Chapter 279: A Speculation That Subverts History

The old general's duty was to guard the Decayed Ruins and not let outsiders enter. The only ones entering the Decayed Ruins were the Senior Sister and Lu Yang, as well as the Immortal ghost inside Lu Yang.

Entering the Decayed Ruins, Lu Yang didn't feel strange.

The Decayed Sect's Yanjing Branch had a secret realm, which was built entirely according to the Decayed Ruins, in order to increase the sense of belonging and belief in the Decayed Immortal.

The platforms floating in the air, the ancient buildings on the platforms—everything was very familiar. The buildings collapsed under the baptism of time, making it hard to imagine what they looked like before they collapsed.

The Senior Sister snapped her fingers, and the collapsed buildings floated up, spliced together, and formed their original appearance, as if time were flowing backward.

Different from the architectural style of the contemporary era, these buildings absolutely had nothing to do with the word "ancient."

Contemporary architecture started from the Great Qian era and evolved over 300,000 years, changing with the times.

The ancient era experienced more than 300,000 years. At the end of the ancient era, art, language, etc., were very developed, not worse than now, and the difference from now only lay in style.

The main body of the building was magnificent, the pavilions were scattered, and even the gates were inlaid with yellow jade, green jade, and red gold, emitting a magnificent atmosphere.

"Does the Senior recognize these buildings?" Miss Yun Zhi asked.

There were only three of them in the ruins, so the Decayed Fairy didn't need to hide her whereabouts and came out of the mental space.

She scrutinized these buildings carefully, then shook her head gently: "I don't recognize these buildings. Although I don't understand architectural styles, I always feel that this doesn't look like a building from our era."

Miss Yun Zhi showed a rare expression of surprise: "According to the Great Xia Dynasty's appraisal, the time these ruins existed was 300,000 to 400,000 years ago. In time appraisal, the Great Xia Dynasty has never made a mistake."

"And the architectural style and layout here do not conform to the situation in the early Great Qian era."

"The academic circle has generally formed a cognition that as the ancient Nameless One refined the stars, the glorious ancient era was burned to the ground, and countless wealth disappeared with it."

"So the Great Qian Dynasty advocated a style of frugality when it was just established, reducing taxes and rents. Look at the buildings in the Decayed Ruins again; they cannot be called extravagant, but they cannot be associated with frugality either."

These were not said by Miss Yun Zhi, but written on the report submitted to the Xia Emperor by the old scholars organized by the imperial court to investigate here.

"Then I don't know." The Decayed Fairy said honestly. She was not good at thinking about problems in this area.

Lu Yang didn't say a word from beginning to end. He didn't expect that difficulties would be encountered from the beginning of exploring the ruins, and even the era of the ruins had not been determined.

Moving forward, it was the mural Lu Yang was familiar with.

On the mural, the Decayed Immortal, who could not distinguish between male and female and opened his arms, had countless stars in his arms. On each star, a little person knelt, holding high tributes and offering them to the Decayed Immortal.

Thinking back four months ago, Branch Master Chu of Yanjing County took Lu Yang and the three of them into the secret realm, introduced the origin of the Decayed Immortal in front of the mural, and let Lu Yang and the three of them know the secret of the ancient Nameless One refining stars.

Things are different, people are different. Lu Yang sighed. How long has it been? Branch Master Chu was such a good person, and he was gone just like that. The murderer is still at large, and no one has punished him.

To the right of the mural was a large paragraph of text that Lu Yang couldn't understand.

"Is this the language of the ancient era?"

Miss Yun Zhi nodded and simply translated it for Lu Yang. The general meaning was that in the ancient era, the Decayed Immortal protected the human race, the Decayed Immortal fought against the ancient Nameless One, and died of exhaustion, but as long as the name of the Decayed Immortal was spoken, he could be resurrected.

It has now been determined that this period of history was fabricated. Whether it was the Decayed Fairy Huang Doudou or the Decayed Immortal Bu Yao Lian, neither of them had done such a thing.

The Decayed Fairy had already fallen before the ancient Nameless One refined the stars, and the Decayed Immortal had just been born for a few months.

"So this is actually a ruin from the ancient era?" Lu Yang frowned, always feeling that things wouldn't be so simple.

Miss Yun Zhi shook her head: "If it were before, I would think so, but after the Senior said this, I feel that the text on the mural might have been left by the person behind the scenes on purpose to mislead us."

Miss Yun Zhi turned her head and asked the Decayed Fairy: "Senior, I just translated most of the text. In the current era, people cannot fully translate ancient languages. For example, this inscription, the scholars sent by the imperial court, and I, cannot translate it."

The Decayed Fairy looked at this inscription, frowned, and was silent. Of course she could understand it, but this sentence was very strange, so strange that she thought she had misread it.

She read word by word: "The Decayed Immortal blesses, may the Fire-Kindling Dynasty last forever."

The Decayed Fairy then asked: "What is the Fire-Kindling Dynasty?"

Lu Yang was also strange. He had never heard of a dynasty called "Fire-Kindling."

From the perspective of time, the ancient era ended, the Great Qian Dynasty was established on the ruins, 100,000 years later, the Great Yu Dynasty replaced the Great Qian Dynasty, and another 100,000 years later, the Great Xia Dynasty replaced the Great Yu Dynasty, until today.

There was no place for the Fire-Kindling Dynasty at all.

The Fire-Kindling Dynasty could not have existed in the ancient era either. According to the Decayed Fairy,

Lu Yang and the Decayed Fairy looked at Miss Yun Zhi together, hoping to get an answer.

Miss Yun Zhi frowned, also puzzled by this scene: "I have never heard of the Fire-Kindling Dynasty either. Could it be that there was a Fire-Kindling Dynasty in the ancient era?"

Lu Yang denied this point of view: "Impossible. The Fairy told me that there were only tribes in the ancient era, and there were no concepts of 'dynasty' or 'law' at all."

The Decayed Fairy nodded.

Lu Yang put forward a hypothesis: "Is it possible that the concept of a dynasty appeared after the Fairy fell, and a dynasty was established?"

Miss Yun Zhi shook her head: "After the Senior fell, the ancient Nameless One soon refined the continent and erased everyone who knew the Fairy's true name. The time between these two events would not be too long, and it is impossible to establish a dynasty in this short time."

Miss Yun Zhi's implication was that the Decayed Fairy's fall was the beginning of the end of the ancient era.

Lu Yang seemed to have thought of something, but this speculation was too scary, simply subverting people's cognition.

"Since everything suspicious has been excluded, only two possibilities remain."

"The first possibility is that the mural was done by the mastermind behind the scenes. He fabricated a non-existent 'Fire-Kindling Dynasty' to disturb our hearing."

"The problem with the first possibility is that fabricating a non-existent dynasty is too easy to be seen through, and there is no point in fabricating it."

"The second possibility is that there was another dynasty between the ancient era and the Great Qian era, named the Fire-Kindling Dynasty."

"The Fire-Kindling Dynasty was the first dynasty in history, and it inherited from the ancient era, used ancient languages, and obtained ancient wealth. The Fire-Kindling Dynasty was destroyed, and the ancient inheritance was completely cut off."

"The problem with the second possibility is why no one knows about the existence of the Fire-Kindling Dynasty? Would there be no record at all of the birth and destruction of a dynasty?"

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 280 =====