treatment method that emphasizes power and oppression.
“God is there.”
Zhang Tianyi suddenly said, "Those little people dancing and hunting the banyan tree are just wearing human skin. They are the gods in the murals."
I was startled and blurted out:
"Yes! This mural depicts a ghost story hunting a human. The fusion of the little people at the back is a hint that the ghost stories have the same source, which is the so-called moving rat."
Suddenly, a flash of lightning flashed, and I lost my voice and said:
"You're all wrong. The fog is a protective measure deliberately placed here by humans!"
As this thought came to my mind, I trembled all over. Many of the things I had seen and heard since entering the town, as well as all my subconscious prejudices and defenses, were overturned.
"——The thing underground, its immortality and fusion properties are used to gather all the survivors in the town so that they can hide in the small building on the platform."
"People's consciousness is mostly dormant in it, but they can still maintain a certain degree of clarity in order to maintain the final framework of humanity."
"It chased us, really trying to contain us, to protect us in the banyan tree's armor. Because it is in the mist, it must be most sensitive to changes in humidity in the air, and can immediately warn of the coming of a big storm."
These were by no means delusions, because I immediately realized that the greatest function of fog is actually to block the direct sunlight from the sky, so that we are not directly exposed to the sun and moon.
Nian Ziqing said that once you enter the Mouse Palace, you will be deformed and melt into a pool. That pool is probably a literal meaning, you will turn into liquid and then vaporize and evaporate.
But we misunderstood this as the fusion of long people.
Another piece of evidence is that there is a lot of volcanic ash in the fog, and the insect eggs transformed from the human body are very cold and will spray icy, almost light blue gas towards the human body.
"High temperature..." I said in horror, "The big storm here is the violent eruption of high-temperature air currents. The fog and insect eggs are objectively cooling down the entire town and the people in it. The gray snow that has clumps is to prevent the ground beneath our feet from completely turning into a melting furnace purgatory."
The rough edges of all the buildings along the way that looked like they were slicing down give me the creeps when I think back on them now.
What a joke, the content in the mural is realistic, and we are now in the process of being melted by the mouse.
The hot air that surged out of the cracks in the ground with the smell of sulfur, and the insect eggs that were released after being melted by the hot air...
There is no mistake, this is an active volcano that could erupt at any time. The entire town is located in the crater.
The platform and this small building are located at the core position, blocking the passage that may explode at any time. The metal banyan tree structure dissipates and spreads the frequent shock waves of varying sizes.
There are also buildings with large stone gates that appear in the mist at night.
That is also a protective measure.
The reef emerges at night and disappears during the day, and there is a dynamic transformation between appearance and disappearance.
The boat that makes up the town itself cannot move, but the dynamic changes of the reef can serve as a reference in the inverted rule of moving the mouse to prove that the reef is stationary and the boat is moving.
In other words, apart from the bus that accidentally brought us in, the rules of the tour group have actually been effective on a larger scale.
Through this mechanism, the town, as a "hull" of transportation, carries passengers always moving forward, but never moves near the underground palace, standing dangerously but steadily on the edge of distortion.
This is a scam that has been going on for many years and is targeting mice.
It is almost possible to visually imagine that before the fog and insect eggs got out of control, the family maintained their identities as pilgrims and travelers over the years, using the rules of moving rats to ensure they would not die, but they never went into the mountains, worshipped, or offered sacrifices, and were firmly nailed to this small town.
In the midst of big storms again and again, the huge humanoid figures that were responsible for guarding the platform, gradually twisted and losing their minds, would still occasionally let out a mocking snicker in their twisted malice.
I don't know who came up with this bold attempt and design, but it is undoubtedly very bold and ambitious.
A meek and cowardly person would never do such a thing as teasing a weird story.
Thinking back to the contents of the county annals at this moment, I was shocked and felt a hint of profound meaning.
The Nian family, who appeared in the county annals as confused and innocent victims, originally imagined that they were planning to commit a huge crime.
The so-called Luotian, this highest level of fasting and offering sacrifices, was usually held only for the king and the country in the past, to pray for good weather and peace in the world.
Moreover, this ritual can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty.
Since the Nian family could behave like this, the misunderstanding on the platform did not seem so simple.
It may be true that there are short-sighted and unfilial descendants, but whether the family members took advantage of the situation and used scandals to cover up their actual purposes over the years is another matter.
At least in my opinion at this moment, the fact that such a large project as the entire platform and the small building could finally be successfully completed was probably the result of everyone's willingness to promote it, either openly or secretly.
"Wrong. All wrong."
What kind of crucial information did the family lose later on? The entire truth was lost and misunderstood.
I murmured, "The Nian family may not be acting out of pure kindness and protection. They may also be plotting and monopolizing the mouse...but their defense mechanism is indeed protecting the people in the town."
“Young people shouldn’t have taken advantage of the pollution in the fog to spread and dilute it… This means that the town’s defense mechanism is rapidly weakening.
So over the past week, it seemed to remain calm, but the situation has deteriorated rapidly, which is why the storm came so quickly in the short term.
I'm afraid this is just a small precursor, the real big storm has not yet arrived."
Once a big storm destroys the platform building, the high-temperature and high-pressure active volcano under the town will erupt...
Thinking of this, Zhang Tianyi and I looked at each other and shuddered.
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