?

  That tunnel is opened under the cliff, and a black hole is used to depict it on the mural.

  Due to the long march, there were not many people left in the army. The weather around seemed very cold. Everyone in the mural was huddled together with their shoulders shrunk. When they saw the cliff in front of them, it seemed like they had found a place to escape the cold. Under the leadership of the leader, everyone rushed into the dark cave.

  Then they got lost.

  Before them, there appeared an endless tomb path that could never be walked through. Except for the entrance, which was different, the situation was exactly the same as our encounter. When I saw this, my heart suddenly started pounding, could it be that this remnant army was the one that Sanba mentioned, the army that was forced into the Kunlun Mountains? Was the tall leader in the mural a Songdala person?

  Have they ever entered this ancient tomb before?

  If it is true, when was this ancient tomb built?

  My footsteps quickened involuntarily as I eagerly looked down.

  This remnant army of less than a hundred people was trapped in the tomb chamber, and due to hunger and cold, the number of deaths increased day by day. In the end, there were only more than ten people left. However, at this time, the content of the murals suddenly changed, and this team of more than ten people arrived at another tomb chamber.

  As I gazed at the tomb chamber on the mural, a strange feeling suddenly arose in my heart. I felt that this tomb chamber seemed to have been seen somewhere before, but after careful consideration, I couldn't think of any reason why.

  Just then, I suddenly discovered that at the exit of this tomb, there was another drawing. What it was exactly, I couldn't see clearly, so I leaned my face down to examine it carefully. As soon as I took a look, I was shocked and broke out in a cold sweat - it was actually a carving of a creature with a human head and wolf body.

  Could it be that the tomb chamber depicted above... is the very same one we just exited?

  As I thought of this, my gaze involuntarily looked back, what would be next on the mural? Would they also walk into the tomb passage where we are now? The lamp light flashed, and suddenly Lao Liu's face appeared in front of me.

  He furrowed his brow, his voice cold: "What are you doing?" I didn't know what Lao Liu did, but since Second Uncle was so wary of him, he wasn't someone to be trusted either. I shook my head and pointed at the mural: "There's something on this."

  Lao Liu shifted his gaze, seemingly also sensing something was off. He looked at the content of the mural and said: "This is... incredible." I heard him take a sharp breath in, as if he had seen something unbelievable.

  Lao Liu was in front of me, and what he saw was naturally more than I did. This old six always gave people a feeling of being unfathomable, even when experiencing that multi-sided tomb passage, he didn't show any panic, so his sudden change made me stunned, and then immediately walked up, following his line of sight to look over.

  Then, a picture that ordinary people can't understand appeared in front of me.

  Because of the army in the mural, it indeed entered this tomb passage where we are now, and at the end of the passage is a palace.

  On the throne above the palace, a wolf-headed deity sat, and the soldiers all knelt down to worship. The tall leader seemed to be saying something to the deity. In the next mural, the remaining soldiers were all lying on the ground in agony, but their heads had transformed into wolf-like features. I subconsciously counted the people above, excluding the wolf-headed deity, there were exactly ten people left in that army.

  In harmony with the legend in Samba's mouth. It is said that Songdala people came out from the depths of Snow Mountain ten years later, followed by a powerful and silent army led by nine guards. Is this the end of the tomb passage, the palace depicted on the mural?

  As I thought of this, I involuntarily raised my head to look forward. The light from the flashlight illuminated a vast expanse of dark grayness, and further away, it was pitch black, as if it were a huge black hole.

  I looked at Old Six and found that his expression had also become strange. Immediately, the two of us exchanged a glance, and without saying a word, we pointed our guns forward, then cautiously advanced. What was behind us? Was it Kulazhade, the wolf-headed man? Would we also become wolf-headed monsters like in the mural?

  My nerves are tense, and my mind is filled with the eerie scenes from the murals. The tomb I saw along the way was very simple, and it's hard to tell its era characteristics. I couldn't even determine which dynasty it belonged to, and could only estimate that it was around the Western Zhou Dynasty based on the local Tibetans' legends. But what exactly happened in this tomb over 2,000 years ago? Maybe, as Sangba said, it wasn't a tomb at all, but a temple deeply buried underground?

  Perhaps the content expressed on this mural is just the tomb owner's imagination, or an exaggerated description of what he has experienced. For example, he was a follower of the god of life, so he fabricated himself and his subordinates into the image of Kula Jie?

  My mind was in a mess, but I always felt that what this mural expressed was not fictional, because everything recorded on it was close to the ancient legends of the Tibetans. I even felt that I was not walking in an underground palace, but walking in a underground temple.

  At this moment, the space in front of us suddenly expanded, and the light from the flashlight scattered away, as if we had already reached the end of the tomb passage.

  The end of the flashlight beam was a vast expanse, and I could faintly see the green bricks on the floor. I let out a breath, it seemed we had entered another tomb chamber.

  This journey has been a bit too smooth, could it be that after leaving Mian You Jing and Pang Zi, my physique of encountering Zongzi in every fight has disappeared? I exchanged a glance with Lao Liu, and we simply held onto our single-barreled guns, our flashlights quickly sweeping around, roughly scanning the entire tomb chamber.

  As the flashlight moved slowly, I gradually became familiar with the layout of this tomb.

  The tomb chamber is very large, rectangular in shape, with two dark holes on either side, and seems to have two ear chambers. Apart from this, no other passages were seen. I and Lao Liu cautiously entered the tomb chamber, which should belong to the category of Dong Gong. If you want to meet the coffin, this is the first stop.

  I cautiously turned on the flashlight, and at this moment, a white shadow seemed to flash before my eyes. My heart skipped a beat, and I quickly shone the light over, and suddenly, a grayish-white stone coffin appeared in my line of sight.

  The stone coffin was located in the northeast corner of the tomb, not in the center of the room, so we didn't notice it at first. I quickly called out to Old Six, "Look!" Old Six simultaneously shone his flashlight over, and as the light grew brighter, my heart skipped a beat, because I saw that there wasn't just one stone coffin there.

  In the northeast corner of the tomb, two stone coffins were exposed, and strangely, the coffin lids seemed to have been moved, one of which was even placed upside down against the wall. What's going on? Did someone get here before us?

  Lao Liu made a vague noise with his mouth, then moved the flashlight away to observe other places. He found two lighters and walked over to light them with a lighter, but they didn't ignite, probably because it had been too long.

  "The coffin in the East Palace, it's probably a concubine who was buried with her husband." I said cautiously, thinking of going up to take a look at what's inside the coffin, but I'm afraid that my body still hasn't fully recovered from the effects of the zongzi, and if I go up there and another zongzi appears, that would be asking for trouble.

  "Concubine burial." Old Six repeated what I said, and then I heard his laughter in the darkness. He said: "Don't forget where this place is. It's located north of the Kunlun Mountains, surrounded by Tibetans. The highest standard for Tibetan tombs is sky burial. If a tomb appears here, it will absolutely not be a concubine burial if it's a Tibetan tomb, because Tibetans have never done that before. And do you know what Tibetan earth burial is like?"

  Lao Liu's words made my heart skip a beat, and I couldn't help but scold myself in my mind. It seems that I am indeed too inexperienced and have too much book knowledge. As for the Tibetan funeral customs, I don't know much about them, but Tibetans have always advocated for sky burials. After death, the body will be fed to vultures by the lamas who are responsible for the sky burial ceremony.

  According to others' analysis, this funeral custom may have originated from the Tibetans' concept of harmony between heaven and man. Tibetans believe that eagles are messengers of gods, and they can bring human souls to the paradise. In Inner Mongolia's Tibetan areas, there is also a tradition called "sky burial", where corpses are fed to wolves. No matter what animals are fed, Tibetans have passed down this tradition for generations, believing that all living things are nurtured by nature, and humans take from nature throughout their lives. Humans are part of nature and should follow the law of the food chain, using their bodies to repay nature after death.

  This ancient and traditional idea of feedback coincides with the Chinese concept of the unity of heaven and man, so some people have also sighed that human souls are all the same, and skin color and bloodlines cannot stop it.

  To this day, with the destruction of the environment, Inner Mongolia's grasslands have begun to desertify, and the grassland wolves are gradually disappearing. The Tibetans there can no longer use wolf burials and have had to replace them with fire burials. However, in the distant Qinghai-Tibet region across from Inner Mongolia, sky burials still thrive, and the vultures continue to circle in the sky. As long as the Tibetans lift their heads, they can feel the ancient ecological concept that has been passed down, and sense the distant divine culture.

  Although Tibetans still practice sky burial today, in the course of historical evolution, with the exchange of cultures among various ethnic groups, Tibetan nobles also began to adopt earth burial, which was limited to the nobility. The exchange of funeral customs between Tibetans and Hans occurred after the Qin and Han dynasties, so it is impossible for there to be a record of earth burial in the Western Zhou Dynasty.

  So this suspected Western Zhou tomb of the Tibetan people seems to be somewhat at odds with history, and therefore, the stone coffin in this tomb is also unlikely to be a wife or concubine buried alive. Although Tibetans also have a system of burying living people, that was after the introduction of earth burial.

  Thinking of this, I couldn't help but think of that burial pit, and for a moment, it felt extremely eerie. Upon reflection, this was actually a very chaotic tomb. Two things that should never appear together in the same place - earth burial and live burial - were present here.

  Could it be that this is not the tomb of Western Zhou, and the age of this tomb may not be so distant?

  I'm getting more and more uneasy, first of all the tomb pit, its existence broke a historical convention, before Qin and Han dynasties, Tibetans didn't have the custom of burying people alive with the deceased, so this tomb should be built after Qin and Han dynasties.

  However, according to the previous Samba's statement, this tomb in the Kunlun Mountains is the palace of Kuradze, which already existed in the Western Zhou Dynasty. According to the content of the murals, Songdala people also entered this tomb, and during the time when Songdala people lived, so this is a tomb that is relative to time and history. What is the reason for this situation?

  Suddenly, an idea flashed through my mind, and I thought of a possibility.

  Could it be... this isn't one tomb, but two?

  Samba once said that after the death of Songda people, their bodies were buried deep in the snowy mountains. Could it be this Heavenly Coffin? The Songda people over 2,000 years ago must have discovered something in this Heavenly Coffin, so even after death, they wanted to return here and even built their tombs together with it.

  So, the place where I and Lao Liu are now, may be the Tianyuan Coffin that has been transformed by Songdala people. In this case, the true age of this Tianyuan Coffin is even older than the Western Zhou Dynasty.

  It is well-known that the Chinese nation has always claimed to have a brilliant civilization of over 5,000 years. However, in reality, there are only 2,500 years of recorded history with written records. So where did the remaining 2,000 years go?

  In the more than two thousand years before that, an era filled with myths, like a historical fault line, left behind countless mythical legends and no written records for future generations. Archaeologists have been continuously excavating and exploring, hoping to find the lost two thousand years, the historical fault line. With the development of archaeology, many ancient relics have been unearthed on Chinese soil, such as Sanxingdui and Longwangtou.

  Many historians have also said that although the formal funeral system in Tibet was after Qin and Han, there were no written records of the years in which the burial actually existed. In many ancient tombs of unknown age, pits for human sacrifice have been excavated.

  If that's the case, then the abnormal phenomenon in this tomb can also be explained. If so, what is it that attracts the Shonda people to come back even after death?

  I was thinking, when Old Six suddenly patted my shoulder and pointed to the two stone coffins, as if he wanted to go take a look.

  Although I was afraid, my curiosity eventually took over. After all, everything earlier was just speculation. To know the truth, only the evidence in front of me is the most reliable, because a corpse won't lie, and its clothing and accessories can reflect its true era.

  I nodded and followed Old Six, walking side by side towards the front.

  As the flashlight's beam drew closer, I couldn't help but feel a chill run down my spine, because what was originally two stone coffins in our line of sight had somehow become more than two. Damn it, how many coffins were there in this tomb?!