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

Chapter 493 Natural and man-made disasters
Immediately afterwards, the German sent another coded message out of the mountains, repeating it three times.

Zhang Haike frowned slightly, got up and walked to the side, took the headphones and listened, casually writing down the Morse code he heard on a piece of paper.

“The signal is down, it seems that guy has retreated,” Zhang Haiyuan said.

Zhang Haike nodded and wrote the translated words below the Morse code.

[The advance team failed, the gatekeeper has disappeared, and the people who unraveled the knot are probably already suspicious of me. To avoid uncontrollable changes later, the plan is being moved up. You need to act quickly. I will re-establish contact with you after finding the location of the Zanshen Gate.]
The last few strings of code that followed were a bit strange, and Zhang Haike couldn't decipher them for a while. It seemed that Feng had been alert and changed the pattern of the cipher text while he was typing.

Combining this with the information sent by Feng earlier, it seems that this code represents very important information.

"The gatekeeper has disappeared? The gatekeeper?" Zhang Haiyuan became worried. "Could something have happened to Bai Ci?"

Zhang Haike shook his head. "The incident happened in Kangbaluo. Xin Jun summoned him, and Dan had already rushed back ahead of time, but there has been no news since. I'm afraid the situation there is not optimistic either."

He looked down at the words on the paper and murmured, "I have a feeling that this last line of code is likely related to the sudden disappearance of Kangbaluo and Baici."

-

A calm and uneventful night passed, the broken ice surface was completely frozen, and all was quiet.

Wu Xie stood by the window, eagerly waiting, but Bai Ci still showed no sign of returning.

Zhang Haixing had decided not to wait any longer. She told everyone to pack their gear, took one last look at the map, and said, "Let's go."

We traveled in silence, enjoying breathtaking scenery along the way, like a snow-covered wonderland, with magnificent snow-capped peaks and ridges, resembling a vast expanse of clouds.

Following the route drawn by Wu Xie, they walked continuously, and after rounding several hills, a large valley appeared before them.

Even though they had already anticipated that Khampa might be in trouble, the scene before them was still beyond their expectations.

In fact, they did not see Kangba Luo, but the village did exist; they saw the tops of a few ancient Tibetan-style buildings scattered across the snowfield.

A massive avalanche completely buried this ancient and mysterious tribe in the vast expanse of snow, and the Khampa people slept forever beneath the snow.

Birds cannot fly along the mountain paths, and the sun is obscured by clouds. In the vast expanse of heaven and earth, only monotonous black and white remain, along with the bleak and desolate gray at the boundary between black and white.

"How could this be?" Wu Xie was incredulous.

Feng looked around and suddenly pointed to a particularly conspicuous black rock protruding from the mountainside. He said, "It's an avalanche. There was a super-large avalanche that buried the entire valley underneath."

Wu Xie stared wide-eyed at the black rock that had been completely stripped of its surface. "How could there be such a massive avalanche? It's like all the snow on the mountain was shaken off and spread across this valley."

Feng's eyes flickered, and then he said, "This is a natural disaster. The mountain is getting hot. There must have been some change in the geological structure of that mountain. The mountain is getting hot and melting the snow on it."

"I actually wanted to tell you before that the reason why the lake didn't freeze completely in the freezing cold is because there are volcanic lava pools deep inside the mountains near the lake shore. Miss Zhang also saw the small volcanic well openings blocked by the giant bone statue underwater. There must be more than one similar volcanic well at the bottom of the lake."

Wu Xie muttered to himself, "The original Kangbaluo has become like this. What about Bai Ci? Where did he go?"

“He’s probably already there before us,” the fat man said.

Wu Xie frowned, about to ask him why he said that, when he saw Fatty holding up binoculars, intently looking at the rocks in the distance.

The fat man said, "This land belongs to the Khampa people. If there are survivors of the avalanche, they would definitely know the reasons behind such a huge change inside the mountain better than we do. If Bai Ci has also been here, he would definitely follow in the footsteps of his people. So we also have to go to that place."

"Moreover, I saw many human bones on that mountain, all over the mountainside."

Upon hearing this, Zhang Haixing snatched the binoculars from the fat man's hand and looked in that direction. As she looked, her expression gradually turned grim.

Finally, ignoring the fat man's rambling, she said directly, "That mountain is exactly where the map points to. Let's get there as soon as possible."

The fat man snorted, "Someone like you is a team leader? You don't even know how to check the situation before giving orders randomly. The snow is so loose that you'll fall into a snow hole before you can walk three meters. If you encounter a deep snow hole, it's several stories high. Once you fall in, you'll be gone without a trace. Even if you wanted to fish it out, you wouldn't be able to."

Anger flashed across Zhang Haixing's face. Although the fat man was telling the truth, she secretly held a grudge against him for his repeated defiance.

She was too anxious, and couldn't act up at this crucial moment, but that might not be the case later.

They couldn't proceed down the canyon; the snow there was deeper than anywhere else, burying their feet in the thick layer of snow, making every step difficult. The snow in the canyon simply couldn't support a person's weight.

The fat man tied the rope around his waist and tentatively took a few steps forward. He heard a crunching sound under his feet as large swaths of snow began to fall, revealing huge, bottomless crevices and holes below.

Wu Xie and the other two held onto the suddenly taut rope. Fatty was hanging precariously on the edge of the gap, but they pulled him up with all their might.

The fat man wiped the cold sweat from his forehead with lingering fear and cursed a few times, "See? It's all traps down there. There's no way we can get through directly from here."

Zhang Haixing looked up again at the huge black rock, then glanced at the towering canyon ahead, and said, "It's not that there's no path, it's just a bit difficult. Follow me."

After saying this, Zhang Haixing took the lead and walked towards the root of the canyon on the Black Rock side, and Wu Xie and the others quickly followed.

Zhang Haixing, who was walking at the front, had a rope tied around her waist, with the other end held by Wu Xie and the other two. They carefully slowed their pace and finally reached the edge of the valley. Then, under Zhang Haixing's direction, they took out their mountaineering equipment from their backpacks. Fatty's equipment had been lost in the frozen lake, but since Bai Ci wasn't around, Fatty could use it.

Zhang Haixing led the way, and they climbed up the steep cliffs, their pickaxe nails firmly embedded in the solid ice. After climbing for a while, they began to traverse horizontally toward the mountain peak where their target was located.

The journey was incredibly difficult, and when they were exhausted, they could only try to hang themselves on the ice cliff to rest for a while.

Below them lay a deadly snow pit and ice crevasse; anyone who fell in would be instantly swallowed up. They clung to it with trepidation, not daring to relax for even a moment.

After climbing intermittently for about three hours, as dusk approached, fiery clouds began to slowly gather on the horizon, and they finally reached the foot of the huge black rock mountain.

The mountain is enormous, and from a distance, a huge crack can be seen running across it. This crack was once covered by snow, but now it has finally been revealed to the world.

Standing at the foot of the mountain, even before they got really close, they could already feel a wave of heat hitting them.

The temperature of these geothermal vents was incredibly high. Soon, they were so hot that they took off their outer clothes. The snow on the side of the mountain closest to that mountain had all melted, and there were dripping streams and small waterfalls everywhere.

Wu Xie reached into the stream and tested it. The warm water washed over his skin, and the soreness in his arm muscles seemed to go away with the water. Soon he had an urge to take off his shoes and socks and soak in hot water.

The fat man had already taken off his shoes and stuck his toes into the puddle, exclaiming with pleasure, "This place is practically a natural hot spring! It's so damn comfortable and relaxing!"

He then called to the others, "You guys should take a soak too. You were pulled out of the icy water hole before, and you didn't get a proper chance to wipe your bodies with hot water. You might end up with health problems later. Don't miss this opportunity to get rid of the cold that has seeped into your bodies."

Although Wu Xie also had the idea of ​​lying down and taking a bath, that wasn't the important thing right now.

He turned to Zhang Haixing and said, "Let's find a place to camp here tonight. It's getting late. There are so many bones up there. We don't know what dangers are on this Black Mountain. According to the map, we'll probably have to go into that dark crevice. It's unwise to rush on now."

Zhang Haixing had also considered this point, so she waved to signal everyone to set up camp, and then said to Wu Xie, "Come with me, let's go ahead and scout the way first."

Wu Xie had no objections. He gave Fatty a few instructions, and then he and Zhang Haixing continued forward with only some simple equipment. After passing through the cold and hot areas with a lot of hanging ice, they finally climbed up the bare rock mountain.

By the time we got here, the rocks we were climbing were getting hot to the touch, as if they had been sprayed with a scorching firearm.

"It looks like there really is a volcano down there, and it's an active volcano that recently showed unusual activity," Wu Xie said worriedly. "That crack is bottomless. I wonder if it will go straight through to the volcanic lava below. If that happens, we'll be in danger."

Zhang Haixing's expression wasn't very optimistic either. "Even if it's not a volcano, it's a mountain with particularly rich geothermal activity. There must be lava pools at the foot of the mountain. A sudden geological change heated the mountain from the inside."

"Are you sure the map isn't wrong?" she asked Wu Xie.

Wu Xie said firmly, "There won't be any mistakes. I remember Wang Zanghai once wrote in the Snake-Eyebrow Bronze Fish, 'The hellfire will burn away everything of the one who opens the door, so that Gangri Mountain will not have white hair.' The geothermal heat here is so abundant, and there are lava pools. Doesn't that correspond to that sentence in the Snake-Eyebrow Bronze Fish?"

Even when cooperating with the Zhang family, Wu Xie remained vigilant, so he deliberately changed "Changbai Mountain" in the sentence to "Gangri" in Tibetan, which means snow mountain.

As expected, after hearing his words, Zhang Haixing only frowned slightly, said nothing in rebuttal, and continued climbing.

Wu Xie watched her back as she walked away, remembering what Fatty had once told him about Zhang Haixing pretending to speak the Ga language.

The fat man was tied up at the time, and Zhang Haixing asked him in Tibetan, but the fat man rambled on in the Galai language that he had memorized by rote. Very few people in the world understand this language. The fat man originally planned to just bluff his way through it, but he did not expect that Zhang Haixing would not only not tell others that she did not understand, but also give a well-founded explanation.

Instead of directly stating that she couldn't understand the fat man's nonsense, she pretended to understand and relayed the meaning of the Ga Lai language. Such behavior was already quite suspicious for a member of the Zhang family with impeccable lineage.

In other words, the Zhang Haixing who came with them is problematic, possibly an imposter, and she doesn't want the rest of the Zhang family to know that she doesn't speak Monpa.

Another force disguised itself and infiltrated the Zhang family's ranks. Their purpose was obvious: these treacherous individuals were after the Bronze Gate.

In this way, Wu Xie's previous speculation was correct: the fake Zhang Haixing had replaced the real Zhang Haixing a long time ago. So, who is the real Miss Zhang? Is she the one who appeared in Motuo a year ago with Yueya in her hand?

Assuming she is, then it's very likely she has met with misfortune. But Wu Xie has a vague feeling that there must be some crucial clues here that he hasn't uncovered, or perhaps Zhang Haike and the others are deliberately hiding it from him.

On another note, do Zhang Haike and the others know that their daughter has been replaced?
Wu Xie couldn't help but touch his face. The Zhang family were the masters of disguise and acting; they had the skills to be proud of and the ability to see through everything.

Thinking of this, Wu Xie couldn't help but laugh. Interesting, very interesting.

So it turns out everyone was just putting on an act. This whole charade was truly spectacular. So where will the grand finale be staged?
What are you dawdling about?

Zhang Haixing, who had already walked quite a distance, turned around and called to him impatiently when she saw that he hadn't followed.

Wu Xie tightened the straps around his arms and gripped the rocks with both hands as he continued climbing.

As they climbed up the mountainside, the path was lined with jagged, irregularly shaped black rocks, which ironically made it easier for them to ascend.

They walked up for a while longer, still quite a distance from the crack. The fat man called out to them on the walkie-talkie, telling them not to come down. He and Feng were also walking up.

"The smell of sulfur is getting stronger." Zhang Haixing stood up, gripping a large rock, and looked up through binoculars. "Let's climb a little higher. There's a hot spring pool there, bigger than the one below. We'll camp there tonight."

After climbing for another half hour, we finally arrived at the place. Looking around, there were countless small hot spring vents, constantly gushing out hot water.

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