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

Chapter 252 Star Chart Mechanism
On the huge, round, millstone-like stone disc in the center, there were many round pills scattered like stars, exactly the same as the kind of pills containing corpse beetles that Uncle Three had once shown Wu Xiaoxie.

One of the men, out of curiosity, picked one up to examine it closely.

Wu Xiaoxie and Chen Wenjin quickly stopped him, "You can't touch that!"

The shopkeeper was startled by the two men's sudden shouts and said sullenly, "It's just a mud ball, what's the big deal?"

Chen Wenjin looked at him coldly, "This star chart arrangement has a pattern. Moving any part of it will trigger a deadly trap, and then none of us will survive."

"Tch." The waiter scoffed. "Women, always so troublesome."

"Hey kid, how dare you talk like that?" The fat man's face darkened as he stared at the waiter. "Back when our boss was making her way in the underworld, you were probably still peeing under some mud wall somewhere."

"You've only just made something of yourself and you're already stirring up trouble. I'll teach you a lesson today, or you'll regret it!" the fat man said, rolling up his sleeves and preparing to step forward.

The man was startled and involuntarily took a step back. He glared at the man and said, his voice trembling with fear, "What do you want? You think you can bully me just because you outnumber me? What kind of stupid trap is this? I've already run into one today, what can you do about it?"

"You can give it a try." Zhang Wuxun had somehow walked up behind the shopkeeper.

Her eyes were coldly fixed on him, a playful smile playing on her lips. "I can guarantee that the moment you're about to touch these Corpse Beetle Pills, your claws will gracefully say goodbye."

Black Bear, always eager for a good show, grinned and joined in, "I can guarantee that too, how about it? Want to give it a try?"

The man was truly panicked now, because he could clearly feel the murderous intent in Zhang Wuxun's eyes.

So he readily withdrew his hand, which he had only halfway outstretched, and chuckled dryly, "Hehe, just kidding, just kidding, why get so angry?"

The fat man sneered, stepped forward and shoved the man aside, then turned to Chen Wenjin with a smile, "Wenjin, you've done the most research on this, come and see if there's anything strange about it."

Chen Wenjin thanked him, stared at the distribution of the tracks on the stone slab for a long time, and traced the lines with his finger hovering in the air. Suddenly, he let out a soft "Ah!" and called Wu Xiaoxie over to take a look together.

"Xiao Xie, look at the routes connecting these points. Don't they look a lot like the diagram I drew in my notebook?"

Upon closer inspection, Wu Xiaoxie realized it was true; the other pills around it resembled a magnificent landscape, completely enveloping the dragon vein.

Suddenly, he realized something: "Wang Zanghai tampered with the mechanisms here!"

Chen Wenjin nodded. "That's right. Wang Zanghai once obtained the Warring States Silk Manuscript and modified its contents. The Kingdom of the Queen Mother of the West was the last stop for his research on immortality. Once he passed through here, the mystery would be right in front of him. How could he easily let the world know the true secrets?"

The fat man was already rubbing his hands together, eager to try. "Since it's a mechanism, why don't we just unlock it? Hurry up, little brother, Muyu, you two, get on it! I can't wait to see what treasures that old hag Xi Wangmu has hidden."

Zhang Wuxun and Xiao Ge carefully examined the stone slab, looking for a suitable starting point.

The fat man, always restless, wandered around with his headlamp in hand. He glanced up casually and immediately exclaimed, "Holy crap, what's that up there? Laozi's alchemy furnace?"

Everyone looked up and saw dozens of thick chains extending from the edge of the stone hall on the dome directly above the stone slab, converging like a spider web, binding a huge three-legged gilded bronze furnace in the middle. The furnace was carved with intricate patterns, which were not clearly visible, but one could vaguely make out that it was a dragon coiled around the entire furnace.

Chen Wenjin was astonished and exclaimed, "This is a suspended furnace! This hole must be the acupoint of the Great Feng Shui Ten Thousand Mountains Dragon Mother. This is the legendary highest realm of alchemy, where the furnace is suspended in mid-air and does not touch the ground, absorbing the essence of the entire dragon vein."

The fat man swiftly fired two flares. "Now we can see clearly." The second flare missed slightly and struck the edge of the bronze furnace. Instantly, the thick chains above vibrated, and a buzzing resonance echoed throughout the hall, causing the ground beneath their feet to tremble as well.

"Oh no!" the fat man slapped his thigh in frustration. "Did the mechanism trigger?"

"Don't panic." Zhang Wuxun raised his hand to signal them to calm down. "The star chart hasn't changed; this isn't a reaction triggered by a mechanism."

The group quickly lowered their center of gravity to steady themselves, and after a stick of incense had burned, the tremors gradually subsided, proving it was indeed a false alarm.

The fat man wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and let out a long sigh of relief. "Damn it, that scared me half to death."

The group returned to the stone slab.

After looking at it for a few seconds, the young man suddenly squatted down, reached out and touched the stone pillar supporting the stone slab inch by inch with two fingers.

Seeing this, Zhang Wuxun also squatted down and asked softly, "What did you find?"

"A gravity balancing mechanism," the young man explained succinctly.

Zhang Wuxun nodded and reached out his left hand to feel around on the other side. Soon, he felt an unusual sensation under his fingertips.

She then raised her eyelids and met the young man's gaze; he nodded slightly.

Zhang Wuxun turned to Wu Xiaoxie and the others and asked, "Whose fingers are more sensitive to touch than the average person's?"

Chen Wenjin stepped forward and said, "Let me do it. I've learned some common tricks and schemes."

“Okay.” Zhang Wuxun nodded. “Sister Wenjin, come over here and keep an eye on this place. I’ll look for the last one.”

Chen Wenjin did as instructed.

Upon finding the last spot, Zhang Wuxun and the other two were positioned in a regular equilateral triangle.

Zhang Wuxun said in a deep voice, "Get ready, I'll count to three, then press down together."

Everyone held their breath, and a soft "click" sound rang in their ears.

The surface of the stone disc remained motionless, but a faint friction sound emanated from its interior, indicating that the internal mechanism was rotating. The noise subsided after a long while.

Just as the fat man was about to speak, the stone slab suddenly sank downwards, and a series of dragging sounds of iron chains echoed above everyone's heads.

The fat man yelled, "Get out of the way! Get out of the way! The Eight Trigrams Furnace is about to fall down!"

The crowd hurriedly searched for a place to hide.

The entire hall had been transformed into a massive machine. Iron chains within the stone walls extended outwards, their thunderous roar echoing throughout the hall. The alchemy furnace at the center of the spiderweb-like chains was gradually lowered, its hollowed-out bottom slowly settling onto the stone slab. Every indentation perfectly matched the position of the pills on the slab.

(End of this chapter)