Southern Mesopotamian Plain, the expedition camp.

In Hebrew, "Babel" means "chaos and disaster." In Babylonian, however, "Babel" means the "Gate of the Gods," a sign of where a god will descend.

In 586 B.C., the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar waged war, sweeping through all of Jerusalem and burning the Jewish temple to ashes, taking the king captive to Babylon—a historical event known as the "Babylonian Captivity." It was a great humiliation in Jewish history, and the Old Testament of the Bible contains curses against the Babylonians, mentioning the Tower of Babel.

The Jewish people created a new story: the ancestors of humanity initially spoke a single language. They built a tower to reach the heavens, seeking to approach the gods. When the tower reached the clouds, the deities became furious and used their divine power to scatter the builders, making them speak different languages with divergent purposes and thoughts. Thus, they argued loudly and were divided.

At dusk, in the warm and humid climate of early spring, two giant statues covered in moss stood at the entrance to the jungle.

By the pond, a military helicopter deployed its supports, raised its radar, and extended its electromagnetic machine guns.

Zheng Rong looked up at the two nearly three-meter-high black stone statues, whose surfaces were weathered and worn by the passage of time. They were the oldest mythical beasts in legend—minotaurs, with bull heads, human bodies, giant hammers in their hands, cloven hooves for feet, and a pair of massive black wings on their backs, half of which had crumbled due to wind and rain.

“Brother, what are you thinking?” Zheng Rong examined them briefly, teasing.

At the sight of the minotaurs' muscular chests, Zheng Rong immediately thought of Xiang Yu.

Xiang Yu could only laugh, knowing Zheng Rong was trying to mock him. He turned toward the pond, picked up a fishing rod, and cast it into the water.

Ugos and Jin Puae were looking at the terrain map on the computer screen, while Old Yev napped under a blanket in a wheelchair. Zheng Rong went to the stone edge of the pond, pulled out a notebook and a sketch, and studied them carefully.

“What are you looking at?” Lance walked over.

“I’m planning our route for tomorrow and the exterior of the Tower of Babel from the legends,” Zheng Rong replied. “This is some information about ancient Babylon.” He picked up a photo, holding it against the last rays of light before dusk, and explained to Lance, “This is a painting by an Israeli artist. It used to be in Egypt’s National Art Museum, but it's been destroyed now.”

“Is the tower real?” Lance asked earnestly.

“Of course not,” Zheng Rong said with a chuckle. “He just recreated the scene based on the biblical description.”

Lance awkwardly said, “I understand. So what's the purpose of finding the ruins of this tower?”

Zheng Rong put the photo away and tucked the sketch into his notebook. “To search for places in the ancient ruins that match our theories.”

“Why don't we go to the Hanging Gardens first?” Lance asked.

Zheng Rong: “...”

Lance: “?”

Zheng Rong said, “There’s no such thing, Lance. It’s just a legend.”

Lance became even more embarrassed. “Uh, I don’t quite understand these mystical things.”

Zheng Rong was about to stand up, but Lance added, “Zheng Rong, wait.”

Zheng Rong: “?”

Lance: “I... Although I don’t understand, I like listening to you talk about these things. Could you tell me more stories?”

Zheng Rong sat back down, thought for a moment, and said, “Look at this.”

He took out an envelope sealed with an SS confidential wax seal, opened it, and handed Lance another photo.

Lance was very interested and asked, “What are these arrows?”

“Cuneiform, Sumerian language,” Zheng Rong explained. “It’s very hard to translate—a language of agglutinated words. Even a linguist like Yev can't fluently read its meaning.”

“It’s different from Hebrew, German, and Chinese. It’s a unique and very strange language family. I suspect it might be close to those twelve symbols we found.”

Lance asked, “Different in form but similar in substance?”

Zheng Rong nodded. Lance held three photos in his hand, and Zheng Rong had been waiting for him to look past the first one to see the others.

But Lance didn’t. He kept his head down, staring intently at the cuneiform, prompting Zheng Rong to be speechless. Lance couldn’t understand it at all, so why was he pretending to be so serious?

“Hmm,” Lance nodded. “It looks a bit like... a German artist’s work.”

Lance was babbling nonsense, and Zheng Rong frowned. “A German artist? Which one?”

“I... I don’t quite remember. I’m not very familiar with art either,” Lance stammered.

Zheng Rong: “...”

Zheng Rong kept waiting for Lance to turn the photo over, but Lance was clumsy and kept staring at it for a while. Finally, Zheng Rong couldn’t hold back and asked, “Can you translate Sumerian?”

Lance looked up, bewildered, his handsome face blushing. “What? No, I mean... If you’re willing to teach, I could try to learn.”

Zheng Rong: “...”

Lance: “...”

Zheng Rong said, “I thought you'd be curious about the next photo.”

Lance: “Oh, right!”

When Lance looked at the next photo, he was immediately stunned.

“The Wheel of Fate,” Zheng Rong said indifferently.

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It was a Sumerian mural with a round object at the top of a tower.

“The ancient Babylonians hadn’t fully mastered perspective techniques,” Zheng Rong said. “To depict the bottom of a flying saucer, they flipped it to face outside the painting. Just like the Wheel of Fate we saw on top of the Sphinx’s head, you can see the twelve symbols clearly.”

Lance was amazed and kept staring at the photo for a long time. Zheng Rong added, “This is an archaeological record from the relic museum. It’s very important, so please don't leak it.”

Lance immediately said, “I’ll keep my lips sealed.”

Zheng Rong whispered, “Now look at the cuneiform in the previous photo, like this one.”

The last glimmer of dusk turned toward the end of the Mesopotamian plain. Xiang Yu put away his fishing rod and sat down.

Zheng Rong glanced at Xiang Yu and smiled. Picking up a tree branch, he drew a symbol in the wet soil, one of the twelve runes.

“Look, if you break this symbol into eighths, you’ll see it in fragments.”

“Is this rune the origin of ancient Babylonian writing?” Lance asked.

Zheng Rong glanced across the pond and made a shushing gesture, confirming that Old Yev hadn’t noticed them.

“The Mayan aliens’ native language is very peculiar, and the Sumerian language is also agglutinative. You must judge its meaning in context, without a precise reference standard. And in cuneiform records, if they found a word they couldn’t describe, they would substitute it with ‘any random character,’” Zheng Rong explained. “This might be derived from splitting the twelve runes.”

“Did Joseph tell you this?” Lance asked.

Zheng Rong nodded. “So I think that the story of a ‘god’ dividing human languages so that people spoke different tongues and couldn’t communicate—this might have actually happened. But it's been misinterpreted over time as the story was passed down. In reality, perhaps—and I'm only saying perhaps—the original meaning was: a god split the language and taught mortals His writing.”

Xiang Yu took the photos, flipped through them casually, and asked, “What is this?”

The third photo showed a minotaur statue.

“That’s you,” Zheng Rong teased.

Xiang Yu laughed. The minotaur’s bare chest and muscular arms were indeed very similar to Xiang Yu’s physique, ignoring the face.

“They guard something,” Zheng Rong said. “There’s a spiral corridor inside, leading to the deepest underground chamber. But when the archaeological team entered the corridor years ago, they all disappeared. A single scholar at the command post saved some transmitted images and sealed them.”

“They all vanished?” Lance frowned.

Zheng Rong looked up at the minotaur statue. Its silent eyes gazed into the distance, and the stone hammer in its hand seemed to warn intruders.

“Yes,” Zheng Rong replied. “But we have sonic probes to map the entire maze's path, so it shouldn't be difficult. Tomorrow morning, we’ll head into the forest to have a look. If it doesn't work out, we'll call in the military helicopters, and we can open fire to collapse some of the maze’s broken and branching paths. Letting sunlight in might make it easier to navigate.”

“That’s too crude, Dr. Zheng Rong,” Anthony interjected, appearing out of nowhere.

Zheng Rong put away the photos, packed them, and said casually, “Give me a nuclear magnetic cannon, and I could solve all of humanity’s mysteries.”

Lance and Xiang Yu both laughed.

After dinner, the expedition team set up camp. Wrapped in a blanket, Zheng Rong leaned on Xiang Yu’s shoulder as he dozed off.

Zheng Rong slept lightly, resting by the fire until around five in the morning. As soon as he moved, Xiang Yu woke up.

“Get the equipment ready,” Zheng Rong said. “Everyone, up!”

Lance didn’t look very spirited, yawning as if exhausted, yet in high spirits, he whistled at Zheng Rong.

Xiang Yu and Lance carried their backpacks, and Zheng Rong led the way into the forest.

The entire Mesopotamian plain was covered with waist-high grass. North of the Euphrates River, the climate was even more humid. The dense jungle, preserved for over two thousand years, seemed blessed by Babylon’s ancestors, rich in moisture.

The sun hadn't risen, and blue glimmers were everywhere. Strange flowers and plants in the shrubs made everyone feel like they were stepping into another world.

Tiny insects climbed onto the leaves, absorbing the essence of nature amidst the morning dew.

“According to the data report, if we cross this forest and reach the central area surrounded by trees, we’ll arrive at the ancient city of Babylon,” Ugos said. “Oh, Anthony, if I were you, I wouldn't touch that flower.”

Anthony put away his knife. “Why?”

“The more vibrant the color of a flower, the more dangerous it is,” Lance interjected.

Zheng Rong observed the strange flower in front of Anthony. Its petals were covered with barbs, and the stamens twisted in a sinister manner. Xiang Yu said, “I recognize this. I saw it when my army passed through the wetlands of Xiangdi. It has a beautiful name—called ‘Underworld Path.’”

Ugos adjusted his glasses, uneasy. “Korsor flower, a primitive plant. The stamens are sharp spikes with a strong anesthetic effect that induces hallucinations if they pierce the skin.”

Anthony nodded. The group continued forward, with Ugos pushing the wheelchair behind them. Madam Yev said, “It’s said that the ancient Babylonians used a flower, dried it, and made a drink from it for rituals. After drinking it, they could deliver divine messages. Perhaps it’s this flower.”

“Then that’s just a hallucinogen,” Zheng Rong said. “It’s the same effect as the Oracle of Delphi.”

“What’s the Oracle of Delphi?” Xiang Yu asked.

As they walked, Zheng Rong explained, “In Greek mythology, Apollo had a priestess named Delphi. She communicated with the gods by sitting on a chair near a steam vent on a mountaintop. The heat and steam clouded her mind, making her utter cryptic words that were considered divine messages.”

“Quite similar to the rituals of spirit mediums and divinations,” Xiang Yu remarked.

They walked past the edge of the forest and into its core area.

The ruins of the ancient city of Babylon appeared before them. It was an old-world site comparable to ancient Rome. Despite thousands of years of weathering, it still retained its original, primitive grandeur.

Each massive stone seemed like the work of gods. The abandoned city gates were covered in vines, and flocks of birds, startled from their nests, flew over the heights.

The palace complex was towering and magnificent, with temples rising one after another. The ancient river channels of the Euphrates and Tigris converged in the city, revealing brown-black riverbeds after three thousand years of dry seasons.

“We’re standing on the western side of the city now,” Zheng Rong said slowly. “The route that the previous archaeological team took is this one, supposedly built by King Hammurabi according to legend.”

The stone-paved road was barely visible, extending into the distance and leading up the hill to the city's center.

Thousands of ancient temples clustered around a giant palace, and behind the palace stood a mostly destroyed stone tower.

“We’ve arrived,” Zheng Rong said. “Their destination was that tower. Let’s rest here for a while. Jin Puae, start using the sonic probe to scan all the buildings and terrain of the city.”

A round sun rose from the eastern mountains, and the morning glow illuminated the entire forest region.

The expedition team had a strange illusion, as if the city was still alive, souls walking under the sunlight, and the marketplace bustling, never having been abandoned over the past millennia.

Jin Puae handed over the probe, and Xiang Yu leaped up, fixing a small radar emitter to the top of a stone pillar, aiming it toward the ancient city ruins, and embedding the probe into the radar’s center.

Jin Puae’s computer screen displayed a fan-shaped detection area covering the entire city, beeping incessantly. After a moment, Jin Puae’s face showed hesitation.

“Captain,” Jin Puae said in confusion, “there seems to be a problem. You should come take a look.”

Taking the water bottle Lance handed him, Zheng Rong asked, “What?”

“This city has... Although I know it doesn’t make sense, the feedback is strange. It doesn’t match what we’re seeing,” Jin Puae said.

Xiang Yu jumped down, and he and Lance gathered around to see the complex, dense linear map on the screen.

“What is this?” Zheng Rong asked with a frown.

“This is the street in front of us,” Jin Puae explained. “Look, in our sight, it’s not this complicated... including the buildings on both sides.”

Jin Puae pointed to a structure not far from them. “By our estimation, this house has only two floors and is about six meters high. But... the sonic probe shows it’s twelve meters high.”

Xiang Yu turned to look at the abandoned house nearest to the street.

After a moment, he bent down, picked up a stone, and threw it onto the roof with force.

“It’s only two stories high, no doubt about it,” Xiang Yu said.

“Is the probe broken?” Lance asked.

Jin Puae was perplexed, and Xiang Yu came closer to inspect.

Zheng Rong suddenly had a thought, one that even he found unbelievable.

“Take all the lines except for the outlines of the buildings, move them into another virtual space, and create a new model,” Zheng Rong said.

Jin Puae quickly tapped on the keyboard, and after a long while, the shapes detected by the sonic probe were separated into two diagrams.

“The complex map you saw is actually two cities’ architectural blueprints overlaid on each other,” Zheng Rong said.

Jin Puae took a deep breath. “This... how is that possible? But we don’t see another city at all!”