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

Chapter 388 There are two phoenixes
Several fires were burning inside the house, and Zhang Wuxun felt a bit hot, so he took off his hat.

The young man just stared at his head for a few moments, without showing any surprise on his face.

Zhang Wuxun raised his hand and flicked his slightly longer white hair, then laughed and said, "Aren't you curious?"

"I've met you before," the young man said casually. "You two look very alike."

Zhang Wuxun raised an eyebrow. "Was he also short white hair back then? It seems that this gene was inherited from him."

The scene in the pheromones was too blurry. At that time, he only saw the hood of the cloak fall down, and the clearest thing in his vision was Zhang Menyu's face with red tattoos. He didn't really see what his hair looked like.

The instant noodles were cooked quickly, while Balma was still squatting in the corner, occasionally glancing sideways at them.

Zhang Wuxun glanced at him sideways, scaring him so much that he dared not look again. After that, he ignored him, took out disposable bowls and chopsticks to make noodles for himself and his brother, and added a braised duck leg to each of them.

As the two ate and chatted, Zhang Wu asked the young man, "How did you find your way here?"

The young man ate his noodles slowly and deliberately, and upon hearing this, he only said two words, "Blind man."

Zhang Wuxun was somewhat surprised, "That guy came along too?"

The young man shook his head. "No, he paid for it."

Zhang Wuxun immediately understood what the young man meant, "He still owes you money?"

The young man nodded, finished eating, put down his chopsticks, and got up to look at the corpse next to the fire on the other side.

A gurgling sound came from the corner of the room. Zhang Wuxun raised his eyelids and glanced at Balma, then pulled a new packet of instant noodles from his backpack and tossed it to him, asking, "Do you remember how to cook it?"

Balma nodded somewhat awkwardly. The enticing aroma in the air made his mouth water uncontrollably. Seeing that Zhang Wuxun had also gone to the other side, he carefully moved over.

While unpacking the instant noodles and putting them into the small metal basin, he listened intently to the conversation between the two men.

“One male and one female, both of them are phoenixes.” Zhang Wuxun clicked his tongue. “It seems they take this guy surnamed Ma quite seriously, actually sending out two phoenixes at once.”

Balma's hand froze. Having lived in this area for so many years, he was able to tell at a glance what kind of purpose the other party had in approaching him. He could sense that these two people did not have any obvious malice towards him, but their intentions were definitely not pure.

"How did you know my last name is Ma?" Balma asked.

Zhang Wuxun raised an eyebrow. "Is it hard to spot? To be honest, your disguise skills are really terrible. You don't really know how to hide yourself."

"The fact that those vendors are so hostile to you means that you are very likely an outsider. After your Ma family moved to Nepal, you were actually running an antique business, weren't you?"

That thangka is an imitation painting. The original is the Great White Umbrella Goddess Mandala painted by the King of Nepal. The figures are the same, but the painting method is different. It has a very obvious style of the Kadampa school in the Himalayas of southern Tibet.

Balma was silent for a few seconds, then lowered his head. "Whatever your purpose in coming to me, I have no idea. I have already told you everything I need to say."

Zhang Wuxun and the young man exchanged a glance. "Have you misunderstood something?"

No sooner had he finished speaking than Balma suddenly broke down and roared, "Who the hell are you? What do you want? I've told you everything I know. You've ruined my family. What more do you want?"

"Do you have to force me to my death before you're satisfied? Is that it?" Balma shouted hoarsely, standing up and about to slam his head against the wall. "Fine, come on, kill me! Die, all of you, death will end it all!"

The young man quickly picked up a piece of dry firewood that hadn't yet caught fire and threw it at the back of the man's knee.

Balma fell to his knees with a thud. The leg that had been hit was completely numb, and his back was covered in a cold sweat. He couldn't stand up for a long time and could only limp to the corner of the wall, wrapping his felt coat tightly around himself, as if that would bring him a sense of security.

Zhang Wuxun glanced at him indifferently, pointed to the two corpses of the Wang family members on the ground, and said, "Please make this clear first. These two are the ones who came to kill you. We are here to save you."

Balma, head bowed, clearly didn't believe it. "Haven't you used this trick enough?"

Zhang Wuxun originally had no intention of reopening old wounds, but now it seems that he has no choice but to stab them in the back.

"Those small vendors said that your family's decline was because you offended a noble priest here?"

Balma shuddered, clearly recalling some very unpleasant memories.

When he looked up, he found Zhang Wuxun already standing in front of him. Startled, he frantically backed away, his hands flailing.

Zhang Wuxun was speechless. Wu Xie's face had always been quite approachable, so when did it become so scary? Look how frightened he was.

"Has your family really offended the nobles here? Or is all of this just a fabrication, and offending the nobles is just an excuse to deal with the Ma family?" Zhang Wuxun asked tentatively.

Balma was tense all over, like a weak beast whose claws had been pulled out and which was curled up in a cage.

"I don't know... I really don't know..."

He was incoherent, as if he had suffered a great mental ordeal. He clutched his head in anguish, crying, "I really don't know anything, why won't you let me go..."

Seeing him like this, it was impossible to get any information out of him in a short time.

Zhang Wuxun sighed, scooped the noodles into a disposable bowl, ladled out some soup, and brought it to him. He gave him a brief reminder and then ignored him.

The young man dragged the two bodies to the outside corridor. The snow was getting heavier and heavier, and soon it covered the bodies from head to toe.

Zhang Wuxun, warming himself by the fire, asked him, "When did you arrive in Nepal? Did you find anything in this house?"

"Two days ago," the young man said, "there was nothing wrong with the surface of the house, but there was a deep well in the backyard, and the water inside was frozen, so we couldn't go down."

Earlier, when the Wang family was about to attack Balma, the young man suddenly jumped out of the house window.

"Alright." Zhang Wuxun nodded. "We'll go check out that deep well later."

“There’s nothing inside,” Balma suddenly interjected.

Zhang Wuxun turned to look at him. Perhaps because he had eaten some food from his hometown, Balma's complexion was much better now. "Even if there was anything inside, they must have taken it away long ago," Balma continued.

"What did they do to you back then?" Zhang Wuxun's words were a direct attack.

Balma's breath hitched, and after a long pause, he slowly said, "You two must have come from China after reading my grandfather's memoirs, right?"

Seeing Zhang Wuxun nod, he continued, "Since you have read that memoir, you will know that my Ma family was on the verge of bankruptcy at that time. In order to save my two sons, I lost all the remaining assets, but this did not save my sons' lives."

"Because this was a trap they set for my Ma family from the very beginning, a scam."

Balma slowly recounted that memory, which must have been extremely painful for him, but he still spoke it out, in a manner akin to a deathbed testament.

Bama's original name was Ma Chongshan, and he was the grandson of Ma Pingchuan.

To escape that cursed fate, Ma Pingchuan's youngest son led the rest of his clan to relocate to Nepal.

The youngest son of the Ma family had a good business sense, and with his considerable family fortune, he quickly made progress in the upper class of the area, and his family began to engage in the antique trade.

Although the system here is not suitable for doing business, it is a suitable transit point. The Ma family quickly made a fortune by transferring antiques from the mainland to other places.

One year, Ma Chongshan went to the snowy area and brought back some antiques from Medog in southern Tibet. Afterwards, the priest of the Brahman family extended an invitation to the Ma family to come and visit.

Due to business dealings, the Ma family and this noble priest had a relatively good relationship, and Ma Chongshan's two sons were also very familiar with the priest's family.

But the Ma family never expected that this was a trap set specifically for them. In fact, it could be said that they had been targeted from the moment they arrived in Nepal from the mainland.

While Ma Chongshan was busy doing big business with the Brahman family, his two sons, under the deliberate inducement of someone, one became addicted to opium and the other became a gambler.

Ma Chongshan was often away from home, both domestically and internationally. By the time he found out, it was too late. Both of his sons had been taken hostage, and his family fortune had been almost entirely squandered. He could only hurry to sell off the antiques he had in order to get money to ransom his sons.

In his eagerness to act, and because the Brahmin family had acted as intermediaries, and out of trust in his long-time partner, Ma Chongshan foolishly fell into the trap. Not only did he fail to rescue his son, but he also lost all his family's wealth.

The antiques that Ma Chongshan transited abroad were a mix of genuine and fake. Those foreigners who bought these antiques were just trying to show off their wealth. The work of authenticating these items was done by the Brahmin family. The Brahmin family is the most prestigious noble family in Nepal, and almost no one dares to doubt the authenticity of the goods that come out of their hands.

However, this time a problem arose, and a fatal one at that. The entire batch of goods was seized and confiscated. Not only did Ma Chongshan not get a single penny, but he almost got himself arrested as well.

If he still doesn't realize he's been tricked, then his brain must be completely out of its depth.

Even if he realized it, it was too late. He could only sell the rest of his family property to save himself. Then, he took the last of his family's rare heirlooms and traveled to China, hoping to find someone to appraise it and exchange it for some money to save his life.

In the end, Jin Wantang helped acquire all those rare books. He took the money back to Nepal to help people, while his wife and other family members stayed in China during this time.

Ma Chongshan knew very well that he was likely to never return, but he went anyway, and was then imprisoned by the Brahmin family on some pretext.

During his time in prison, he was interrogated every moment. At first, it was just mental torture; his two sons were tortured to death in front of him. Later, they started to use physical torture on Ma Chongshan, not severe torture, but it was very devastating to his will.

Unfortunately, Ma Chongshan knew nothing about what they asked. Finally, he had no choice but to reveal that when his father brought them to Nepal and built the house, he specially made a deep well called the Dragon King Well in the backyard, which was said to be used to draw dragon energy to ward off evil spirits.

Ma Chongshan didn't know what they had done. Just a month later, he was released from the dark and hopeless prison, having gone almost insane.

He pretended to be crazy and wandered around for a while. Once those people dispelled their suspicions and completely gave up on watching him, he immediately changed his name and tried to find a way to escape.

Without money or legal status, he faced numerous difficulties here and had no way to return to his country. In the end, he could only end up as a homeless man selling antiques on the streets.

When Ma Chongshan returned to the basement that evening, he discovered that the lock on the iron gate had been tampered with.

His past experiences have made him extremely cautious, and he can immediately detect any disturbance.

When Zhang Wuxun appeared at his stall to ask questions, he had already become suspicious. So when he discovered that the dust on the door lock had been wiped off, he immediately realized that those people from back then had come looking for him again.

Because that lock was just for show; the basement iron door could be opened with a simple push.

The burly landlord knew the door lock was broken. Every time he came looking for someone, he would just kick it open, then stand at the door covering his nose and yell at Ma Chongshan inside. The landlord would never stoop so low as to bend down and enter the small, cold basement.

Only unfamiliar strangers would try to pick the lock when they see it, but this would leave marks on the lock. To avoid suspicion, they would naturally wipe off the dust, but this would inadvertently expose their whereabouts.

After listening to Ma Chongshan's account, Zhang Wuxun pondered for a few seconds and asked him, "Did your Ma family bring anything out of that scorpion tomb back then?"

Ma Chongshan shook his head, "Those are things from the previous two generations, I don't know about them."

"When the Ma family hastily left Ma'an, what was the surname of the person who bought the original address of the Ma residence? Do you know that?" Zhang Wuxun asked again.

Ma Chongshan frowned and thought carefully for a long time before finally finding some information from the corners of his childhood memories. "I think I heard my father mention it when I was a child. He was supposedly a rich young man who had returned from studying in Tokyo. I think... I think so. His surname was Wang."

Zhang Wuxun understood immediately, and the young man's expression showed no surprise, clearly indicating that he had already guessed it.

Zhang Wuxun pointed to the corpse under the snow outside the porch and said to Ma Chongshan, "Do you know what the surnames of the two people who tried to kill you were?"

Ma Chongshan was stunned for a moment, then realized something from Zhang Wuxun's words, and his eyes widened. "You mean, they also have the surname Wang!"

His expression suddenly became agitated. He clutched his chest and said urgently, "Weren't those people also surnamed Wang back then? The methods they used to interrogate me in prison were completely different from what Nepalese nobles usually used, so they were also Han Chinese!"

"Why did they do this? What grudge does my Ma family have against them?" Ma Chongshan murmured, seemingly on the verge of collapse again.

"All of this is related to the scorpion-shaped ancient tomb that your Ma family discovered under the burial mound."

Zhang Wuxun left that sentence behind, glanced at the darkening sky outside, and whispered to the young man, "We'll go look at that well again tomorrow morning. There's no rush."

The young man nodded. Although he didn't know how deep the well was, the murky water inside had frozen into ice over time due to the severe cold, making it difficult to go down.

Zhang Wuxun told the young man to stay inside and watch over Ma Chongshan, while he went to the backyard to gather more firewood, preparing to spend the night in the Ma family's house.

Thank you so much to [momoko520] for the generous donation! Sending you lots of love!
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(End of this chapter)