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

Chapter 419 The Mandrill Attack
Following Wu Xie's gaze, everyone saw Granny Monkey staring at them with that eerie look, and a chill ran down their spines.

Wu Xie always felt that ever since the Qinling Mountains, he had formed some kind of karmic bond with monkeys.

The fat man muttered to himself, "Maybe my strange constitution will attract strange monkeys too."

Wu Xie rolled his eyes at him, glanced at the time on his watch, and immediately said to everyone, "Hurry up and eat. Tonight, keep your ears perked up while you sleep, and be ready to grab your weapons and fight at any moment."

Everyone immediately responded, and Tie Tuo, patting the knife at his waist, volunteered to keep watch.

Wu Xiaoxie carried his bowl of mutton soup to Granny Monkey, who was squatting under the tree, and secretly put a small white pill into the soup where it couldn't see. The pill dissolved instantly in the water.

He then bent down and brought the soup bowl to Granny Monkey's mouth, saying, "Eat up, I've locked you up all day, let me treat you to a better meal."

Grandma Monkey's mouth watered at the enticing aroma, and she immediately grabbed the bowl and drank it down in one gulp. In a few bites, she devoured the tender mutton in the bowl.

Wu Xie went to take the bowl, and Granny Monkey fiddled with the chain around her neck with her paw, then stared at him intently.

Wu Xie shook his head. "Not now. I'll let you go once we get there."

The old woman monkey narrowed her dim eyes and smashed the bowl.

Nie Xiaoba jumped up and cursed, "You damned old hag, don't be so shameless. Third Master only gave you soup because he's kind-hearted. If it were me, I wouldn't even give you the mud on the soles of my feet."

Granny Monkey bared her teeth and looked coldly at Nie Xiaoba.

"Hey, I have a short temper." Nie Xiaoba immediately rolled up his sleeves, ready to come over and beat him up.

Wu Xie stopped him, advising, "Forget it, there's no need."

A light drizzle falls, a gentle breeze blows; tonight, sleep is inevitable.

There was still an hour before the shift change. Tie Tuo, who was on night watch, yawned, rubbed his eyes, and asked Da Fu next to him for a cigarette. "Any more cigarettes? Give me one. I'm really trying to fall asleep. Why isn't Hou San here yet?"

"It's better if you don't come." Dafu took out a cigarette case from his pocket, shook it, took one for himself, and tossed the case to him with the last one left. "We don't even have a homemade fire gun to shoot birds, just a few fire sticks, machetes, how are we supposed to fight?"

Tie Tuo chuckled, "What are you afraid of? We have their 'hostages' in our hands."

"Didn't you hear what Third Master said? That old hag is no simple character. As long as we keep a close eye on her, those monkeys will be busy killing rats and stealing pots and pans." Tie Tuo hissed, "Hey, how do you say that word?"

As he was speaking, he suddenly caught a glimpse of someone crouching by the fire.

"That's called being afraid to act rashly, you idiot." Dafu lowered his head, covered the lighter with his hand to light a cigarette, and mocked him for being uncultured.

After waiting for a while without receiving a reply, he wondered when the kid had changed his personality. When he turned his head, he found that there was no one beside him.

Dafu paused for a moment, then immediately turned to look around, only to see dazzling firelight and a few tents; the camp was as silent as if it were dead.

"Tieduo! Tieduo! Where did you go to chat, you little bastard? Why don't you make a sound?" Afraid of waking the people in the tent, he called out a few times in a low voice, but there was no response.

"Mai mai pi sa!" He immediately realized something was wrong and hurriedly tried to return to the tent to call Xiao Sanye and the others.

"Young Master, Fatty Master, something's wrong... uh..." He had only taken two steps when he suddenly felt a tightness around his neck, and the words he was about to say got stuck in his throat.

The next moment, he was lifted up from the spot and suspended in the air, the machete in his hand falling into the grass with a soft clatter.

A suffocating panic filled his mind. He desperately kicked and struggled to pull at the vine tied around his neck, but no matter how hard he struggled, the deadly vine only tightened its grip.

Dafu's face had turned from flushed red to pale and purplish-blue. His head was stretched high, his tongue was spasming, and his vision was blurring.

At the critical moment, a flash of cold light pierced the air and severed the vines tied to his head.

Dafu fell from mid-air, collapsed to the ground, clutched his neck and gasped for breath, his body covered in cold sweat.

Immediately afterwards, several whooshing sounds came from the air, and Wu Xie and Fatty rushed out of the tent fully armed, their crossbow bolts shooting incessantly at the surrounding treetops.

A piercing scream tore through the night sky, and several large monkeys fell from the tree with a thud.

The monkeys, hidden in the treetops, were caught off guard by Wu Xie and his companions' ambush. After a harsh shriek, their attack temporarily ceased.

Ghostly figures lurked in the bushes, and huge, leaping black shadows were everywhere.

The fat man took out a signal gun and fired a shot into the sky, instantly illuminating the entire space as if it were daytime.

Wu Xie and the others also saw clearly that on the tree branch directly in front of them, surrounded by a troop of monkeys, stood a giant, one-armed, black-haired monkey that was over two meters tall.

The giant monkey's face was also covered by a hideous, ghostly human-bird face. Its enormous body was three times the size of the other monkeys around it. Its body was covered in coarse black fur like steel needles, with pointed ears and angry eyes, its gaze fixed on everyone present with a sinister look.

Meeting those blood-red, piercing eyes, Nie Xiaoba's lips trembled uncontrollably. "Little...Little Third Master...what...what should we do? It seems we can't win."

Wu Xie cursed under his breath. Damn it, he thought that at most the monkeys that came would be ordinary monkeys. He never expected that the one leading the monkey troop would be a mandrill.

The mountain demon is a kind of ghostly and evil creature in folk legends that makes people tremble with fear. It is more troublesome than a regular rice dumpling and is a very troublesome and terrifying existence.

The Classic of Mountains and Seas describes the mountain demon as a monster with a human face and a monkey's body, whose feet are located where the hands are. It likes to imitate human behavior and the sound it makes when it laughs is very eerie.

Folklore also tells of the mandrill's "great achievements," such as being able to tear a tiger apart with one hand, lift half a mountain with one foot, and live as long as the heavens, and even be resurrected after death.

Of course, this is an exaggeration, but given the enormous size of this mandrill, Wu Xie has no doubt that it could tear apart every living person present if it went berserk.

The mandrill bared its teeth mockingly at them, then reached into the bushes behind it and pulled a blood-soaked man out. It stomped on him, grabbed his arm, and twisted it sharply. The cracking sounds of bones breaking and ligaments snapping were chilling. Then, without a second thought, it tossed him to the ground. Wu Xie stared, then gasped in shock. It was Tie Tuo, the man who had suddenly vanished.

Tie Tuo was dead, lying on the ground like a rag doll. His neck was twisted abnormally, most of his face skin had been peeled off, and his head had been twisted upside down like a pretzel. His eyes had become bloody holes, and his eyeballs were nowhere to be found.

There was a large, dark hole in his stomach, and the flesh around the hole was an abnormal dark blue-black color. His intestines and internal organs were gone.

Perhaps it had been torn out and eaten; Wu Xie noticed some traces of blood remaining in the gaps between the mandrill's bared teeth.

As if sensing Wu Xie's thoughts, the mountain demon gripped the arm in its hand, opened its blood-red maw, tore off a large chunk of flesh from the severed area, and chewed it with relish, as if in a show of defiance.

Suppressed retching sounds came from the side. Even though he had witnessed many times the infighting and killing of each other in the tomb for the treasure, the scene in front of him was still brutal and bloody to the point of being outrageous.

Luo Wenbing, who was forced to get involved, fainted on the spot and lost consciousness.

Looking at the more flickering shadows in the darkness, Wu Xie realized that he and Fatty were probably really going to be in trouble this time.

The fat man gritted his teeth, tightened his grip on the crossbow bolt, and said in a low voice, "Tianzhen, when I shoot this thing in the heart, you run as fast as you can."

Wu Xie thought to himself, "What nonsense are you spouting? Putting aside whether he can escape from the encirclement of hundreds of monkeys, the black iron piece embedded in the mandrill's fur, gleaming coldly, is a natural armor. Even if they shoot it until it smokes, they still can't pierce it with the few small crossbow bolts they have."

Before he could react, the fat man had already rushed forward and fired a crossbow bolt, shouting, "Run!"

The group of men, who had been terrified by the sight of the mandrill eating people, were startled awake by the shout. They immediately grabbed their crossbows and followed the fat man, firing arrows that flew across the night sky.

However, these monkeys were smarter than they had imagined. The fat man's crossbow bolt, which struck the mandrill in the chest, was stopped as expected, producing only a tiny spark.

The other monkeys darted and leaped through the bushes, quickly escaping the limited range of the crossbow bolts. With the branches providing cover, their attacks were completely ineffective, and they had used up many arrows.

Two puffs of white breath shot out from the mandrill's large nostrils, as if expressing disdain for the tiny humans below. Then it raised its single arm and let out a piercing shriek, and the monkey troop behind it cheered and pounced on the camp.

Seeing that the crossbow bolts were ineffective, the fat man and his companions drew the machetes from their waists and decided to fight the monkeys to the death.

Unexpectedly, at that moment, the dozen or so large monkeys at the front suddenly stopped and stared angrily behind them.

Fatty instinctively turned around and saw Wu Xie carrying Granny Monkey, who had been chained and asleep in the tent, with a knife to her neck. The monkeys, hesitant to act, stopped.

Everyone was overjoyed at the sight and immediately retreated to Wu Xie's side.

The mandrill made several strange gurgling sounds from its throat, as if it were asking anxious questions.

Granny Monkey excitedly raised her head to respond, but Wu Xie pressed the blade closer and whispered in her ear, "I know you can understand human speech. Tell your monkey troop to retreat immediately. Also, throw back my man's arm, or I'll send you to meet the King of Hell right now."

Granny Monkey sensed Wu Xie's undisguised murderous intent towards her, and her survival instinct compelled her to immediately let out a few cries similar to those of a baby towards the mountain demon standing in the tree.

The mandrill stared coldly at Wu Xie, as if trying to memorize his face. Then it dropped the arm that had been gnawed to pieces, howled, raised its single hand, pointed its index finger at Granny Monkey, then lowered its wrist and slashed horizontally across its abdomen from right to left, before slashing back, but with its five fingers spread out.

The fat guy and his companions were completely bewildered, whispering among themselves, "What the hell is this big black thing doing? Oh, is it telling Granny Monkey to hurry up and come over, or it'll commit seppuku?"

Wu Xie's expression was somewhat strange at this moment. He stared at the mountain demon with some uncertainty, and saw it impatiently repeat the gesture from before, followed by a gesture of covering its ears.

He then came to his senses and said to the fat man, "It said it would make an exchange, that if we release Granny Monkey, they would immediately retreat."

The fat man frowned in confusion, "How did you know?"

Wu Xie himself found it very unbelievable, "It was using sign language with us."

"What?" The fat man was taken aback, staring at the mandrill for a few moments with a look of disbelief. "These days, even the wild monkeys in the mountains are so damn up-to-date?"

Wu Xie had a vague idea in his mind. He handed the monkey granny in his hand to Fatty to watch over, and then used hand gestures to the mandrill, saying, "I don't believe you."

The mandrill angrily exhaled a puff of white breath, and with a flick of its hand behind it, the monkeys immediately obeyed and retreated. The leaves rustled and whispered, and in an instant, all the monkeys in the surrounding trees vanished without a trace.

The mountain demon then issued an ultimatum to Wu Xie, warning him to release Granny Monkey immediately, promising to forgive any past offenses of humans injuring its subordinates.

Wu Xie had already made up his mind. He gave an OK sign and then said to Fatty, "Let it go."

The fat man disagreed, "No way, this is our only trump card. If we let it go, those monkeys will come back, and we'll both be done for today."

Wu Xie took out a small remote control from his pocket and said to Fatty, and at the same time to Granny Monkey, "I put a miniature time bomb that Mu Yu left for me in the bowl of mutton I gave you at dinner, and Granny Monkey ate it."

"If they dare to come, I'll press the remote control, and any living or dead creature within a ten-meter radius will be blown to smithereens."

Wu Xie admitted that he was gambling. He was gambling on how much the mandrill that could only use sign language actually knew about humans, and the origin of the sign language it was using.

Upon hearing what he had just said, the mandrill became even more anxious and began gesturing frantically, urging the other party to exchange immediately.

Wu Xie nodded, and Fatty pushed Granny Monkey out, while simultaneously pulling a pistol from his waistband and aiming it at the back of Granny Monkey's head.

The old monkey staggered towards the base of the tree. The mandrill completely ignored the human weapons aimed at it, flipped over, hooked its hind legs onto the tree trunk, and hung upside down. It grabbed the old monkey and flipped her back over, then leaped and twirled among the trees without looking back, its figure disappearing into the dense canopy in an instant.

At the same time, the surrounding treetops began to shake violently, and one monkey after another appeared, following the mandrill away.

The group remained vigilant for half an hour, and only relaxed when they confirmed that there were no more traces of monkeys around.

Thank you so much to [Zhang Qijun - Zi Zaiye] for the generous donation! Sending you lots of love!

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(End of this chapter)