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

Chapter 349 A Mysterious Vanishing
After treating the fat man's hand injury, Zhang Wuxun told him about the things they had encountered along the way. When he mentioned the pool in the cave, the fat man said that they had made a major discovery.

The fat man touched the jade wall a few times and felt a burning pain in his palm. He looked down and found that his hand was rotten. He immediately realized that there was poison powder on the wall.

Later, they found many more bones in a slightly shallower pool, some human and some from various unknown wild animals. They tried to use tools to scoop the bones up, hoping to find some clues, but they found that the bones were very fragile, almost to the point of breaking at the slightest touch.

The surface of the skeleton had many small holes, as if ants had filled them, and there was no trace of blood or flesh left on it. They analyzed that there was probably some kind of tiny creature in the water that was invisible to the human eye, which made them even more afraid to go into the water to check.

If the waterway is impassable, then we have to find another way out.

Just then, they heard what sounded like someone banging on something nearby, but they couldn't hear clearly. They assumed that someone was trapped inside through the wall. Luckily, the fat man had detonators in his backpack, so they decided to use the explosives to blast open one side of the cave.

Remembering that Zhang Wuxun had mentioned that the mountain was home to Miluotuo, a predator that hunts according to temperature, they prepared strong alkali that they had brought with them, put on protective suits, and then determined the location to begin detonation.

The wall was thicker than they had imagined. The fat man used up most of his hidden explosives before he could blast a hole in the wall, which was equivalent to them using directional blasting to directly open a short tunnel in the mountain.

There was more than one cave, which Zhang Wuxun had not anticipated.

Fortunately, Fatty came looking for us. To be honest, only Fatty has the courage and ability to "blast a road out." Even if others wanted to blast, they wouldn't have that much stock.

The fat man's arrival proved that this was indeed the end of the stone path, and the entrance to the Zhang Family Ancient Building was right here.

But this is like a multiple-choice question with unknown options. Since there is more than one cave, no one knows whether the cave with the entrance is the one they are in now.

Their equipment was insufficient to sustain them through a thorough search of all the caves, so there was still no solution.

The fat man looked left and right, and suddenly had an idea. "Hey, do you think the reason we came here is because we've fallen for some kind of mysterious illusion, like being trapped in a maze? The mechanism is hidden, and we definitely can't just rely on our brute force to find it."

Huo Xiangu looked at him and asked, "Do you have any good ideas?"

"I suspect that the situation we're in now is the same as what we were like back in the Heavenly Palace on the Cloud Top." The fat man sat down cross-legged and began to enumerate.

"Let's make a bold assumption about a few possibilities. First, there may be a maze of mechanisms in this tunnel that we cannot understand, similar to the Qimen Bagua, or even more complex mechanisms, that can support the operation of the entire mountain."

The fat man held up his two hands wrapped in gauze, pointed his chin at the ground, and said, "Come on, Muyu, write this on the ground for me."

Zhang Wuxun took out a marker and wrote it down as he wished.

The young man, who had been staring at the wall, sat down when he saw this.

“The second possibility,” the fat man said in a low voice, “is that the Zhang Family Ancient Building is not actually in our time and space. It has transcended the limitations of time and space, but the passage to that time and space has not yet been opened, or rather, that time has passed. It’s a pity we are too late and have missed it.”

Upon hearing this, everyone's expressions turned somewhat strange. They looked disbelieving, but it seemed as if a voice in their heads was screaming to them that this was indeed the case, otherwise, how could they have encountered such a nonsensical and inexplicable situation?

The atmosphere was heavy. Even Huo Xiangu couldn't help but start to doubt this possibility when the fat man cleared his throat and said a third possibility, "There is another possibility, which is that we are being deceived by ghosts. We have encountered a ghost that is the same as or even more powerful than the black ghost child, and we are trapped in a ghost wall."

The fat man spoke with such conviction that everyone followed his line of thought and began to ponder it carefully. Compared to the second, unbelievable possibility, the idea of ​​traps and being trapped in a maze was much more acceptable to them.

"How do we verify it?" Huo Xiangu asked.

“Simple.” The fat man shook his head. “If it’s a ghost wall, we can test it by burning rhinoceros horn to reveal the ghost.”

An old saying goes, "One should not burn raw rhinoceros horn, for burning it produces a strange fragrance, and if it touches one's clothes, one can communicate with ghosts."

The fat man decided to sacrifice his tomb raiding talisman once again, and looked up to signal Zhang Wuxun to take the talisman out of his neck.

Zhang Wu felt around, took it out and looked at it, only to find that there were two.

One of them was that after the rhinoceros horn talisman he used to steal from the Heavenly Palace on the Clouds burned, he used his spare time to borrow Pan Zi's help to buy a completely black talisman from an old Northern-style tomb raider who had retired from tomb raiding. It was said to be a family heirloom.

Whether it was inherited from ancestors is unclear, but the item is indeed a genuine pangolin claw, jet black, shiny, and incredibly hard.

The other one was much newer than the one he gave the fat man; it was the same style, jet black, and inlaid with a layer of gold runes.

"Both of them are pangolins?" Zhang Wuxun didn't take them off. "Then why are you burning them?"

“The new one is fake,” the fat man explained. “I bought the fake tomb raiding talisman from Big Gold Tooth last time. When I went to settle the score with him, I managed to pry another one out of his hand. Judging from the old man’s shifty-eyed expression, I knew this one was definitely fake too.”

Zhang Wushen took the new one, lit it with a lighter, and then held the burning rhinoceros horn around everyone, the small green flame making people uneasy.

After walking around the stone path, he went to the cave and stayed at the end of the cave for a while.

Everyone held their breath and quietly followed him about three meters away, peering around cautiously.

However, the result was disappointing; not only were there no ghosts, but not even a shadow of one was found.

Zhang Wuxun extinguished the fire after burning most of the rhinoceros horn talisman and returned the remaining half to the fat man.

The fat man rubbed his chin with the back of his hand and muttered, "Is it because this ghost's hidden skills are too powerful, and it's not afraid of the rhinoceros horn at all?"

"What should we do then?" Huo Xiaoli asked anxiously. "Is there any other way to exorcise evil spirits?"

"Of course there is exorcism..." The fat man was about to say something when he stumbled and stammered, "There is... there is black dog blood, a big rooster, black donkey hooves, and small glutinous rice, to fight zongzi above and ghosts below."

Huo Xiaoli looked at him speechlessly, her face full of worry, and said, "Fatty, at a time like this, please stop joking. Even if what you're saying is useful, we don't have any of it on hand right now."

"Well, there's nothing we can do then." The fat man put away the rhinoceros horn and walked back to the place where he had written earlier in the stone path. "Cross out the third one, and let's verify the first two."

Huo Xiangu glanced at Xiao Ge and Zhang Wuxun a few more times with some uncertainty. Just as she was about to speak, Zhang Wuxun spoke first.

"Don't even think about it. Qilin blood only protects against poison and insects; it's useless against ghosts." Every drop of the young man's blood is precious. Even if it were useful, he wouldn't let the young man bleed out. Besides, there aren't any black ghost children or anything like that here; bleeding out would be a complete waste.

The fat mother had painstakingly used various nourishing soups to replenish the little blood in her son and him, but with one slash, everything was gone.

Although Huo Xiangu was skeptical, she didn't say much.

The fat man rejected the idea of ​​using a mechanism. He had realized when he was blowing up the cave that if a mechanism was to operate without the victim's knowledge, then the mechanisms buried in the walls would not be large, nor would they be placed very deep.

But that jade wall was over six meters high, and there was nothing inside. Besides, the young man said there were no traps or mechanisms here.

Secondly, they were completely helpless. Not only were they physically exhausted, but they were also mentally and psychologically drained. They had already accepted that they couldn't get out, that there was no hope at all, and that waiting to die was the only option.

Even Huo Xiangu felt a sense of despair. She refocused her gaze on the pool and was about to speak when the fat man suddenly jumped up, "There's another way!"

Ignoring the people around him, the fat man pulled up Zhang Wuxun and the young man, "Come on, let's verify Fatty's guess together."

As he spoke, he pushed Zhang Wuxun and Xiao Ge towards the cave entrance, and while backing away, he said, "We will have people standing at both ends of the stone path. The person at the entrance will not change. If the exit of the stone path moves, when we walk back in the stone path, the mechanism will be activated, and the person guarding the entrance will definitely see the stone path moving."

After saying that, he grinned and gave Zhang Wuxun and the other person a thumbs-up with the hand that wasn't completely wrapped in gauze.

Zhang Wuxun looked at the fat man who had retreated two or three meters. The moment their eyes met, Zhang Wuxun felt a jolt of shock. He was incredulous, but the fat man's eyes told him the answer was yes.

The fat man already knew; based on their long-standing tacit understanding, he had guessed it.

So, taking advantage of the opportunity to verify the identity of the person in charge, he let Zhang Wuxun and Xiao Ge leave the group and do what they wanted.

The cave was indeed the end point, the end point that Xiao Ge and Zhang Wuxun left for Fatty.

Zhang Wuxun's eyes suddenly felt a little sore. He lowered his eyelids and took a deep breath. "Brother, let's go."

The young man nodded silently, and the two turned around and walked into the cave step by step.

Huo Xiaoli leaned against the stone wall listlessly, chewing on a compressed biscuit. Thanks to his previous experience in the ancient building waterway at the bottom of the lake, although he was a little desperate, he had not completely collapsed. Seeing this, he thought for a moment, then trotted over to catch up with the fat man, "Fatty, I'll go with you."

Huo Xiangu waved her hand, and Huo Chushi immediately brought one person to wait in the middle of the stone path.

On the other side, after Zhang Wuxun and Xiao Ge entered the cave, they kept walking, bypassing the pool of water on the ground, and headed straight for the end of the cave.

The two finally stopped at the spot where Zhang Wuxun had lingered for a slightly longer time while circling around with the burning rhinoceros horn.

"Turn off the lights," the deliveryman said softly.

Zhang Wuxun turned off his flashlight, and the eerie green light in the cave immediately enveloped the two of them.

The young man flexed his shoulders a few times, shrugged his arms and brought them together, while his body twisted strangely a few times. There were a few soft cracking sounds, and then he suddenly lowered himself down a bit. He then squatted down to fix the pant legs of his protective suit, stood up, and looked up at Zhang Wuxun.

"..." Zhang Wuxun couldn't help but glance at the swirl on the little brother's head a few times, then looked at the green wall, stretched out his hand to measure, well, it really does have to be shrunk to this size.

He then moved the large joints, using a shrugging motion to dislocate the bone, which was then quickly repositioned. He did the same with the other joints.

Okay, now both of them are only 1.5 meters tall.

The young man closed his eyes, reached out and touched the wall, then slammed into it, crashing into the fluorescent light. The eerie green glow swallowed him whole, leaving no trace of him in the entire cave.

Zhang Wuxun clicked his tongue softly, then closed his eyes, felt a narrow crack in the jade wall, and squeezed in sideways.

They kept their eyes closed and walked forward little by little by feeling. The space here got wider and wider as they went back, and Zhang Wuxun estimated that he had walked more than fifty meters.

Suddenly, the ground beneath Zhang Wuxun's feet gave way. He hadn't expected this situation and stumbled before regaining his footing. Opening his eyes, he saw that the jade's fluorescence was gone, replaced by a dark shadow standing in front of a stone pillar, intently watching something amidst the gray and white surroundings.

He went over to take a look and realized why the guy wasn't using a flashlight.

The stone pillar was covered with intricate and simple patterns, but these patterns were not the main focus. A fluorescent light emanated from the top of the pillar, weaving through some of the patterns and converging at the base of the pillar.

The space here is much larger than the previous cave, about the size of two basketball courts, slightly taller than a single-story house, and is a closed space.

Behind them are many similar stone pillars engraved with patterns. These pillars were made from stalactites that originally hung from above to the ground, which were then modified into regular column shapes and engraved with this information.

Looking around, the stone pillars here are densely packed, and their arrangement makes no discernible pattern.

So if you want to get out of here, the key is to look at the fluorescent markings on the stone pillars.

The young man had already turned around to look at the second stone pillar nearby.

Zhang Wuxun also picked out a stone pillar and carefully studied the patterns on it.

At first glance, the areas marked with fluorescent light seemed normal. Zhang Wuxun followed the fluorescent light and suddenly had a flash of inspiration. He immediately turned to look at the pillar that the young man had just looked at, traced it in the air with his fingertip, and then looked at the third one.

"No, this isn't it," Zhang Wuxun muttered to himself, taking a step further inside. "Strange, this isn't it either."

Did he guess wrong just now?

That shouldn't be the case; he could draw those patterns backwards even with his eyes closed.

Wait, draw it backwards!
He immediately turned to look at the young man, only to find that he was surrounded by stone pillars.

The guy who was just an arm's length away from him has disappeared!
Thank you so much to the generous donor, 〔年少时最是天真〕! Sending you a huge heart!
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(End of this chapter)