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

Chapter 449 A Thousand Years of Mountains and Seas
Someone with such meticulous planning and ability would not make such a basic mistake.

So all of this is just a facade.

The purpose of Bai Ci and the others saying those things was probably just to intimidate him, constantly remind him that time was passing, put mental pressure on him, and make him feel an endless sense of urgency.

What they want to see is not making their own choices; they don't care about the outcome of the choices because the choices themselves are meaningless.

Since the questions themselves are meaningless, what they want to observe must be the reactions of the test takers.

In other words, the process just now was itself an exam.

The reason the fake Wu Xie ran so fast was probably because he had already guessed the purpose of the test.

So that guy was using a different method to deal with the exam, while I was just standing here staring at the heads of people like an idiot.

"Time's up, are you going to choose or not?" Zhang Haixing asked.

"What's with the rush?" Wu Xie glared at her. "Can you stop being so nosy?"

Without further ado, Zhang Haixing immediately untied the handcuffs and pulled him away.

Wu Xie hurriedly grabbed the armrest of the chair and shouted anxiously, "I've chosen! I've already chosen!"

Zhang Haixing stopped what she was doing, stepped back, and looked at him coldly with her arms crossed.

Then Wu Xie rubbed his wrist, which was bound so tightly that it was congested and purple, and poked Zhang Wuxun next to him through the air, saying, "I choose this one. He's the only one here who looks like me the most!"

Everyone was stunned; no one expected Wu Xie to give such an answer in the end.

Zhang Wuxun pursed his lips and tried to hold back, but he couldn't help but burst out laughing.

This seemed to flip a switch, and everyone present looked at each other and burst into laughter.

Even the usually stern Zhang Longban couldn't help but chuckle, his usually serious coffin-like face appearing much gentler.

Wu Xie was completely bewildered by their laughter and said angrily, "What are you laughing at? Am I wrong?"

That's true. Those heads had sallow skin and died like that. None of them resembled him as much as Bai Ci, who was standing right next to him, looking so lifelike.

"To be honest, you're the first person to give such a fresh and unconventional answer." Zhang Wuxun stepped forward and stood in front of Wu Xie, slightly bending his knees and bending over, staring at him with narrowed eyes.

He pointed to the withered, emaciated men with their miserable faces, then to himself, and asked, "How do you think I can be compared to these things?"

"Then tell me, which one should I choose?" Wu Xie said somewhat defiantly. "Anyway, you won't be right no matter which one I choose."

“You’re wrong,” Zhang Haike’s voice came from behind Wu Xie. “There’s always a Wu Xie who’s right, like me.”

Faced with Wu Xie's incredulous gaze, Zhang Haike waved the paper in his hand at him with a mocking expression, then handed it to Zhang Longban, saying, "Why bother impersonating someone else? Remember to be reborn into a better family in your next life."

After reading the contents of the paper, Zhang Longban exchanged a glance with Zhang Haixing and nodded slightly.

Immediately, Zhang Haixing pulled out a dagger from her waistband, walked up to Wu Xie, and had the Zhang family members tie him up again.

As she turned and walked toward the door behind the shelf, she said, "Bring him here. I'm going to cut him up bit by bit with a knife as punishment for toying with us for so long."

The light from outside shone through the open door, and Wu Xie saw a half-person-high stone table covered in bloodstains. A mahogany chopping board was placed on the edge, with bits of bone and flesh still stuck on it.

That was a real slaughterhouse!
Ruined!
Wu Xie's vision went black.

Two members of the Zhang family grabbed him and dragged him through the door without hesitation. He struggled back with his legs, leaving two long marks on the ground with the tips of his shoes.

His arm was held down and wedged into a half-iron ring specially cast and inlaid on the edge of the stone platform, and his head was pressed tightly against the anvil.

The wooden plank, rough and pitted from where bones had been chopped, stung his cheeks. The air in and out of his nostrils was filled with a nauseating, fishy stench, making him feel as if he were submerged in a large jar of chopped meat scraps behind the stone platform.

A cold, silver dagger flashed past his eyes, and a strong, cold hand pressed on the back of his neck. The fingertips gently touched the artery on the side of his neck, as if to soothe him. The voice was deep, "Don't be afraid. I'll start cutting from the spinal cord. You won't feel any pain, just the very first moment."

A chill crept up his spine to the back of his head, and Wu Xie finally couldn't hold back any longer, yelling in despair, "I really am Wu Xie, you've got the wrong person!"

As soon as he finished speaking, he felt a chill on the back of his neck, and something warm flowed down his neck to his chin, gradually gathering into a large, glaring red puddle in his peripheral vision.

Immediately afterwards, he found that he could no longer feel his body at all.

"You've cut off the wrong person..." he managed to squeeze out, his vision gradually darkening.

He vaguely wondered if his head had separated from his body.

He felt incredibly tired, his eyelids could no longer bear the strain, and finally they closed heavily.

Zhang Haike lit a cigarette and walked to the stone platform. He said to Zhang Wuxun, "Stop. He should be real. Don't scare him to death."

Zhang Wuxun grunted in agreement, removed the blocking anesthetic from the midpoint of the posterior border of Wu Xie's sternocleidomastoid muscle, and used a cotton swab dipped in iodine to press on the bleeding needle hole to stop the bleeding.

Zhang Haixing reluctantly put away the large blood pack in her hand, pouting, "You promised this head was for me."

Zhang Wuxun didn't even spare her a glance. He covered the needle cap and threw it, along with the used cotton swab, into the large jar opposite him. "You can talk to me after you can beat me."

"Tch!" Zhang Haixing snorted coldly and turned to wash the pig's blood off her hands.

Zhang Haike pointed at Wu Xie, who was still unconscious and slumped on the stone platform, with the hand holding the cigarette. "Aren't you going to wake him up?"

“He has a fever; his complexion looked a bit off earlier.” Zhang Wuxun took Wu Xie’s arm out of the iron ring and wiped the blood off his neck and chin with a wet towel.

Then, with one hand supporting him, she hoisted him onto her back and walked out, saying, "Let him get some sleep first, we'll talk about it when he wakes up."

Zhang Haike raised an eyebrow and followed behind, saying, "Why don't you pay this much attention to those dozen or twenty counterfeit goods in front of us?"

“You said those were fakes, so we have to be extra careful with the only real one.” Zhang Wuxun went out behind Zhang Longban’s back and greeted him.

When Dan saw Zhang Wuxun carrying someone out, he wanted to take him from him because he knew that Zhang Wuxun had only recently recovered.

Not wanting his actions to be too obvious to certain people, Zhang Wuxun switched Wu Xie to Dan's back. Seeing that Wu Xie's face was burning red, Zhang Longban didn't say anything more.

Two people were left to clean up the scene, while the rest quickly left the basement.

﹉﹉﹉

Wu Xie was awakened by a sliver of sunlight squeezing through the crack in the window. Staring at the familiar wooden beams and ceiling, he was still groggy and somewhat disoriented.

What happened before?
Oh right, he gave the wrong answer, and those people pinned him to the board to cut off his head.

But his head was cut off, and he bled a lot, so how come he's still alive? He can still think and feel hungry.

I caught a whiff of a sweet, milky aroma, and my stomach burned with a burning pain. I was so hungry, so incredibly hungry.

"Awake?" a voice said in his ear. "If you're awake, eat something."

That voice? It sounds familiar.

Wu Xie remembered that the last thing he heard before he lost consciousness was this voice.

Someone lifted the curtains, letting in more warm light and casting a shadow overhead.

Wu Xie's neck ached terribly with every movement, so he turned his eyes to look and discovered that the person was none other than Bai Ci, one of the executioners who had calmly said he was going to cut off his head earlier.

“You…” Wu Xie opened his mouth, his voice hoarse as if sandpaper was rubbing against wood.

Even after being helped to sit up and seeing the IV drip in his hand, Wu Xie was still somewhat dazed. "What happened? Why is my head still here? Didn't you cut it off for me?"

We're not interested in your head.

Another head popped out in front of Wu Xie's eyes. It was the fake Wu Xie, holding a small bowl and slurping his food with relish.

After a two-second pause, Wu Xie finally came to his senses and stared in astonishment. "Us? You're in cahoots with them! You guys set up two traps to get me?"

"Not too stupid, huh?" Zhang Haike hooked his foot on the stool, dragged it over, and sat down on the edge of the bed. He grinned and said, "Let me reintroduce myself. My surname is Zhang, and I'm from the same clan as your friend. My name is Zhang Haike."

Wu Xie saw Zhang Wuxun walking over from the other side carrying a bowl. Faced with these two "fake Wu Xie" faces, he was speechless for a long time.

Perhaps the sight of so many dead heads had given him a severe psychological trauma, and now he feels like vomiting whenever he sees this face.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked.

Zhang Wuxun handed him the cooled porridge bowl, saying, "Have something to eat first, it's not lunchtime yet."

Then he dragged a chair over and sat down, thinking for a moment, "Where should I begin..."

Zhang Haike quickly finished the goat milk porridge in his bowl, put down the bowl, wiped his mouth, and said, "Let me speak first."

“That works too.” Zhang Wuxun readily agreed and nodded.

"The reason your head is still hanging on your neck is because Bai Ci injected an anesthetic into your neck yesterday, and then we sprinkled some pig's blood on the back of your neck," Zhang Haike said.

"That was the final test for you. I believe that people won't lie at that point, and in that state, you wouldn't be able to realize that it was still a setup."

Wu Xie drank the porridge in big gulps, feeling much more comfortable in his stomach. Hearing this, he rolled his eyes and thought to himself, "Damn it, these people are so mean."

Zhang Haike naturally saw through his thoughts from his expression, but he didn't care. He continued, "Over the years, in order to find you, we have secretly resolved countless troubles that you don't know about. The few heads you saw are just the tip of the iceberg. We said we cut off a dozen or twenty 'Wu Xie' heads, and we're not lying to you about that."

Wu Xie glanced at the quiet Zhang Wuxun and asked, "Why are you looking for me?"

“Because you are the only one,” Zhang Haike said. “Perhaps you don’t realize it yourself, but you are the only person in this world who has the potential to save the Zhang family.”

Wu Xie remained silent, not believing him at all. These people were all incredibly powerful, capable of anything, so why would they need a little snack like him to save them?

At this point, Wu Xie had not yet opened the box that Zhang Wuxun had left for him, because Hei Xiazi had taken the box away.

Wu Xie only knew that his two previous generations had been fighting against the tenth family behind the Nine Gates, which was the puppet that caused the incident at the Zhang Family Ancient Building.

He didn't initially connect this matter with the Zhang family's vast clan system. It wasn't until he heard Zhang Haike's words that he realized Hei Xiazi was right. It's not scary to have a powerful enemy; what's scary is that the enemy is not only powerful but also unknown.

The Zhang family's main power had been entrenched in the Northeast region for a considerable period of time, longer than most people could imagine.

Such families actually control many historical events. Many famous people with the surname Zhang throughout history were secretly pawns of the Zhang family, as can be seen from the epitaphs in the family's ancient buildings.

The Zhang family is like an invisible giant net, permeating all the key nodes of society.

Yet this family, having witnessed the rise and fall of countless dynasties, could not even comprehend why such a robust family system would one day crumble.

Starting with the branch of Zhang Dafoye that broke away from the Zhang family, this family gradually began to disintegrate under the influence of new ideas.

Why would a family be eroded by an incomplete system? At first, they couldn't understand it either, until they came across a turning point and realized it was because they had been powerful for too long.

Like bulletproof glass, the center is too indestructible, but the closer to the edges, the more vulnerable it becomes.

The main clan system collapsed very quickly. Although part of it was deliberately manipulated, the ultimate reason was that many young people in the clan longed for so-called true freedom.

The Zhang family is long-lived and has tried almost everything. As a result, many of their young people, under the control of the main clan, have gradually developed a rebellious mentality, hoping to achieve a completely different state.

The only group that remained unaffected by this ideological fervor were the descendants of the Zhang family who had been active in Southeast Asia for many years.

They are the window to the outside world, and also the only branch of the Zhang family outside the absolute conservative system.

This branch, which developed in the extremely free Southeast Asian region, is very well adapted to the global landscape and the collision of various new ideas.

This group remained very stable until the Zhang family collapsed without anyone noticing. They continued to thrive overseas and gradually transformed into a different entity.

Replacement complete
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(End of this chapter)