Tomb raiding: It all started with shocking the archaeological team.

Chapter 214 The Mystery of the Demise of the Ancient Gu Kingdom

Is that a golden coffin in front of us? It's so big, it must weigh at least ten tons!

[Absolutely impossible. At most, it's gilded, or has a layer of gold leaf on it!]

"What's impossible? Dude, you're new here, aren't you? Didn't you see all that gold and silver on the ground outside? Making a golden coffin isn't surprising!"

I have a somewhat immature idea: if this place were developed into a tourist attraction, it could probably be considered the ninth wonder of the world, right?

[What are you thinking? The Eight Wonders of the World are utter nonsense! They're on a completely different level than this! This should be listed separately as the World's Number One Miracle!]

Viewers in the live stream were having a heated discussion, with the screen filled with comments and various gifts.

Chen Yibai shifted his gaze from the golden coffin to the several golden statues beside it.

Around this golden coffin stand twelve golden statues, like guardians of the coffin. They hold various weapons, and are also human-bodied with ghostly faces, wearing golden armor, with ferocious expressions and menacing looks. They are sculpted to be lifelike and stand around the golden coffin. They are nearly three meters tall and look majestic, with an invisible aura of authority and oppression.

The simplest and most direct way to unlock the secrets of this ancient kingdom is to open the coffin directly.

But Chen Yibai did not immediately open the coffin. Instead, he turned his gaze to the wall of the Golden Hall and walked over.

Each of the eight corners of this golden temple is decorated with a mural.

Chen Yibai felt that this was what he had been searching for all along: the second half of the history of the ancient Gu Kingdom, which might very well contain some unknown secrets about the ancient Gu Kingdom.

Like the murals seen in the passageway before, these eight pictures are arranged clockwise from the entrance, forming a comic strip.

The first picture shows a magnificent palace. The palace looks somewhat familiar and is seven or eight parts similar to the ancient temple on the ground. Therefore, the building on the ground is not actually a sacrificial temple, but the palace ruins of the ancient Gu Kingdom.

Outside the palace, there is a large area of ​​treehouses, which is basically the size of an ancient small country.

The second picture shows the Two-Headed Gu King sitting at the top of the palace, exuding majesty and domineering power. Below him are a group of subjects kneeling in submission. Among them are many familiar figures, such as a strong man wearing an elephant head and a plump woman wearing a silver crown. These are the burial zombies that Chen Yibai saw in the seventeenth level of the Corpse Tower below, the leaders of the seventeen conquered tribes.

From the information in these two pictures, it can be basically seen that after conquering the seventeen surrounding tribes, the Gu clan completed the establishment of the ancient Gu kingdom and made the leaders of those seventeen tribes kneel down and submit.

Basically, in primitive tribes, the establishment of a country is achieved through conquest by war, followed by continued expansion. If nothing unexpected happens, this civilization will continue indefinitely.

Of course, there are bound to be unexpected events.

Otherwise, this ancient kingdom wouldn't have remained buried underground.

The third mural depicts a distant view of the ancient Gu Kingdom palace. In this distant view, a mountain appears, not far from the palace, and not very large. Based on its current location, it is directly north of the palace ruins.

But in reality, this is just a vast tropical rainforest, with no mountains at all.

However, the fourth picture provides the answer: a dense crowd of people, including the elderly and young children, are all using various tools to carve into the mountain. The stones they carve out undergo dozens of complex processes, and finally, the stones from the mountain are refined into gold nuggets!

The secret to how the ancient kingdom possessed so much gold was revealed directly through this mural!

Thousands of years ago, there was a gold mine with extremely high purity in this tropical rainforest!

Then the ancient Gu Kingdom plundered it all, which is why we have the mountain of gold we have today.

At that time, primitive tribes were mainly concerned with food and survival, so what would they need so much gold for?

This really puzzled Chen Yibai.

Could it be that people in ancient times simply liked gold?

With a sense of doubt in his heart, Chen Yibai continued to look at the fifth mural.

The fifth mural takes a bizarre turn in style. Dark clouds gather above the palace of the ancient Gu Kingdom, and half a ghost face hides in the clouds, glaring angrily at the ancient Gu Kingdom.

On the ground, countless dark yakshas and monsters, like a raging flood, engulfed and submerged the entire ancient kingdom, destroying all houses and buildings. Even the magnificent palaces of the ancient kingdom were mostly destroyed and collapsed.

Below this mural, there are also densely packed tadpole-shaped characters.

Although Chen Yibai couldn't understand the characters, he could guess with his toes that they must record the course of this disaster.

This disaster was undoubtedly the main reason for the demise of the ancient Gu Kingdom.

But where did these demons and monsters come from?

There's also a ghost face peeking out from behind the dark clouds!

Could it be that thousands of years ago, there really were ghosts and gods in the sky?

That's absolutely impossible!

According to Chen Yibai's conjecture, this fifth mural uses personification to tell the story of a natural disaster!

That's right, it must be a natural disaster!

The monsters and yakshas depicted in the murals that destroyed the ancient kingdom were actually natural disasters such as floods or mudslides.

The half-open, angry eye hiding in the dark clouds staring at the ghostly face of the ancient Gu Kingdom was probably just a weather anomaly.

As for why the ancient Gu people regarded such natural disasters as ghosts and demons, it is easy to understand. The ancient people revered the gods and regarded all natural changes as the control of the gods. This was also the original intention of the ancient people to worship the gods and pray for good weather and abundant harvests.

Therefore, the ancient Gu Kingdom must have believed that this natural disaster had angered the gods!

The gods, in their wrath, dispatched demons and monsters to destroy the ancient kingdom!

This is why the murals depict not floods, but demons and monsters.

However, in Chen Yibai's view, the natural disaster that led to the destruction of the ancient Gu Kingdom thousands of years ago was actually mainly caused by human error.

Chen Yibai also knew a little about geography.

At that time, the gold mine of the ancient Gu Kingdom was located directly north of the palace ruins, on a relatively high elevation. After the gold mine was completely mined, the terrain naturally changed.

Tropical rainforests, especially during the rainy season, sometimes experience heavy rains that can last for months. Without the barrier of the rainforest, all the water accumulated upstream flows back downstream, causing uncontrollable floods!

Therefore, this can be considered a man-made natural disaster. The ancient Gu Kingdom paid the price of destruction for its extensive gold mining!