Return to the City: The Strongest King-Chapter 1769 - 1705: Dragon Gate’s Exhibit Vault (Part 2)

Continuing deeper inside, various corpses were displayed in glass cabinets along the walls. At first, there were human corpses, then animals, and later, things Song Xiaodong had never seen before.

In fact, if Song Xiaodong had read the "Classic of Mountains and Seas," he would have recognized these monsters.

"It seems my Dragon Gate ancestors were also in the business of exorcising demons and eliminating evil."

At the end, there was a staircase leading further down.

The things on the Third Layer surprised Song Xiaodong even more.

The Second Layer displayed corpses, but the Third Layer was full of living creatures.

Some glass cabinets were even used as aquariums because Song Xiaodong saw a jellyfish floating in one.

Song Xiaodong knew there was a type of immortal jellyfish that could achieve true immortality by reverting to its polyp stage, effectively rejuvenating itself.

The difference with this jellyfish was that it had an opaque core in its transparent body, resembling a human fetus in the womb.

In the glass cabinet next to the jellyfish, there was a large lizard with a human face.

Song Xiaodong, who had faced life and death countless times, still felt a chill at this bizarre sight.

Chapter 1706: The Ultimate Secret

This lizard seemed intelligent. When it saw Song Xiaodong enter, its long neck turned, revealing distinct human facial features, staring coldly at him.

Song Xiaodong had no intention of engaging deeply with this human face, avoiding the lizard’s gaze, and continued forward, finding the sights even more bizarre.

Because behind the human-faced lizard, a ninja turtle was overturned on the ground with its limbs fixed.

The body remained normal, but like the lizard, this turtle had a human face, also looking coldly at Song Xiaodong.

Continuing forward, there were human-faced flowers, human-faced trees, and human-faced mushrooms, all staring at Song Xiaodong with indifferent eyes.

Song Xiaodong understood the situation on this layer. Everything here, whether jellyfish, lizard, turtle, or various plants, shared a common trait: longevity.

Many people once controlled the winds and clouds, wielding all power and wealth in the world, but before death, all worldly things seemed powerless.

Life and death are inevitable. Yet people have never ceased striving for immortality. Whether through ethically and legally advancing science and technology or through these illegal and unethical experiments in the Dragon Gate Secret Vault’s Third Layer, Song Xiaodong himself had performed life-extending procedures for many elders on the brink of death.

Those imprisoned here were likely subjects of inhumane experiments in pursuit of immortality, and these were perhaps the more successful ones. The secret vault had not been opened in twenty years, but these creatures remained alive without eating or drinking.

Song Xiaodong didn’t know that those imprisoned here weren’t just living long lives; they simply couldn’t be killed.

As he reached the staircase leading to the next layer, Song Xiaodong couldn’t help but look back. All those living creatures focused their gaze on him, and from their eyes, Song Xiaodong sensed a serene sense of detachment.

Perhaps they had accepted their fate.

The Fourth Layer no longer had bizarre creatures that sent shivers up the spine; instead, it contained an archive, with rows of shelves neatly lined with documents.

The archive’s contents were all-encompassing, categorized by era and subject, with the latest content being from twenty years ago.

Song Xiaodong opened the most recent document, which detailed the struggle between the Dark Night Sect and Dragon Gate, where the Dragon Gate Great Array was disrupted, and the Sect Leader and Vice Sect Leader went out to investigate.

Song Xiaodong knew the following events—the Sect Leader fell into a Dark Night Sect ambush and to prevent them from entering the Dragon Gate Holy Land, activated the Dragon Gate Great Array’s full restriction, shrouding the entire island in mist and completely isolating it from the outside world.

Much of the archival content focused on the conflict between Dark Night Sect and Dragon Gate, initially in vernacular Chinese, then classical Chinese, followed by ancient vernacular, and finally seal script.

Song Xiaodong didn’t recognize the seal script, but he could guess that the archives in this library were at least a thousand years old.

The conflict between Dragon Gate and Dark Night Sect probably began in the Spring and Autumn Warring States Period. Earlier events were untraceable, but they were involved in critical periods of dynastic change, influencing key historical figures.

Whenever the country veered toward division, Dragon Gate and Dark Night Sect would inevitably invest in opposing sides, competing fiercely with mixed outcomes.

Besides historical records, the library contained various strange studies—medical skill, formation, weapons, witchcraft and poison, shamanism, occult arts, martial arts, Book of Changes, Mysterious Gate—covering everything, with the most content regarding cultivation and immortality.

Song Xiaodong was interested in cultivation-related texts, learning that Dragon Gate’s cultivation methods derived from the External Alchemy Sect. As early as the Spring and Autumn Warring States Period, Taoist Alchemists sought immortality and elixirs, hoping that by consuming a small elixir, they could rejuvenate the body, achieve immortality, ascend to immortality. Both Qin Shi Huang and Liu Bang had dispatched people en masse to search the seas around the Jiaodong Peninsula, seeking the path to becoming an immortal.