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

Chapter 206 Snake Remains
Zhang Wuxun was wondering how the young man had disappeared in the blink of an eye when the tree branch diagonally above his head suddenly shook.

Immediately afterwards, the young man emerged from the shadow of the vines where he had been sheltering from the rain, and waved to Zhang Wuxun, signaling him to come up.

After Zhang Wuxun climbed up, the young man pointed to a large patch of withered vines in front of him, then stepped forward and pulled hard, sending up a stench of rotten and moldy flesh. Suddenly, a large group of ticks emerged from a small nest.

It was a dark, murky mess, looking like clumps of bran that had gotten damp and clumped together. It was quite an eyesore, but it was quickly washed away by the rain.

The young man pointed to something tangled up in the small room and asked Zhang Wuxun to take a closer look.

Zhang Wuxun wrinkled his nose, held his breath, and leaned closer to take a look. He immediately understood, "No wonder there are so many ticks here. It turns out they were all attracted by these things."

The young man nodded and said, "I don't know what kind of animal it is. It's very big. It probably got sick and died after being sucked blood by these insects. Before it died, it was lying on a tree, which attracted all the insects around it. They sucked all the blood off the body, and then the insects rested on the mummified corpse, waiting for the next victim to arrive."

As he spoke, he squatted down, reached into the hole in the skeleton, pulled out a bluish-green iron lump, let the rain wash his hand out, and then showed it to Zhang Wuxun.

"A flashlight?!" Zhang Wuxun raised an eyebrow, took the metal lump twisted into a tattered shoe sole, and examined it carefully. "It looks like it came from the 80s or 90s."

"How did this thing end up here? Did some predecessor come here back then to search for the Kingdom of the Queen Mother of the West?" Zhang Wuxun asked, puzzled, looking at the young man.

The young man shook his head, indicating that he didn't know either. Then he put his hand in again, and then his hand suddenly stopped.

Zhang Wuxun hurriedly asked him, "What did you find?"

The young man had a slightly strange expression and moved extremely slowly as he pulled his hand out of the hole. Between his index and middle fingers, he was clearly holding an old-fashioned hand grenade that looked like a garlic clove.

A soft "click" sounded.

The already rusty and unrecoverable back cover bumped into a vine while being moved out, knocking it off and pulling out the internal wiring along with it.

"Holy crap!" Zhang Wuxun exclaimed, snatched the grenade, and threw it far away.

Then, he quickly turned around with the guy and covered his head.

boom--

The entire canopy of trees in the area shook violently from the sudden jolt, and the raindrops accumulated on the leaves pelted the two of them, instantly soaking them to the bone.

Zhang Wuxun cursed, shook the water off his head, wiped his face, and said to the slightly bewildered young man next to him, "This skeleton is a bit dangerous. Let's go back and inform Tianzhen and the others first, and then discuss a plan together."

The young man nodded and hummed in agreement.

The two climbed down the tree and turned around to meet Wu Xiaoxie and his group.

"What happened?" Wu Xiaoxie asked hurriedly.

After checking that the two men were unharmed, the fat man clicked his tongue and said, "What were you two doing? You caused such a huge explosion, it almost scared my heart out of my chest."

Zhang Wuxun waved his hand, "The ticks are still here, don't stay any longer, we'll talk about it in detail when we get back."

The group returned to the tarpaulin, and Zhang Wuxun recounted what had just happened. The fat man and his companions immediately became somewhat interested in the skeleton.

The fat man guessed, "Could it be someone who came here before, just like us, searching for the Kingdom of the Queen Mother of the West?" Zhang Wuxun nodded, "Very likely."

Then he asked "A-Ning," "Has your company found any similar information?"

"A Ning" shook her head and denied it, saying, "The only people we found who have been here are Chen Wenjin and his group. According to what you said, the flashlight and the old-fashioned hand grenade should have come from the same person. Based on the timeline, this person is very likely to be someone from Chen Wenjin's team."

The group looked at each other, remaining silent.

The atmosphere became somewhat tense. The fat man slapped his thigh and stood up, saying, "Instead of wasting time discussing this here, why don't we just go and see for ourselves? We'll find out what it's all about once we take it out for a spin."

Everyone agreed that Fatty's words made a lot of sense, so Zhang Wuxun and Xiao Ge climbed over there, pricked their fingers to let out some blood and drive away the ticks, and then called Wu Xiaoxie and the others over.

After cutting down the dry vines nearby, the group dug and scraped until they finally uncovered an incredibly long animal skeleton. It was so corroded that its original shape was almost unrecognizable. Panzi, with his experience, discovered mineralized scales buried under the rotting branches and leaves, deducing that it must have been a python.

Then everyone took turns working together and finally managed to remove the huge snake bones.

Seeing that Wu Xiaoxie looked tired, Pan Zi told him to go back under the waterproof cloth, wrap his back up, and curl up inside to rest for a while.

Because snake bones are too brittle and break easily, this delicate work can only be done by Zhang Wuxun and Xiao Ge, who are skilled with their hands. There's not much else that can help, so they went to rest with Fatty and fell asleep soon after.

Hearing the fat man snoring behind him, Zhang Wu glanced towards "A Ning," but before he could look away, she noticed him.

"A-Ning" frowned and said, "Why are you looking at me?"

Zhang Wuxun smiled and said, "It's nothing."

It's estimated that Wu Xiaoxie will be startled awake by that precognitive dream in a little while.

Wearing gloves, Pan Zi pulled a half-crushed skull from the snake's belly, which had very obvious bite marks and traces of being corroded by stomach acid.

He examined the body closely under his headlamp and said, "This man was probably eaten by a snake, which then got caught in a tick and died here. Let's search again to see if there are any other clues."

"Be careful," Zhang Wuxun warned him. "The snake probably swallowed all the weapons this man was carrying before he died. If we run into a grenade, we'll all be blown to bits."

Pan Zi nodded, becoming extremely focused.

While the excavation work continued on one side, Wu Xiaoxie suddenly broke out in a cold sweat, his brows furrowed, and he was muttering something to himself.

"A-Ning" noticed his situation, her eyes darted around, and seeing that Zhang Wuxun and the others weren't paying attention to this side, she wanted to go over and listen to what Wu Xiaoxie was saying.

As soon as he got close, Wu Xiaoxie suddenly shouted and opened his eyes. He saw a black figure looming in front of him. The scene in his dream overlapped with the scene in front of him. He was terrified and immediately kicked it.

"Go away——"

Caught off guard, "A-Ning" was kicked and lost her balance. If she hadn't grabbed the tree trunk in time, she would have fallen straight off the tree.

(End of this chapter)