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

Chapter 361 He's the Ghost
Zhang Wuxun didn't respond to him. Just as he was about to turn around to find the medical kit, he saw that the deliveryman had already placed the items on his right.

He wanted to laugh a little; this silent fellow was quick to fix things after causing trouble.

Seeing that the Huo family members were all looking this way, Zhang Wuxun had no choice but to suppress his thoughts. After treating Huo Chushi's leg injury, he returned to the side of the secret door.

The young man stepped forward first and used his body to block the mechanism that would open the hidden door.

Zhang Wuxun: "..."

He could only wave his hand helplessly, indicating that he wouldn't go out.

The young man remained unmoved, not even bothering to close his eyes.

He wouldn't ask Zhang Wuxun why he insisted on going out, but he also wouldn't give him a chance to sneak out.

Zhang Wuxun felt as if a thousand alpacas were galloping across his forehead. He stared at the young man in disbelief. "Damn it, where is the most basic trust between people?"

"Fine, fine." He had no choice but to confess honestly.

Zhang Wuxun lowered his voice and told Xiao Ge all his concerns, "Tianzhen and the others will definitely come in soon. It's too dangerous here. I have to go and guide them and find a way to lure Miluotuo away."

"Moreover, I need to be 100% sure that person is indeed dead. The camera is on Huo Xiaoli, and I can't let that person have any chance of obtaining the secret of the ancient building."

After listening, the young man pondered for a few seconds before saying, "I'll go."

"You should rest now," Zhang Wuxun snorted. "I have a treasure chest for self-defense. What do you have?"

"Oh, don't tell me you have a brave heart."

Zhang Wuxun silently grumbled to himself, "Don't even mention a brave heart, even if you had the heart of ten goddesses of victory, it wouldn't be of any use here."

The young man lifted his eyelids, looked at him without saying a word.

Zhang Wuxun understood his meaning and muttered, "So what if they know you've regained your memories? Do you think the alkaline gas will deliberately avoid you just because you're Zhang Qiling?"

"And afterwards you'll have to..." He realized he'd misspoke before the words were even out of his mouth and immediately swallowed the rest.

He glanced down at his watch and continued, "It's been more than twenty hours since we've been trapped here. You must have noticed that this wave of strong alkali has been unusually long. The sealed room can't hold out much longer; the alkali gas will eventually seep in."

Meanwhile, the Huo family members who had just been woken up had fallen back into a deep sleep.

"In short, given the current situation, it's most appropriate for me to go out, so don't argue with me," Zhang Wuxun said decisively. "It's settled then."

The young man listened quietly and did not voice any further objections.

After Zhang Wuxun finished speaking, he took out a transparent glass box from his pocket. Inside was a finger-length blue-green syringe. He placed it in the young man's palm and whispered, "This is a purified blood receptor blocker that can significantly lower blood pressure and slow the heartbeat. It can make a person's body very weak without bloodletting."

“This concentration would be lethal to a normal person, but for you it would at most put you into a semi-comatose state. I’ve done experiments on myself before, and the side effect was muscle relaxation and paralysis for two hours,” he said.

"If you really feel like you can't hold on any longer, get an injection into your vein. This one injection will be enough to keep you stable until Tianzhen and the others arrive."

The young man put away the potion, remained silent for a while, and then said, "Be careful."

Zhang Wuxun smiled at him, "Don't worry, if all goes well, I might be able to get back within a few hours."

Without needing to say anything more, Zhang Wuxun grabbed the young man's backpack and stuffed it with more than a dozen sets of protective suits and spare gas masks. Wearing multiple layers would at least provide some protection, just in case. He also left a few extra sets for Wu Xiaoxie and Fatty.

On the morning of the third day she was trapped here, Huo Xiangu's life finally came to an end.

Before she died, a glimmer of light suddenly appeared in her cloudy eyes. Her limbs were no longer under her control, and she could only desperately try to signal Zhang Wuxun with her eyes, her voice barely a whisper, "Take...take it..."

A gush of foul blood from her throat blurred her words, and Zhang Wuxun didn't hear it clearly, but he understood that Old Madam Huo was referring to the jade ring on her hand and the promise.

Zhang Wuxun's lips moved slightly, "I'm sorry, I lied to you. There's no way I could take anything out of the ancient building."

Huo Xiangu's pupils had begun to dilate, but her consciousness persisted, "...Yu Huan...Xiu Xiu...protect her..."

Zhang Wuxun took the jade ring off her finger, held it in his palm, and solemnly said, "Alright, the Huo family will ultimately belong to Huo Xiuxiu."

Whether Huo Xiangu heard it or not, a few seconds later she finally closed her eyes, unable to bear the weight any longer, and her breath gradually disappeared.

Zhang Wuxun helped her tidy up her remains and then took out a body bag to put her body inside.

After Huo Xiangu's death, Huo Chushi and the others also committed suicide one after another.

It was like a self-sacrificing funeral rite, without any complaints, calmly walking towards death.

Zhang Wuxun collected all their corpses; inanimate objects that had lost their lives could be stored in his spatial dimension.

After saying goodbye to the young man and leaving him enough food, I opened the hidden door.

The original low-ceilinged secret chamber was designed specifically to preserve burial paintings and calligraphy that were easily corroded by strong alkalis. The two sides of the secret door were connected to each other, and the items they came in through had been moved to the other side of the secret door a long time ago.

Behind the hidden door, there was a mess of all sorts of strange blue and white porcelain vases and scrolls of calligraphy and painting; the space here was even smaller.

Zhang Wuxun moved the calligraphy and paintings aside, making room for a narrow path. He glanced one last time at the young man leaning against the wall, waved to him, and the dark hidden door closed automatically, completely separating the two sides.

Walking into the corner, Zhang Wuxun wrapped himself in three sets of protective clothing and put on a gas mask. Then he reached out and tapped the wall a few times, found a gap, and took out a small hammer to smash the thick wooden board there.

White mist rushed in all at once, and the calligraphy and paintings attached to the porcelain bottle made a rustling sound as they were being corroded.

Zhang Wuxun put away his tools, quickly crawled out of the hole he had smashed open, and then used a wooden box from his spatial dimension to wrap himself in protective clothing and plug the hole. He then stood up, and the entire wooden pavilion in the space before him was submerged in gray-white mist, as if he were in a hellish place filled with ghosts and shadows.

Zhang Wuxun carefully made his way up the steps, stood in the corridor to confirm his location, and then walked towards the place where there might be a hidden staircase based on his memory.

He was currently on the second floor of the ancient building. He needed to find the stairs to return to the third floor, where Zhang Ruitong's coffin had been placed.

The wooden building creaked and groaned underfoot, and in the thick alkaline fog, visibility dropped to zero just half a meter ahead.

Fortunately, the alkaline gas had stopped being released at this point, indicating that the outer Miluotuo had begun to retreat. It is estimated that by the time Wu Xiaoxie and the others are ready to enter, the internal and external pressures will gradually reach equilibrium, and the alkaline gas inside the ancient building will return to the mountain.

After groping his way around, Zhang Wuxun discovered that the corridor on the second floor was a circular connection. He also tried to enter a coffin chamber and learned that the owner inside was named Zhang Haisheng, a member of the Zhang family overseas. He was also born in the mid-Qing Dynasty and served as a naval commander in the Taihu Fleet at the end of the Qianlong era.

This man's life was somewhat fantastical; he died twice. The first time, he died in a naval campaign to quell a rebellion during the Jiaqing era. At that time, the Qing Dynasty was gradually becoming corrupt. This ancestor of the Zhang family overseas used the pretense of death to escape from the outwardly strong but inwardly weak court and return to his family overseas.

He was later sent to an archives on the same coast, where he dealt with many difficult and mysterious cases. He eventually died in a mysterious investigation at the age of 143.

The coffin contained only a cenotaph for this man. He was able to occupy a place here because he single-handedly prevented a disaster that nearly destroyed the city. However, his body mysteriously disappeared at the end, and his partner also mysteriously disappeared while investigating, and has been missing ever since.

The archives sent people to investigate the cause several times afterward, but found no trace of it and returned empty-handed. The file was then sealed and classified as top secret.

His partner Zhang Haiping's cenotaph is located in the coffin chamber next to his.

Zhang Wuxun turned and left. The coffin chamber in the corridor was intact. Where could the passage be?

After thinking for a moment, he left a gas mask as a mark at the door of the coffin chamber he had just entered. Then he walked around the corridor clockwise again. This time he noticed something suspicious: there was one more pillar on the railing than there were coffin chambers.

He ran his hands over the pillar from top to bottom, and then found a loose knob at the bottom of the pillar, which he pressed and turned.

With a snap, the pillar in front of them began to rotate. In the alkaline fumes, a gap opened up in the huge pillar supporting the center of the hall, revealing a narrow downward passageway that also served as an entrance to the next level.

Once inside, you'll find that there's a very sturdy wooden mezzanine between the third floor ceiling and the second floor. Inside, there are many small wooden cabinets arranged in an unusually neat manner, and on each cabinet is an incense burner filled with incense ash.

Zhang Wuxun opened the drawer and found a small patterned stone box, about the size of an adult's palm.

At first, he didn't think it was a Tezuka, because the box was so small.

But when he scraped off the amber and opened the box in his hand, the pupils behind the mask suddenly contracted.

It was a small hand, the hand of a very small child, with scars all over its tender bones, and the index and middle fingers showing a clear tendency to grow longer.

Below the hand bone was a small dagger and a small wooden plaque. The dagger's handle was inlaid with a small blue gemstone. Even after many years, the blade was still sharp, showing that its young owner cherished this dagger very much during his lifetime.

The wooden plaque was engraved with the child's name, the cause of death, and the parents' names.

The second cabinet also contained such small stone boxes. Looking around, there were probably hundreds of such cabinets, suggesting that they were all the tezukas of children from the Zhang family who died young.

Not all of these children died during missions; some died from overwork during rigorous training.

The Zhang family already had an extremely difficult time having offspring, but longevity made up for this shortcoming. Marriage within the same family was even more difficult, and even marriage with the maternal family was only possible during the period of their lives when they were relatively similar to normal people. After that period, reproduction became very difficult, and the offspring born to the maternal family had a much shorter lifespan, with a 50/50 chance of being a normal person.

Zhang Wuxun put the small Tezuka back in its place, sighed, and closed the drawer.

Without lingering any longer, I passed through the Tezuka area and arrived at the edge of the mezzanine. After finding the hidden door, I slipped inside and followed the stairs to the third floor.

The concentration of alkaline gas in the air was thinner than before. Zhang Wuxun walked along the right-hand corridor to the middle, threw out a rope and hung it on the opposite railing. After tying the rope around his waist, he quickly climbed over and headed straight for Zhang Ruitong's coffin chamber.

The door to the cubicle was still wide open. After going inside, the bodies of the two people who had fallen were not seen, but the coffin lid had been put back on.

"Could it be hiding in the coffin?" Zhang Wuxun muttered to himself, then pushed the coffin lid open a crack and immediately saw a corpse wearing protective clothing lying face down inside.

He pushed the coffin lid aside, turned the body over, and took off the gas mask. It was Huo Xiaoli's face.

Strangely, the coffin was made of specially treated wood, several times heavier than ordinary wood, almost equivalent to a stone coffin. If two adults exerted their strength at the same time, they could lift the lid.

But there was only one body here, and it was lying in a position that was too flat, as if it were waiting for someone else to close the coffin lid.

Assuming that two people worked together to lift the coffin lid and prepare it, there would be more than one corpse hiding inside the coffin.

Zhang Wuxun looked around but found no trace of equipment, let alone a camera. The octagonal bronze bell that hung above the coffin was also gone.

Sure enough, his worst fears came true: the other person who escaped was a member of the Wang family.

He began searching for footprints on the ground. The Huo family wore the same shoes, and the footprint patterns were indistinguishable. However, finding a specific footprint among a jumble of footprints was not difficult.

He quickly spotted the footprints on the top layer of dust, and walked to the altar in the cubicle. He noticed that the footprints were leaning forward, so he squatted down and looked down at the altar.

A large hole had been found in the wooden wall there.

Zhang Wuxun cursed under his breath and was about to crawl out of the hole when his heart suddenly skipped a beat.

Wait a minute—something's not right!

He immediately returned to the coffin, pulled out Huo Xiaoli's body, and, ignoring the corrosive effects of the residual alkaline gas, took off his gloves and touched the area behind her ears with his fingers.

The unusual sensation at his fingertips told him that the face was fake, an extremely realistic human skin.

With a cold laugh, Zhang Wuxun raised his hand and tore off the human skin mask, revealing Huo Chuqi's face.

Therefore, Huo Xiaoli is the one who is hiding the deepest secret!
Let's guess again, what other aliases does Huo Xiaoli have?
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(End of this chapter)