It was not that Lin Feng had never seen Buddhist murals. Precisely because he had, he could tell that whoever painted this mural had gone mad. This was not something a sane person could have painted.
Lin Feng took back his earlier rash assumption. This probably was not a Buddhist mural.
It was a narrative mural.
What it depicted was important, but the information hidden within the composition, beneath the brushstrokes, mattered even more. That was what the painter had truly wanted to convey.
It was precisely because Lin Feng understood it that he felt a chill run down his spine.
This had absolutely nothing to do with Buddhism.
Nor did it have anything to do with Li Yuanhao.
It was a "sacrifice" of unimaginable cruelty, beyond human comprehension.
That "sacrifice" must have taken something away from everyone present.
But what drove the painter mad was that he did not know what those people had lost.
Lin Feng studied it closely.
This painter's world was different from everyone else's. Humans could not depict things they had never seen, and even if they had seen them, they might not understand them.
He was like Francisco Goya after the war, his brushstrokes filled with indescribable madness. Like a patient with an organic brain disorder, what he saw as real was not necessarily the reality a normal person saw. These murals contained vast stretches of blank space.
For instance, the great empty expanse behind Li Yuanhao and the monks looked as though someone were standing there.
Throughout Buddhism's development, murals and short Buddhist tales had contributed enormously to its spread. Buddhist murals emerged from the interweaving of multiple cultures. Their mineral pigments were effectively ground gemstones, and only the immensely wealthy could afford that much raw material.
All sorts of styles had emerged.