Have you ever been to a tomb? You should film a tomb raider's diary!

Chapter 19 Murals: The History of the Exquisite Ancient Kingdom!

The stairs extend downwards, spiraling into endless darkness.

Each step is carved from a single piece of black rock, and it feels icy cold underfoot, as if it can penetrate the soles of your shoes and freeze straight into your bone marrow.

The eerie wind rising from below carried an extremely strange smell—not of decay, but an extremely bizarre aura of death, as if someone had drained all the moisture from an entire tomb and then poured it into your lungs.

Lin Mu walked at the front, the beam of his flashlight cutting through the thick darkness and illuminating each step beneath his feet.

"Stay close, hold onto the wall, and don't slip."

His voice echoed in the narrow stairwell, carrying a faint metallic quality.

The line formed a single file and carefully made its way down the slope.

After climbing about thirty steps, Ye Zhi Qiu's flashlight accidentally swept across the wall below.

"Wait! There's a painting on the wall below!"

Everyone shone their flashlights at the same time.

Large murals have appeared on both sides of the walls!

Unlike the rough eye totems in the temple above, these murals are extremely exquisite, painted with mineral pigments, and remain vivid and lifelike even after thousands of years.

The moment Professor Zhou saw the mural, he froze on the spot as if he had been electrocuted, and then let out a suppressed tremor.

"A continuous narrative mural...this is the national history of the Jingjue Kingdom!"

He frantically pulled out a magnifying glass, brought it close to the wall, and practically pressed his eye against it.

Fang Ting also raised her camera and took pictures like crazy, the shutter sound echoing incessantly in the quiet stairwell.

Despite experiencing a series of setbacks, Chen Wentao's scholarly instincts led him to join in, adjusting his crooked glasses and beginning to decipher the content of the mural.

"The first picture... this should be the scene of the founding of the Jingjue Kingdom."

Professor Zhou pointed to the mural at the top, his voice trembling slightly with excitement: "Look, this female figure wearing a tall crown, holding a scepter, with kneeling subjects below. This perfectly matches the records in ancient books that the Jingjue Kingdom revered its queen!"

"Professor, look at this one!"

Chen Wentao pointed to a larger mural below: "This is a sacrificial scene. In the center is a huge cave, and people around it are offering livestock and..."

His voice suddenly stopped.

Because he saw clearly that what was being offered in the murals was not just livestock.

There are still people.

living people.

Bound hand and foot, their faces contorted, the living people were pushed toward the gaping maw of the giant serpentine totem.

"Human sacrifice..."

Fang Ting covered her mouth, her face turning pale.

"The combination of snake god worship and human sacrifice was not uncommon in the religious systems of ancient Western Regions kingdoms."

Professor Zhou forced himself to remain academically calm: "Similar records exist in Sumerian civilization and early ancient Egypt. The Jingjue Kingdom may have revered some kind of large snake as a totem deity, and periodically used human sacrifices to pray for protection..."

The live stream chat exploded instantly.

Human sacrifice! Good heavens, the Jingjue Kingdom is far more ruthless than I imagined!

Professor Zhou truly lives up to his reputation as an archaeology expert; his analysis is incredibly insightful!

Wow! This mural is so well preserved!

Professor Zhou was speaking enthusiastically when his gaze shifted to the next set of murals.

This mural is clearly twice the size of the one in front, taking up the entire wall.

In the center of the image is the figure of a slender woman.

She sat on a high throne, dressed in magnificent robes and wearing a crown.

But the strangest thing was that her face was covered by a veil.

The veil covered her entire face from the bridge of her nose down, revealing only her eyes.

In front of her, a row of people were kneeling.

The posture of this group of people was extremely strange—they were not kneeling in worship, but in fear.

Some people covered their faces with their hands, some turned and ran away, and some... disappeared halfway through the drawing, leaving only a half-shadow.

"What does this mean?"

Chen Wentao frowned and adjusted his glasses: "This woman should be the Queen of Jingjue. She's wearing a veil... perhaps it's a requirement of some kind of religious ritual? As for the disappearance of these people's bodies... I guess it's some kind of symbolic execution method. In ancient murals, using disappearance to represent death is a common artistic technique."

"I think so too."

Professor Zhou nodded in agreement: "The veil may represent the Queen's sacred and inviolable status, while its disappearance symbolizes the enemies executed by the Queen..."

Not entirely correct.

A cold voice interrupted the two scholars' analysis.

Everyone turned to look at Lin Mu, who stood silently at the top of the steps, fiddling with an entrenching tool in his hand.

"What's wrong?"

Professor Zhou was taken aback.

Lin Mu walked down a few steps and came to the mural. His slender fingers pointed to the veil on the queen's face in the painting.

"This is not a ceremonial veil."

His voice wasn't loud, but it made everyone prick up their ears.

"According to ancient records, the Queen of Jingjue's eyes were different from ordinary people, possessing a terrifying ability known as the Ghost Eye. This veil was worn by her all the time, not for decoration, but to cover her eyes."

Lin Mu paused, then moved her fingers from the veil to the people who had disappeared.

"These people weren't executed. They were simply veiled by the Queen, glanced at, and then vanished into thin air."

Upon hearing this, the temperature in the entire stairwell seemed to drop another ten degrees.

Professor Zhou's mouth was agape, and he couldn't close it for a long time.

Chen Wentao was stunned, frozen in place as if struck by lightning.

"Disappeared...out of thin air?"

Ye Zhi Qiu's voice cracked: "Not killed, disappeared? How can a person just vanish into thin air?"

"I don't know the principle behind it either."

Lin Mu withdrew his finger and gave a perfunctory reply without further explanation: "But that's how it's written in the original text of the ancient book."

The live stream chat went completely crazy.

[Holy crap! Holy crap! Holy crap! People just vanish after a single glance? What kind of terrifying ability is this?!]

Professor Zhou and Dr. Chen's analysis was completely wrong! Lin Shen corrected them again!

[So that's why the curse on the stone tablet said "Those who look directly at the Queen will die"—it turns out that even a glance at her could really bring bad luck!]

[Just what level of encyclopedia is Lin Shen's ancient book? It even contains this kind of top-secret information?]

It took Professor Zhou a while to come to his senses. He looked at Lin Mu with a look of shock and deep awe.

He stopped asking pointless questions like, "Is this also written in your ancient book?"

Because he knew there was only one answer.

"Keep reading."

Lin Mu didn't give everyone much time to process this; his flashlight was already shining on the next set of murals.

This set of murals clearly shows a change in style, no longer praising and glorifying, but filled with bloodshed and chaos.

What is this passage about?

Professor Zhou quickly went over.

The murals depict the image of another country—whose clothing is completely different from that of Jingjue and leans more towards the style of the Central Plains.

A young male figure appears frequently, and he seems to be of high status.

"This must be a neighboring country of Jingjue?"

Chen Wentao tentatively said, "Judging from their clothing, they seem to be from a small Western Region kingdom recorded in ancient books. Perhaps they were a vassal state of Jingjue, constantly oppressed..."

"That's right, this person is from the Kingdom of Gumo."

Lin Mu took over the conversation, his fingers slowly moving along the mural.

"Jingjue, relying on the power of the Queen's Ghost Eye, has long oppressed neighboring countries, especially Gumo. Every year, Gumo has to pay Jingjue a large amount of wealth and people—those people are the sacrifices of living people."

His finger stopped on the figure of the young man.

"This person is the prince of Gumo."

Lin Mu's voice lowered further: "He was unwilling to let his country be enslaved for generations. So he did something that no one dared to do—he used poison to assassinate the Queen of Jingjue."

"The Queen of Assassination?"

Professor Zhou gasped.

"Think about it, how do you kill a queen who has the power to make people disappear with a single glance?"

Lin Mu asked a question in return, a very faint smile curving his lips.

"The answer is—don't look her in the eyes. So Prince Gu Mo chose poison. No need for eye contact, no need for closeness, just a secret poisoning is enough."

His finger moved toward the last section of the mural.

That scene was extremely chaotic—the city walls collapsed, flames soared into the sky, and countless soldiers poured into Jingjue City from all directions.

"After the Queen's death, the Ghost Eye's intimidation vanished. Gu Mo united all the oppressed surrounding countries to form a coalition and launched a general offensive against Jingjue."

Lin Mu's finger finally stopped on the last mural.

The painting depicts only a massive, all-encompassing black vortex.

Black sandstorm.

"But none of them expected that at the very last moment when the allied forces were about to breach Jingjue, an unprecedented black sandstorm descended from the sky."

Lin Mu withdrew his hand, turned around, and looked at everyone.

"The garrison of Jingjue, the allied forces of Gumo, and the entire ancient city of Jingjue were all buried in that sandstorm. There were no victors, and no vanquished. Everyone became a sacrifice beneath this desert."

The stairs were so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

The chat in the live stream paused for a full five seconds.

Then, the screen exploded.

Holy crap! The mystery of the destruction of the ancient Jingjue Kingdom has been solved by Lin Shen all by himself!

[Prince Gu Mo poisoned the Queen because he couldn't look her in the eye! That logic is just too outrageous!]

So the enemy didn't destroy the elite forces, but rather God? A black sandstorm wiped them all out in one fell swoop?

Just how much does the ancient book of the Forest God record? It's practically an encyclopedia of ancient civilization in the Western Regions!

[Professor Zhou and Dr. Chen's expressions right now are priceless, like two elementary school students who can't answer a question when called on by their teacher, hahaha!]

Professor Zhou stared at the final black vortex in the mural, his whole body trembling.

It wasn't out of fear, but out of extreme excitement.

If what Lin Mu said is true, then the mystery of the disappearance of Jingjue, which has plagued the archaeological community for hundreds of years, has been solved at this moment by a young man in his twenties with just a few words.

"Lin Mu..."

Professor Zhou's voice trembled: "What you've said... if published... would be a groundbreaking discovery that would rewrite the entire field of Western Regions archaeology..."

"We'll talk about publishing it later."

Lin Mu ignored Professor Zhou's excitement and shone his flashlight at the very bottom of the stairs.

The stairs came to an end.

Below the last step is a dark underground river.

The river water was indistinct in color; one could only hear its slow, flowing sound in the darkness, as if something were breathing underwater.

On the opposite bank of the underground river, a huge stone gate can be vaguely seen.