Paintings of Terror

The ominous premonition of their own fate made everyone feel heavy for a while, and no one spoke for a long time, until Yue Cen suddenly broke the uncomfortable silence: "Let's not forget that there are still two unresolved problems in these four rock carvings. .

"One is the arrangement order of the four paintings. This issue is very critical. The content and meaning expressed by different orders may even be quite different, which also affects our judgment of the final truth;

"Another question is the content on the rock wall with the theme of 'sacrifice and prayer'. What does the blank space in the center of the circle that these symbols form to worship mean exactly?"

"Xiaoyue is right," Hua Jiqiu said, "The sequence of petroglyphs is very important. Xiao Shao's view is all living beings→flood→death→sacrifice and prayer; my view is flood→death→sacrifice and prayer→sentient beings.

"Look, these are two different directions. Xiao Shao's order keeps the whole event recorded on the rock painting at an uncertain stage. What is the result of the sacrifice? Is it a new life like a god-given, or a death? peace?

"And my order may be idealized, I gave them a new ending, but it's hard to say whether the reality can really be so beautiful.

"And what if there is another order? For example... all living beings→sacrifice and prayer→flood→death.

"Look, this has become another story, full of conspiracy, cruelty and violence. In the world where all living beings are prosperous, some people have desires, which can be greed, lust for power, or any kind of desire to control sentient beings. Or the desire to override everything, and even, it may be anti-human and anti-society exterminationism.

"So this person, or this group of people with a common belief, performed witchcraft in the form of sacrificial prayers, and for the sake of selfishness or individual extreme beliefs, flooded the world.

"In the end, this reckless catastrophe caused by selfish desires has brought death to the world, or in other words, it is the evil result of the loss of life.

"The story depicted in this order also fits the clues implied by the painting "Restart" that you told me. The demise of every civilization is inseparable from the high-level intelligent creatures that rule it. War, power, wealth, greed, and hostility can all become the culprits of destroying one's own civilization.

"If a civilization destroys itself, then correspondingly, another new civilization will take over and replace it. Therefore, after this death, perhaps a new world will be ushered in, but the one who carved these petroglyphs People in this era have no way to see the birth of a new civilization.”

"Curator Hua's statement is very reasonable," Shao Ling said, "Some people say that our current civilization is not the first generation of human civilization on earth, and it is said that older civilizations have been discovered in many places in the world.

"I remember that in Africa, a nuclear reactor was discovered 20 billion years ago, and some scientists speculated that the last human civilization was destroyed by a nuclear war.

"So can we infer that the world of mountains and seas is likely to be the real last civilization between 20 billion years ago and modern human civilization?

"It may not be regarded as human civilization, but it must be an advanced intelligent civilization that dominated the world, and then it was destroyed in the prehistoric flood. After that, not long after that, human civilization was born , it is even very possible...human beings are actually descendants of the mountain and sea civilization!"

"So... the wall carvings on this rock platform are probably recorded by the ancestors of mankind, the ancestors of mountains and seas, in order to prevent people from forgetting that period of history and that world?" Gu Qingqing's eyes were full of disappointment.

"In order to prevent future generations from forgetting that period of history, do you want to use the form of painting to harm your own descendants?" Ke Xun propped his chin with one hand and raised his eyebrows, "It doesn't make sense. And don't forget, they prayed It’s just a blank space. If they want to ask for a big flood, it’s fine to draw a flood icon in the middle. It’s not that they can’t draw, or it’s not so direct. They can also draw a dragon or something? Dragons don’t control water God? Anyway, I think that this blank space is not because I can’t draw, nor because I can’t draw, it must have a purpose.”

"Could it be that what they prayed for is actually...death?" Qin Ci said, "Death also means nothingness, so the center of the ritual is blank, and the flood is just a means to cause the consequences of death. If it wasn’t a flood, it could have been caused by other means, such as an earthquake or a tornado, but it just happened to be a natural disaster such as a flood. Looking at it this way, the order of the petroglyphs should be sentient beings→sacrifice→flood→death. "

"Then why do they pray for death?" Wu You asked, "Is it really like what Uncle Hua said, a group of anti-human and anti-social guys who want to die with everyone?"

"I really want to know what is the connection between these four petroglyphs and another world," Ke Xun sat up straight, "Remember Yi Ran's previous guess, the scene in this Valley of Death is probably a superposition of the two worlds, In other words, it is our world during the day, and another world at night, and the two worlds appear alternately—don’t forget the clues suggested by each of the paintings we summarized before, and the existence of two worlds can already be determined thing.

"As for that rock platform, it comes from another world. Why is there another half of "Mountain and Sea Map" on its rock wall? Why is half of "Mountain and Sea Map" in our world and the other half in that world?

"Why are the contents of these four paintings depicted in half of that world?"

"About this question, we can use common sense to try to deduce it," Shao Ling said. "After the great flood, many people and animals died. What kind of mental state would people have at that time?"

"Of course I'm sad," Wei Dongdao said. "It's very likely that my family and friends were buried in the flood. My home, fields, and property are gone. That feeling must be very hopeless. Think in another way." Suddenly, I may feel that I don't know how to live, helpless and sad."

"But compared to helplessness, grief must have the upper hand." Ke Xun's voice was a little muffled.

Wei Dong looked at him, knowing that he had touched the most painful scar in his heart again, and was thinking about how to comfort him, but saw him scratching his hair, and continued to say calmly: "They will definitely be incomparable. I miss my loved ones who have passed away, and hope that they can live again. This is the strongest wish. If this wish cannot be realized, I will settle for the next best thing. I hope that I can see my loved ones again, take a look, or say a word , in short... just hope to communicate with relatives again... Cough."

Mu Yiran, who had been listening to everyone's analysis without saying a word, heard that he was using a cough to cover up his slightly changed voice, reached out and patted his back lightly, and then his hand stopped on his body , gently holding the back of his neck, passing the warmth of the palm to him.

Ke Xun took a deep breath without showing any signs, and said: "If the wish of communication cannot be realized, I can only choose the last wish, which is to hope that my relatives will have a good life in another world, and pray for them."

"So—" Shao Ling said, "From ancient times to the present, people's hearts and feelings are the same. After experiencing the great flood, the psychological state of the survivors must be the same as Ke Xun said.

"Then that's the point. The ancients believed in the power of ghosts and gods. Maybe they believed that the power of ghosts and gods could bring their loved ones back to life and allow them to communicate with relatives in the dead world. Or, at least They must also be asked to pray and pray for their dead relatives.

"That's what the great witches did in ancient times, so this grand sacrificial activity on the rock carvings happened naturally.

"If ghost writing is the text or medium of another world, then the altar and sacrificial utensils will be engraved with ghost writing, describing the cause and effect of the whole event, and used to express the mourning and wishes of the living to the dead, or even use ghost writing to communicate with each other. It is a very reasonable explanation for the master of another world to communicate, negotiate, and beg in order to achieve the wish of bringing the dead back to life.

"So these four paintings were engraved on the rock platform, and passed to another world in a certain way, which is the proof of using witch prayer to communicate with ghosts and gods. And I still insist on my previous view on the sequence of rock paintings, which is sentient beings→flood →Death→Prayer."

"And then? Your reasoning can't explain the follow-up question," Zhu Haowen said, "In the era of mountains and seas, all living beings prospered, and a prehistoric flood suddenly broke out, which caused the loss of life. After the flood, the surviving human beings prayed and remembered the dead relatives and friends. And hope to revive relatives and friends with the help of ghosts and gods, or hope that they can live well in another world.

"In order to achieve this goal, they divided a "Mountain and Sea Map" into two parts, one part was cast on the Jiuding as a sacrificial vessel, and the other part was carved on the rock as an altar, and then they used some method to divide the sacrificial vessel into two parts. Taiwan is sent to another world, echoing the Jiuding of this world, achieving the effect of connecting the two worlds.

"So far, everything seems to make sense, but what about the follow-up? Why did the "Mountain and Sea Map" on Jiuding become our bones? Could it be that we want to replace Jiuding and continue to maintain contact with another world? Thousands of years have passed. After the past, this sacrificial prayer still refuses to stop?

"And why are we included in the painting? Why is the tornado column getting bigger and bigger every night? What is going on in the clues implied by each painting that another world wants to take over this world?"

A series of questions made it difficult for Shao Ling to answer for a while, and Hua Jiqiu also fell into deep thought. After a difficult silence, Shao Ling raised his eyes, looked at Mu Yiran who was always listening and meditating alone, and said: "It should be said Talk about your thinking, I don't believe you haven't sorted out your own thinking until now."

"I do have my own context, which is completely different from all of you." Mu Yiran finally spoke, and everyone looked at him, and heard him say clearly, "I think this The "protagonist" is not Dayu, nor the leader or great witch in the world, but a great witch with the "power of observation" from another world.

"This rock altar does not belong to the human world, it belongs to another world.

"The petroglyphs on the rocks do not record human sacrifices or witch prayers, but - witch prayers from another world."