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

Chapter 371 Escorting the Coffin
In the darkness, there stood an enormous ancient building complex, its dull gray exterior resembling a fossil, majestic and imposing in the cave before it.

The ancient and old buildings with their overlapping and crisscrossing eaves, having withstood the changes of time and the vicissitudes of life, seem to be silently telling the repressed and mysterious legends contained within them for thousands of years.

Zhang Wuxun’s throat bobbed uncontrollably as he tried his best to suppress the shock in his heart and turned his gaze away from the huge building.

The exit of the crevice was on the mountain wall, dozens of meters above the ground. Zhang Wuxun climbed over it and scrambled down with his bare hands. As soon as his feet touched the ground, he immediately ran towards the ancient building.

Finally standing before this magnificent work of art, looking up, I realized how insignificant I was in the face of this ancient behemoth, like a grain of sand in the vast ocean, vanishing in the blink of an eye.

If it weren't for the inappropriate setting, he would have loved to shout at the top of his lungs to release his overwhelming excitement.

This is perhaps a unique feeling that belongs to every member of the Zhang family, a deep sense of belonging to this place.

This is a home, a home built for the Zhang family members who wander from all corners of the world.

At that moment, he suddenly understood the meaning of Zhang Qiling's identity. It was not just about guarding the gate, but also about carrying the coffin and bringing all the Zhang family members home.

In that instant, he felt an urge to cry. After overcoming countless hardships, he had finally found the Zhang Family Ancient Building.

This is our final destination, the final resting place for all members of the Zhang family.

He could walk in from here openly and bring Xiao Ge, Wu Xie, and Fatty out from inside.

The empty cave was cold and silent. Breathing was amplified at this moment. Zhang Wuxun took a deep breath, like a soldier going into battle for the first time, and walked up the steps step by step with a passionate heart.

The building entrance was covered in brownish-white dust. The rotten wooden door was pushed open a crack, and there was a handprint on the door frame. The fingerprint was very long, and it was clear that the person who pushed the door was Wu Xiaoxie. If it had been Fatty, the handprint would definitely have been wider.

Zhang Wuxun took out a set of protective clothing from his spatial storage and put it on. He also put on a gas mask, knowing that there must be a lot of accumulated alkaline dust inside, so it was best to inhale as little as possible.

Going through the crack, you can see a series of footprints on the ground. The footprints circled around the hall several times, especially concentrated under the large hole in the central ceiling that had been corroded.

Since there were no ropes hanging above, it seems that the two of them eventually found the hidden staircase inside the building.

Without further hesitation, Zhang Wuxun turned around, closed the door, walked to the easternmost pillar carved with a qilin, stepped on the protruding qilin head, quickly climbed up, and then pressed on the qilin head at the top, causing the wooden stairs to descend from above.

The process is the same as before, except that the sixth layer they went through before is now called the second layer.

If Zhang Wuxun and Xiao Ge had led Huo Xiangu and the others through the right side of the gate at the beginning, then the place they would have entered would have been the same as the place they entered through the main gate of the ancient building.

Like the yin and yang of Tai Chi, it is divided in the middle. The left side of the door is the back of the ancient building, also called the yin side, while the front door is the yang side. Therefore, the floors on this side are counted from bottom to top, just like normal floors, while the yin side is the opposite.

Zhang Wuxun climbed the wooden stairs. The second floor still had shelves for the iron terracotta warriors, but the arrangement here was a bit messy, as if it had been through an earthquake. Some of the shelves had tilted and collapsed, and the iron terracotta warriors on them had fallen down and were piled up haphazardly.

Two rows of footprints, one wide and one thin, passed through the middle of the shelf, and along the way, many traces left by Wu Xiaoxie and his companion could be seen.

Zhang Wuxun didn't linger and quickly found the hidden staircase. On the upper floor, there was another human-faced turtle. This turtle was not as big as the one on the shady side, and its expression was much more peaceful, making it look more like a Thangka benevolent deity.

Just like the two-faced Mahakara in Hinduism, who is an incarnation of Shiva in Brahmanism, the front face represents goodness, honesty, and a series of beautiful things, while the back of the head has another face, representing lies and all evil things in the world.

On the back of the human-faced turtle is a large black ball carved with human facial features. However, it seems to be just for decoration and cannot be removed. It is carved using the same method as the rolling ball in the mouth of the carved stone lion, employing a relatively rare and technically demanding openwork carving technique. Tools are used to reach inside and carve the ball, which requires a great deal of skill from the craftsman.

However, this was no challenge for the Zhang family. Even if it was a fake used to create a symmetrical and beautiful pair, the workmanship would certainly be excellent.

Not far away, several wooden boxes that had been pried open were scattered on the ground. The wood was rotten, and there were four or five bullet casings left from the shooting nearby.

Zhang Wu picked up a spent cartridge case; it was icy cold to the touch, indicating that the two men had been gone for a while.

But those two guys are really careless. They knocked down someone's tezuka and just left it lying around. If there were any valuable burial treasures inside, the fat guy might have lit three cigarettes and pretended to pay his respects, saying "May the ancestors forgive me."

Seeing that the boxes were all broken, Zhang Wuxun took out a few intact wooden boxes from his space, lined them with velvet, took out the dried hand bones that Tezuka had originally put inside, put them into the new boxes, and arranged them neatly.

He lit three more incense sticks and placed them between two small wooden boards. After the last inch of ash fell to the ground, he carried the boxes up the edge of the wall to the roof beam and hung the relocated graves back up in a chessboard grid with plenty of empty space.

The Tezuka mounds hanging above are so dense that the original positions of the hand bones can no longer be found.

After doing all this, Zhang Wuxun found the stone steps that Wu Xiaoxie and the other person had walked up on the corresponding wall.

The upper floor of the attic was transformed into a tower-like structure, which was the coffin chamber that Huo Xiaoli had previously dug under the offering table to create a diversion.

Zhang Wuxun could already hear footsteps pacing back and forth in the corridor, as well as voices that were deliberately masked and somewhat indistinct.

He immediately followed the sound and hurried over, finding the room back-to-back with Zhang Ruitong's coffin chamber. He then saw the wooden door of the coffin chamber slammed onto the floor, the inside a black, smoky mess. Looking up, he exclaimed, "Damn, even the roof has been burned through!"

He was stunned for a moment, then his face darkened. He sighed and rubbed his forehead in exasperation. What were these two doing? They had practically set someone's coffin on fire.

Once inside, the voices became much clearer.

The fat man coughed twice. "Hey, Tianzhen, where do you think Muyu and Xiaoge would hide? This place doesn't look like a place where people can hide. The coffin is so dilapidated, it can block the lower three paths, but it can't block the upper three paths."

"I reckon Muyu and the others are hiding in a secret room or some hidden compartment or compartment," Wu Xiaoxie analyzed.

“Since they left you to relay messages to the outside world, it means they anticipated something very dangerous might happen in the ancient building. They weren’t confident they could protect you, so I reckon the casualties in the group must be quite high. Mu Yu and the other two might also be injured.” “The secret room…the secret room…” the fat man muttered, looking around, “Where is the secret room?”

"This place is so big, it's practically a giant funeral home. Hey, do you think the Zhang family might have even put up a super-sized refrigerator here, and Muyu and Xiaoge are hiding inside right now?" The fat man started rambling.

Wu Xiaoxie rolled her eyes at him, "You think this is pickling cabbage? Without oxygen, it would suffocate inside."

The fat man covered the lower half of his face with his coat, coughed a few times, spat out a mouthful of black blood, and gasped for breath, saying, "We need to speed things up. If we keep inhaling this poisonous gas, you'll end up like me sooner or later."

“Okay.” Wu Xiaoxie nodded. “The footprints on the floor are messy. It seems they’ve been here for a long time. They’ve taken all the good stuff from Zhang Ruitong’s coffin. Let’s follow the footprints to the other coffin chambers. Usually, the hidden chambers are hidden in the corners of the walls. Let’s go to the last room.”

As they walked out into the corridor, the fat man exclaimed, "Tianzhen, look! The footprints are all pointing in the same direction, and they're all very messy."

Wu Xiaoxie pondered, "It seems they may have encountered some trouble here, or perhaps..."

“It’s hiding.” He looked back and saw that the wooden eaves pavilion was still gray and desolate. “There’s something terrible chasing them.”

The fat man thought what he said made a lot of sense, and turned around as well, "Could it be that besides Miluotuo, there is some other big monster hiding in this ancient building—a monster—holy crap! A monster! Tianzhen, run!"

When he turned around, the fat man instinctively shone the light in his hand behind the two of them.

As a result, when he looked up, he suddenly came face to face with a loose, short, gray figure standing quietly at the entrance of the coffin chamber. He immediately screamed and, without thinking, grabbed Wu Xiaoxie and ran away.

Wu Xiaoxie didn't even get a clear look at the gray shadow before he was pulled along and stumbled, forced to follow him.

Zhang Wuxun, wearing a gray-white protective suit: "..."

Seeing the dust and alkali spray kicked up by the two as they ran, almost completely obscuring their figures, if they continued running, they would either be poisoned or choked to death.

He quickly removed his gas mask and called out to their retreating figures, "Tianzhen, Fatty, it's me! Don't run away!"

Unexpectedly, upon hearing this, the two ran even faster, wishing they had 108 super-fast legs and could instantly teleport away.

Zhang Wuxun also heard the fat man panting and shouting, "Tianzhen, don't turn around! This monster can actually imitate the sound of a wooden fish. Don't be fooled!"

Upon hearing this, Wu Xiaoxie immediately felt something creeping up his back. He flailed his arms wildly behind him, knocking the water bottle hanging on his backpack off.

Hearing something fall to the ground, he yelled and ran out, faster than the fat man. The fat man, who was originally leading the run, was dragged along by him.

Zhang Wuxun, who was behind them, was completely confused. He stopped shouting, put his gas mask back on, and chased after the two of them, intending to subdue and control them first.

The corridor soon came to an end, and the footsteps chasing from behind were urgent and fast, which almost scared Wu Xiaoxie and his companion to death.

Looking left and right, finding nowhere to hide, Wu Xiaoxie kicked his feet in frustration, thinking, "I'm doomed, maybe I should just fight it out."

Just as he was about to turn around and call the fat man to join him, the fat man suddenly grabbed Wu Xiaoxie's belt, lowered his shoulders, took a deep breath, and firmly assumed a horse stance. With a loud shout, he was about to lift him up and throw him onto the coffin chamber.

The fat man's move was too sudden. Wu Xiaoxie was not prepared. He only felt a tightness in his crotch and flailed his arms wildly to try to maintain his balance. Then he heard a series of cracking sounds as the wooden planks broke.

Before he could react, the fat man's foot pierced through the hole in the wooden floor, causing him to stumble and fall, pulling Wu Xiaoxie down with him.

The moment they fell to the ground, neither of them had time to cover their heads. They raised their elbows forward to shield their faces, tightly covering their mouths and noses, holding their breath and closing their eyes.

In his haste, before he could adjust his position, the fat man's head slammed directly into Wu Xiaoxie's stomach. Wu Xiaoxie groaned in pain, feeling nauseous as if the fat man's head was about to push his internal organs out.

With a loud bang, gray smoke billowed up, and dust flew up like snow.

Zhang Wuxun, who was chasing behind, had not expected this situation at all. His expression changed drastically. He threw out a large, thick waterproof cloth from his space and covered the two of them with it before the dust fell, protecting them.

Wu Xiaoxie felt as if half a century had passed, but the burning pain on his back that he had imagined did not come, nor did any terrifying monsters pounce on them to tear them apart. His elbows, however, were quite sore from the impact.

He wondered to himself if what he had just witnessed was just an illusion. He was about to call out to Fatty when, as soon as he moved, he heard a series of cracking sounds of bones grinding together coming from above.

Wu Xiaoxie was so frightened that he immediately stopped, cursing the damn monster in his heart for being so cunning. It had been so quiet for so long, and now he was doomed. The monster must have already discovered that he and Fatty were still alive.

After a few cracking sounds from the bones, there was silence above my head again.

When Wu Xiaoxie and Fatty fell to the ground, their legs somehow got tangled together, with four legs stacked on top of each other. Tragically, the bottom leg belonged to Wu Xiaoxie.

Having been lying on the ground for so long, Wu Xiaoxie's leg was almost numb from being pressed down. He tried to move it to let the blood flow in, but as soon as he moved a centimeter, he was immediately gripped tightly by the fat man's huge leg.

He felt like he was going to vomit blood, thinking to himself that he was doomed.

After waiting for a while without any attack, they were wondering what was going on when they heard a sigh and a beam of white light shone through the gap onto their faces.

"I said, how long are you two going to hug here?"

"It's only been a few days, and my face has already become this frightening?"

Thank you to [cassieiurte] and other generous donors! Sending love and goodnight~
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(End of this chapter)