Tomb Raiding: My Family's Last Clan Chief is Little Brother

Chapter 149 River Water
Upon hearing this, Wu Xiaoxie was taken aback, turned to look at Zhang Wuxun who seemed to be deep in thought, and asked, "Didn't you discuss this with my third uncle?"

Zhang Wuxun immediately wanted to roll his eyes, "I have absolutely no connection with your third uncle. I just learned some inside information through other channels."

Wu Xiaoxie's eyes lit up. "What inside story?"

Zhang Wuxun smiled and said, "I can't say."

Wu Xiaoxie's lips immediately drooped. "Tch, fine, don't tell me then."

The fat man chuckled to himself, and Zhang Wuxun lightly kicked him and gave him a wink.

The fat man coughed twice and said to Wu Xiaoxie, "Your third uncle said that only you can understand what he said. Could this hint be something that only happened between the two of you, so only the two of you know about it? Or is it related to your Wu family? Maybe it's some kind of family precept or something?"

Wu Xiaoxie shook his head, "Given my third uncle's personality, he wouldn't come up with such a complicated code. Since he only had Shunzi pass on this one sentence, then what he wanted to express must be this sentence, but I just can't think of it for the time being."

The fat man yawned boredly, "Going around in circles like this, even I'm getting dizzy. Can't your third uncle come up with a simpler code? If all else fails, use Chinese pinyin or even foreign languages."

Wu Xiaoxie sighed, his eyes lowered, looking unusually defeated.

Zhang Wuxun rested his chin on one hand, picked up a small, pointed stone, and drew on the ground. "Since you definitely know this, but we definitely don't, it means that this code must be a point that you two experienced together. Why don't we sort it out and think about what you have in common?"

He wrote the characters "Wu Xie" on the ground and "Third Master Wu" on the other side, leaving a two-hand-length blank space in the middle, writing them from top to bottom.

"First, you both have the surname Wu, but that shouldn't have anything to do with the code; you write the rest."

Wu Xiaoxie took the stone, pondering deeply, muttering to himself, "Common ground, common ground, does it count if we both live in Hangzhou? Oh, it should count, and also..."

At this point, Wu Xiaoxie suddenly paused, something flashed through his mind, but he couldn't grasp it in time.

He quickly turned his head and asked anxiously, "What did I just say?"

Seeing that he was sweating profusely with anxiety, Zhang Wuxun quickly patted his back to help him relax and calm down. "Don't worry, don't worry, the answer is right there, it can't be hidden."

Wu Xiaoxie nodded. His mind, which had been blank like lightning, gradually returned to normal. He composed himself and wrote the words "Hangzhou" under his surname Wu.

He stared at those two words for a few seconds, then suddenly relaxed and couldn't help but laugh.

As soon as Zhang Wuxun saw his expression, he knew that the man had figured it out.

The fat man hurriedly asked, "What did you think of?"

Wu Xiaoxie laughed and cursed, "Bullshit Xuanwu repelling corpses, this is a complete misunderstanding, we all misunderstood."

The fat man said anxiously, "Hey, stop being so mysterious! What do you mean? If you don't tell me soon, I'll be dying of impatience!"

Wu Xiaoxie waved his hand, signaling him to calm down. "Let me explain it to you slowly. We only heard the sound of this sentence, and our minds automatically associated it with 'Xuanwu rejects the corpse.' Shunzi's Mandarin is not standard, and he only remembered the sound of the message. Actually, this sentence should be understood in Hangzhou dialect. Let me analyze it slowly. In fact, the six characters of Uncle San's code should be understood together. In Hangzhou dialect, it means 'the water along the canal reaches the bottom!'"

Upon hearing this, the group was initially stunned, but then one after another, they showed expressions of sudden realization. Pan Zi clicked his tongue and said admiringly, "Third Master is indeed Third Master. If Chen Pi Asi heard this, he would rack his brains and still not be able to figure out the answer. He would definitely be focused on figuring out the meaning of 'Xuanwu Rejects Corpses'."

The fat man was already pondering to himself, "River water? Is there a river in the imperial tomb? Where are we going to find a river?"

Zhang Wuxun pointed into the distance and said, "Finding a river is easy. Isn't the place we're in right now the moat? The terracotta warriors in the burial canal over there have water marks on their bodies."

Wu Xiaoxie nodded, "The water flows down the canal to the bottom, and the canal here most likely refers to the moat."

Pan Zi slapped his thigh excitedly and laughed, "So it turns out we stumbled upon the right place by accident."

The fat man excitedly said, "Muyu said earlier that the terracotta warriors over there were pointing the way. Doesn't this correspond perfectly to what your third uncle left behind?"

"Then what are we waiting for?" Shunzi stood up and said, "Let's get going without delay."

The fat man spat, "That sounds really ominous. He's clearly going to find someone and, incidentally, take some of Wan Nu's treasures to compensate for my emotional distress."

"Hahaha..." Everyone laughed.

After a quick bite to eat, the group packed up their gear and headed towards the burial pit.

The decaying black stone figures stood silently there, their dark mass stretching into the endless darkness. A few scattered phosphorescent lights, like ghosts, flickered and swayed in the wind stirred up by their movements.

Since Zhang Wuxun had already gone through this route once, he led the way, heading downstream.

The shadowy figures around them made them feel uneasy. The canal bed under their feet was uneven and cracked from time to time. Zhang Wuxun called out to remind them to be careful and look carefully before they went.

The procession of terracotta figures gradually thinned out. When the flashlight shone on them, the burial canal ahead came to an end, revealing a huge stone riverbank with a large image carved on it. The light from their hands couldn't illuminate the whole picture.

Where the stone riverbank meets the ground, there is a large, square hole, half of which is covered by scattered pebbles.

However, the rubble clearly showed signs of having been moved.

The fat man looked around. "Is this the place?"

“Hmm.” Zhang Wuxun nodded, pointing to a line of inscriptions above the cave entrance. “Look at those letters, don’t they look familiar?”

The fat man came over and took a look. "Hey, you know what, it does look a little bit like it. Oh, you should let our innocent comrade come and take a look. To me, all these foreign words look the same."

He then beckoned Wu Xiaoxie over, "Come and take a look, doesn't it look like those we saw at the bottom of the sea before?"

Wu Xiaoxie used to frequently copy seals from ancient books and rare manuscripts, so he was very good at recognizing handwriting. He immediately recognized that the engravings on the wall of the underwater tomb were from the same hand, and he was immediately surprised.

“These letter marks are messy and the writing is faint, as if they were left here in a hurry. Panzi, do you think these marks were left by my third uncle?” Wu Xiaoxie asked Panzi.

(End of this chapter)