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

Chapter 416 Ancient Corpse of Western Sichuan
Xie Yuchen continued, "I have already sent people to verify that Wang Baqiu has indeed suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and is currently hospitalized. He is still in a coma, and if he does not wake up, he will most likely become a vegetable."

"However, the falconer will one day have his eyes pecked out by the falcon. His godson is no simple man."

"As far as I know, Wang Baichuan, Wang Baqiu's godson, played a significant role in Wang Baqiu's hospitalization, and Chen Yaxiang was also involved in it."

The fat man stroked the stubble on his chin. "Is this Chen Yaxiang Wang Ba Qiu's biological daughter?"

"I don't know, but it's very likely that Chen Yaxiang took her mother's surname. Her mother, Ah Hong, was surnamed Chen and was once Chen Pi Asi's subordinate," Xie Yuchen said.

The fat man hissed, "It seems that Chen Yaxiang and Little Turtle are trying to get revenge on Tianzhen for her mother by pulling this stunt."

Wu Xie nodded, thinking of something deeper, "It's not just that. Their goal is definitely not just revenge. In this line of work, people always die. Even if it's to get information about the ancient tomb, they have to swallow their pride and bear this loss."

The fat man gave the group a mocking laugh. "You know, he's a conman, and all he does is worry about is the position of the iron chopsticks instead of how to sell his stuff. Does he really think he can just grab the treasure out of the bin with a few scraps?"

Ma Pan is the fourth tier in the entire tomb raiding industry. Although these people are rich, they have always been suppressed at the bottom of the supply chain and suffered from all kinds of mistreatment. Naturally, they want to change the status quo.

However, they didn't know what tomb raiding was all about. They thought that as long as they had money, they could organize a team, skip the leader Tie Kuaizhi, and take the money directly. That's why they secretly wanted to use revenge to bring down Wu Xie, who had inherited the position of Wu Sanye.

"Those people are keeping an eye on Fatty in Banna, probably still after the Zhang Family Ancient Building." Wu Xie's eyes turned slightly cold, and he scoffed, "They really have a big appetite."

Xie Yuchen pondered for a few seconds, "Do you think that if these people are really after the Zhang Family Ancient Building, there might be other people behind them?"

"It's hard to say, but we have to be careful." Wu Xie's expression was cold. Before heading to Motuo, he had to deal with all the entanglements behind him.

He looked at the fat man and said, "But it's also a good opportunity. We can take advantage of this investigation into the tomb of the Yongning chieftain Wang Zang to divert their attention from Banna and wipe them out in one fell swoop."

Xie Yuchen had the same idea. Fatty knew that Wu Xie already had a plan. The three of them got together to discuss countermeasures and practiced the plan no less than three times until they were sure it was correct.

The next day, Wu Xie and Fatty went to Western Sichuan ahead of time, while Pan Zi stayed at the base camp to support them. Xiao Hua arranged for enough people in Western Sichuan in advance, while continuing to monitor those people openly. Hei Xiazi was a hidden piece they had laid out to ensure their safety.

They arrived at their destination that afternoon, and the fat man, familiar with the area, led them to a small hotel to stay in. That evening, they found a hole-in-the-wall restaurant downstairs for a meal.

In these chaotic little shops, you can find the most gossip and rumors. Most of it is just idle chatter and not very useful, but Wu Xie wants to extract the essence of it.

One strange incident that caught his attention was that not long ago, a herbalist who went deep into the mountains to collect wild medicinal herbs saw something very frightening while spending the night on the mountain.

There were monkeys robbing a tomb, and it is said that it was a very large monkey that directed its troop of monkeys to dig through the soil in the middle of a pile of dead trees and carry out a wooden coffin. The monkeys then directly lifted the coffin lid and took away something unknown from inside.

There are many different opinions. Some say that the group of wild monkeys went mad and dug up the graves of the dead to eat the corpses. Others say that the monkeys are spiritual and may have discovered something good, such as some ancient corpses that grow strange things called stone lingzhi.

It's called Ganoderma lucidum, but it's actually just that the bones of an ancient corpse get damp and some kind of stone fungus penetrates them, multiplies and expands, making the entire bone grow into a large mushroom ball, and the bone and the fungus together become harder than stone.

This item is quite rare, and its effects are rather mysterious. It's like the black donkey hoof in Taoist magic that can ward off zombies. It's said that if you wear an item made from powdered Ganoderma lucidum and soak it in water, you'll smell like an ancient corpse when you enter an ancient tomb. Even if you encounter a zombie that has become a spirit, it will stay away from you. It can be said to be a very rare and precious item for warding off evil.

Wu Xie remembered seeing that thing once when he was very young, in his third uncle's possession. It was made from the hardest part of the center of a stone lingzhi mushroom, and it was as big as a sheep's eyeball. One of them was worth hundreds of thousands of yuan. It was very valuable.

No one can say for sure what the monkey took, so let's leave that aside for now. It's just that some curious people went into the mountains to look and found that the place where the coffin was originally placed had become a bottomless pit.

By evening, the people Xiaohua had arranged for were in place. There were four or five people, and the leader of them was called Nie Xiaoba. Yes, he was the same guy who slaughtered pigs in the Four Sisters Cave.

After Fatty was dragged back to the capital by the monkey, Xiao Hua sent them to western Sichuan to investigate. Naturally, they had heard about the monkey tomb raiding and had already gone to the place to investigate and prepared the equipment for the tomb raiding.

Monkeys raiding tombs is a strange thing, but it's a true story.

Nie Xiaoba said, "Third Master, our people have found that place and confirmed that the coffin was washed into the deep pit by the rain. Below it is a wooden tower building that has been soaked beyond recognition."

Wu Xie asked him, "Is there anything special about the coffin?"

“I went down to check, and the coffin was indeed empty. The body inside was nowhere to be found. It may have been eaten by monkeys or some other wild animal, or it may have been dragged to another place.”

Nie Xiaoba showed him the photos she took after going down, "Here, Third Master, take a look. I just felt that the coffin itself was a bit strange."

As soon as Wu Xie saw the photo, he knew that they had stumbled upon the right place by accident.

The empty wooden coffin itself wasn't very big; it was a narrow coffin with thin walls, so brittle that it would shatter immediately if a fat man sat on it.

Logically speaking, this should be a poor family's coffin, but Wu Xie still recognized at a glance that the pattern on the inner wall of the coffin was an ancient picture.

People outside this line of work might not be able to tell, but Wu Xie and his friends have seen far too many coffins to notice whether the door opens smoothly or whether the coffin lid is straight.

The photos are fairly clear. The patterns on the inner wall of the coffin are exquisite and have a strong ethnic minority flavor. They are not something that ordinary people could use; they are patterns and totems that were bestowed upon chieftain families by the emperor.

And what is most noteworthy is that at the center of those intricate patterns, there is a scorpion sitting on a nine-petaled lotus.

The fat man exclaimed "Oh!" and laughed, "Damn, we've met the ferryman while crossing the river! We've come at just the right time. This little shabby coffin has come out at the perfect moment."

Wu Xie smiled and said, "We need to speed things up. The news about the monkey tomb raiding is spreading like wildfire. People in the know will definitely notice something fishy going on. Whether it's an ancient tomb or not, they'll all come and take a look."

Nie Xiaoba asked, "Should we have someone lock down the news?"

"No need for now," Wu Xie said to everyone. "Make the most of the time to rest tonight, and go straight into the dungeon tomorrow morning." Everyone agreed and quickly dispersed, leaving the night watchmen in the car outside the hotel.

Back in his room, Wu Xie called Xiao Hua to tell her about what was happening there, asking, "How's it going on your end? Have they made any moves?"

Xie Yuchen replied, "The news from both the capital and Changsha is still being suppressed for the time being. Those people have made some moves. After all, you and Fatty left suddenly, so they will definitely react. However, before the news is confirmed, they choose to remain still."

"That's good." Wu Xie nodded. "Once Fatty and I have figured out what's going on here, we'll proceed according to plan."

After the brief call ended, the fat man brought over two bowls of noodles with double peppers and minced meat sauce, and gave him one bowl, saying, "Have some, Nie Xiaoba has made a new discovery."

"What did Nie Xiaoba find?" Wu Xie stirred the topping with his chopsticks and saw that the chili soy sauce in Fatty's bowl was frighteningly red. He immediately felt a pain in his stomach. "Eat less spicy food, or you'll get a stomachache."

The fat man slurped down his noodles, mumbling, "No way. If you ask me, this little bit of spice is just an appetizer. The spicy pork intestines I had last time, that was really flavorful. It was like breathing fire in my mouth."

Wu Xie himself can't handle spicy food very well, but luckily Fatty knew he preferred mild flavors, so he only added a small spoonful of chili peppers to the noodles he made for him. Even so, after he finished eating, his lips felt numb and tingly when he wiped them.

"Those guys went out for some cold noodles and stumbled upon a place exhibiting a female corpse." The fat man, shirtless, was sweating as he ate.

"They sneaked in and found that there were indeed many ancient corpses inside, and one of them was very likely the one that the monkeys on the mountain had lost during their tomb raiding."

"Really?" This was an unexpected surprise. Wu Xie immediately lost his desire to sleep, walked to the door to change his shoes, and urged Fatty to finish eating quickly, "Hurry up and eat, then we'll go check out the situation."

"What's the rush? Those guys are quick-witted. They just told me they've already got the shop owner under control."

The fat man quickly finished shaving the remaining dough, grabbed his short-sleeved shirt, and fanned himself as he walked.

The two soon arrived at a place that resembled a hair salon, with many strings of lights wrapped around the triangular pillar sign, dazzling the eyes.

Perhaps to create a spooky atmosphere, the advertisement for the "Millennial Female Corpse Exhibition" had two red light bulbs that looked like ghost eyes behind the words "female corpse," making it both eerie and comical.

Two men were squatting on the curb. When they saw Wu Xie and his companion coming over, they came up to them and said, "Young Master, we've caught the man. He's in the house. There's also an old monkey named San'er in a cage in the backyard. He looks like a human."

The fat man chuckled and joked, "You've probably watched a lot of police and gangster movies."

The waiter was surprised, "Hey, Fatty, how did you know?"

"That's quite impressive execution," the fat man praised, mimicking his Sichuan accent.

Upon entering the room, you'll see a sign on the counter that reads "Monkey Head, Snake Body".

The fat man muttered, "Isn't it supposed to be a thousand-year-old beautiful corpse? This boss is so blind, he can't tell if it's a human or a ghost."

The storefront in front was shabby, and the dim yellow light bulbs inside made it feel gloomy; even two or three people standing there felt like they couldn't breathe properly.

Walk around the counter to the back, and you'll see more than a dozen mummies displayed in glass cases. Each one looks like a screaming figure in a Munch abstract painting, with a pursed mouth.

Wu Xie shone his flashlight over the area and identified several corpses that were from the dry, unclaimed graves in the desert, completely withered and devoid of moisture.

The air in this place is humid, and in order to preserve the body for a long time, a lot of clumps of soda lime were placed around the mummified body.

Among them were four corpses of commoner women from the Qing Dynasty, dressed in loose cotton and linen clothes whose colors had oxidized and were no longer visible. Women at that time were not tall, and their bound feet were deformed.

Soon, Wu Xie reached the end of the glass display case and his gaze stopped. The fat man next to him also hissed and gasped. This ancient corpse looked extremely unusual.

Indeed, as the store sign says, this is an ancient monkey-snake corpse. It is made up of the upper half of a human corpse that looks like a monkey and the lower half of a large snake, which are forcibly connected together. You can see obvious splicing marks at the waist. After all, a python as thick as a human waist is very rare.

The ancient corpse had an alarming amount of facial hair, a very small head, and a very abnormal proportion compared to its body. It looked like a normal person's face had been turned upside down, narrow at the top and wide at the bottom. There was a deep indentation in the forehead, and the frontal bone looked like a triangular hole had been gouged out.

The corpse was posed like a monkey with its arms folded up, with bones protruding beneath the shriveled skin. Furthermore, the corpse had been carefully prepared before being placed in the coffin, with bamboo strips woven under the skin to create many ridges that supported the shape of the body, preventing it from appearing particularly shrunken and dry after dehydration.

The fat man crouched down under the glass cabinet, tilted his head to look inside, and after seeing something, turned to Wu Xie and made two "piu piu" sounds, "Tianzhen, come and look at this."

Wu Xie squatted down as well. Fatty swung his flashlight and pointed the beam at a large area exposed by the tattered clothes on the side of the ancient corpse. Through that tear, one could see many black and red interwoven patterns.

Because of its dry, shriveled skin, it looks like twisted, gnarled tree bark, densely packed together.

These totems are extremely complex and are definitely something that only the high-ranking members of the ancient ethnic minorities here possess. Only their shamans and priests are qualified to have such large-scale patterns tattooed on their robes.

Wu Xie and Fatty exchanged a glance, already having a general idea of ​​what was going on, and immediately got up and walked towards the backyard.

Two other workers were standing in the backyard. Nie Xiaoba was squatting in front of a large iron cage, holding a bamboo pole with a few apple slices stuck in one end, teasing the long-haired monkey in the cage.

The owner of the ancient corpse shop, his face bruised and swollen, lay slumped to one side, his eyelids twitching incessantly, clearly faking unconsciousness.

Wu Xie walked up to him, hands in his pockets, and said coldly, "Slap him across the face to wake him up. I have questions for you."

Goodnight, Makka Pakka

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(End of this chapter)