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

Chapter 405 The Ghostly Hidden Man
The bell seemed to have a hypnotic effect. The young man's eyes glazed over for a moment, and then a particularly clear bell rang out. He immediately snapped back to reality, his expression changed slightly, and he turned around to gesture to Laba and the other man to cover their ears.

Turning around, they saw that Laba and the other man had somehow buried their heads in the snow, and their chests were no longer showing any signs of breathing.

The young man immediately dug the two out. Logonbu was still alive, but the older Laba had already passed away.

The crisp, fresh air rushed into his lungs. Logomb covered his throat, desperately suppressing a cough, and looked on in horror at the ghostly figures that had already bypassed the snow slope where they were and were heading towards the valley further ahead.

He was both shocked and terrified. His consciousness had just returned from the hallucination, and he didn't have time to see anything clearly. He wasn't even sure if those people were alive or not. Perhaps they were the souls of the dead in the snow-capped mountains.
The cyan light was cold and eerie, drifting away into the darkness and into the depths of the valley.

Just as Logonbu breathed a sigh of relief, he saw the young man get up and follow him.

Logonbu glanced at Laba's pale-faced corpse beside him, and immediately felt a chill. He hurriedly ran back into the cave to grab their belongings and quickly caught up with the young man in front of him.

"Master, what do we do now? They don't seem to be alive," Logonbu said fearfully.

That thing emitting green light was terrifying; it could bewitch people's minds like a demon. He almost fell for it and buried himself in the snow to suffocate.

“They’re alive.” The young man said quickly. “If anyone lives here, they’ll definitely live by the lake. If we follow them, we might find the place we’re looking for.”

Logonbu had nothing to say. He could only follow the young man now. In this desolate and barren snowfield, being alone would be tantamount to courting death.

The area they were in was the ridge of a snow-capped mountain range; they were already at a considerable altitude, on the roof of the world.

The mountains here are completely enveloped by glaciers, with crisscrossing valleys, and in some places the snow is unimaginably deep.

The entire snow-covered area resembles a fierce, black-and-white hilly region, with all the edges of these hills as sharp as knife blades.

Those people walked on the snow at an absurdly fast speed, almost as if they were floating on it. If it weren't for the footprints they left behind, Logomb would have really thought they were flying over the snow like ghosts.

The figures quickly disappeared into the dark shadows of the valley not far away. The young man chased faster and faster, while Luogongbu stumbled and staggered. With each step forward, the deep snow buried his legs, and he could barely keep up with the young man by rolling and crawling.

The chase was difficult for the two. After running for a while, the young man stared at the marks left by the people as they passed by, his brow furrowed slightly. Before Luogongbu could even catch his breath, the young man had already turned around and changed direction, moving through the snow at an even faster speed.

Logomb was going crazy; he was ready to give up on this pursuit where he had no advantage whatsoever.

The young man, who had walked more than ten meters away, suddenly stood up from the snow, made a stepping motion, and his figure rose much higher on the snow surface. Then he waved to him.

Logonbu silently prayed for divine protection, slung the package over his back, and scrambled through the snow with both hands. He finally managed to reach the young man's side, only to be surprised to find that the snow under the young man's feet was only up to his ankles.

Logombu wasn't stupid. He immediately realized what his feet should be under, and then reached into the snow where his footprints had been, and his fingers touched a stone.

He immediately dug away the snow and discovered that there was a stone bridge made of stones and wood buried under the snow, and the young man was standing on the protruding edge of the bridge.

Those mysterious Tibetans must have been walking on such a bridge, which is why they were able to move so swiftly through such thick snow.

The stone bridge was very sturdy; it didn't budge when you stepped on it, and the snow on the bridge surface was up to your knees.

There is a bridge in the snow that leads directly to the snow-capped mountain. Who built it? How long is it? And where does it eventually lead?

The green light in the distance flickered a few more times in the dim light, as if it had reached a bend. The young man quickly chased after the last flicker of the green light.

For more than two hours, the green light moved ahead of them at a fast and steady pace, occasionally disappearing for a moment when it was blocked by the mountains, and then quickly reappearing further ahead, drifting and shimmering like a firefly leisurely in the grass on a summer night.

The stone bridge had no forks in the road; it led straight ahead with a clear destination. Logombu's initial panic gradually subsided, and he thought to himself, "There is always an end."

After that, it was all the same description of snow-capped peaks and mountains. Only on the third day of their pursuit of the green light, following the road through the snow, did they finally arrive at the end of the stone bridge.

There was a huge ice wall, rising abruptly from the ground and soaring into the clouds, like a king's castle in a fairy tale.

Logonbu was startled. He wondered if he had gone mad from the cold. He turned to the young man for confirmation, only to see the young man looking up at the sky.

He glanced over instinctively and realized that the white ice wall actually hung down from a huge, sloping cliff. The snow was constantly melting under the influence of sunlight and cold wind, hanging down from the top of the cliff, and was quickly covered by new snow before it was completely melted.

Over time, a thick layer of turbid ice accumulated at the bottom of the cliff, forming a wall.

The stone bridge ended on this ice wall, but to Logonbu's surprise, all the Tibetans who had been walking in front of them had disappeared.

They seemed to have used the "wall-passing technique" from the Five Ghosts Transporting Magic, disappearing into the blurry, opaque ice layer as if by magic.

Logombu tried to pounce on the ice wall to find a clue as to how the people had disappeared, but he missed completely and crashed into the hole behind the ice, feeling dizzy and disoriented.

If he hadn't instinctively covered his head, his neck would have broken from hitting the rock.

The young man then jumped into the ice cave, landed lightly on the ground, lit a tinderbox, walked to Luogongbu's side, and silently watched him.

Logonbu covered his head, leaned against the mountain wall to stand up, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw what appeared to be a person standing beside him in the firelight.

When I met the guy's gaze again, I realized he wasn't looking at me, but at someone behind me, or perhaps some other people.
Logonbu felt a chill run down his spine and instinctively turned his head with a forced smile, assuming that the Tibetans had discovered them and were waiting for them to arrive.

However, when he saw what was in front of him, the smile on his face froze instantly. His mouth opened wide enough to swallow an egg, but it was as if he had been choked, and he couldn't make a sound. One of his hands was still pressed against a pale, ghostly face, and he forgot to pull it back.

Logonbu had experienced countless moments of fear and trepidation along the way, but none of them could compare to the scene before him.

Corpses—countless corpses stood behind Logombu, their grayish pupils wide open, staring intently at him. Logombu rolled his eyes and was about to fall to the ground when, in the last second before he twisted his ankle, he glimpsed a freeze-dried corpse in that direction seemingly giving him a faint smile.

A chill instantly ran from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, and Logonbu shivered, instantly waking up.

This place turned out to be a morgue. Looking around, there were countless corpses behind, all dressed in the same white Tibetan robes, wrapped in ice coffins, and neatly embedded in the walls on both sides.

And importantly, these ice coffins were all buried vertically.

In the feng shui system of Chinese tombs, there are various methods of burial, one of which is "vertical burial". "Vertical burial" is different from ordinary burial methods. In ancient times, the deceased was placed in a standing position in the coffin, and the bones were cleaned. This was called vertical coffin.

According to Lai Buyi's Seventy-Two Burial Methods, "Vertical Burial," also known as "Standing Burial," is a method of burying in a stone wall cave. It is used when a highly auspicious dragon vein runs against the current into a river or lake, but the stone is too large to accommodate it. The coffin is placed in the middle of the stone, between the earth and the ground, for burial. The shape is described as "a moth flying across a horizontal wall."

Under normal circumstances, it is difficult for remains buried on the ground to absorb earth energy. Furthermore, if the coffin is erected, the area exposed to the ground is reduced, making it even more difficult for the earth energy to be absorbed.

If the gathering point of the dragon's energy can be accurately located, the coffin is erected to guide the energy flow. The coffin is usually placed at the source of the dragon vein, where the dragon's energy is most concentrated. Even if it is a feng shui treasure land, it is not an easy thing to make use of it.

In ancient times, this type of burial was not something ordinary people could afford; it was reserved for high-ranking officials and nobles, because it required a truly auspicious and prosperous burial site with a strong dragon vein.

Logonbu was naturally unaware of these things, but the common funeral practices in Tibetan areas included sky burial, water burial, cremation, and earth burial. He had never seen such a large ice burial cemetery before.

It is obviously very strange to bury so many corpses upright here.

After carefully calming his shattered spirits, Logonbu asked the young man weakly, "Master, what... what is going on here? Why are there so many ice coffins?"

And why the hell are all these frozen corpses' eyes open? And to make matters worse, they're all staring right in his direction, as if they'd rehearsed it.

Logonbu felt flustered and moved his feet silently, sneaking behind the young man to use his body as a shield.

Then the dog cautiously poked half its head out, only to find that the eyes of the frozen corpses had automatically blocked the young man, and the moment he poked his head out, they all stared back at him.

Logonbu's heart sank completely. It's all over. Could it be that his posture when he entered the door was too offensive, and all these frozen rice dumplings have their eyes on him?

Damn it, these mummies even know how to discriminate based on who they're dealing with!
The young man examined the corpses in the ice burial hall, then shook his head after a long while. "I don't know."

He was also wondering in his heart why that group had come here, whether it was for a funeral.

Could that green glowing thing be the corpse of a Tibetan?
A chilling wind blew from behind. Seeing that the corpses were just staring at him and not making any real moves, Luogongbu's fear subsided considerably.

Seeing that the young man's attention was focused on the coffins, he turned around to look at the place where he had just fallen in.

There are two semi-circular openings on the ice wall, each more than half a meter in diameter, with several steps below. Logomb just stepped into the hole and tumbled down.

He found it strange that there were no gaps in the ice wall when viewed from the outside. Even if he were as heavy as an elephant, he couldn't possibly break through such a thick layer of ice. The hole really appeared out of nowhere.

The young man walked up the steps and reached out to turn a white, jade-like circular flip door back inside.

It turned out that what Logonbu had just broken open was a mechanism door on the ice. Because the door was the same color as the surrounding ice walls and was covered with a thin layer of ice, it was impossible to tell what it was.

Logombu's actions were truly accidental.

They looked behind them and, just as unbelievable as building a stone bridge on a snow-capped mountain, there was a tunnel that led straight into the mountain. Those people had actually dug through a mountain to bury their ancestors!
This is an unimaginably massive undertaking.

In those days, completing such a massive project was nothing short of a pipe dream, yet someone actually did it.

The clear sound of bells echoed again in the tunnel, as if guiding them to follow.

The two lit a tinderbox and carefully made their way forward through the tunnel strewn with corpses.

The sound of bells continued ahead, ringing out every time they rounded a bend, as if urging them not to stop.

The young man seemed lost in thought, pausing every now and then to bring the tinder close to the ice coffin to examine the corpse inside.

The frozen corpses do not decompose, and their facial features are very clear. There are male and female corpses here, both old and young. Although the corpses are all dressed in Tibetan clothing, the faces of the people in the front part of the ice coffin are closer to those of Han Chinese.

That's even stranger. Why would Han Chinese be buried in such a remote snowy mountain? And what is their relationship with those ghostly Tibetans?
The further they went, the more defined the facial features of the corpses became, and the closer they were to the faces of Tibetans. It was as if they were witnessing a magnificent history of ethnic evolution.

Although these people had died many years ago, and even if their bodies were to jump out, there were sturdy ice coffins to keep them out, Logomb still found it extremely creepy.

He even suspected that every corpse he might have seen in his life, including his previous one, had suddenly appeared here today.

The tunnel was longer than they had imagined. They walked for ages, until their tinderbox was almost burned out, when finally, a glimmer of hope appeared ahead.

Light! There's natural light ahead!
Logonbu was overjoyed. He cautiously approached and touched the ice wall. Sure enough, he could feel that the wall could be moved, and there were small ice shards in the gaps. That's how the Tibetans left.

Logomb gritted his teeth and pushed outward with all his might. The heavy ice door slowly rotated open, and when he peered out, the outside was bright and clear.

It was a huge lake, as black as amber, like a giant gemstone mirror, quietly set in the snowfield in front of us.

(End of this chapter)