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

Chapter 362 The Black Face in the Mezzanine
Zhang Wuxun then touched the corpse's neck and found that his upper cervical vertebrae were severely dislocated.

In other words, Huo Chuqi was killed with a single blow, his neck snapped cleanly.

After realizing that Huo Xiaoli was actually a member of the Wang family, Zhang Wuxun was no longer surprised by the coffin lid and the casual killing of people.

The Wang family's abilities should not be underestimated. Their training methods may be even more rigorous than the Zhang family's, and those who can persevere are not easy to deal with.

That kid is really good at hiding his true identity. Unlike the Wang family members who always wear fake masks, Huo Xiaoli uses his real face. Otherwise, Zhang Wuxun wouldn't have been unable to find any flaws. In this way, the chances of him being exposed are even smaller.

It seems that he was the one who ordered Huo Xiaoyao to die willingly, which explains why Huo Xiaoyao's last gaze was in his direction.

Moreover, this was probably all part of his plan. He could take this opportunity to use Zhang Wuxun's methods to prove his innocence, and even Huo Xiangu herself had basically dispelled her doubts about him.

Huo Xiaoli also took the bell above the coffin. The impact of that bell on the Zhang family is still unknown, but Huo Xiaoli must have discovered the problem with the reed inside.

Zhang Wuxun put the corpses of the Huo family members, who were to be used as scapegoats, into a body bag and stored it in his spatial storage, then closed the coffin lid again.

Beyond the hole in the wall was another coffin chamber. It seemed that several rows of such tower coffin chambers were set up on the third floor.

However, the footprints inside the coffin only circled the indoor and outdoor corridors before ending in front of a compartment.

Zhang Wuxun looked up, frowned slightly, then turned around and crawled back into Zhang Ruitong's coffin chamber. After leaving, he quickly walked towards the entrance to the third floor.

That kid was clever; even in that critical moment, he remembered to use a feint, employing footprints to mislead anyone who might come to investigate later.

He suddenly realized that when the fat man and his group came in, in order to prevent Huo Youxue and her group from obtaining the key clues, they simply brought in all the information about the Zhang Family Ancient Building that they could carry, along with several blueprints from Yangshi Lei, which had all been kept by Huo Xiaoli.

To ensure the safety of the Zhang family members who came to the funeral, each floor of the ancient building was actually set up with temporary safe houses to store similar burial items. With the blueprints in hand, Huo Xiaoli could indeed find another place to temporarily hide from the strong alkali.

This place is on the fourth floor. Huo Xiaoli obviously already knows that the deeper floors of the ancient building are where the Zhang family's secrets are sealed, so he will definitely keep going down.

As Zhang Wuxun descended the stairs, he activated his danger perception to search for Huo Xiaoli's presence.

They quickly arrived at the fourth floor, only to find that the black ball on the back of the tortoise-faced figure in the center of the main hall was gone, seemingly taken away by Huo Xiaoli.

At the same time, Zhang Wuxun also found many strange marks on the dust on the ground. There were handprints with three fingers on each side, and a long, palm-width drag mark in the middle, crooked and twisted, extending from the side of the human-faced turtle to the surrounding area. The ground of this level was covered with traces of this unknown creature crawling.

It seemed that some kind of snake-like monster with two arms had emerged from the crevices beneath the human-faced turtle.

As Zhang Wuxun approached, he discovered that the surface of the human-faced turtle's shell was covered with a messy, light green, plastic-like film, as if it were the slime left behind by something crawling around, which had dried and turned into this shape.

He frowned, muttering to himself, "What the hell is this? It's not afraid of alkaline gas!"

He reached out and peeled off a piece of green film, discovering that this film was very flexible and required a lot of force to tear.

In the center of the turtle's shell, where the black ball used to be, there was now a dark hole. Zhang Wuxun stood on it and looked inside. A strange, sweet and fishy smell wafted out, and even the gas mask couldn't block out the strong fishy odor.

He shone his flashlight inside and was shocked to find that the lower compartment was filled with a greenish-blue viscous liquid, with some small, light green, snake-like creatures wriggling in the sticky green water.

In the center of the mucus was half a bloody human corpse floating away, with white bones protruding from the lower half of the body, eerily submerged in the green water.

The other half of its body was also eaten clean, leaving only pinkish-red flesh, which trembled as if many grass-green maggots had crawled inside, and the surrounding green slime rippled in small waves.

A torn package floated beside the corpse, and green creatures scurrying around it were feeding, seemingly unaffected by the glaring light shining in.

Zhang Wuxun squinted and examined the backpack carefully. It didn't belong to the Huo family. Judging from its design, it should belong to one of Qiu Dekao's men. He hadn't expected to see it here first.

The small green snake-like creatures in the interlayer were still juveniles, some only as thick as a finger, others like mutated tadpoles. Zhang Wuxun also saw several of them crawling directly on top of the corpse, seemingly intending to burrow into the corpse's belly and feast.

This allowed him to see the thing's appearance clearly.

This thing looks a bit like a giant salamander, but it is much flatter and lacks two hind legs and one toe on its front leg. Its head is a round, thin triangle, like a snake's head, but it has no eyes, so the presence or absence of light has no effect on it.

This bizarre, soft-bodied creature is completely bald, seemingly without skin, or perhaps its skin is replaced by mucus. It crawls slowly like a snail, and when it moves, you can see a green, blood-like liquid flowing inside. Its body is smooth as if coated with oil, and its tail, along with its body, is a thin sheet. It disappears instantly when it dives into the green water.

Before he could figure out what it was, he suddenly caught a slight friction sound in his ear. Zhang Wuxun immediately turned his head to look behind him and found a person lying flat on the ground, slowly moving towards him in an extremely strange posture.

At first glance, it was quite startling, like a zombie.

Zhang Wuxun quietly moved away from the human-faced turtle, intending to retreat to the corner for a closer look. However, after taking only two steps back, the corpse on the ground stopped moving, and a flat, green liquid resembling a slug began to emerge from beneath the corpse, pointing directly at Zhang Wuxun.

Zhang Wuxun's heart skipped a beat. Oh no, this thing's perception was even more acute than he had imagined!
Just then, another rustling sound came from a different direction, and soon the rustling sound filled the entire space.

Zhang Wuxun realized that he had been surrounded by these strange creatures without his knowledge. The ground around him was covered with flat, seaweed-like doll snakes.

"Damn it," Zhang Wuxun cursed under his breath. Why didn't he find anything here last time? Or did the release of alkaline gas awaken them?
He pulled out a mechanism from the space and fastened it to his wrist. Since the ground was impassable, he could only try to walk through the air.

However, before he could even make a move, the slippery baby snakes seemed to suddenly lose their sense of prey and went straight past Zhang Wu to climb onto the human-faced turtle.

"?" Zhang Wuxun was puzzled, but then a sudden thought flashed through his mind. He slowed down and approached a giant snake carrying only a gas mask. He clearly saw that the giant snake initially sensed the approach of a living creature and moved a few meters towards him. Then, as if scalded by boiling water, it twisted its body and sped up to crawl towards the mezzanine, abandoning the gas mask it had just obtained.

To verify his suspicions, Zhang Wuxun quickly caught up with the baby snake, pricked a small wound with the tip of his knife, and squeezed out a drop of blood onto the baby snake.

Then he saw an unbelievable scene.

The moment the blood droplet touched the giant salamander, its body suddenly began to emit a large amount of gray smoke, emitting a burnt and fishy smell, and the entire seaweed twisted in pain.

The billowing gray smoke seemed to have taken away a lot of moisture from its body. In less than ten seconds, the baby snake was curled up into a ball of black coal dust, and the baby snakes nearby ran even faster as if they were on fire.

Zhang Wuxun put his gloves back on, picked up the small black ball, about the size of a marble, from the ground, and as soon as he turned it over, his gaze suddenly froze.

He saw a face, a small, wrinkled face, but the features were very clear, just like the face of a baby that had been in amniotic fluid for a long time before being born.

The shape of this face looked extremely familiar, almost identical to the densely packed human faces on the thing on the back of the human-faced turtle he had seen before.

Could it be that the big black ball was made up of many dried-up small black balls stuck together?

That doesn't make sense either. He was certain that the black ball felt like metal, but it was much lighter than a regular metal ball, which meant it wasn't solid inside.

He suddenly had a nascent idea and decided to test it out.

Knowing that this thing feared the blood of the Qilin, Zhang Wuxun no longer hesitated. He caught up with a few more lone Qilin, dripped blood on them, and then obtained several small black faces that looked like sheep dung balls.

The expressions on these black faces are all different. Some are fearful, some look like they are crying with their mouths wide open, some look like they have had a stroke with their mouths and eyes crooked, some are cross-eyed, and some are making funny faces. After you get used to it, it is quite interesting.

He climbed back onto the turtle's back, tied a small black ball to a thread, and dropped it into the green water in the lower compartment. The thread broke, and the small black ball disappeared.

Zhang Wuxun was not discouraged. He lowered another one, this time to a spot where the corpse had not yet been submerged and eaten, and then waited quietly.

Less than two minutes later, the little black ball suddenly twisted and burrowed into the flesh soaked in mucus. Then, as if by magic, it transformed back into its original long strip of seaweed, happily acting as if nothing had happened.

Holy crap? Wow, my little black ball is amazing!

Based on the current phenomena, Zhang Wuxun deduced that the seaweed-like creatures floating in the green slime were likely deliberately kept here by the Zhang family, serving a function similar to the cleaning agent of the ancient building.

Even if the external mechanisms and Miluotu fail to prevent it, intruders entering the ancient building will be killed by the alkaline gas released by the mechanisms and then become food for these strange creatures.

The reason for saying this is that this thing fears the blood of the Qilin. The blood of the Old Man is its nemesis. Although it cannot be killed, it can still serve as a deterrent.

That small metal ball was likely the cover blocking the interlayer passage. Last time he, his brother, and the Huo family were here, perhaps because they both had Qilin blood, this creature didn't emerge and attack them silently.

It has to be said that the Zhang family has come up with a lot of strange and wonderful things, all thanks to the protection of the old man's precious blood. But they have done a great job, making the most of everything, which is very nice.

Huo Xiaoli took the black ball cover with him, unaware that Little Black Face might be secretly following him.

Having figured out what had happened, Zhang Wuxun decided not to stay there any longer. He found a small glass jar in his spatial dimension, put the remaining few withered little black faces inside, sealed it, and then found the exit and left.

Nothing unusual happened on the next three floors, and Zhang Wuxun quickly arrived at the stone chamber on the seventh floor through the secret passage.

By this time, the alkaline gas inside the ancient building had mostly dissipated. During this period, Zhang Wuxun changed into more than a dozen sets of protective suits, all of which were produced by the system and were made of materials comparable to military nuclear, biological, and chemical protective suits of later generations. Because the changes were made in time, the alkaline gas did not have a significant impact on him.

He glanced at his watch; two hours had passed since he left the secret room.

Below that are the original stone floors of the Zhang Family Ancient Building.

New footprints passed through the stone gate and continued downwards.

Zhang Wuxun followed them to the lower level of the corridor pillars and found a discarded, worn-out protective suit and a gas mask in the drainage ditch next to the stone chamber.

There were many black bloodstains on the inside of the protective suit, indicating that Huo Xiaoli had been injured by the poison gas.

Zhang Wuxun put his hand into the drainage ditch, letting the cold water wash over his skin, while he wondered where Huo Xiaoli would go next.

He recalled the model of the ancient building he had seen a few days ago, then got up and walked along the stone path of the Nine-Turned Lotus Flower, returning to the top of the cliff of the pool. The rope hanging from the cliff was still there, and Zhang Wuxun quickly descended and jumped into the water.

He then held his breath and submerged underwater, carefully searching the stone walls of the pool. In less than the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea, he found a hidden underwater door with intricate carvings.

Zhang Wuxun surfaced, took a deep breath of oxygen, and then returned to the bottom. He pushed hard against the hidden door, which opened, connecting the water on both sides. The water in the pool rushed over, and Zhang Wuxun continued to hold his breath and swim into the passage behind.

Inside is a square waterway. After swimming for more than 20 meters, the waterway gradually widens in front, and then there are steps leading out.

As soon as it surfaced, a foul stench hit Zhang Wuxun, almost making him stumble.

Upon closer inspection, they were horrified to find that the entire area was filled with mummified corpses hanging in mid-air.

Thank you so much to [Dali Chen], [Bu Nian], and other generous donors! Sending you a big heart!


(End of this chapter)