Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei finds a Freylian

The boy did not run away.

He didn't even take a step back. Just before being swallowed by the dark blue tide, he only sighed softly.

Then, the flood swallowed him up.

Chapter 656 Underworld

"The sound of water!" Caesar frowned and lowered his voice.

Even without deliberately activating the Word Spirit: Kamaitachi to capture the whispers in the wind, his enhanced hearing, amplified by his bloodline, was far more acute than most could imagine. At that moment, he did indeed hear the sound of water—not the restrained, trickling sound of water pipes inside a building, but the sound of the tides rising and falling, as if the ocean were just a short distance away.

This is highly unusual. The Genji Heavy Industries building stands in the heart of Shinjuku Ward, more than four or five kilometers away from the nearest Tokyo Bay coastline. Such a clear sound of the ocean waves should never be heard here.

"The Iron Dome is probably releasing water again in an emergency," Chu Zihang said calmly, half-squatting in front of a huge mural, adjusting the focus and flash of his camera without turning his head. "The weather forecast says there will be another torrential downpour tonight. The underground of Tokyo is practically a tamed yet constantly restless artificial ocean. Without this miraculous drainage system, it would probably have been flooded countless times already."

Caesar did not respond, but quickly scanned the enclosed mural hall. The hall was dimly lit, with only the beams of a few flashlights cutting through the darkness, and everywhere there was old paint, dust, and a very faint smell of preservatives.

He instinctively wanted to find a window to check if it was pouring rain outside, but all he could see were walls covered with huge murals; there were no windows at all. This made sense. To protect these ancient murals from oxidation, dust, ultraviolet rays, and humidity as much as possible, the Sheqi family must have installed a sophisticated environmental control system on this floor, with central dust removal and constant temperature and humidity. Windows would naturally be unnecessary, or even harmful, design elements.

"Shine the flashlight higher, aiming at the top of the painting," Chu Zihang's instruction interrupted Caesar's thoughts, his gaze already refocused on the mural before him. "We need to see its entirety. Judging from its composition and location, it should have some special significance here, perhaps the core or climax of a narrative mural."

“This is a one-time exception, and there will be no next time.” Caesar emphasized with his usual slightly arrogant tone, but he still raised the high-intensity flashlight in his hand. The steady and bright beam of light was like a stage spotlight, enveloping the entire mural. “Remember, don’t always talk to me like a director instructing the lighting technician, Chu Zihang.”

Where the beam of light touched, the murals seemed to awaken from their slumber, suddenly radiating an astonishing brilliance. The abundant use of gold leaf or gold powder pigments flowed with a warm and restrained glow under the direct beam of the flashlight, creating a striking contrast with the surrounding darker background.

This extravagance reminded Caesar of the Madonna image they had seen in the warehouse below. At the time the image was painted, Europe was already acquiring considerable amounts of gold through trade, but the situation was entirely different in Japan two thousand years earlier. Japan at that time had extremely scarce domestic gold resources, and these precious metals had to be transported with great risk, navigating the turbulent Zhoushan Strait and the northerly winds, in fragile small boats through the stormy northerly winds, from China.

Every voyage could be a one-way ticket, with countless sailors and gold perishing at sea. Such hard-won gold, a symbol of power and wealth, should have been used to cast seals, decorate temples, or create jewelry for nobles. Yet, it is now being so lavishly displayed on a mural, which strongly suggests that this painting occupies an extraordinary, even supreme, position within this series of murals.

Chu Zihang entered a state of complete concentration on his research. He first took dozens of high-resolution photos with his camera from different angles and distances, but photos alone were not enough to truly analyze the layers of paint, the details of brushstrokes, and any possible overlays or modifications on the mural. He leaned close to the wall, almost holding his breath, his gaze like that of a highly precise scanner, examining the image inch by inch from top to bottom.

The painting is quite abstract, even possessing some mystical symbolic characteristics. The central composition consists of two interlocking and flowing forms: a skull with enormous wings is presenting an object that is clearly a skeleton to a human figure.

Surprisingly, the skeleton and the human figure are not simply juxtaposed or confronting each other, but rather form a perfect, dynamic "yin-yang" structure. The golden skeleton lies against a deep black background, while the golden human figure lies against a pure white background. The two are closely connected by intersecting arms, with black and white, gold and gold, permeating and rotating with each other, making the whole picture resemble a slowly rotating cosmic vortex.

Even someone like Caesar, who knew little about Eastern metaphysics, could intuitively grasp the grand theme of the endless cycle of life and death conveyed in this painting. The skull symbolizes death and the end, while the human figure symbolizes life and the beginning. But the key lies in the bone being passed around; in this eternal wheel of life and death, what crucial thing is being handed over?

"The Tai Chi symbol?" Caesar tentatively voiced his association.

Chu Zihang slowly shook his head, his gaze still fixed on the mural: "The Tai Chi symbol, which became popular and formed a fixed philosophical diagram in the form of yin and yang fish, can be traced back to the Taoist Chen Tuan in the early Song Dynasty of China. However, the age of these murals is obviously much earlier than the Song Dynasty. Similar patterns of two fish and two snakes with their heads and tails connected and repeating in a cycle have appeared in the relics of many ancient human civilizations, such as Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, and even the Maya. The core concept it symbolizes is often related to 'copulation'."

"Jiao, what?" Caesar's Chinese vocabulary got stuck on this relatively uncommon word.

"Mating," Chu Zihang paused, then changed to a more straightforward and easier-to-understand word, even though it seemed less precise in an academic context.

"Living people mating with the dead?" Caesar's brows furrowed even more, a hint of disgust flashing across his face. "That sounds extremely disturbing. Is this what you call the bizarre lewd rituals in Japanese culture?"

“No, it cannot be simply understood as mating in a physiological sense,” Chu Zihang corrected. “It is a union or fusion in a religious or philosophical symbolic sense. The core intention of the painting is not to depict that process, but to emphasize that something is conveyed through this ultimate union. You see, the painter used that joined bone as the absolute center to construct the entire rotating picture. Therefore, the real key is the imagery represented by that bone.”

"So, what does the annotation in seal script say?" Caesar slightly turned the flashlight beam to illuminate the ancient and winding characters on the edge of the mural.

“This inscription is extremely difficult,” Chu Zihang said, slowing his pace as he carefully examined the characters, which had become somewhat blurred by the passage of time. “It contains a large number of ancient and variant characters, which are beyond my knowledge of seal script, making it very difficult to decipher. However,” he paused, staring intently at one line, repeatedly confirming, “there are eight characters with relatively clear structures and distinct stroke characteristics. I think I probably won’t mistake them.”

"Which eight words?" Caesar pressed.

Chu Zihang read it out slowly and deliberately, his voice exceptionally clear in the spacious mural hall, carrying a heavy weight: "Ancient, Dao, Huang, Quan... Transformation, Shen, Zhi, Lu".

"'Huangquan'...in Chinese, doesn't it refer to the world of the dead, something like hell?" Caesar tried to draw upon his limited understanding of Eastern culture.

"Do you still remember 'The Jade Record'?" Chu Zihang asked a question instead of answering directly.

“Of course,” Caesar said with a hint of self-assured arrogance. “Any mixed-race person who has received basic secret society education and has a modicum of cultural refinement cannot possibly be unaware of the Emerald Book. It’s like how Christians are certain to know the opening of the Bible; it’s common sense.”

“Then you can think of this painting as a Japanese version of the Jade Tablet,” Chu Zihang said in a low voice, his gaze returning to the ever-flowing golden cycle.

Caesar's pupils contracted slightly, and a genuine look of surprise crossed his face.

The Emerald Tablet is an extremely peculiar "book." It cannot even be strictly called a book, because its core content, which has been passed down, consists only of thirteen maxims engraved on a legendary emerald tablet. It has no original name and was named "Emerald Tablet" by later generations only because of the medium it was used on.

Legend has it that in 332 BC, Alexander the Great, the conqueror, marched into Egypt and discovered it in the tomb of a pharaoh known as "Hermes the Triple Great." The thirteen concise, almost obscure, sentences on the stone tablet are said to have been left by this pharaoh of divine lineage and his equally extraordinary father and son, encapsulating the ultimate secrets of alchemy.

For centuries afterward, countless European alchemists devoted their lives to deciphering the thirteen maxims from various manuscripts, rubbings, and oral traditions, seeking a path to the alchemy of gold and even deeper mysteries. The original stone tablets were once treasured in the great Library of Alexandria, but with the library's repeated calamities around the turn of the millennium and its eventual destruction, the original text of the Emerald Tablet was long lost. Later versions became numerous and complex, their authenticity difficult to discern, and the text itself, like the most obscure poetry, suggests that a true interpreter may never have appeared.

Within the Secret Society, there has long been a theory that the Jade Book, seemingly a collection of proverbs describing the transformation of matter, actually metaphorically represents the ultimate metamorphosis of life forms—recording the laws governing the evolution of hybrids and even humans into higher-order dragon life forms.

The highest achievement in alchemy is not in refining external objects, but in refining oneself, opening the dangerous and forbidden path of evolution. If Chu Zihang's judgment is correct, and this painting is the Japanese "Emerald Record," then the "bone" that the golden skull in the painting passes to humanity likely symbolizes the laws of evolution!

Chapter 657 The Path of Evolution

“The Yellow Springs does indeed often refer to the afterlife, the underworld, or hell,” Chu Zihang began to explain. “But in the context of this painting, it may have a deeper symbolic meaning. After traversing the deepest, darkest hell, what one arrives at is not necessarily destruction, but perhaps rebirth, or sublimation. The so-called ‘Ancient Road to the Yellow Springs’ may refer to an ancient and hidden path within the Yellow Springs, which symbolizes death and the rampant evil spirits. This path is also the ‘Path to Divinity.’ Following it, crossing the boundary between life and death, one may complete evolution and reach the realm of gods.”

"The Jade Record also contains a similar expression: 'The lower is like the upper, and the upper is like the lower; in this way, the miracle of Taiyi is accomplished.' Whether it is pursuing the highest point upwards or exploring the deepest depths downwards, as long as a certain limit is broken, one can reach that perfect, unified, and supreme 'Taiyi' realm."

Chu Zihang looked up, gazing at the circular composition on the mural, a metaphor for endless reincarnation and ultimate mystery. "The golden skull in the painting is very likely a symbol of the 'White King.' It bestowed its bones and blood upon humanity, thus creating the White King's descendants—the ghosts mentioned in records or the mermaids in even older legends. However, the legacy left by the gods may not be limited to bloodlines. This painting suggests that something even more precious and dangerous has been passed down: the method for hybrids to transcend their limits and evolve into pure-blooded dragons. Although that process would inevitably be accompanied by unimaginable dangers and enormous costs, it is not entirely impossible."

“If you knew that method,” Caesar walked to Chu Zihang's side, also gazing up at the mural, “would you want to try? To cross that line?”

"No," Chu Zihang replied almost without hesitation, "My father would be very disappointed if he did."

"Is that so?" Caesar paused for a few seconds, then let out a soft sigh. "To be honest, I'm a little curious, and for a moment I even considered trying it. However, if I did, my mother would probably be heartbroken. So I'll pass."

A brief silence filled the space between the two, with only the dust motes slowly floating in the beam of the flashlight.

“Alright, enough with the sentimentality.” Caesar broke the silence first, shaking his head to suppress his rare emotional outburst and regaining his decisive action-oriented demeanor. “There are things here more noteworthy than this ‘Life and Death Cycle’ painting. Come, come with me to see what I consider the most precious one here.”

"Is this the most precious mural you mentioned?" Chu Zihang followed Caesar to the other side of the hall, stopped, and looked up at the empty, exceptionally clean wall in front of him. Compared to the murals on the other walls, some intact and some broken, this place was just a blinding expanse of unadorned white.

“At least it’s the most valuable, from a certain perspective,” Caesar said, standing beside him, his flashlight beam sweeping across the empty wall.

"How do you know?" Chu Zihang asked.

"The logic is simple," Caesar said, a slight smirk playing on his lips. "That intruder, risking the lives of numerous elite officers from the Enforcement Bureau stationed here, and with time running out, only managed to steal this one mural. This shows he wasn't just an art thief with particular taste; more importantly, in his eyes, this painting was far more valuable than anything else. Either its artistic value was unparalleled, or the information it contained was crucial. Either way, it was enough to make it the most precious target in this hall."

The white wall before them was eerily clean. The other murals were stained with splattered or wiped-away bloodstains, marks of brutal battle. This wall, however, was pristine white, as if freshly painted.

This detail points to a clear deduction: the painting was still hanging on the wall when the massacre occurred. The perpetrators calmly removed the painting only after quickly eliminating all the guards. The massacre was over, so there would be no new blood splattered on the empty wall. Conversely, if the Snake-Headed Eight Family members had taken the painting beforehand for restoration or research, then this wall should have been stained with blood like the other walls when the massacre took place.

“The interval between each document being escorted upstairs is only about ten minutes,” Chu Zihang began to calculate. “He has to complete the murder, clear out any guards who might obstruct him, and then peel off this painting within ten minutes. The speed requirement is extremely high. These murals are not painted directly on the original wall, but are first peeled from their original location and attached to a traditional canvas base treated with alum water, and then pasted onto this wall as a whole using a special adhesive. The normal professional process for removing paintings requires softening and dissolving the adhesive with a suitable solvent before the canvas can be peeled off intact. How could he possibly do it in such a short time?”

"Detective Chu Zihang, are you expecting that notorious thief's fingerprints to still be left on this bare wall?" Caesar said, arms crossed. As a leader, he preferred to grasp the big picture and take direct action.

“No, I’m checking for adhesive residue on the wall,” Chu Zihang said, ignoring Caesar’s teasing. He crouched down and focused the beam of his flashlight on an area near the baseboard. There, some dried, yellowish, glue-like residue was faintly visible, with uneven edges.

“Look here, the colloid shows signs of being violently torn, not evenly melted by a solvent. This means he forcibly ripped the canvas off, which is why it was so fast. But here’s the question,” Chu Zihang stood up, “if he cherished this painting so much, considering it priceless, why would he use such a rough method that would easily damage the canvas and paint layers? This doesn’t make sense.”

“That makes sense,” Caesar said, stroking his chin. “For a true art collector or researcher, the heartache of damaging a masterpiece is probably no less than witnessing a beautiful woman being disfigured.”

"Is this your father's opinion?" Chu Zihang asked casually.

“No, you overestimate that bastard’s taste and feelings.” Caesar’s tone turned cold and sarcastic at the mention of his father, Pompeii Gattuso, as if he had instantly donned a mask of irony. “He seems to be passionate about art and collecting, his house is full of antiques and famous paintings, but he doesn’t love them. He only cares about himself. He can spend a fortune to buy a masterpiece, save a high-resolution image of it on his phone, and show it off to everyone he meets, like showing off a new toy. Or he might suddenly find the painting an eyesore or get tired of it one morning, and casually order the butler to take it down from the living room wall and throw it into the dusty, dark cellar.”

"Just like his attitude towards women. One night, he could be reciting Shelley's poems with deep affection to a beautiful woman in a haute couture evening gown; the next night, he might suddenly find her figure ugly and feel inexplicably disgusted, so he would rush into the bathroom and instruct the housekeeper to 'get rid of this ugly pile of flesh quickly.' He is the most extreme kind of selfish person in the world, treating everything as a toy to amuse him, discarding it casually without any regret once he's tired of it."

Chu Zihang glanced at Caesar. He always remained silent on topics involving the privacy and emotions of the other party's family, offering no comment. But he could sense that the strained relationship between Caesar and Pompey was not simply a matter of ideological differences or personality clashes.

Judging from their daily interactions, Caesar actually possesses a rather aristocratic, condescending tolerance. As long as his principles and pride are not violated, he can even show a generous side, such as bringing gifts for student council members. "Appropriate gifts are the generosity due to a nobleman" is one of his creeds. Even when competing most fiercely with Chu Zihang, Caesar's words were mostly limited to expressing disdain, rarely revealing an almost venomous emotion like this now.

"So, back to the main point," Chu Zihang steered the conversation back to the mural, "that person probably didn't care about the mural's artistic value itself. The reason he was so eager, even resorting to brutal force, to seize it was because the painting contained a crucial clue—perhaps the key to deciphering all the secrets of the mural, or a direct carrier of specific information."

"About the method for perfect evolution?" Caesar frowned again.

“Very likely. However, fortunately, the thief was in a great hurry and still left us a clue.” Chu Zihang crouched down again, pointing the flashlight beam at a lower part of the wall, near an inconspicuous corner close to the ground. There, a small piece of canvas, about 20 centimeters square, was stuck, with jagged edges, as if it had been hastily torn from a larger canvas.

Chu Zihang leaned closer and carefully adjusted the angle to take a picture: "Although this fragment is small, the exposed part has a rich variety of textures and colors, and it should contain a lot of original information. When we get back, we can scan it into a high-precision image, perform digital enhancement and detail analysis, and perhaps we can deduce part of the original mural's content, or even key patterns."

“Too much trouble,” Caesar shook his head, drawing his hunting knife, Dictator, directly from his back. He walked to the fragment, squatted down, and inserted the sharp, sturdy tip of the knife into the gap between the canvas fragment and the remaining adhesive on the wall. With a steady wrist, he applied force, slowly cutting away the dried adhesive.

“That guy stole the whole painting, why don’t we just take this piece of the original? Analyzing the original will give us more direct and reliable information than analyzing a photograph.”

Chu Zihang paused for a moment, then nodded.

"Hurry up and finish photographing and documenting the rest of the murals." Caesar had already skillfully peeled off the fragment of the canvas. He tore open the lining of his trench coat, carefully wrapped it up, and hid it inside. "As soon as Lu Mingfei and Frilian meet up with us, we'll leave immediately. Put the matter of Princess Kaguya aside for now. Tonight's discovery here may be far more important than blowing up Princess Kaguya."

Chapter 658 VIP Elevator

Caesar suddenly fell silent, listened intently, and after a few seconds, he patted Chu Zihang's shoulder heavily, speaking quickly and in a low voice: "Director, do your own lighting and filming, the action needs to be even faster! Someone's coming up."

"What did you hear?" Chu Zihang immediately stopped what he was doing, looked around alertly, his body tensed slightly, and he entered a state of combat readiness.

"That's the sound of an elevator. Not the freight elevator we used to come up, but the VIP elevator next to it. That elevator was originally stopped on this floor, but now it's started and descending. Someone on the floor below summoned it. The only one qualified to use this elevator is probably that humanoid dragon gentleman, right?" Caesar whistled softly at the end.

“He might not come up to this floor directly,” Chu Zihang analyzed calmly, but his tone also carried a hint of uncertainty.

"Don't harbor such naive fantasies, Chu Zihang," Caesar shook his head. "Think about it. The Metropolitan Police Department is coming to search tomorrow, and tonight they urgently transferred files. The movers were all elites from the Enforcement Bureau, which means those files are crucial. That's why the patriarch, Tachibana Masamune, and their ace, Genjiro, personally came to inspect the scene. They've already seen the horrific state of the warehouse downstairs, so how could they not come upstairs to take a look at this more central mural gallery? When they stepped out of the elevator and saw corpses everywhere, while two strangers like us were here 'admiring' the murals with flashlights... do you think any further explanation is needed?"

As he spoke, he moved towards the elevator, saying, "Hurry! Finish photographing the rest of the murals! I'll try to buy you some time, even if it's just a few minutes!"

The VIP elevator doors were made of antique, heavy, carved bronze. Caesar held a miniature flashlight in his mouth, and by the dim light, he used his fingers to pry open the almost invisible gap between the two doors. His muscles tensed, and with a low growl, relying on his powerful physique and rigorously trained strength, he forcefully pried open the heavy bronze doors to both sides, creating a sufficiently wide gap.

Suddenly, a blast of icy air rushed in through the gap. Outside was a bottomless elevator shaft, like the esophagus of a giant beast.

The sheer size of this elevator shaft is enough to convey the immense scale and grandeur of Genji Heavy Industries. Elevator shafts in ordinary high-rise buildings typically accommodate only a few elevators and have limited space. But this elevator shaft is astonishingly spacious, easily capable of holding over a dozen large elevators operating simultaneously, with an area exceeding one hundred square meters.

Inside the well stand hundreds of thick, high-strength angle steel columns, with crisscrossing steel beams forming a solid framework. The metal car of the ultra-high-speed elevator will theoretically speed through it at several meters per second. If observed up close, the scene would likely resemble a ceaseless torrent of metal in a futuristic city, possessing a cold, industrial aesthetic.

At this moment, the VIP elevator car is stopped at the ground floor of the building. The faint sound of the car door opening and closing, as well as indistinct voices, can be heard, indicating that someone is entering. The elevator shaft acts like a giant megaphone, subtly transmitting the sounds from the ground floor upwards.

Caesar listened intently, and with his exceptional hearing, he could barely make out that Tachibana Masamune and Genji were talking in hushed tones, their voices quite serious.

Immediately afterward, the elevator began to ascend. The floor display screen above the doors lit up, the numbers rapidly changing before finally settling on the name of the floor representing the mural hall—"Shinto." Caesar's prediction was completely confirmed: the highest floor of the Snake Clan was approaching at a speed far exceeding that of a freight elevator.

At this critical moment, the indicator light on the freight elevator next to them lit up, and it began to slowly ascend. Lu Mingfei and Frilian had finished moving the fifty boxes of documents below and were coming up to meet them. To ensure the safety of the documents and personnel, the freight elevator was set to an extremely slow speed, less than a fraction of the speed of the VIP elevator. This meant that Genjiro and Tachibana Masamune would inevitably arrive first.

“Bullshit! The timing is too perfect!” Caesar couldn’t help but mutter under his breath, veins throbbing on his forehead. “Lu Mingfei and Frilian are now separated from our humanoid dragon neighbor by only a thin elevator shaft wall… If Lu Mingfei knew this, he would probably wet himself on the spot.”

He quickly analyzed the situation while looking up to observe the structure above the elevator shaft. They were nearing the top floor of the building, and the massive gear train that powered the steel cables was clearly visible.

“There’s no other way, I can only try this.” Caesar leaned half his body into the dangerous elevator shaft, steadied himself, gripped the Desert Eagle tightly with both hands, took a deep breath, aimed at the tightly meshed gears above, and pulled the trigger.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!" The deafening gunshots exploded in the narrow elevator shaft, repeatedly reflected and amplified by the shaft walls, creating a continuous, enormous echo that made one's eardrums ache. The bullets accurately hit the gears, scattering clusters of dazzling sparks.

However, while the Desert Eagle was incredibly powerful, it was insufficient to destroy the elevator's main gear assembly, made of special steel and designed to withstand immense tensile forces. Bullets were either deflected or left dents on the gear surface, but none could stop its operation.

Caesar's goal wasn't to directly destroy the elevator, but to trigger its safety protection mechanism. Elevators in high-rise buildings are equipped with multiple safety systems; once an abnormal impact or vibration is detected, the system will determine that the operation is unstable and automatically activate the emergency brake.

That's exactly what he was betting on. If the elevator was forcibly stopped midway, it would take time for Genjiro and his group to restart or leave the car. They would either have to wait for technicians to unlock it remotely, or they would have to do what Caesar had just done: pry open the heavy elevator doors with their bare hands and then climb dozens of flights of stairs. Either way, they would gain precious time for evacuation.

A piercing metallic scraping sound rang out as the braking system was activated. The massive brake disc rubbed violently against the gears, sparking even more brilliant and denser sparks, like a brief but dangerous fireworks display in an elevator shaft.

Inside the VIP elevator car.

Genjiro, who was discussing something in hushed tones with Tachibana Masamune, suddenly stopped speaking.