"No, there’s nothing," Li Wenli sighed. "you’re right."
Convinced by Bai Junjun, Li Wenli suppressed his curiosity as well.
They were here on official business, not to conduct an archaeological study, so whatever the black ash on the city wall was, it wasn’t really important.
Thereafter, Li Wenli gave up on studying the city wall and proceeded inward with everyone else.
The city’s main gate had long since decayed, but it had decayed in a very peculiar manner.
Bai Junjun took a special look and observed that the gate was made of a thick Xuan iron, similar to bricks and stones. Unless bombarded by cannon fire, it should have been impossible for it to decay.
Nevertheless, the iron gate had decayed, actually melting into molten iron that flowed along the ground, leaving behind only a bit that still stood in its original place.
The group stepped over the molten iron that had since fused with the ground and continued inward.
Filing through the city gate, they were met with rows of oppressive, dark houses.
Unlike the wooden houses or blue brick tile-roofed homes of Baiju Country, these houses, like the city walls, were constructed from granite and marble.
The streets were empty, and the stone houses on both sides looked sinister. The paper on every house’s windows had all been burned away, revealing only dark, hollow sockets.
It was evident that before vanishing, this city had been engulfed in a sea of flames.
All the unofficial histories and miscellaneous texts about the disappearance of Fubo City attributed it to a natural disaster, with none suggesting it was due to human-caused catastrophes.
However, the scenes they were seeing as they walked through the city could indeed only have been caused by a natural disaster of such an immense scale.
It appeared that the unofficial histories weren’t entirely baseless fabrications.
The further Li Wenli ventured inside, the more convinced he became about the reason for Fubo City’s destruction.
He guessed that it must have suffered a serious mishap. Whether it was an earthquake or volcanic eruption that occurred first wasn’t clear, but somehow, the city had experienced earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tidal waves all at once.
Luckily, volcanic lava, though scorching hot, also cools quickly. Perhaps before it could cover the entire city, it was met by a tsunami. In any case, aside from living things, all non-living things here were preserved.
Until a thousand years later, they were the first outsiders to set foot here.
As the group walked along the main street, night began to fall, and visibility started to dim.
At that moment, the candles that Bai Sasa had been carrying all along became useful.
She sought the opinions of the two whether to light the candles.
But Li Wenli and Bai Junjun both shook their heads simultaneously.
"Let’s look around first, to avoid attracting unnecessary trouble with the light," they said.
The compatibility of this desolate city with zombies was the highest; even if a few zombies suddenly appeared, neither Bai Junjun nor Li Wenli would be surprised.
Unconsciously, the two readied themselves with the same combativeness they had during The Apocalypse.
At the mention that the light might attract trouble, Bai Sasa quickly hid the candles back away, frightened.
Her reaction made Bai Lingyu and Xiao Shan tense up as well, and the three almost clung together as they moved forward.
The city was very large, with houses on both sides stretching a hundred paces in from the city gate.
However, the houses were not all the same.
At least on the left were all one-story low houses, each quite small; on the right, however, were different, mostly double-story buildings, and each one rather large.
Li Wenli attempted to take a look inside and discovered a clear distinction in the layout.
The left side was the market, the right side, residential areas, making it clear that the city’s inhabitants completely separated their living areas from their business activities.
Yet these two areas no longer held much reference value. After all, more than a thousand years had passed—leaving aside volcanic eruptions, the passage of time alone had weathered everything clean away.
The only place likely to hold anything of use would perhaps be the City Lord’s palace.