Daxiong turned to look at me and said, "You had better come take a look. Doesn't this scene look familiar?"

I hurried over and saw it—a pitch-black wall before us, and set into the wall, a small wooden door.

Through the cracks exposed by the wood's age and decay, faint specks of yellow light seeped out from within.

The first time Daxiong and I fell into the research institute, we had seen a wooden door very similar to this one, with light shining from the inside.

However, that door had been destroyed by Daxiong and me, whereas the door before us now was completely intact; otherwise, I truly would have thought we had returned to that very spot.

Back when Daxiong and I were in that secret chamber, we had to drill a hole under the door to get through because we were afraid of waking the slumbering giant lizard.

Now, without any such hesitation, we each loaded our pistols, held them ready, and had Daxiong kick the door open with one mighty thrust.

Daxiong’s manner of kicking the door was as ferocious as ever, treating the rotten wooden door as if it were a steel plate. With one vigorous stomp, there was a loud crack, wood chips flew everywhere, and dust billowed up.

Both I and * cursed simultaneously, "Damn it! Can you be gentler! Do you think this is your own door?"

Daxiong ignored us, hoisting his pistol onto his shoulder, and swaggered inside, nonchalantly remarking, "You know nothing! This is called presence of mind…"

Seeing his backside swinging freely, both I and * simultaneously stuck out a foot and kicked him in the rear, making him stumble forward.

Daxiong rubbed his backside, turned back with a pout, and glared at us.

We, on the other hand, looked around as if nothing had happened, gazing nonchalantly at everything.

Though we claimed to be looking around, one particular object immediately captured all of our gazes.

In the dim light cast by the old-fashioned incandescent bulb inside the small room, we saw a ship-shaped object resting in the exact center of the chamber.

The vessel's appearance was bizarre, resembling a massive cigar made of wood. Its hull was completely sealed, with only two circular windows on the left and right sides.

"Could this possibly be the Lunbo Zhou that the Weiguo people used for diving, as legends suggest?" I murmured to myself.

had also heard me speak of the Shu Yi Ji, so he recognized the Lunbo Zhou and nodded. "It must be... I never thought we'd actually see the real thing."

"What Laba Zhou? You’re making me hungry," Daxiong asked from the side.

I didn't have time for him; what concerned me most right then was what kind of power source the Weiguo people used to propel their diving apparatus.

So, * and I moved to the rear of the Lunbo Zhou to examine its stern.

But strangely, the situation we found at the back was identical to what we saw at the front.

Clearly, this thing was different from the vessels we currently used; the propulsion equipment was not located at the stern.

That meant it had to be inside the Lunbo Zhou.

We then moved to the side of the vessel, where * remarked with surprise, "Look, these windows are empty, no glass. Wouldn't we drown if we took it underwater?"

I thought perhaps the Russians had smashed the glass when they pulled it up, as they probably wouldn't have been able to enter otherwise.

So, I turned on my flashlight and stuck my head into the cabin of the Lunbo Zhou.

What I discovered next was astonishing: in the entirely empty cabin, there were two wooden plank benches set side-by-side, and in front of the benches, on the floor, was a semicircular raised platform, flanked on either side by a mechanism resembling a bicycle pedal.

The Weiguo people of that era sat inside the cabin and propelled this submersible by pushing the pedals with their feet.

It suddenly made sense why the Lunbo Zhou's windows lacked glass; if there had been glass, and without the modern sinking equipment, the vessel could only float on the surface.

And to make it submerge, the interior would have to be completely flooded with water.

But if the interior was flooded, the people inside would drown.

The only conclusion, therefore, was that the Weiguo people were superhumans capable of breathing underwater, or perhaps the Weiguo people had created many undying beings to serve as their slaves!

This was a monumental discovery. It turned out that the Huoshengmu reviving the dead was not some accident, nor was it a conspiracy by the Lingyu Temple; it was the masterpiece of the Weiguo people.

This meant I now understood everything.

When the Lingyu Temple occupied the palace within the tree, they thought they had won. However, the Weiguo people activated the corpse-revival mechanism before their final demise, and everyone came back to life overnight, turning on and slaughtering the members of the Lingyu Temple.

It explained why those few Lingyu Temple members we saw had committed suicide—anyone witnessing such a scene would do the same.

And the fact that the Weiguo people planted this tree on the meteorite wasn't solely for the salvation of those small kingdoms in the Western Regions. It was because the Huoshengmu could only grow on meteorites. The Weiguo people manufactured this monstrous, life-granting tree with the actual goal of establishing their permanent base in the Western Regions.

I shared these thoughts with *, who nodded and said, "The only part I disagree with is the term 'permanent base,' because this base wasn't permanent; it had an expiration date. Every resurrected person, though granted immortality, would eventually be assimilated by the immense power of the Huoshengmu and turn into a plant. While assimilating others, the Huoshengmu was simultaneously completing its own transformation from plant to animal. Look at all those trees in the underground forest; every one of them was once a living person. And the Ghost Domain is merely an intermediate stage in that transition from human to tree."

Hearing this, I suddenly realized the truth, and finally understood why Feng Ze was so terrified after his resurrection.

That kind of fate was something no ordinary person could endure. If I had to live in that pitch-black underworld for one or two millennia, unable even to die by suicide, only to eventually become a tree—I would certainly soil myself with fear, too. That monotony was unbearable for a human being.

Thinking this, I inadvertently glanced over and saw my grandfather, who had been ignoring us, looking at us with a rather stunned expression.

But when I turned toward him, Grandpa immediately looked away again.

It seemed *’s analysis was entirely correct; otherwise, Grandpa wouldn't have reacted that way.

However, why my grandfather cared about this issue was beyond my comprehension.

After finishing our analysis, we sifted through the surrounding objects.

There were many items that the Russians had recovered from the giant tree ruins. Most were Weiguo artifacts such as stone statues, lamps, stone bowls and spoons, as well as treasures like pearls and jade. There was very little material related to the Lingyu Temple.

This further confirmed that the Lingyu Temple had not seized the Weiguo palace as their base but had been wiped out in return the very next day.

It was highly likely that some of the annihilated Lingyu Temple members were resurrected by the Weiguo people to serve as their slaves.

Then, the Weiguo people lied that their kingdom had fallen and completely disguised themselves as the Lingyu Temple members, residing in the underground ruins for several centuries.

During this time, some people with weaker resistance began transforming into the Ghost Domain entities, forcing the Weiguo people to abandon the base, leaving the transformed entities behind while the rest integrated into the common populace of the Central Plains.

This remnant faction of the Weiguo people established a new nation in the Black Bamboo Gully of Sichuan after hundreds of years of development.

However, after several centuries, the Weiguo people had long forgotten the vendetta of their (annihilation), settling into a life of peace and prosperity.

Moreover, the governmental structure of the Lingyu Temple persisted all the way into the Tang Dynasty, with the eighteenth Weiguo King eventually joining the Lingyu Temple, becoming a member and helping Li Shimin establish his empire?