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

Chapter 339 Human Skin Straw
Luckily, this guy has an exceptionally good constitution. Now that his body temperature has cooled down, the small wounds have even scabbed over.

Zhang Wuxun disinfected and stitched him up, then told him, "Stay here and be good, I'm going to find Brother Xiao."

"I'll go with you, Fatty." The fat man disagreed, picking up his gun and trying to stand up.

"Come on." Zhang Wuxun pressed down on his shoulder to stop him from getting up. "Look at the wound on your leg, it's so deep. I just stitched it up for you. Don't let it reopen. I can go by myself and I'll be right back."

The fat man knew that once he made up his mind, it was hard to change it, so he stuffed the two V40 adorable phones he had left into his hands and said with concern, "You and Little Brother hurry up and come back. If you are more than an hour late, Fatty will definitely bring people to find you."

Zhang Wuxun smiled and gave an OK sign, patted his shoulder, and whispered in his ear, "Be careful while you're here. Before the lynx attack, someone from the Huo family broke the lamp. Try not to get out of Huo Xiangu and Huo Chushi's sight."

"Don't worry, there are too many people around now, he won't dare to make a move again." The fat man nodded solemnly in agreement.

Zhang Wuxun nodded, turned and left with his knife on his back, step by step walking into the darkness.

He searched in the direction where the young man's figure had last disappeared, and along the way, about 170 meters from the camp, he smelled a strong stench of blood. After searching there, he found a large pool of blood gathered under a big tree, and the blood had seeped into the soil.

Looking up, he was met with a face with white eyes. The face looked somewhat familiar; it was one of the people who had taken pictures of the fire pattern before entering the second sealing stone. It seemed that this person was likely sent by another branch of the Huo family.

Since the person was already dead, there was no need to care anymore. Zhang Wuxun pushed aside the bushes and continued walking forward.

Less than two meters away, there was another pool of blood at the foot of the tree, and another corpse was hanging upside down on the tree. This person died a much more gruesome death than the first one. Not only had his neck been slit open, but his internal organs had also been emptied and eaten by a lynx or something else. His abdominal cavity had also been torn open by sharp claws. He was dragged like a sausage and tied to a tree branch, swaying in the wind, with drops of blood falling down. The stench of blood lingered in the air for a long time.

I don't know if these corpses were hung up by lynxes to be used as food reserves, or if the old man with the hunchback deliberately hung them up to scare people. If it's the latter, I have to say that the old man has quite a heavy taste.

Zhang Wuxun frowned and covered his nose, showing no intention of going forward to check. He looked up at the moon, estimated the direction, and continued walking forward.

The locations where the bodies appeared one after another were cleverly chosen, as if someone had deliberately hung them on the trees to lure others to follow.

Zhang Wuxun sneered inwardly. These were all low-level tricks. He wanted to see what the slumped shoulders were up to.

The young man wasn't wearing a safety amulet, otherwise he would have already followed his senses and found his way there.

After walking another two hundred meters or so, the fifth body appeared. This body was placed in a slightly different position; it was hanging upright, and there was no blood flowing under the tree.

Zhang Wuxun moved closer, then suddenly stopped, bent down, and poked around in the haystack with his dagger, a metallic glint flashing by.

He carefully pushed aside the obstacle above and found it was an iron ring with a chain about two fingers thick attached to it.

He didn't touch the iron ring, but instead went around the area, quickly climbed up the tree, cut the rope tied around the corpse's neck, pulled it up, laid it flat on a thick branch, and examined it closely.

The body had been dehydrated for a long time; the flesh on the surface was shriveled due to lack of water and clung tightly to the bones. The clothes on the body had long been faded and oxidized by wind and rain, but it was still possible to tell that they were a gray work uniform from an older period.

Zhang Wuxun observed his facial bones: his eyebrows and forehead were high and broad, his cheekbones were wide, and his eye sockets were deeply sunken. His eyeballs were missing, but one or two dry grasses were sticking out from them. It seemed to be the remains of a foreigner.

After thinking for a moment, he put on gloves, pulled open the clothes around the skeleton's neck, and a swarm of tiny black flies instantly crawled out from inside.

Zhang Wuxun leaned back to avoid it, disgustedly shooing the insect away. When he looked again, he realized that the skeleton was completely stuffed with dry grass, which explained why it felt so light earlier.

"A scarecrow made of human skin?" Zhang Wuxun muttered to himself.

He patted the pockets of his uniform but found no valuable clues inside; he guessed that the hunchback had already searched them all.

So, what's the point of having this thing here with slumped shoulders?
Or perhaps he simply hung these things here as trophies, waiting for wild animals or birds to empty their entrails before filling them with straw to make scarecrows?

Unable to fathom the thought process behind the slumped shoulders, Zhang Wuxun used a dagger to pry open all the fabric covering the corpse, discovering a hole in the skeleton's abdomen. The opening was covered with a thin membrane resembling a spider web, with some grayish, fragmented scales hanging from it.

These are snake scales!
Suddenly, a possibility popped into Zhang Wuxun's mind. He quickly pierced the thin membrane and found more than a dozen broken, grayish-white, speckled eggshell fragments inside the hay.

The guy with slumped shoulders is actually using human corpses to breed snakes!
Zhang Wuxun subconsciously turned his head to look in the direction he came from. Judging from this, wouldn't snakes have already crawled into those fresh corpses as well?

With slumped shoulders, has he become a beast tamer? These are lynx and snakes.

Zhang Wuxun was unsure what species these snakes were, or whether the hunchback had already discovered the secret of the black-haired snakes and wanted to obtain something from them.

Thinking of this, he hurriedly slid down the tree, went to the iron ring he had found earlier, reached out and grabbed it, and pulled it out with all his might.

A dull metallic clang rang out, the sound coming from the bushes beside them.

Zhang Wuxun walked over and parted the grass. There was a small mound of earth hidden by tall shrubs. The mound was covered with tangled grass, and there was a recessed gap in the middle of the haystack, with the grass stalks hanging down naturally from both sides.

The gap wasn't wide; you had to squeeze in sideways. Below was a sloping earthen slope, the soil layer of which had been trampled very firmly, clearly indicating that it had been specially treated.

Go down the slope and walk about five or six meters, and you'll see a bend in the road ahead. There's an iron candlestick in the corner with half a red candle on it.

Zhang Wuxun lightly scraped his hand across the earthen wall, leaving a layer of grayish-white powder on his fingertips, somewhat like the scales on a moth. He didn't know its specific purpose, so he carefully avoided getting it on his clothes.

After turning the corner, the tunnel ahead widened slightly, about one and a half people's width. The walls were reinforced with a slurry made of wet mud and dry grass clippings, and the entire wall surface was covered with powder.

As he continued walking, the space ahead became much larger, somewhat like the domed cellars used for storing crops in the village. Looking down, he saw many dark, ordinary-looking earthenware jars piled up in the corner. They were not all the same size; the largest was half a person's height, while the smaller ones were only the size of a bucket.

He had seen this thing at A-Gui's house before; it was said to be used to pickle spicy bamboo shoots, and it was also commonly used to pickle vegetables in the north during winter. Zhang Wuxun sniffed; there was a strange, indescribable fishy smell in the air. He was still wondering if there were many snakes in these earthenware jars when he heard a very slight scratching sound coming from inside, a soft rustling sound that sounded eerie in the dark.

Thinking of the missing young man, he decided to act quickly. He tiptoed over and, with lightning speed, lifted the lid of one of the ceramic pots. He immediately stepped back a few paces to avoid anything suddenly jumping out.

However, after waiting for a long time, nothing jumped out.

Puzzled, I went closer to look and found that the vat was full of cocoons, each as big as an egg, huddled together like cotton at the bottom. The scratching sounds I had heard earlier were gone.

Suddenly feeling uneasy, Zhang Wuxun quickly looked up and discovered that in a dark corner above him, a pair of tiny eyes gleaming with an eerie light were staring intently at him.

It was a black-haired snake, about the thickness of a wrist, its entire body jet black, flicking its tongue in Zhang Wuxun's direction as if trying to gather some information.

The scratching sound that Zhang Wuxun heard just now was the sound of a large tuft of black fur on its head scraping against the earthen wall as it crawled.

Zhang Wuxun narrowed his eyes, gripped the dagger in his hand, and was about to shoot it when he suddenly caught a series of hurried footsteps passing through the grass above his head.

Realizing something was wrong, Zhang Wuxun immediately retreated quietly, only to see the black-haired snake follow him out.

Perhaps having discovered a gap in the grass and the mound of earth, the footsteps paused outside, and the whole world fell silent.

Immediately afterwards, a series of dragging sounds came from above. Zhang Wuxun was startled; someone was planning to block the exit above.

Just then, the black-haired snake grew impatient and swam to the center of the cave ceiling. Just as Zhang Wuxun was about to turn the corner, it suddenly attacked, like a whipped belt. The snake arched its body, opened its mouth wide, and exposed the venomous fangs hidden in its upper jaw, lunging to bite at Zhang Wuxun's neck.

Zhang Wuxun quickly retreated two steps, swung his dagger, and before the black-haired snake could exert its advantage, it was pierced through the head by the knife and pinned to the wall.

Due to the pressure on his head, the liquid in the venom glands sprayed out through the tubes and teeth, some of it flowing onto the scales on the earthen wall, and some splashing onto Zhang Wuxun's clothes.

In an instant, a pungent and acrid smell enveloped Zhang Wuxun, causing him to feel uncontrollably dizzy and his legs to go weak. He tried to walk out by holding onto the wall, but he collapsed to the ground.

In a daze, he seemed to see a bluish-yellow flame rising on the wall, gradually spreading toward his location.

He told himself he had to get out of there as soon as possible, but he had only crawled forward less than two meters when he felt that he could no longer control his limbs. His eyes seemed to be bloodshot, and everything in front of him was shrouded in a red mist.

After struggling to climb the remaining few meters, a hazy figure flashed before his eyes. The figure was wearing a white hooded cloak and, as if unaware that someone was still lying on the ground, stepped over him. As he walked, the cloak swayed, and Zhang Wuxun noticed a bamboo tube hanging from his waist.

After entering the cellar, the figure reached into the bamboo tube and pulled out a small, snow-white snake, placing it in his palm. Then, his mouth moved slightly, as if he were saying something to the snake.

Perhaps because Zhang Wuxun had been staring at it for too long, the figure seemed to have noticed something and suddenly turned its head to look in their direction.

The movement was too sudden, and the hood on the man's head fell off.

Zhang Wuxun's pupils suddenly contracted. He clearly saw that on the right half of the man's face, there was a large area of ​​eerie, flame-like totems.

He was eager to see more clearly, but the figure suddenly became very far away from him, eventually blurring into a blurry mess, and he couldn't see anything at all.

The dizzying red color before his eyes slowly faded away at this moment. Zhang Wuxun blinked his sore eyes, and someone next to him exclaimed in surprise, "He's awake! He's awake!"

Zhang Wuxun's mind was still a bit muddled, and before he could come to his senses, a flash of white light appeared before his eyes. Someone held a medical pen lamp and shone it into his eyes, saying, "Your pupils are reflexing to light normally."

"The antitoxin serum has taken effect; let him rest a little longer."

Zhang Wuxun recognized Huo Xiuxiu's voice and felt strange. Then he felt many people around him disperse and the light from the tent shone on his face.

Turning his head, he saw that the young man and the fat man were sitting next to him. The young man's expression was unusually serious, and the fat man had lost his usual playful and joking manner.

Seeing that Zhang Wuxun was staring intently without blinking, the fat man asked him if he was thirsty and if he wanted some water.

Zhang Wuxun shook his head, his strength returning. He sat up, supporting himself on the cot, and rubbed his temples. "What happened to me? Didn't you go out chasing the whistle? Did you catch anyone?"

Before the young man could speak, the fat man interrupted, "You're one to talk! The young man clearly went to catch someone, but ended up carrying you back."

"Didn't you catch the collapsed shoulder?" Zhang Wuxun looked at the young man, his expression revealing his surprise.

The young man nodded, pursed his lips, and said softly, "You're in the fire."

"I'm in fire..." Zhang Wuxun was about to ask what kind of fire he was in when something suddenly flashed through his mind, "Brother, did you find me at the entrance of a cellar?"

The young man nodded slightly. "He knew I was looking for him. The place where the whistle came from is a trap."

It turned out that after the young man chased after the whistle, he only exchanged a few blows with the guy with the flat shoulder, injuring his arm. Just as he was about to grab him, he was suddenly attacked by several adult lynxes, and the guy escaped in the chaos.

After dealing with the lynxes, the young man followed the trail of blood, circling around in the bushes for a long time. Suddenly, he noticed a fire coming from a certain spot, realized something was wrong, and rushed over, only to hear two loud explosions in quick succession.

Then Zhang Wuxun emerged from the sea of ​​fire underground. Flames raged in the cave behind him, but he seemed oblivious to the burning pain, standing blankly at the entrance of the cellar.

Thank you so much to the generous donors [年少时最是天真] and [不念]! Sending love...*
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(End of this chapter)