Chapter 3071: An Unexpected Answer! Splashing Water to Wash Away the Paint!

It was only because Zhang Lin told his stories well that, over time, they were drawn in by his bearing, and only then did they come to like what they themselves called archaeology.

In truth, what they liked was simply Zhang Lin himself — since even outsiders felt this way,

let alone people already inside the field. Zhang Lin, however, had never cared about any of this; his purpose was only to tell stories, and at the same time to uncover those long-buried secrets.

Take the Qingtong Sect and the Wan Nu King, for instance — apart from immortality or ascending to become an immortal, he would basically lay all such matters out on the table for discussion.

Because he knew that knowing these things would not shift the overall picture, only upset the interests of a few people. Zhang Lin was more certain of this than anyone, and since that was the case, he had nothing to be wary of.

After calming down for a while, Wu Ya also knew she could not go back on her word, and at the same time she was convinced that, since things had already reached this point, dwelling on it any longer seemed to have no meaning at all.

She trusted that Mr. Zhang was absolutely not the sort of person to make a mountain out of a molehill — at worst he would give her a thorough scolding.

This much Wu Ya could still bear. In the end she gathered her courage and dialed the call straight away. Zhang Lin had indeed already gone to rest, but the phone rang only twice before he picked up.

Seeing the caller ID, he no longer hesitated. Zhang Lin understood Wu Ya very well — from his own vantage point, she was certainly someone who acted with great caution.

So unless it had truly reached a point where it was unavoidable, she would absolutely not contact him at this particular hour.

Therefore, whether her judgment was right or wrong, Zhang Lin would not actually blame Wu Ya — because if they could judge for themselves whether the matter itself was right or wrong, there would be no need for him to give instructions in the first place.

Based on this reasoning, it also proved that the earlier entanglement and worry of the others on Archaeology Team One, and of Wu Ya herself, had been entirely unnecessary.

Zhang Lin had already made the answer clear: he would not blame these people, especially at such a special juncture. If, at a time like this, something incomprehensible and unknowable had happened, and these people had not contacted him — then Zhang Lin might well have been the one to reproach them.

Zhang Lin would not say much more; instead he was extremely eager to find out exactly what specific crisis had occurred. So before Wu Ya could speak, Zhang Lin asked first: "Did something happen?"

At this point Zhang Lin was, in a sense, asking a question he already knew the answer to. And the next moment, from the other end of the line, he heard Wu Ya draw a deep breath.

She nodded reflexively and said: "Mr. Zhang, something really has happened. I don't know how to describe it, but it's that mural from before."

Zhang Lin's brow furrowed slightly. He opened the livestream straight away, but the current scene in the stream showed nothing at all. Zhang Lin did not rewind it.

Instead he went on asking: "You tell me first."

Wu Ya said immediately: "In any case, the mural looks completely renewed, and the paint on it is as if it had just been freshly applied!"

Upon hearing this, Zhang Lin's brows knit tightly and he asked without thinking: "Are you sure?"

Wu Ya answered without the slightest hesitation: "Sure. There can't be any mistake — the paint is brand new. It was Fatty who discovered all of this."

Zhang Lin was silent for a long while. At the same time, on his end he turned on the television and watched the corresponding replay, then fell into deep thought. Since Zhang Lin was in no hurry to speak,

Wu Ya had even less right to press him with questions. She could only wait until Mr. Zhang had thought it through before raising any of her own.

At the same time, Wu Ya inwardly set aside all the self-torment she had been feeling a moment ago. At the very least, the fact that she could draw Mr. Zhang into such deep reflection proved that her phone call had been entirely necessary.

From the start, Wu Ya had wanted to weigh everything carefully here, terrified that one careless slip would cause the later course of events to veer drastically off course.

If crises then kept spawning one after another, and the most fundamental cause turned out to be her own misjudgment — if it really came to that, Wu Ya would not even have the face to keep on living.

In the end, whether it was Wu Ya or Yang Lu Si, both women carried their own psychological burden, convinced that they absolutely could not afford even the slightest mistake. If things grew more and more troublesome, they felt they bore the most fundamental responsibility and had to answer for both archaeology teams.

In fact, Yang Lu Si's having such thoughts was still somewhat understandable, but Wu Ya was genuinely overthinking it. She had no need at all to bear such a psychological burden, because Zhang Lin had never demanded those things of her. Although he had never said so outright, when Zhang Lin saved Wu Ya back then it had been entirely unintentional.

Since he had happened to be there at the time, he could not simply stand by and watch that girl become a test subject — that would have been far too cruel. But relatively speaking, he did indeed need an assistant, so it could be considered killing two birds with one stone. Such a win-win arrangement — Zhang Lin did not mind going along with it.

But if the other party now took the whole burden upon herself, that was completely unnecessary. Nevertheless, although Zhang Lin saw all this clearly,

he did not bluntly bring it up with her. After all, everyone has their own pride, and he was also afraid that if he stated outright that she had no such obligation,

or even that she simply lacked the standing for it, it would hurt Wu Ya's self-respect — and that was not the outcome Zhang Lin wanted to see. After all, she had done nothing wrong; she was simply carrying a certain psychological burden, that was all.

On this premise, Zhang Lin could only go along with the present rhythm and let things continue. As long as it did not slide into a vicious cycle, Zhang Lin felt this rhythm had not the slightest problem, nor would it bring any impact on what followed. That was Zhang Lin's truest thought at this moment.

He also believed that even if Wu Ya did not understand his way of thinking right now, she would very quickly come to appreciate his good intentions later on. Zhang Lin was absolutely certain of this.

After a full two minutes of silence, Zhang Lin had also finished watching all the replays. At this point Zhang Lin slowly nodded.

He then said: "Next, draw out some of the water from the hot spring and splash it onto the mural. Keep going until all the fresh paint on the mural has washed away — you should then be able to see what is really hidden underneath."

That was Zhang Lin's judgment, or rather it was the answer itself. Wu Ya drew a sharp breath. She was not doubting what Zhang Lin had said — the shock came simply from a sense of disbelief. In her view, the whole thing carried such a strong feeling of unreality that it was overwhelming.

As the saying goes, the more you think about it, the more terrifying it gets. Following Zhang Lin's words and thinking it through, it was easy to see exactly where the truly baffling point lay.

Zhang Lin said there was no problem with using the hot spring water to wash away the paint, but afterwards he specifically stressed that beneath the paint lay the truest answer, and that this truth had been hidden away — everything above it was false.

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