Beyond the magnificent Chinese Gate lay an even more magnificent grand hall.
Zheng Qing held his breath and looked around.
It was an enormous hall.
It was difficult to describe it in concrete terms. Zheng Qing could only feel that this hall was very large.
The center of the hall was spacious and empty, with no structures at all.
The iron-gray floor looked sturdy and beautiful, giving people a sense of security. Crisscrossing silver-white lines were set into the floor, dotted with hollowed-out characters that formed a mysterious and majestic design.
The design looked like a magic array, and Zheng Qing studied it closely.
Above the hall was blackness, a lonely black like the night sky. Light orbs as large as bushel baskets drifted leisurely along mysterious paths, bathing the entire hall in gentle starlight. Ethereal celestial music, coming from nowhere, mingled among them and further enhanced the place's otherworldly air.
Hundreds of dark, massive pillars stood in a ring around the hall, each one coiled with a lifelike, ferocious giant beast.
Gray stone railings connected the pillars.
On the walls behind the railings stood the occasional distinctive arched doorway. These arches sat quietly there, their mottled marks telling of their long history and rich experiences.
Between the arches, enormous paintings covered the walls.
Following the crowd, Zheng Qing turned right from the entrance and strolled down the corridor, looking at the connected murals.
They depicted the history of wizards.
Most of the murals on the first floor portrayed the history of contact between wizards and Bading people:
Beginning with primitive savages who drank blood and wore animal hides, wizards came to understand heaven and earth and aided all living things;
Later, as the Bading World continued to develop, its people adopted different attitudes toward wizards:
Some panicked, avoiding them