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

Chapter 326 Breaking the Restraint
He thought for a moment, what were the Wu family's principles for doing things? Apart from being exceptionally good at raising dogs, it seemed that his grandfather was only famous for his good interpersonal relationships, which didn't seem like a source of pride these days.

"Alright then." Wu Xiaoxie sighed, found a place to sit down, and said, "Ninth Master, what should we do now?"

“Let’s think about it together, Third Master.” Xie Yuchen patted him and laughed, “Play to your strengths.”

Upon hearing this long-lost address, Wu Xiaoxie suddenly felt a pang in her heart, and a strange sense of melancholy spread through her.

Perhaps it was because their thought processes were similar, but he always felt that Xie Yuchen's smile was somewhat familiar, much like the same expression he had when he was forced to accept all of his third uncle's arrangements—an expression that seemed both numb and relieved.

Indeed, both of them carried many similar burdens. In the end, they realized that there was no such thing as being forced or not, only helplessness due to a lack of choice.

At first, he might be angry and confused, but the more he got involved, the more he could sense that his third uncle's behavior contained many unspeakable secrets.

Moreover, ever since Changbai Mountain, and later after his third uncle disappeared in the snake swamp, his good brother Muyu seems to have taken over the compass from his third uncle. Especially during the recent trip to Banna, he could sense that Muyu must have gone through something during the time he was away, which is why he showed a sense of urgency in his actions after returning.

He could sense the change in Muyu. He knew that Muyu, like Xiaoge, had a specific purpose in mind when he went to find the Zhang Family Ancient Building.

So when Wu Xiaoxie saw that the wooden fish was the only thing missing in the photo, he immediately wondered if the wooden fish had gone to do something alone and worried that something might have happened to him.

After realizing it was a false alarm, I breathed a sigh of relief. It's true that when Mu Yu goes missing, he's just as good as Xiao Ge, that silent guy.

He'll have to search for him with his third uncle, younger brother, and Muyu together; just thinking about it is incredibly disheartening.

Muyu seems easy to get along with and easygoing, not particularly fussy, but in reality, this appearance is just an illusion. This invisible mask-like facade is exactly what he wants you to see.

Only those who truly understand him will know that it's hard to warm the heart of this type of person, let alone open up to accept someone else, because there are very few things he's willing to care about.

Strangely, from the very beginning, he could sense that Muyu was very kind to him, as well as to Xiao Ge and Fatty. This kindness didn't seem to have developed over time; it was more like the kind of kindness that one felt upon first meeting the other.

Sometimes he would even have some funny, sudden thoughts, wondering if he, Muyu, and the other two were good brothers in a past life, and that Muyu was reincarnated with his memories to find someone.

"Time is running out."

Wu Xiaoxie couldn't help but think of this sentence.

This sentence once haunted his mind like a nightmare, refusing to leave.

Wooden Fish seemed to know a lot of things, and he seemed eager to accomplish something.

However, unlike when he faced his third uncle, he didn't feel the same helplessness of wanting to get to the bottom of things but ultimately failing. He wouldn't make things difficult for the other party. Perhaps it was because he had experienced a lot in recent days, but Wu Xiaoxie felt that his state of mind had also undergone some unpredictable changes.

No matter what they tried to guide him to do, he always firmly believed that his third uncle would not harm him, nor would Muyu.

Suddenly, something hit his palm. Wu Xiaoxie looked down and saw it was a bag of beef jerky.

Xie Yuchen smiled at him, "What are you thinking about? You seem so engrossed."

Wu Xiaoxie breathed a sigh of relief, "No, I was just thinking that if we could directly contact Banna using a signal, we could ask Grandma Huo directly what exactly happened back then..."

Wu Xiaoxie paused abruptly, a flash of inspiration striking him. "Wait, signal, photo, that's right, it's a photo."

Wu Xiaoxie became excited and said to Xie Yuchen, who looked slightly puzzled, "Xiaohua, our initial approach was wrong. My grandfather once told me, 'When looking at things, we should not be misled by their appearance, but break free from our fixed mindset.'"

"As soon as we received the photo, we immediately assumed that what was in the photo was the most crucial clue to the incident and a hint to us. But in fact, the photo itself was not very significant because photography technology did not exist in the past."

Wu Xiaoxie continued, "Because there was no technology as convenient as it is now, the Zhang family back then could only communicate by copying or simply by remembering. But these methods were ultimately flawed. They couldn't guarantee that details wouldn't be lost in the process, and they were very insecure. This contradicted the original intention of setting the key a thousand miles away."

Xie Yuchen nodded thoughtfully. "So, what you're trying to say is that the meaning these photos convey is not just about the relief images; the underlying meaning goes beyond what's depicted in the picture."

So what exactly is the meaning behind this image?
The two looked at each other and remained silent for a long time.

Wu Xiaoxie chewed on beef jerky, deep in thought, when suddenly he remembered something and immediately went to rummage through the treasure box that the wooden fish had given him before going to Banna.

He remembered that before leaving, Muyu had jokingly reminded him that if he encountered any obstacles in completing the task, he should take a look at the notepad at the bottom of the box, which contained his tips and tricks for overcoming the difficulties.

Because his tone was so inappropriate, Wu Xiaoxie thought he was deliberately teasing her and didn't take it seriously.

Suddenly realizing this, Wu Xiaoxie was just trying anything, since Muyu was a member of the Zhang family, and using the Zhang family's way of thinking to solve the Zhang family's traps was the most appropriate thing to do.

I quickly found the palm-sized white notepad. When I opened the first page, I saw a cute little sketch of a puppy, with the words "To Wu Xiaogou" written next to it.

Wu Xiaoxie: "Damn it..." His fist hardened.

As he continued flipping through the pages, he found that the previous sections were all step-by-step instructions drawn in sketch form. For example, it mentioned what to do if he encountered a pottery jar with long hair, and even that the air in the cave might be problematic. Wu Xiaoxie couldn't help but marvel at how prescient Muyu was.

As Wu Xiaoxie flipped through the pages to the very end, his hand suddenly stopped. The second-to-last page showed a scrambled Rubik's Cube, and the last page depicted a cube that had been violently dismantled.

Below is a sentence: "Break free from constraints, emerge from the cocoon and become a butterfly."

Wu Xiaoxie immediately understood what Zhang Wuxun meant and turned to Xie Yuchen, "Xiaohua, I have... Huh? What do you want to do?"

Xie Yuchen was instructing the workers to wash the blood off the iron plate, and the pig had already been put down and moved aside.

Xie Yuchen packed his makeshift equipment without turning his head. "I'm planning to use a brute method to break through from the inside. What were you about to say?"

Wu Xiaoxie thought for a moment and then handed the notepad to Xie Yuchen, saying, "Take a look at this first."

Xie Yuchen quickly finished browsing, remained silent for a few seconds, and began to doubt the identity of the person named Zhang Wuxun. "Is he really a member of the Zhang family?"

“I knew you’d say that,” Wu Xiaoxie said knowingly. “Of course Muyu is a member of the Zhang family. Otherwise, do you think Old Madam Huo would have let him go to Banna so easily? She must have investigated him eight hundred times over.” “What you said does make sense,” Xie Yuchen chuckled, shaking the small notebook in his hand. “But how do you explain this? I find it hard not to suspect that he has connections with the group of people who entered here after the Nine Gates.”

Wu Xiaoxie immediately denied it, saying, "That's even more impossible."

Seeing how certain he was, Xie Yuchen couldn't help but feel strange. "You're denying it so firmly. Do you already know who that group of people is?"

Wu Xiaoxie hesitated for a moment, "I can roughly guess, but I'm not very sure. I just feel that their styles of doing things are very similar, and those people are also related to the things I've been investigating all along. In short, we are firmly hostile to them."

Xie Yuchen stared at his face, remained silent for a long time, and then suddenly spoke, "Why do you trust him so much? It's really hard for me to understand."

“Of course I believe him.” Wu Xiaoxie put away the notepad and returned to the box to put it back in. “My third uncle believes him too.”

Xie Yuchen lowered his eyelids. In his opinion, Wu Xiaoxie's behavior of unconditionally trusting everyone except himself was extremely foolish.

His experience over the past decade or so had taught him that entrusting one's trust to another was tantamount to hanging one's head on that person's blade; whether or not one would betray them depended entirely on that person's decision.

Therefore, he never has any friends, and no one wants to be his friend.

In his view, a relationship of subordination based on interests is more reliable than any promise.

"Haven't you had any brothers who would risk their lives for you all these years?" Wu Xiaoxie sensed something from his expression and suddenly realized that Xiao Hua must have had a very difficult past.

Xie Yuchen's eyes flickered slightly, and he suddenly smiled, "I've risked my life for people, but they're not brothers."

"If you stay in this position for a long time like me, you will find that being alone is good for both yourself and others."

Without expectations and without trust, there will naturally be no betrayal.

Seeing that Wu Xiaoxie's expression was somewhat indescribable, Xie Yuchen patted him reassuringly and didn't say anything more.

The best way to solve a scrambled Rubik's Cube is to cut out the pieces and rearrange them according to your own ideas.

The sacrificial plate, now devoid of blood, had returned to its original state and was slowly rotating.

The two repacked the self-defense and lighting equipment from their gear, then worked together to lift the iron plate, exposing the opening. They used an iron bar to support it, preventing the mechanism from suddenly activating and falling, trapping them inside.

Wu Xiaoxie saw two safety buckles in the box and knew that since Muyu could deduce that there were pottery jars from the Queen Mother of the West's Kingdom here, there must be snakes too, so he had prepared snake-proof items in advance.

He handed one of them to Xie Yuchen, explained its purpose, and reminded him, "Besides the unknown thing you mentioned, there's likely to be a snake down there, a kind of snake with a red comb that can mimic human speech."

Xie Yuchen held the safety buckle and shook it. He had seen this thing in someone's hands before and thought it was from a tomb. So this is where it came from.

“Don’t disbelieve me. Back in the snake swamp, flocks of pheasants chased us around by the neck. If it weren’t for this thing protecting us, we would have been bitten to pieces,” Wu Xiaoxie said.

"Understood." Xie Yuchen put away the safety buckle.

Then they cut a piece of meat off a dead pig, tied it with a rope, and lowered it little by little through the hole.

It was placed very deep, but there was no reaction from inside the hole.

Xie Yuchen was somewhat puzzled, but decided to go down and take a look anyway.

Fearing a sneak attack from something treacherous below, the two placed iron plates under their chests and backs as cushioning to prevent it from suddenly lunging at them.

"I'll go down first, and you can follow after I give you a safety signal."

After Xie Yuchen finished speaking, he bent down and crawled into the hole.

Wu Xiaoxie lay prone at the cave entrance, his heart pounding in his chest, watching the flashlight beam quickly move downwards until it was obscured and out of sight.

Five or six minutes later, light shone up from below and swayed a couple of times. Wu Xiaoxie breathed a sigh of relief, picked up his equipment, and crawled inside.

The mechanical bearings at the bottom of the entire iron plate were extremely complex, with countless iron rings and thick chains connecting them all around. Wu Xiaoxie carefully climbed down the chains to Xiaohua's side, and only then did he have time to carefully examine the stone chamber mechanism.

The lower part of the stone chamber is a waterwheel-like structure inserted into a well at the bottom. The water in the well is surging, a living water vein in the rock. The water flow drives gears and chains to transmit power to the bearings, which is why the iron disc above rotates endlessly year after year.

Wu Xiaoxie lit a cold flame and shone it around, but he didn't see the thing that had scratched Xiaohua. Strangely, the piece of bloody pork that had been hung down earlier was gone.

Wu Xiaoxie's eyes widened, and he immediately looked at Xiaohua.

Xie Yuchen's expression was also very serious. He said softly, "That piece of pork is gone. I didn't see it when I came down."

The two searched the stone chamber carefully, but found no trace of pork, only a pool of blood at their feet.

"That thing must be hiding. It's very fast, so we need to be careful," Xie Yuchen said in a deep voice.

Wu Xiaoxie's back was covered in cold sweat. "What do we do next?"

With the enemy in the dark and us in the light, their situation was far too passive.

But since we've already gone through the effort to get down here, there's no reason to go back. If we want to know the answer, we have to get through this hurdle.

Xie Yuchen pointed with the beam of his flashlight to one side of the stone chamber wall, where there were three narrow cracks, each about the width of a person, rising from low to high, much like a deliberately constructed narrow corridor. All the chains extending down from above were evenly distributed and merged into these three cracks.

As the light moved upwards, long stones were suspended by chains three or four meters above the three crevices. Below the long stones, many pottery jars that they had seen before in the underground palace of the Queen Mother of the West were neatly arranged.

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(End of this chapter)