Soon, a face-sized patch of the mural had been peeled away, revealing half a carriage painted in five colors beneath it. The carriage was clearly floating on clouds, with several women in Mongolian dress attending it on either side. Its owner was an obese man, but his clothing was very strange.
"I've never seen anything like it," Wu Xie murmured, suddenly growing tense.
This was a narrative mural.
Clearly, someone had first painted a narrative mural, then, for some reason, hurriedly covered it with another. Time must have been extremely tight, because even the final stage of work on the outer mural had been left unfinished.
"It's connected to the Heavenly Palace!" Chen Pi A Si studied the entire mural, then looked around their surroundings. "Clear the whole wall," he said gravely. "Let's see what story it tells."
Wu Xie, Fatty, Pan Zi, Monk Hua, Lang Feng, and Ye Cheng got to work, bringing out their fingernails to perform the delicate task of peeling the mural off the rock wall.
Cao Ya glanced over but did not lend a hand.
If they were interested in the mural, they could deal with it themselves.
Besides, he was not their nanny.
He lowered his head and ate his canned food. It was steaming hot and tasted good.
The others glanced back and saw that Cao Ya had heated up another can to eat. They were somewhat speechless. Hadn't you eaten enough just now?
Who knew how long we'd be stuck in these snowy mountains? Come on, man, make it last!
They had intended to advise Cao Ya to ration his canned food. What if they ended up spending another ten days or half a month here without finding a way out? If they ate all the canned food beforehand, wouldn't they starve?
But on second thought, with Cao Ya's abilities, even if they really ran out of food, he could certainly go out and bring something back.
In any case, they would not starve.
They abandoned the idea of advising him. In truth, they had another thought they were too embarrassed to voice: if they tried to persuade Cao Ya and he refused to listen, greeting them with a cold stare, wouldn't that be terribly awkward?
If Cao Ya resorted to violence, they probably would not have the slightest chance to struggle. They would be off to meet the King of Hell on the spot.
They turned their gazes back and concentrated on the mural.
Large patches of the mural peeled away, and before long, a brilliantly colored, majestic painting gradually unfolded before them.
The only sound around them was Cao Ya eating. They moved the lantern to one side of the rock wall for better illumination, and its dim yellow light lent the stone an ancient, mysterious air.
The mural's colors were extraordinarily vivid, with vast amounts of red like fresh blood. Beneath the wavering light, they flashed with a glazed brilliance, as though the entire rock were seeping blood.
"It's incredible that a mural hidden beneath another layer of paint could be preserved so well!" Wu Xie exclaimed.
Cao Ya shook his head. What was so impressive about that? In those higher-level worlds, never mind a mural-even a living person could be preserved for thousands, tens of thousands, or even millions of years!
Compared with those, this was a little sorcerer standing before a great one.
Of course, the worlds were different, and many things could not be judged by the same standard.
"What's this mural about?" Fatty asked curiously, looking rather bewildered.
The mural was divided into two sections, each depicting different events, yet together they looked remarkably complete and magnificent.
Wu Xie shook his head. "I know very little about the Eastern Xia Kingdom. I'm not sure."
The others clearly were not experts either, and none of them spoke.
Only Monk Hua's eyes lit up. In a slightly excited voice, he said, "This should be a scene from the war between Emperor Wan Nu of Eastern Xia and the Mongols. Look at this man-he should be King Wannu himself. This could very well be the legendary war that destroyed Eastern Xia."
He paced back and forth, marveling as he studied the images above. Pointing to one side of the mural, where large numbers of soldiers wore armadillo hides and armor, he said:
"This is King Wannu's army."
Then he pointed at the cavalry on the other side,
and said, "This is the Mongol army. Look, they far outnumber Eastern Xia's forces. This was an overwhelmingly one-sided war."
The mural depicted arrows and stones flying everywhere.
Fatty studied it, then suddenly noticed something odd. "Why do all those soldiers in Eastern Xia's army look like women?"
The others took a look and found it strange as well. Did the people of Eastern Xia rely on women to fight their wars? If so, heaven would have been unjust if their kingdom hadn't fallen.
"No," Monk Hua said. "This is a characteristic of Eastern Xia murals. Look, everyone has very delicate features. I also found some strange accounts in historical sources. It seems everyone who had dealings with the Eastern Xia Kingdom said they never saw any old people there. Everyone was very young. The Koreans said that the people of Eastern Xia retained their youthful looks even when they died."
Everyone frowned, seemingly unable to understand why this was so. They could only attribute it to the unusual customs of an ethnic minority. Among some peoples, the elderly were not allowed to receive guests.
"Damn, if we had that technique today, couldn't we harvest the wallets of every young girl and married woman we wanted? Why would we still rob tombs? Wouldn't it be better to sit at home counting money every day?" Fatty's eyes burned with longing, both envious and jealous.
Unlike the others, he robbed tombs for money.
If there were another way to make money while lying around, he would have to have water in his brain to keep robbing tombs.
Wu Xie laughed heartily. He still knew nothing of his own identity and mission.
Poker-Face, Wu Sansheng, and Chen Pi A Si sometimes robbed tombs for money too, but their main reason was some unspoken purpose.
The same was true of A Ning's team, whom they had encountered earlier.
Perhaps hired hands such as Monk Hua, Lang Feng, and Ye Cheng robbed tombs for money, but bosses like Chen Pi A Si often entered tombs with purposes of their own.
For those purposes, they did not fear even death.
Wu Sansheng was the same.
The others thought little of it. Who wouldn't covet such a technique? The problem was that envy was useless. The Eastern Xia Kingdom had fallen centuries ago, and the technique must have been lost.
They continued examining the mural.
Cao Ya finished his canned meat, stood up, and went over to look at the murals as well.
Hearing Fatty's wistful remarks, he chuckled inwardly. Every technique came at a price.
Practicing martial arts likewise required years upon years of arduous training.
His arduous training had been completed by his selves in other worlds.
Monk Hua pointed to the mural's second section and said, "This part records the fighting. Look, the Eastern Xia soldiers fought one against three, but the Mongols still shot them down one after another. In the end, this war became a massacre."
"It would've been strange if it hadn't been one-sided. The Mongols of that era fought their way across Eurasia. How could the people of Eastern Xia, tucked away in one corner, possibly have been their match?" Fatty said, curling his lip.
Indeed, the Mongols of the twelfth century possessed truly overwhelming fighting strength.
The mural used great swaths of red to portray the war's brutality, drawing them powerfully into the scene. They could almost see Eastern Xia soldiers falling in waves into pools of blood, while the Mongol cavalry trampled over their corpses and began burning houses and slaughtering the men.
The mural's third section was trapped behind an enormous rock that could not be moved. They could only guess that it continued the events shown here.
Cao Ya had no intention of helping move that enormous rock.
He was not particularly interested in the mural, and he was not their nanny. They could not expect his help with every little thing.
Before you continue