Chapter Twenty-Six: Decaying Murals Stain Memories
As soon as he saw this, Tang Jiao rolled his eyes and almost sat on the ground.
I know this time he wasn't scared, he was desperate.
If there is a corpse, it proves that there were living people, but where did the living people come from, and who will go to the tomb? In addition to the tomb robbers, it is not the same tomb builders that we were talking about above.
In ancient times, the tombs of dignitaries and nobles were given to them, and workers with good eyes knew that they had to leave a way back for themselves that others did not know, otherwise a life might become a burial for dignitaries.
Now that we're in a weird grave with a python buried, they're all dead and they're about to turn to ashes, can we get out?
"I just said that you don't come, how good it is to follow us back to Fengxian Pavilion, there is wine to drink, meat to eat, and girls to soak. Well, now that we're all trapped in such a hellish place, with a group of skeletons as companions, even Jiang Xun has been arrested. ”
Tang Jiao cried and said: "You have to find Muzhang County, Shopkeeper Shen, you have also seen it, their barbarians will not listen to us." They are ruthless, this tomb must not be like this when it was first repaired, the entrance is built so high like a well, it is deliberately to trap these people to death, there is no other exit, we have to die here today. ”
"Don't worry." I said, "If you die, we will give you the clothes of the dead to change into, and we will give you a decent job on the spot." ”
"I'm not kidding!"
I didn't say anything, Ziwei said, "There has been a fight here." ”
I hummed, there were a lot of traces of fighting around, maybe civil strife, maybe something else.
I don't want to think about the mutilated corpses and broken bones in the worst direction, it's too cruel and too tragic.
The two of us kept walking forward, and Tang Jiao couldn't stay by himself, so he followed behind and shrunk his neck, picking up the fragments of the Night Pearl I threw down one by one and putting them away.
The road is long, winding, and not open.
After a few turns, I stopped and shone the light on the walls on either side, which were densely packed with large old frescoes, the paint on which was so peeling off that it looked older than the dead men, and the whole tomb was older than the upper history.
The further you go in, the clearer the mural becomes, the time is decreasing, there is nothing unusual in front, the painting is people ploughing and harvesting, raising children, creating a better living environment under the leadership of each leader, and once developed the same civilization as the world we live in, children read and write, and the technology of planting and manufacturing has undergone a huge reform.
The beginning of the change in the picture is the appearance of several people dressed in the fifties and sixties, who do not understand the language and have very different lifestyles.
"It's ...... Our people there? Tang Jiao stammered, "What's the situation?" ”
I shook my head, and Ziwei said, "They had the same misunderstanding as us at the beginning, but the two sides did not attack each other, but instead made a hospitality out of curiosity. ”
"But then, the number of outsiders increased and they attacked them."
The mural was engraved with the blood and tears of plunder, more and more outsiders poured in, most of the aborigines were arrested, and the rest did their best to protect their leaders, they guarded their territory, were tied up as monsters, and their homes became new homes for others.
The leader eventually took the survivors and hid in a desolate wood, rioting everywhere, the temple was smashed, the temple was demolished, new land was opened, a large number of seeds were sown, and the harvest was moved.
The bloody sight records their past, and this is a very different chronicle from the outside.
They regard each other as wicked people, and see each other as robbers of their own achievements and survival.
Under the leadership of the chief, the people of Muzhang County tried to perform a large-scale ritual, and the intention was not evident from the picture, and many people knelt down by the river and wept.
Later, the history corresponding to the outside gazetteer was gone, covered with a lot of paint, and the walls were covered with filth.
"Who splashed this?" Tang Jiao stretched out his hand and touched the wall, "The tomb of my own house, the picture I painted, what is unsightly, who is afraid of knowing." ”
"Naturally, it won't be an outsider."
Tang Jiao was stunned for a moment, and then reacted, "If we use this as a handle, let them let us ......"
"Then you just wait to be killed."
The walls are painted like this, and you can't even see a trace of the original, so it's stupid to say anything about blackmailing.
"We've got to find a way to get out." Tang Jiao scratched his head tangled.
I looked into the depths and said, "I suppose there are other burial chambers here, and the frescoes on the walls were not painted in a day, and the degree of corrosion varies greatly from interval to interval, and they have opened this tomb more than once." ”
Ziwei thought for a while, "Joint burial tomb? ”
I hummed, "Anyway, let's go down first, we don't have any other way to go anyway, let it be." ”
"Oh, sister, this is a matter of human life, you can't be so casual." Tang Jiao followed us and chanted as he walked, his steps were reluctant, he walked very slowly, and he kept chattering like the old monk chanting scriptures.
My ears were about to be cocooned by him, and when I turned around, there was a sudden change in front of my eyes.
The decaying murals on both sides of the walls are slowly rendered from the bottom up, reshaping a clear pattern, and the images that have been splashed with filth are slowly shedding their filthy coats and regaining their original brilliance.
"It's the same as what we saw when we entered Muzhang County." Tang Jiao's mouth was wide open, and his body was shaking.
It was far away, and even surprise had a limit, but at this time, we were standing in the narrow corridor on both sides, and we could directly touch the wall as we walked forward and backward, and those changes happened in front of our eyes. It's like grabbing a molting cicada and hanging it under your nose, forcing you to open your eyes and watch it take off its old battered skin, little by little, and break free from the new body.
I swallowed subconsciously in my throat, and I felt a little disgusted when I thought about this metaphor.
Ziwei couldn't help but reach out to touch the changing wall, and as soon as his hand touched the wall, a section of his finger disappeared in front of his eyes out of thin air.
He himself seemed to be unaware, and the entire palm of his hand was swallowed in half, and the person was seduced by the temptation to take away his soul, and his eyes were empty and unfocused.
"Ziwei!" I pulled him vigorously, he recovered in a daze, his hand had not been put down, and he saw the scene clearly, so he was immediately startled, and suddenly retracted his hand, and then looked at his fingers, and there was no change at all.
"This wall...... You can't wear it out, can you? Tang Jiao asked nervously, "What happened to you just now, how do you feel?" ”
Ziwei shook his hand, as if this hand was not his, his expression was a little weird, and he said, "The resistance is very small, like ...... Slipped my hand into a soap bubble, it was cool and a little ...... Greasy. The moment I encountered it, it seemed that some strange pictures flashed in my mind, there was a river, and there was a woman, who couldn't see her face with her back to her eyes, and the man standing next to him was a little familiar, but the time was too short to see clearly. They said something, and all the fish in the river jumped onto the bank, and the tail of the fish turned into two worm legs, and they were ...... Afterward...... I can't tell. ”
"What's that, a fish with long legs, and not a mermaid? Bug legs? You're so wicked, where is there such a species? Tang Ka said as he shrunk and turned around to touch the wall behind him, "I didn't feel anything at that moment. ”
I also stretched out my hand and put my palm on the wall, and when I was still a little away, I could feel that it was very cold, and there was the kind of greasy that Zi didn't say, like touching the slippery moss, and it seemed to pass through the surface of the jelly, and the inside was completely empty, cold space.
It was as if he had been hit with a hammer in the back of his head, his body could not move, and his eyes were locked in place.
I struggled, but I couldn't muster my strength, I couldn't even blink an eye.
The gravel at the edge of the line of sight resembles a painting floating in water, and a brush is reached into the middle and stirred clockwise.
The world was turned upside down, and everything changed.
It was in the vertiginous spin that I saw the scene that Ziwei had not described.
The trees were desolate, but the river was clear and flowing, and a young woman with her hair coiled stood on the edge of the river facing the opposite bank, leaving me with a back, and the man beside him was standing on her side, talking to her.
I made up my mind and tried to see more clearly through the thin layer of fog, but unfortunately failed.
The scene in front of them quickly changed their perspective, and when they had finished speaking, the woman whistled into the water, and the ripples on the surface of the water overflowed, and a group of strange-looking fish jumped out, and two legs came out under the tail of the fish that fell on the riverbank, and the fins on both sides of the body were also deformed, and they spread out two large pieces, and after listening to the woman's words, they bent down, arched the two fins in front of them and saluted the people, and then plopped and jumped back into the river one after another.
The field of vision did not change, the flow of the river accelerated, and another memory was intercepted as if fast-forwarding.
At that time, the water was almost dry, and the water level of the large part of the river had receded, leaving only the riverbed, forming a wet swamp. The trees around me were cut down, and I saw that the woman was still standing in her place, as if she was waiting for someone, and as if she were waiting for nothing, the only remaining stretch of the river at her feet was covered with corpses, like the one we had seen when we came.
There were a lot of people yelling at her in a language we didn't understand, and she had her thick hair cut short, pinned shoulder-high behind her ears, and the cut-off was uneven, and the wind blew it around.
She stood until a little girl, who looked to be only three or four years old, ran up to her and called out to her sister, then she looked back and fell to her knees and cried.
She cried so hard that she squeezed out a few dissonant words from her choked throat, and she cried blood from the bottom of her heart.
The voice was like a spell that blocked the mouths of those who cried.
Even if I don't understand, I can feel that she is remorseful, hateful, and self-blamed.
The little girl thought of her, and was hugged by another woman, and she also began to cry.
The woman cried until she was weak, got up from the ground, walked step by step to the middle of the river, and recited a spell in her mouth.
I listened to a headache, and when I saw her hands open, the big trees that had been cut down around her were lifted up, and she stood up again, and a drizzle fell overhead, and the roots of the trees and grass were awakened, and all the stored power was released, and the body grew higher and higher, and the longer and stronger it became, and in just a few seconds, the whole Muzhang County was once again wrapped in greenery, and the woman's hair was all white at once, her skin was full of wrinkles, and her voice was even less poignant, resounding throughout the jungle.