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

Chapter 385 Evaporated
Who wouldn't get scared in this situation? It's broad daylight, with so many eyes watching. How could a grown child just disappear into thin air?
Turning around again, I found the child had reappeared on the eaves outside the other archway.

Ma Pingchuan was starting to feel uneasy. He secretly gestured to his men, signaling them to come over with him while he went to talk to the child first. If anything seemed amiss, they were to open fire immediately.

But as he got closer, he discovered that the child seemed to be a real person. Not only was he breathing, but he was also sitting on the roof, staring at him without blinking. He looked very fair-skinned and very well-behaved.

Seeing that he was about the same age as his own child, Ma Pingchuan couldn't help but feel happy. "Hey kid, where did you come from?"

The child didn't speak, but simply pointed in a direction.

Ma Pingchuan didn't pay much attention at first, but later he remembered that the child was pointing to the location of his ancestral graves.

He then asked, "Do you know whose house this is? How dare you just barge in?"

This time the child spoke up, “I know where the coffin you’re looking for has gone.”

Ma Pingchuan frowned upon hearing this. He was annoyed by the topic and assumed the child was another arrogant apprentice sent by some ignorant feng shui master. He was somewhat displeased, but still patiently asked, "Where did your parents go? Who taught you to say that?"

The child shook his head and refused to speak again.

Ma Pingchuan couldn't help but wonder what was going on. If this child was really sent to scam money, there would definitely be more tricks up his sleeve.

As a powerful figure, he was naturally not afraid of this and immediately shouted, "Those old men are spouting this nonsense to swindle my money. You little brat, how dare you talk back? Listen to me, hurry up and come down from that roof and explain yourself clearly. I'll get you some sweet cakes."

The child wasn't afraid of him at all and said calmly, "I'm here. You can take any money you want. I'm just here to tell you that I know where the coffin in your family's ancestral grave went."

Ma Pingchuan thought about it and realized that it made sense. His experience told him that the child in front of him was not simple, because when the child spoke to him, the child was completely on equal footing, and even made him feel that the child was looking down on him.

He muttered to himself, "This is ridiculous," but quickly composed himself and said, "Then tell me, where did all the coffins in my Ma family's ancestral graves go?"

"You probably won't believe me if I say this, but why don't you come with me to the cemetery?" The child remained calm.

Ma Pingchuan was stunned for a moment. He looked at the guards beside him, then at the child, and inexplicably felt that he had been provoked by a little brat.

This brat must truly believe he's someone not worth being afraid of, which is why he looks at me like that. I felt a surge of anger and amusement. Who raised this kid? He's got some skills.

He wanted to see what kind of trouble this kid could get up to. He had guards following him the whole time. This whole area was his territory, and he wasn't afraid of being ambushed.

If he really had some ulterior motive, it would be a good opportunity to give his guards some training and, incidentally, establish his authority.

He readily agreed and said to the child, "Okay, it's settled then. Now get down. Can you ride a horse?"

The child didn't speak, but simply flipped down from the roof with the agility of a raccoon. Once he was standing still, he uttered only one word: "Go."

The group rode horses and marched in a grand procession to the vicinity of the cemetery.

The child pointed to the withered fields surrounding the cemetery and said, "Look, what does this withered area look like?"

Ma Pingchuan looked in the direction he was pointing, but their location was not high, and they couldn't see clearly in such a large, withered area.

So he gave a wink to the guard beside him, who jumped off his horse, climbed up a large tree not far away, looked around, and then shouted down, "Boss, it looks like a scorpion."

Upon hearing this, Ma Pingchuan wondered if there was some real reputation inside. He disregarded his image and spurred his horse to the tree. He tightened his belt, took a deep breath, hugged the trunk, gritted his teeth, and climbed up. When he reached the treetop and looked into the distance, his heart skipped a beat.

The outer edge of the area where the crops had withered and died really did resemble a huge, menacing scorpion, and its shape was very neat. If it were really man-made, how could all the crops have withered and died overnight?

Ma Pingchuan immediately slid down from the tree, mounted his horse, and galloped back. His hand was already subtly resting on the pistol at his waist. Suppressing his anger, he asked, "What exactly happened?"

The child glanced at his hand indifferently, his expression unchanged. "Beneath this area lies something very large. The shape you see is just its shadow on the ground."

Ma Pingchuan frowned. "What do you mean? Are you saying that a gigantic scorpion monster emerged from under my ancestors' graves and ate all the coffins?"

How could that be? If there really was such a huge scorpion monster buried underground, there was nothing I could do but grab my weapons and run away.

“No.” The child shook his head, spurred his horse forward, and said to Ma Pingchuan, “This cemetery of yours is built right above an ancient tomb. This scorpion-shaped dead area is the area of ​​that ancient tomb’s underground palace.”

"Recently, some tomb raiders entered this ancient tomb and accidentally triggered the defensive mechanism inside, causing poisonous gas to leak out and kill the crops on the surface."

Ma Pingchuan was puzzled and skeptical, so he asked him, "How do you know so much? Do you have X-ray vision and can see what's going on underground?"

The child glanced at him indifferently, "Because I am that tomb raider."

Ma Pingchuan was furious and almost couldn't resist drawing his gun and riddling the kid with bullets. "So, it was you who did this!"

The guards stopped their horses and surrounded the child.

Ma Pingchuan sneered, "Kid, tell me honestly, where did you and your accomplices put all my coffins?"

What scorpion tomb? Bullshit! The tomb raiders with this kid must have stolen those coffins by some means, and they still dare to come up to him and try to fool him with some ancient tomb.

“I haven’t finished speaking yet.” The child said expressionlessly, “Your family’s coffins weren’t taken away by us, they were eaten. This ancient tomb down there is alive, and all the coffins in the ancestral graves have been eaten.”

"Eaten?" Ma Pingchuan frowned. After thinking about it carefully, he realized that everyone in this area knew the Ma family's reputation. There was no reason why he wouldn't notice any disturbances. If they really wanted to move so many coffins out, there would have been a lot of noise.

He was starting to believe the kid's words. He realized that the child was genuinely serious in his conversation, and he was always at a disadvantage during their exchange. This hero was being completely overwhelmed by the child's aura.

He gripped the gun tightly, trying to regain the initiative. "Tell me, how did an ancient tomb end up eating my coffin?"

"I don't know," the child said, "but I can help you find them."

"How do we find it?" Ma Pingchuan asked. "Where do we look? Do I need to bring people with me to this Scorpion Tomb?"

“No need,” the child said. “If you dig here from where the scorpion pattern is, and dig down forty meters, you’ll find that all the coffins are stuck to the outside of the burial chamber wall of this ancient tomb, as if they were attracted to something.”

Ma Pingchuan thought for a moment, then put away his gun. "You came to see me today to resolve this matter?"

"I'm here to save people," the child said.

"There is something I need to tell you in advance: this area, spanning dozens of miles, will be completely barren in a few months and will not recover within a hundred years. And everyone living in this area will meet a terrible end."

"I have said all I need to say. As the ruler of this region, you surely know what to do."

Ma Pingchuan rubbed his fingers together, feeling anxious. "Let's be frank. What is your purpose?" The child said, "Several of my companions are still trapped in the ancient tomb below. I need you to do three things for me."

The child asked Ma Pingchuan to prepare seven days' worth of dry rations, a six-pound short knife, a lamp wick, and a bag of charcoal powder. He also asked Ma Pingchuan to lead people to dig up the edges of the withered crops, take a five-zhang-long bamboo pole from the wet mud, pour lime into it, and hammer the bamboo pole into the mud, leaving only a finger's width of space, the denser the better.

Ma Pingchuan asked him why he did that.

“We’ve drawn a circle around ourselves and imprisoned it. The thing below is too fierce, so we must trap it here and resolve the issue,” the child said. “This matter arose because of us, so I will definitely resolve it. If I don’t come looking for you again after seven days, please help me send this letter back to my hometown.”

The child took out a sealed letter from his pocket, handed it to Ma Pingchuan, and gave him a few more words of advice.

Ma Pingchuan took the letter and saw that the envelope read "Zhang Family of Northeast China".

"Whose grave is this? Why is it so ominous?"

The child stopped answering his question. “I have already said too much today. Knowing too much will not do you any good. Can you help me by giving me a straight answer?”

After thinking it over, Ma Pingchuan decided to double-cross the child when the time came, and then agreed. That very night, he prepared the things the child wanted.

The child, carrying these items, quickly disappeared into the night.

That very night, Ma Pingchuan arranged for people to watch over the area around the cemetery to prevent the people below from escaping.

The next day, following the child's instructions, the local militia used long bamboo poles filled with lime to surround the entire area, and still sent people to guard the area fifty meters away.

However, after a month of waiting, Ma Pingchuan never saw the child again, and the abandoned fields remained unchanged.

Ma Pingchuan was somewhat unwilling to give up. After waiting for another half month, he ordered the entire cemetery to be dug up to uncover the ancient tombs underneath and see what was inside.

When they dug to a depth of forty meters, they did find the decayed coffin of the Ma family, but they did not see any ancient tomb walls.

Ma Pingchuan was puzzled, so after moving all the coffins away, he ordered his men to continue digging.

However, to everyone's surprise, strange things happened again.

Overnight, after a strong wind, the troops and horses stationed outside the cemetery vanished into thin air, as if they had evaporated from the face of the earth, leaving no trace.

The footprints that were originally on the ground were also erased by the strong wind last night.

Ma Pingchuan couldn't help but wonder if he had been framed by someone. He even investigated the people around him and found a few spies, some minor and some minor. After interrogating them, he discovered that they had nothing to do with this matter at all.

To give his remaining men an explanation, Ma Pingchuan specially hired more than a dozen hunting dogs skilled in tracking to search the camp carefully, trying to find some clues.

Strangely, the hunting dogs did not stay at the camp after they arrived, but went straight towards the graveyard.

Ma Pingchuan hurriedly led his men to follow. When they arrived at the location, they found that the hunting dogs were frantically digging in the soil, panting as they did so, as if something terrifying was buried in the ground.

Something unusual must be going on. Ma Pingchuan gave another order, telling people to take the dogs aside and start digging in those areas.

As they dug, a soldier's pickaxe got stuck on something. When they pulled it out, they found some black, hair-like strands wrapped around it.

Eager to make a contribution, the soldier grabbed the black hair and pulled it up with all his might. The more he pulled, the more he found there was something underneath, incredibly heavy.

The others noticed the anomaly and came to help, but they used too much force and tore the thing below off.

They hurriedly dug into the surrounding soil, only to find a horse's skeleton wrapped in a leather bag.

It was a true skeleton, with not a trace of flesh or blood beneath the skin.

The soldiers were terrified, because they could clearly see that the horse skeleton was still fitted with the Ma family's special saddle and muzzle.

The horse that went missing from the camp last night has reappeared here, in such a bizarre manner.

Ma Pingchuan rushed over after receiving the news, his brows furrowed so deeply they could trap a fly, his mind torn between filling the pit back in and burying it on the spot before leaving, and continuing to dig.

He was unwilling to give up now, but in the current situation, if they continued digging, the morale of the troops would likely waver.

However, the remains must be collected; they cannot be left lying here.

Ma Pingchuan then ordered them to continue digging. A total of nineteen human skeletons and fourteen horse skeletons were unearthed, the exact numbers matching.

What's even stranger is that when these human and horse bones were unearthed, they were all facing down!

Cold sweat began to bead on Ma Pingchuan's forehead. What on earth was it that could devour so many corpses in just one night, and then dispose of them by burying them in the ground?

Could it be true, as the Zhang family child said, that the ancient tomb below is alive?
After eating the corpses of his own ancestors, he even ate his own soldiers!

wrong!

Ma Pingchuan's eyelids suddenly twitched. It was all over. Since that thing could eat so many horses and people outside, did that mean that the child was also eaten by the ferocious creature below when he was dealing with the matter?

Now that he has dug such a deep pit, wouldn't the things in the ancient tomb at the bottom have been released by him?
Upon having this thought, Ma Pingchuan panicked completely and hurriedly ordered his troops to evacuate the area.

Just then, the ground beneath their feet suddenly began to collapse in large areas, and it seemed as if some huge black thing was about to emerge from the loess mud.

At this point, everyone disregarded everything else and scattered in all directions to escape.

Ma Pingchuan's whip broke, but he finally managed to ride his horse to the edge at the last moment.

Those who remained at the edge of the pit quickly lowered the rope and pulled him up.

A deafening roar, like a muffled thunderclap, echoed behind them. Everyone's ears rang, their vision blurred, and Ma Pingchuan's legs buckled, causing him to stumble and fall to the ground.

It took them a long time to recover their senses. When they turned around, they saw rolling yellow earth and surging mud behind them. The large pit they had dug had collapsed into a huge funnel.

The horse that was just beneath him, and those who hadn't managed to escape, had all vanished, completely swallowed up by the current, leaving no trace.

Thank you so much to the generous donor, "人不刀会死" (If I Don't Cleave My Hand, I'll Die)! Sending you love!

(End of this chapter)