Chapter 609: A Curious Western Myth! The Notorious Betrayer!

【I guess it's Gumo Prince's dad.】

【Get lost. Why don't you say it's your dad?】

【The answer won't be that simple, nor so baffling.】

【The person above the throne must have some connection to the Gumo Prince.】

Inside the New Crescent Restaurant, no one knew who it was, but a sudden flash of inspiration made someone blurt out: "Could the upper half of Mr. Zhang's body be the Queen of Jingjue?"

Zhang Lin snapped his fingers, his eyes showing approval, and said: "You guessed right. This is indeed the Queen of Jingjue. And the core point this mural wants to express is, first, along the journey, the separated portion is the Gumo Prince's way of expressing the Queen of Jingjue's cruelty."

"The entire Western Regions, under the Queen of Jingjue's scourge, has already become a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood. The half of the ship, and those drifting souls, can explain everything!"

And the reason Zhang Lin had to emphasize this point was to lay the groundwork for the next four murals.

All of this requires one major premise: every action of the Gumo Prince stems from the tyranny of the Queen of Jingjue.

Otherwise, the Gumo Prince would never have risked everything and made such a choice.

【What on earth did that old hag, the Queen of Jingjue, do that was so utterly depraved to make the prince record it like this in the mural?】

【Ancient monarchs, especially the rulers of these small kingdoms, none of them were kind-hearted.】

【Just look at those burial forms and you'll understand. Yet there are still people who worship them blindly—it's truly disgusting.】

【It's not blind worship, it's forced worship. Back then, information was unequal, and most people couldn't muster any will to resist.】

【If it weren't for Mr. Zhang's explanation, I would have thought the Queen of Jingjue was some kind of good person!】

【But I don't understand why, even after becoming this brutal, she could still remain queen for so long?】

Soon, someone in the audience replaced the originator of that barrage and asked this question.

"Mr. Zhang, according to the mural's description, the Queen of Jingjue was bloodthirsty and cruel, turning the Western Regions into a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood. So why was the Gumo Prince the only one who rose up in resistance?"

"Right, if the subordinate small kingdoms had united and rebelled against the Queen of Jingjue together, wouldn't that have been better?"

Zhang Lin shook his head helplessly and said: "What you can think of, this Gumo Prince certainly could think of too."

"As for your question, I can use what's described in the third mural to give you a brief answer."

Immediately, everyone's attention shifted to the third mural.

To speak of the most visually striking here, it would have to be this mural.

Because it depicts a complete pilgrimage scene. If the Queen of Jingjue in the second mural appeared especially abstract, in this third mural everything is far more direct.

Because the upper half of the entire mural depicts the Queen of Jingjue's throne, and the Queen of Jingjue herself, seated upon it with her face veiled in black gauze.

Standing to her left are her guards, all like Kunlun slaves, each with a dark face.

While to the Queen of Jingjue's right stands an old man with his palms pressed together, whose identity should be the Queen of Jingjue's priest.

In Western Regions culture, figures like priests are absolutely indispensable; they are essentially the monarch's pet strategists.

But the difference lies in the fact that a strategist, at the very least, can still come up with some proper ideas.

Whereas as a priest, all of his suggestions are related to the talk of ghosts and gods. The so-called logic of borrowing the Mandate of Heaven to enrich oneself originates from this kind of person.

Zhang Lin began speaking unhurriedly: "The third mural has two key points. First, beneath the priest and the Queen of Jingjue's throne, what do you see?"

"Clouds." someone answered without hesitation.