There were a total of ten murals on the outside.
The first mural originally depicted humans hunting mermaids. But as the red light flickered, the red pearls formed another picture. The mermaids, who were originally the hunted, became the attackers. Humans and mermaids were passionately fighting on the seashore.
The second mural, which originally showed humans disemboweling captured mermaids, now showed the mermaids being defeated by humans and scurrying away. There were actually more human limbs and remains on the ground.
The third mural showed that the mermaid chief planned to launch another sneak attack on humans, but was stopped by the mermaid saintess.
The fourth mural depicted that under the leadership of the saintess, the mermaid clan took a respite and headed deep into the South Sea, where they established the Mermaid Palace. It turned out that the Mermaid Palace was not established by the chief, but by the saintess.
However, later, some members of the clan joined forces with the chief, snatched the scepter from the saintess's hands, and the saintess was imprisoned on the ninth floor of the Mermaid Palace.
After that, the chief and some clan members, in order to take revenge on humans, not only sacrificed the newly - born mermaid babies to the demons, but also imprisoned the clan's women as breeding machines.
The so - called divine punishment was not the punishment from the Heavenly Dao as the legend had it. Instead, after the chief used a secret technique, the backlash of the spell would turn those mermaid babies into blood - thirsty monsters on the night of the full moon.
In the end, even the saintess was imprisoned by the chief and forced to breed. But due to the saintess's special constitution, even though the chief used secret methods, she only gave birth to one mermaid baby.
That mermaid baby was taken under the chief's supervision as soon as he was born. As he grew up, he became the most powerful warrior in the clan. Different from other warriors, he held a sword in his hand.
Shen Qing was not unfamiliar with the appearance of that sword. It was the very sword in Li Xian's hand.
For some reasons, the mermaid baby, who knew the ugly truth of the mermaid clan, fled the Mermaid Palace and went to the land.
The last, the tenth mural, showed the saintess standing at the door of the Mermaid Palace, lovingly watching the mermaid baby slowly drifting away.
After looking at the ten murals, Shen Qing understood that it was the saintess who had tampered with these murals, and Li Yuan was the child born to the saintess.
The box with the diary in the warehouse was hidden by the saintess. She was afraid that the clan members would destroy the only thing left by her son, so she had to hide it.
The corpse of the female mermaid hiding in the warehouse waiting to die was the saintess's maid.
In her last moments of life, she only wanted to keep well the only memory her mistress left in the Mermaid Palace.
Shen Qing didn't know what finally happened to the mermaids in the Mermaid Palace. But combining the records in Li Yuan's diary and the things on these murals, it was not difficult for Shen Qing to deduce.
It was a tragic story.
Because of the conflict of interests between the mermaid clan and humans, and the mermaid clan was no match for humans, the chief came up with a vicious plan to take revenge on humans, which also harmed the clan members and led the mermaid clan to extinction.
The saintess watched helplessly as the chief led her clan members step by step towards an irreversible path of no return. She was extremely helpless but powerless.
So she left the truth in these murals to clear the fog for those who came later.
But what made Shen Qing even more curious was how did the conflict of interests arise between humans, who lived on land, and the mermaid clan, who lived in water?
What happened to the saintess after she watched her son leave? How did all the mermaids in the clan lose their lives?
And what role did the demons play in all this? They took the mermaids to the Demon Abyss for sacrifice. What exactly were they sacrificing?
The fog had been cleared a little, and Shen Qing was no longer as irritable as before. At least she knew that Li Yuan had no ill - intention when he asked Li Xian to return to the Mermaid Palace.
Shen Qing fell into deep thought and didn't notice at all that the dragon - horned fish behind her seemed to be breaking through the confinement of the magic formation bit by bit and getting closer and closer to her.
On the other side, after Pei Xuanjing and the other two left the Green Wood Sect, they rushed all the way towards the South Sea. But they learned that all the ships going to the South Sea had been rented out.
Having no other choice, He Yu used the He family's connections to have a ship urgently transferred from a hundred miles away. Due to the shortage of ships, they were delayed on the shore for several days.
Only when some fishing boats began to return did they officially set sail.
Shen Chuyun was a landlubber. As soon as she got on the ship, she felt nauseous and was so seasick that she could hardly stand.
The three of them had no specific destination, so they just headed towards the area with more ships.
They knew that Shen Qing and Li Xian's purpose of going out to sea was not as simple as fishing. There must be a big event. So they also asked the ship - renting bosses if they had seen Li Xian and Shen Qing.
Until one of the bosses said that he had seen two Taoist companions in very ordinary clothes boarding the Nian family's ship. Although the description of the shopkeeper was completely different from the Shen Qing in their impression, they knew that Shen Qing had the habit of disguising herself. So they took a gamble and headed in the direction where the red - silk pearl fish multiplied.
"Eldest senior brother, why do we have to come all the way here? Shen Qing will surely return to the Azure Cloud Sword Sect. By then, we can explain everything to her and ask for her forgiveness."
He Yu was also not used to being on the ship. After two days at sea, he was already shaken until his face was pale and his steps were unsteady. But he was still better off than Shen Chuyun.
Although he knew that he was indebted to Shen Qing and that he wanted to ask for her forgiveness, he really didn't understand why Pei Xuanjing was so determined to chase after her and follow her so closely.
Pei Xuanjing's face also didn't look good. He sat cross - legged in meditation, and his mind was filled with the scenes he had seen during his previous meditation.
He saw that Shen Qing didn't flee the Worry - Free Peak as she did now. Instead, framed by Lin Yibai, she became the person hated by everyone in the Azure Cloud Sword Sect.
In the end, the demon army broke through the Demon Abyss. The Demon Lord Ji Chongming stood under the peak of the Azure Cloud Sword Sect and said that Shen Qing had stolen the most precious treasure of the demons.
But strangely enough, everyone believed that Shen Qing had stolen it. No one doubted how Shen Qing, who only had the Foundation - Establishment cultivation, managed to break through the Demon Abyss and steal the most precious treasure of the demons from the Purple Star Palace.
And he, Pei Xuanjing, under Shen Qing's pleading gaze, fiercely asked the master to dig out her spiritual bones and give them to Lin Yibai.
He thought that after Shen Qing's death, the world would return to normal and their little junior sister would be able to continue her cultivation safely.
But the development of things began to get out of control. Somehow, Lin Yibai got in touch with Ji Chongming and even married into the demon clan, becoming the Demon Lord's wife.
In order to ascend, Lin Yibai asked the demons to use the cultivators on the Nine Wastelands Continent as supplements to improve their cultivation.
Finally, in front of everyone's eyes, Lin Yibai became the first person to ascend to the upper realm in thousands of years. But the Nine Wastelands Continent was also devastated. He went to ask Lin Yibai to make the demons retreat to the Demon Abyss, but only got a disdainful look from her.
In the end, his fate was the same as Shen Qing's. He was thrown into the pile of demon beasts by Lin Yibai and was dismembered and eaten.