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

Chapter 389 A Small Bombing

The Ma family's backyard used to be planted with many trees, but no one took care of them for years. In winter, the fallen branches and withered leaves were piled up in a mess, and the dry weeds grew taller than a person.

Zhang Wuxun used whatever was available, kicking down two rotten trees as thick as bowls, breaking them into large pieces with an axe outside, and then chopping them into smaller pieces inside.

Knowing that the two men had no intention of killing him, Ma Chongshan grew bolder and offered to help chop firewood.

Zhang Wuxun gave him the axe and went out to buy some food.

With this guy watching over things, Ma Chongshan won't be able to create any demons.

Zhang Wuxun went out and bought half a chopped-up fat sheep with peace of mind. When he returned to the Ma family, the young man had already started the fire and set up the pot.

Although the Ma family's house is abandoned, the old kitchen is still there, and the chimney can still emit smoke.

Ma Chongshan huffed and puffed as he carried everything upstairs to the kitchen, then stood awkwardly to the side, trying to help.

Zhang Wuxun found him a nuisance and tossed him a bar of soap to send him away, saying, "Go, shave that beard off your face. It's not just ugly, it's practically covering your eyes."

Seeing Zhang Wuxun and the other person looking clean and tidy, Ma Chongshan felt embarrassed. He took a basin of hot water that had been boiled in the kitchen and hurried off to shave and wash his face.

The young man stood by the window with his arms crossed, staring intently at the yard behind him, carefully observing something.

Zhang Wuxun cut the meat and put it into the pot to blanch it, skimming off the blood foam that came out during the cooking process. Then he added the scallion, ginger, and sesame seasoning packet that Fatty had made in his spare time, along with some astragalus, angelica, and codonopsis. He then covered the pot and cooked it over high heat.

Then she walked to the window, looked down, observed the layout of the houses and rockery in the courtyard, her eyes flickered slightly, and asked the young man, "Did you notice anything?"

The young man said calmly, "It is indeed a feng shui arrangement, but it's not for warding off evil spirits, but rather for trapping them."

Zhang Wuxun stroked his chin thoughtfully. "It seems that what's down there is indeed quite ferocious. Hey, buddy, how did you deal with the things in that ancient tomb back then?"

Logically speaking, if the young man had personally dealt with the situation, the things below would definitely have been cleaned up. But it seems that something from that eerie ancient tomb may have followed the Ma family here.

The Ma family eventually managed to trap the thing under the old well in their backyard.

Thinking of what Jin Wantang said, that the corpses of the dead people and horses had all turned into white bones face down, it was indeed very strange.

Was the thing under that scorpion tomb some kind of obsessive-compulsive noodle-slicing demon? Slicing bones, removing flesh, and peeling skin—well, I must say, its skills were quite good.

The young man remained silent for a while. Only after Zhang Wu went to stir the mutton in the pot and returned did he speak, "It's different."

"Huh?" Zhang Wuxun asked, puzzled. "What's different? You mean the danger you faced back then wasn't the same kind of danger the Ma family faced?"

The young man nodded, "At that time, the other children from the Zhang family were only injured in relatively shallow areas, and their blood could save them."

Zhang Wuxun hissed inwardly, "What will the Ma family encounter? There must be some secret hidden beneath the ruins of the ancient city of Sizhou."

The young man then turned his head to look at him, his eyes filled with complex emotions.

Zhang Wuxun was stunned for a moment, "How come..."

“Don’t delve into these things,” the young man said. “I’ve placed the bell behind that door. You can take it out and use it to accomplish what you want.”

Zhang Wuxun opened his mouth, but remained silent for a moment. After a while, he mumbled an "oh," and then said, "Then... when it's time, we'll come and pick you up?"

The young man's eyes regained their usual extreme indifference, and he remained silent.

Zhang Wuxun didn't know what he was thinking, or perhaps he did, but he still stubbornly stared at him.

"I won't forget." Zhang Wuxun pursed his lips, his voice very soft, as if he were talking to his brother, or as if he were talking to himself.

"We'll come together to take you home."

The young man finally reacted. He turned around and stared intently at Zhang Wuxun, a hint of doubt and confusion in his eyes, as if asking, "Why are you making a promise on behalf of someone else?"

Zhang Wuxun smiled faintly, "You understand Wu Xie, you understand Fatty, and you understand me. Just like Wu Xie, even if you knock him out, he will still stubbornly follow you when he wakes up. He knows the route and has a good memory. With his stubbornness, if you don't take care of him, he will die on the snow mountain."

The young man remained silent, clearly aware of Wu Xie's personality.

"Fatty... Fatty is a type of person I've rarely met before. He's reliable yet unreliable, impulsive yet meticulous. You can find many contradictions in him, but one thing is certain: unless Wu Xie says he'll give up first, he won't give up."

The young man looked up at the snowflakes falling gently in the night outside the window and said softly, "There's no need."

The chaotic wind and snow howled and pounded against the window, and a few wisps of wind seeped in through the cracks in the fallen glass. The withered trees and grasses howled mournfully in the wind.

"You can refuse this promise; just consider it an agreement I've made with myself regarding the goals I want to achieve."

Zhang Wuxun lowered his eyelashes and sighed softly, "I need to give myself a destination, so I don't get lost on that long road."

What if we really get lost and can't find our way back?
The mutton soup on the stove was bubbling and its rich aroma was incredibly tempting.

The steam from the pot rose up and filled the space above the entire room, and a layer of condensation covered the windows, quickly obscuring the view of the snow outside.

After Ma Chongshan shaved and washed his face, Zhang Wuxun almost didn't recognize him if his bone structure hadn't changed. Was this the same person?

Seeing Zhang Wuxun staring at him, Ma Chongshan felt a little awkward and touched his face, feeling a chill on his face and a coldness running through his body.

Zhang Wuxun looked him up and down a few times. "Not bad, at least you look somewhat human, just a bit thin."

Ma Chongshan had the appearance of a refined and gentle person. Perhaps because he had suffered too much, he became dejected. In addition, he often went hungry, which made his face look pale and bluish, and his cheeks were somewhat sunken.

Because the other facial features are not very prominent, his cheekbones look a bit awkward when he becomes too thin. However, you can still tell that he was quite handsome when he was young.

Zhang Wuxun sprinkled some salt, cooked it for another five minutes, then took it out of the pot and ladled the meat and broth into a bowl, calling to the two, "Come and eat quickly, finish it while it's hot and get some rest."

Ma Chongshan responded cheerfully and eagerly pulled out a chair.

That night, Ma Chongshan lay in his sleeping bag on the other side of the fire. The warm flames made him feel uneasy, and his expression was somewhat ambiguous under the shadows of the firelight.

After an unknown amount of time, Ma Chongshan heard the two people's breathing gradually become even and shallow, indicating that they had fallen asleep.

He slipped silently out of his sleeping bag, tiptoed to the door, and as soon as he raised his hand, his fingers touched a silk thread, producing a delicate bell-like sound that was particularly noticeable in the quiet room.

He felt a chill run down his spine, and before he could turn around, a hand suddenly landed on his shoulder.

"Where do you want to go?" The icy voice was almost whispering in his ear.

As if being entwined by a venomous snake's tongue, Ma Chongshan felt his hair stand on end. He turned around with difficulty, forcing a stiff smile. "No... I didn't go anywhere. Maybe... maybe I ate too much tonight. My stomach hurts a little. Oh right, I need to go to the toilet."

Zhang Wuxun raised an eyebrow playfully, "So it doesn't hurt anymore?"

Ma Chongshan nodded tremblingly, "It's alright, it's all alright now."

"Oh, then let's go back."

Zhang Wuxun turned around and walked back, giving the young man who had also sat up a wink; the two understood each other without saying a word.

Ma Chongshan shrank back into his sleeping bag, covered his head, and silently thought, "Let's take it one step at a time."

"These two people are too dangerous. If it really comes to a last resort, we can't let these special people die here."

Nothing happened that night. The next day, Zhang Wuxun and the other man dragged Ma Chongshan to the ancient well.

The ancient well was built in the very center of the garden and was completely covered by artificial hills and weeds. The young man only cleared the bushes within a two-meter radius around the well.

The well is not an ordinary round well. Looking down from above, it resembles the structure of the Seven Stars Top in a mausoleum. Originally, there was a two- or three-hundred-pound stone slab with a coiled dragon on top.

However, before that, someone had used explosives to blast open the crack, creating an inverted triangular opening along with the exposed outer edge of the well wall, just big enough for one person to enter.

The young man, carrying a light, skillfully crawled into the gap and quickly climbed down five or six meters along the thick iron chain hanging inside the well wall. After stopping, he shone a light above him.

Zhang Wuxun glanced at Ma Chongshan, who was cowering on the side, and gave a sinister smile. "Are you going down by yourself, or should I escort you down?"

Ma Chongshan looked visibly resistant. "There's really nothing down there. Those people must have taken everything long ago."

Zhang Wuxun's smile grew even more amiable. "Really?"

Ma Chongshan nodded repeatedly, then felt a chill on his neck as a gleaming hunting knife was placed next to his ear.

“I don’t believe it.” Zhang Wuxun’s eyes gradually turned cold. “If the things below were really taken away, why would they travel thousands of miles to hunt you down at this critical moment? I know the Wang family’s way of doing things very well; their motto is to never give up until they achieve their goal.”

Ma Chongshan's eyelids twitched violently, and he seemed to feel a stinging pain on the side of his neck. He could only grit his teeth and say, "It's dangerous down there, but I don't know exactly what kind of danger it is."

"Those people who tortured and interrogated you back then, did they never come out of this well alive?" Zhang Wuxun narrowed his eyes. "Judging from how familiar you are with this place, you must have tricked more than one group of people already."

"Or perhaps you yourself weren't released from prison. In fact, you never even entered the Brahmin's prison. As for your so-called family members who stayed in the country, perhaps they're all in this well right now?"

As Zhang Wuxun spoke, Ma Chongshan's eyelids twitched more and more violently. "I don't understand what you're saying. If you don't believe me, you can look at the old wounds on my body. They were all left from when I was in prison."

"That's not necessarily true." Zhang Wuxun didn't believe him at all, because he had received a call from Jin Wantang from afar that morning, and there was no trace of the Ma family in the Jiangsu area.

This guy tried to sneak out last night, I don't know what he was going to do, but it must be related to the ancient well.

His previous statements were full of loopholes, and it seemed like he was trying to distance himself from something. He made himself sound so pitiful in order to gain sympathy and make the audience overlook some suspicious points.

A lie that is half true and half false is more real.

Zhang Wuxun and Xiao Ge have seen all kinds of people. Ma Chongshan's skills are really no match for them. Not to mention Fatty, even Wu Xie can see through his disguise at a glance.

Moreover, and most importantly, almost everyone who has seen Black Flying has died. How could the Wang family possibly leave someone who knows of their existence to roam around outside for so long?

Ma Chongshan was still trying to explain himself, but Zhang Wuxun was impatient to listen to his sophistry. With a flick of his wrist, he knocked him unconscious with the back of his knife, tied him up with a rope, and then stuffed him into the gap. He decided to get the man in first and deal with the rest later.

"Hey bro, catch this." Zhang Wuxun said to the people below, let go of Ma Chongshan and lowered him down, then climbed in himself.

The space below the ancient well was larger than Zhang Wuxun had imagined, with a diameter as large as four truck cabs lined up side by side. The interior of the well walls was constructed of stone bricks, with a total of seven iron chains as thick as an arm hanging down.

At the bottom center of the ancient well, there was another square well nested inside. The young man stood on the edge of the smaller well, while Ma Chongshan lay slumped to one side. All seven chains were inserted into the opening of the smaller well, and the water inside had frozen into turbid ice.

Zhang Wuxun tapped the ice with his knife; it was frozen solid. He needed to find a way to melt it first.

If there really is something below the well, the ice layer inside shouldn't be very thick. Ma Chongshan has been clearing away these ice blocks regularly in winter over the years, so melting the ice shouldn't be difficult.

Zhang Wuxun looked at the young man, "How about we try a small bombing?"

The young man reached out and touched both the inside and outside of the well wall, then nodded, "Okay."

Zhang Wuxun took out a small detonator, chiseled a small pit in the ice surface, and made a directional blast. Then he called to his brother, "Quick, get out of the way!"

The two of them huddled in a corner of the ancient well with Ma Chongshan. They heard a muffled thud, followed by several cracking sounds as the ice shattered.

Zhang Wuxun leaned closer to take a look and saw that the ice layer had only cracked a few very narrow gaps. He muttered, "Looks like the power isn't enough. Let's blast it again."

This time, two small detonators were installed, also for directional blasting.

After the muffled sound of the explosion, the ice in the well was shaken out of the well wall and shattered into pieces. The small well also developed some fine cracks under the force of the directional compression.

Zhang Wuxun and the young man put on gloves and went forward to carry out the shattered ice. They found that the bottom was not very deep, only a little over two meters.

It looks like a huge square water vat, with a dragon-carved stone slab at the bottom, and the gaps where the edges meet are sealed by solidified pine resin.

Zhang Wuxun handed the young man a few tinderboxes, and the two of them started burning them from opposite ends of the stone slab. After more than ten minutes, the pine resin melted, and the stone slab showed signs of loosening.

Zhang Wuxun got up and stepped back to the edge. The young man raised his foot and placed it on the side of the stone slab, then stomped down hard.

With a creak, the stone slab on the side where he was standing began to slowly tilt and flip, and a cloud of black smoke, resembling dust, billowed out from the opening, looking very ominous.

Zhang Wuxun and the young man immediately grabbed the iron chain and climbed out of the small well, retreating to the edge of the ancient well wall outside.

Since they didn't know what the purpose of the black smoke was, Zhang Wuxun still gave the young man a gas mask to wear.

The smoke rose for nearly half an hour, and a thin layer of fine gray-black powder covered the ground outside the well, all of which was coming from under the cracks in the stone slabs.

Thank you so much to [白洛_ac] for the generous donation! Sending you love!

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(End of this chapter)