Chapter 129: Double-Layered Mural

Chapter 14: Double-Layered Mural

The surroundings were eerily quiet. The wind lanterns were moved to one side of the rock wall to enhance the lighting, casting a dim yellow glow on the rocks, giving an ancient and mysterious feeling.

The colors of the mural were extremely vivid, using large amounts of a red that looked like fresh blood. Under the unsteady light, it shimmered with a glaze-like luster, as if the whole rock was oozing blood. It was incredible that the mural hidden beneath another layer of paint could be so well preserved.

However, what truly surprised us was the content of the mural. I find it hard to describe what was painted. The mural was divided into two parts, each recording different events, yet when combined, it appeared very complete, truly magnificent and dreamlike.

Monk Hua's eyes lit up as he looked, muttering to himself: "This should be a scene of the battle between Emperor Wannu of Dongxia and the Mongols. This person, this person should be King Wannu himself. This is likely the legendary war that led to the fall of Dongxia."

I knew very little about Dongxia, and the others were clearly not experts either. No one spoke, listening to him continue.

He walked back and forth, exclaiming and looking at the patterns, pointing to one side of the mural where many soldiers wearing armor and furs were depicted, saying, "This is King Wannu's army." Then he pointed to the cavalry on the other side, saying, "This is the Mongol army. Look, their numbers far exceed the Dongxia army. This is an overwhelming battle."

I looked in the direction he pointed and saw a scene of arrows and stones flying. Fatty looked at it, not sure what felt strange, and asked, "Why do the faces of the soldiers in the Dongxia army all look like women?"

I also found it strange. Did Dongxia rely on women to fight? Monk Hua said, "No, this is a characteristic of Dongxia murals. Look, all the people are very delicate. I've also found some strange phenomena in historical records. It seems that everyone who dealt with Dongxia said that in Dongxia, you couldn't see old people; everyone was very young. The Koreans said that the people of Dongzhen even maintained youthful appearances when they died."

Fatty frowned, seemingly unable to figure out why. I felt it might be related to the customs of some minority groups—in some ethnicities, the elderly are not allowed to meet guests. I didn't take it seriously and continued watching with the others.

Monk Hua then pointed to the second part of the mural and said, "This section records the battle. Look, the Dongxia people fought one against three, but they were gradually shot dead by the Mongols. This war ultimately turned into a massacre."

The mural used a lot of red to depict the brutality of the war, creating a strong sense of immersion. I could almost see Dongxia soldiers falling one after another into pools of blood, with Mongol iron cavalry trampling over their bodies, then setting fire to houses and slaughtering men.

The third part of the mural was blocked by a huge rock; we couldn't move it, but we guessed it should be a continuation of the content here.

At this point, I felt puzzled and interrupted him, "That's not right. Wasn't Dongxia destroyed by the Mongols a long time ago? I've seen materials saying they only existed for a little over seventy years, constantly at war. If Cloud Summit Palace was built by them, how could such a small country under those circumstances have the ability to construct such a massive mausoleum?"

As soon as I said this, many showed agreement. Dongxia was a regime that suddenly appeared in the Jilin and Heilongjiang area during the fall of the Jurchen. In my memory, its founding emperor, King Wannu, didn't even have time to pass the throne to the next generation before the Mongols bypassed Korea and destroyed him. At that time, the Mongols were extremely fierce, killing gods and Buddhas alike. If the scene on the mural was truly that decisive battle, given the Mongol temperament, they should have annihilated Dongxia completely.

Moreover, at that time, the productivity among the various Jurchen tribes was still very low, with no large labor force. Even if they hadn't been destroyed, it would have been impossible to build such a huge mausoleum.

What Chenpi A'si said—that the Cloud Summit Palace really buried an emperor of Dongxia—seemed impossible no matter how you thought about it, because they had neither the time nor the capability.

Even more unreasonable: if we infer from what we saw in the underwater tomb that this legendary mausoleum was built by Wang Zanghai, then the dynasty of construction should at least be the late Yuan Dynasty. By then, Dongxia had been destroyed for several hundred years. How could there still be a Dongxia emperor to be buried there?

We all turned our eyes to Chenpi A'si. He was the one who said the Cloud Summit Palace buried a Dongxia emperor, but now it seemed absolutely impossible.

Chenpi A'si knew what we were thinking. He glanced emotionlessly at the mural, gave a cold laugh, then looked at Monk Hua and said, "Since they don't believe it, Monk, give them an explanation."

Monk Hua acknowledged, turned to us and smiled, "I know what you're doubting. I dare say you're all mistaken. The information you've seen about Dongxia is mostly inferred from incomplete ancient books. In fact, the records left by Dongxia are too few; abroad, they don't even recognize that such a country ever existed. So the information you see now—how much of it is actually true is hard to say."

Fatty said, "In that case, what makes you say your information is correct?"

Monk Hua said, "It's like this: our information is more direct." He took out a piece of white silk from his inner pocket and unfurled it before us. When I saw it, my heart skipped a beat.

That was actually the snake-browed bronze fish from the auction! How could it be in their hands? Wasn't it said that no one bought it? I frowned, suddenly realizing something.

Since no one bought it, and the fish was in Chenpi A'si's hands, could it be that... Chenpi A'si was the seller of this fish? My whole body trembled. I struggled to steady myself, trying not to show too much surprise. But my mind was already in chaos, countless questions exploding in my brain. For a moment, I didn't know if I felt fear or excitement, only that my hands and feet suddenly turned cold as if drained of blood.

Monk Hua didn't notice my expression and continued, "This type of bronze fish is an aberrant form of a dragon. Our master obtained it by chance. I believe it was made by someone who knew the internal situation of Dongxia. Strangely, he used a very clever method to hide a piece of top-secret information on this bronze fish. Look."

He placed the bronze fish beside the wind lantern. The gilded scales reflected golden light, casting many fine light spots on the mural. As Monk Hua turned the fish, the spots began to change, gradually forming several spots in the shape of characters.

"The secret is here. In the scales of this fish, a total of forty-seven Jurchen characters are hidden."

I let out an "ah" in my heart, thinking there was such a technique. Gripping the other two bronze fish in my pocket, I asked him somewhat tremblingly, "What... what is the content?"

"Because the information on it is incomplete, I haven't fully deciphered it yet. But I can be sure that the person who made this fish wanted to record certain things without being discovered. Here, it records the true history of Dongxia." Monk Hua said with some pride. "Actually, before I saw this, based on many clues, I had already deduced that the Dongxia regime had continued to exist, but they retreated deep into the mountains. For hundreds of years, relying on something unknown, this extremely weak regime survived between the mighty Mongols on one side and the covetous Goryeo on the other. I studied the Goryeo Annals. Until the founding of the Ming Dynasty, ginseng pickers had seen people wearing strange clothes active in the snowy mountains here. I think they were remnants of the Dongxia people." He pointed to the bronze fish again and said, "The fragmentary records here prove my idea. After the decisive battle with the Mongols, Dongxia retreated to the border between Jilin and Korea, existing in hiding for several hundred years. They had a total of fourteen emperors. The Mongols and Goryeo tried more than once to destroy this small country, but for some strange reason, they all failed."

"What reason?" Panzi asked. "Monk, can you just get to the point?"

Monk Hua shrugged. "I don't know. The information on the fish is incomplete. There must be other things recording the rest. But based on the few characters I have, I dare say Dongxia's survival might have involved some very bizarre events. There's no content afterward. We've been looking for it, but unfortunately our master searched for years without finding the other parts." He paused, then said, "Do you know what the last sentence of these Jurchen characters means?"

I thought to myself, of course I don't know. Ye Cheng took over and asked, "What?"

Monk Hua looked at us and said, "It says that the successive kings of Wannu were not human."

"Not human? Then what are they?" Fatty said.

Monk Hua put away the bronze fish. "It says they were all monsters crawling out from underground!"

"No way?" I thought to myself. Everyone exchanged glances, probably all feeling a bit creeped out. Ye Cheng asked, "But that can't be taken literally. Could it be a metaphor, like the emperor is a dragon, not a human?"

"Originally I thought it was a metaphor like 'true dragon and son of heaven,' but later when I studied it, I found that this person likely just wanted to secretly record some information. His record of Dongxia's history is relatively objective, so he probably wouldn't use such deferential language. Moreover, if it were as you said, do you think anyone would express the concept of the emperor being the true dragon son of heaven in such a way? Imagine if you were to congratulate the emperor on his birthday and your first line was, 'Your Majesty, you are truly not human.' You wouldn't even get to the second line before being sliced up. No one would write like that." He smiled mysteriously. "Also, the last sentence is written very clearly and abruptly. I've always been bothered by it. If we could obtain the other parts, maybe we could decipher what this sentence really means."

Fatty and Poker-face both knew that the other two bronze fish were actually in my hands, but out of caution, they didn't say anything. I gripped the bronze fish in my pocket and suddenly felt them grow heavy.

For a moment, I also didn't know whether I should take out these two fish. Actually, these two fish meant nothing to me — I don't understand Jurchen script, so even if I looked at them, I wouldn't get it. But if I handed them over, I felt it would be very inappropriate.

Panzi stared at the mural, muttering to himself. The person on the mural, who might be the King of Wan Nu, looked human-like, not like a monster. Fatty patted him and said to Monk Hua, "Brother Scarface, what are you deciphering? We're practical folks. Don't go all intellectual on us. When we open the coffin, we'll know clearly whether it's a person or a dog."

Monk Hua smiled and said, "What I mean is, knowing yourself and knowing your enemy is always better."

"But why would the person who painted these murals paint these things here?" Fatty asked. "Can't forget national and family hatred?"

Monk Hua shook his head, obviously not sure either. I thought for a moment and said, "Maybe they intended to quarry the whole stone after painting it here, or perhaps they just painted it to pass the time. Look, it's so warm here — the craftsmen back then might have used this place to rest."

No one was convinced by me. Monk Hua started photographing these things to keep as records.

After we had rested enough and our spirits gradually recovered, we began to take turns resting. Chenpi A'Si had his men take turns staying outside; if the snow stopped, they would crawl in and call us. We then started taking turns sleeping.

When I woke up, Shunzi had also come to. He kept apologizing to us. Fatty couldn't be bothered with him. I took some food and gave it to him, telling him to rest well — we still needed him to continue going up.

Inside, without the alternation of sun and moon, we didn't know how much time had passed. Probably two or three days like that, the snow finally stopped. We climbed out of the crack one by one. Outside, it had cleared up, and everywhere was a vast white world.

Checking our gear, we found we had eaten too much over these days. Without resupply, we would run out of food before reaching our destination. We asked Shunzi if there was a way. He said above the snow line there really wasn't much to do — either go back and come again, or ration the food and eat as little as possible.

In the crevice, Chenpi A'Si taught us many small tricks for the snowy mountains, like using sanitary pads as insoles to absorb foot sweat — keeping feet dry warms the whole body. We followed his method and it was indeed good, but I felt very awkward. I thought that if we entered the ancient tomb and discarded these things, years later an archaeological team would discover them and see what expressions they'd have when they saw such items beside a coffin.

We used ropes to climb up the steep slope we had tumbled down. There were many fresh hoof prints on the ground. Fatty crouched down to look and said, "That A Ning crew seems to have overtaken us and gotten ahead."

Without another word, we put on our goggles and immediately set off. Two hours later, on a hillside, we saw A Ning's team. They had obviously also suffered great losses — thirty-some people reduced to about twenty, and only half the horses. Still, there was no sign of Third Uncle.

We quietly concealed ourselves and observed them. I saw A Ning staring in one direction with binoculars. I looked in that direction as well and suddenly my eyelid twitched.

I saw, in the distance, whether it was snow vapor or mist, a snow-covered mountain stood majestically. It was connected to the other mountain ranges but appeared very abrupt. It was exactly the mountain peak I had seen in the underwater tomb. Its shape was almost identical to the one in the shadow painting.

"This is the place," I thought to myself. Pointing at the mountain, I turned and asked Shunzi, "What mountain is that? How do we get there?"

Shunzi put his hand up to shade his eyes, looked, and his face changed. "So you want to go there? That place cannot be visited!"