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

Chapter 430 The Incorruptible Qilin
The mission was unsuccessful from the start; they were injured before they even saw a glimpse of the coffin.

The two treated each other's wounds. The thorns on the fat man's body were easy to remove; they just needed to be pulled out and medicine applied.

The serrations of the big-mouthed flower were fine and dense, and three rows of arc-shaped blood holes appeared neatly on the fat man's shoulder. Although the wounds were deep, they were not large, and the bleeding stopped quickly.

Wu Xie's situation was a bit tricky. His right hand was swollen like a pig's trotter, with some very tiny splinters inside. He had to go to the hospital and use special magnifying instruments to see and remove them. He had no choice but to wrap his hand up like a rice dumpling.

Fortunately, those burrs didn't hurt much when they pricked my palm; they seemed to have some kind of numbing effect, and my palm only felt numb and swollen.

"What do we do now?" Fatty opened a pack of compressed biscuits and handed it to Wu Xie.

"Should we keep going forward? Or should we retreat first and think of a solution later, waiting for the blind man to bring the main force, then we can just use heavy firepower to flatten that thing, or lure those little bastards over and feed them to the big mouth flower."

Wu Xie took a sip of water. "This is the first time I've heard you back out in the tomb."

"What's wrong?" The fat man sensed something was off about his tone.

"The blind man said this trip is like a mission left to me by the wooden fish. Only by leaving here can I go to Motuo," Wu Xie said in a low voice. "He said he brought something out of the desert for me, something that my third uncle left for me, but I'm not qualified to see it yet."

The fat man nearly spat out a mouthful of blood. "Why didn't you tell me about something this dangerous sooner? Are we even brothers anymore?"

Wu Xie said helplessly, "The blind man didn't explain in detail. He only mentioned that the things here might be related to Motuo, so we should do some research beforehand. I just didn't expect it to be so dangerous."

The fat man put himself in the shoes of his father or a relative. If it were his own father or relative who was plotting such a scheme against him, he would definitely stride up and slap that big face twice across the face without hesitation. He would say, "I don't care who it is, I won't stand for it!"

"I really admire you." The fat man patted Wu Xie's shoulder earnestly. "Poor thing, it's not easy to grow up safely like this."

"It's actually quite good that you don't have a mouth." Wu Xie handed him a dead fish eye.

After resting for a while, the two put on their backpacks and continued walking.

This time they were more cautious, but instead of vine-covered steps, they found themselves in a dark cave. The sound of flowing water echoed in their ears, as if all the water flowing from the aerial roots of the giant banyan tree had gathered here.

The air was very humid, and water streaks meandered down the stone walls.

A five- or six-meter-wide underground river appeared ahead, blocking their path.

The flashlight's illumination range was too small, so the fat man fired a signal flare, instantly illuminating the entire space.

Wu Xie covered his eyes and waited quietly for a few seconds until the bright white light dimmed slightly. Then he opened his eyes and looked around. He found that many iron chains were hanging down from the mountain wall in front of him, all the way to the top of their heads. There was a suspension bridge more than a meter wide there.

On either side of the mountain wall stand two rows of slender stone pillars, each about the height of a person, covered with snake-scale-like patterns, and topped with a sphere that appears to be able to rotate.

An iron chain extends from each sphere, connecting it to the suspension bridge above.

"Look over there." Wu Xie pointed to the suspension bridge above. "We need to find a way to lower the suspension bridge so we can cross it. The mechanism might be on these pillars on the side. Let's look carefully."

The fat man was about to say that since it was so troublesome, why not just swim across? It was only a few meters long. But as soon as he opened his mouth, he saw many white, membrane-wrapped, unidentified objects floating in the dark river. They were irregularly shaped, some clump together, others strung together like candied hawthorns, and looked like white worms. Looking around, the entire river was densely packed with these things.

"How come there are so many dead bodies floating in this river?" After seeing what it was, the fat man immediately looked nauseous. "Could all the rivers in this area be connected? Have we been drinking corpse-soaked water for the past ten days or so?"

Wu Xie felt a little nauseous after hearing what Fatty said, but he still comforted Fatty, saying, "It's not a big problem. The water area here is so wide and the waterways are interconnected. Even if you poured a bottle of pesticide into it, it would be diluted away in no time as it floated with the current. The fish and shrimp in the river will be fine."

If it were just a lifeless, unresponsive floating creature, that would be fine; it would only be a little annoying. The two of them had seen countless live zombies, and by being careful to avoid them, they could swim past them smoothly.

But it's clear that these floating objects are more than just rice dumplings.

The things inside those floats seemed to be alive. Those closer to the shore could be seen with reddish-purple blood vessels pulsating inside the thin, translucent membrane, much like the life state of a chick in an egg just days before it hatches.

Wu Xie and his companion exchanged a glance and immediately had a bad feeling.

"Hurry, hurry, you to the left, I to the right, let's make the most of the time."

The two immediately set to work, trying to pull the chains hanging on the stone balls. Finding that the suspension bridge above was responding, they immediately stood on the symmetrical stone pillars on the left and right, and held the stone balls with both hands, rotating them clockwise one by one.

With the clattering of chains, the suspension bridge slowly descended from above. Wu Xie glanced at the river and noticed that the undulations inside the membranes of the dead floating bodies had intensified, as if countless insects were wriggling and about to burst out at any moment.

A layer of fine sweat seeped from Wu Xie's forehead. Finally, he heard a creak, and the chains came to a stop. The suspension bridge was still half a meter away from the river.

But the two couldn't wait any longer. They scrambled onto the suspension bridge as fast as they could and ran across it.

Some insects had already broken out of their eggshells and crawled out into the water, shooting towards the shore like water arrows. They looked like skinned crocodiles, covered in translucent mucus, and immediately climbed up the riverbank.

Seeing this, Wu Xie and Fatty didn't dare to delay any longer and immediately took off running into the depths of the cave behind them.

Fortunately, the creature slowed down after coming ashore, and its crawling movements were very clumsy, with each of its four legs moving independently. Wu Xie and his companion took this opportunity to quickly escape from the vicinity of the underground river.

Unfortunately, there is also an underground river in the cave behind, winding all the way to a deeper part, where there is a huge spoon-shaped lake. Many bioluminescent algae float in the lake, spreading out in large swathes on the surface of the water. Soft, delicate tentacles sway on the surface of the water, glowing with a blue light, as if a galaxy has been sprinkled here, which is very dreamy and beautiful.

At the end of the spoon handle was a high platform made of piled stones, and they could see at a glance the bronze coffin placed on the coffin bed on the platform.

Strangely, all the totem patterns on the coffin were red, as if someone had been continuously watering it with blood for hundreds of years, which is why the color was so vibrant.

The fat man looked left and right, dipped his entrenching tool into the water and stirred it up. He picked up a bit of algae and examined it. He figured it was just ordinary bioluminescent algae, so he tentatively touched it with his finger. The tentacles instantly curled up into the shape of a flower bud, just like a mimosa.

"Naive, those rafts don't seem to have swum over here yet. Let's hurry up and swim over there quickly," the fat man said.

Although the Noctiluca scintillans itself does not contain toxins, if the density is too high, it can clog the respiratory gills of nearby aquatic organisms, causing them to lack oxygen. This may be why those insects dare not come here. Wu Xie nodded, took off his shoes and tied them to his backpack. Their backpacks were made of waterproof material, and in the water, they were like life jackets. The two of them paddled vigorously, like little elves swimming in a starry sea in a pale blue light, and soon swam to the edge of the high platform.

A swarm of insects had already caught up with us, but because of the blue lake, they only lingered on the shore.

"Naive, there seems to be something else underwater." The fat man climbed the steps and gasped for breath.

Wu Xie brushed aside the blue algae in front of him and discovered that there was another stone door beneath the platform. This was a hidden tomb with two layers, meaning there was another layer underneath where a coffin could be placed.

"Naive, which coffin do you think the Gu King is in?" the fat man asked.

Wu Xie hesitated for a moment, "I'm not sure, let's open them all and take a look."

The burial layout here is too chaotic, seemingly just a random piling up of many elements, and there is a lack of murals that clearly reflect the situation here. All the burial logic he knew before does not apply here.

Wu Xie took out his tools and was about to start when Fatty stopped him, saying, "Wait a minute, let Fatty take some precautions first."

The fat man turned around and started rummaging through the two men's backpacks. Wu Xie asked him what he was looking for.

"Find a candle," the fat man said. "Your constitution is too strange. Little Zhang and Old Zhang aren't around, and there's no one to back us up. I'm a little panicked. Let's follow our Northern School of Tomb Raiders' method first: people light the candle, ghosts blow it out, and when the rooster crows, the candle goes out and we can't raid the tomb. I need to light it first."

Wu Xie thought about it and felt that what Fatty said made a lot of sense, but the problem was that they didn't seem to have brought any candles with them on this trip.

Fatty indeed didn't find any candles. He slapped his thigh in frustration, "What a blunder! I've gotten so used to going into tombs empty-handed that I completely forgot about something so important. And I didn't even bring the donkey hooves!"

"What do we do if we don't have candles?" Wu Xie asked. "How about lighting a cigarette?"

"The smoke flame is too small, let's use flashlights." The fat man took out a hand-cranked generator from his bag and started charging the two flashlights.

"In that movie, whenever those weird things appeared, the light bulbs in the room would flicker. It should be able to work for a while."

Wu Xie didn't quite understand the principles behind the Northern School's actions, but he was desperate and wanted some psychological comfort.

So the two of them took turns snapping away for a while, and the insects on the other side of the lake kept drooling and eyeing them menacingly.

An hour later, both flashlights were fully charged. Fatty used two cans to hold one of them in place and placed it on the southeast corner of the platform. He then lit three incense sticks next to it and, together with Wu Xie, offered a devout prayer to the coffin.

The fat man clasped his hands together, gripping the tomb raiding talisman hanging around his neck, and muttered incantations.

Wu Xie leaned closer to listen and heard him muttering, "Grandpa in the coffin, please forgive me. I have elderly parents and young children to support, and I'm doing alright. It's truly my fault for disturbing your peaceful rest today. The young man with the tender face next to me is my brother. We're here for another brother. Well, when a brother is in trouble, I'll go to great lengths for him. I hope you'll forgive me, senior. Hurry, hurry, as the law commands! Piu piu, crush you, you big zombie..."

Wu Xie: "..."

"What the hell is the point of all this nonsense?" He increasingly felt that the fat man's crazy idea was unreliable.

The fat man said ambiguously, "It should, maybe it might work. If all else fails, we can use a tripwire to stop it."

Wu Xie was speechless, truly believing your lies.

If it's a blessing, it's not a curse; if it's a curse, then let's do it!
The lid of the bronze coffin was unusually heavy; it took the two men, Fatty and Evil, a long time to pry and push it open.

But what lay inside was not the two-headed, four-armed Gu King they had imagined, but a normal male corpse soaking in light brown water.

The body was wearing a dark blue long gown, and his hair was very long, reaching down to his waist. His face in the water was handsome and lifelike. If it weren't for the fact that he wasn't breathing, one would really think he was just sleeping there.

It was quite obvious from under his long robe that his lower body was not a python.

Wu Xie and Fatty looked at each other in confusion. Fatty then said, "We've got the wrong person. This guy seems to be an outsider."

The half-finished Qilin Blood-Binding Ghost Rope that Fatty insisted on getting was useless, and Wu Xie had just reopened his wound again.

"That's strange. Is this some kind of auspicious burial site? This person is so young, why is he buried here?" The fat man rubbed the stubble on his chin. "Or has that Gu King mutated again?"

Wu Xie shook his head. "No, this is indeed a person, and it might even be a member of the Zhang family."

As he spoke, he put on gloves, put his hand into the coffin water, grasped the corpse's left arm, and showed it to the fat man, "His hand has been taken away."

The fat man was startled and guessed, "This person is also left-handed and has long hair. Could it be Grandpa Fish?"

Then who was the Zhang family member who had previously disguised himself as Luo Wenbing? Could he be one of Muyu's uncles? No, no, the Zhang family member's appearance is extremely deceptive. One look is not enough to tell him how old he is.

Wu Xie pondered for a moment and said, "The style of the clothes this person is wearing is from the Republican era, and the material is Hangluo, a type of silk fabric that was popular at that time. In other words, this Zhang family member was buried here during the Republican era."

"The original contents of this bronze coffin were very likely the original Gu King. The person who buried him took away the hand with the long finger mark."

The fat man started calculating again, counting on his fingers, "This person died during the Republic of China era, but he may not necessarily be a person from that era. The Zhang family is known for its longevity, and their faces are basically set after adulthood, so we can't rule out the possibility that he was a person from the Qing Dynasty."

"Let's check if he has anything on him that can prove his identity," Wu Xie said.

Because the person was a member of the Zhang family, the two of them didn't think to scoop out the preservative solution from the coffin to look at the inscriptions on the coffin wall.

They've worked so hard to maintain their appearance so perfectly; it would be incredibly unethical to ruin it.

Thank you so much [昧袂] for the generous donation! Sending you love!

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(End of this chapter)