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

Chapter 502 Team Building in the Underworld
They were currently inside the mountain, with a lava pool nearby. The temperature here was high enough that Wu Xie and Fatty's wet clothes would dry on their own in no time, making starting a fire unnecessary.

The chains above were still swaying. Zhang Wuxun lit a lantern and looked up.

Two people were still standing on the bronze lock bridge in mid-air. They were Zhang Haixing and Feng, who had left earlier in Wu Xie's illusion. In reality, they were also trapped on the bridge.

Zhang Haixing and Feng were both skilled in martial arts, but the longer they confronted the monsters in the illusion, the longer they would be trapped inside.

Everything here is a mechanism for constructing an illusion. The illusion is integrated with their surroundings. Based on one's own state of mind, one continuously adds the things that one is most obsessed with and most afraid of on top of the shallowest layer of memory.

Whether it's family affection, friendship, hatred, joy, or money and wealth, anything belonging to the seven emotions and six desires is considered desire. The deeper one's desires, the easier it is to fall into a deeper illusion. Only by breaking free from the cocoon that binds them and putting themselves in a life-or-death situation can they survive.

When Zhang Wuxun first entered this place a year ago, he was also trapped in the illusion without realizing it. His obsession was too deep and too numerous, and he was trapped for a long time because of it.

However, even if he hopes for something to be done by himself, he will eventually become suspicious because the whole thing ends too perfectly. Once he has doubts, it is not difficult to find the flaws.

There is always a gap between imagination and reality, sometimes as subtle as a string, sometimes as vast as an insurmountable chasm. If the replicated life is a perfectly presented pastry, then the flaw is like a tiny ant mixed in with the sesame seeds on the surface—harmless, yet enough to make one feel like they have a fishbone stuck in their throat.

De Ren may have already foreseen what he would encounter here, or perhaps those two octagonal bells were specifically entrusted to him by Zhang Menyu to be passed on to him. It is unknown whether the meaning behind this is a reminder to the next successor of the plan, or a father's foresight.

However, the bell that Deren had given to Zhang Wuxun in advance eventually came in handy, and he was finally able to escape from the illusion with the help of that bell.

Zhang Wuxun only used the magic bell to put Wu Xie and the other person to sleep, since they had exhausted too much mental energy in this illusion.

Having just survived a life-or-death ordeal, both of them are physically and mentally exhausted. Letting them rest for a while might cause some memory discrepancies when they wake up. I wonder if we can use this excuse to temporarily cover up the fact that their identities have been exposed.

Thinking of the look in Wu Xie's eyes before he fell asleep, Zhang Wuxun sighed almost imperceptibly.

He wasn't ready to confront Wu Xie and Fatty about the whole thing, especially after he had deliberately made them believe once again that he had really died in the Zhang Family Ancient Building. Faced with this unexpected situation, he inevitably felt a little scared.

He wanted to retreat into his shell and wait until the most dangerous period was over before confessing to them.

Although the possibility was slim given Wu Xie's extraordinary intuition, Zhang Wuxun felt he could live one day at a time as long as they didn't expose him.

Another ten minutes or so passed before Zhang Haixing and Feng finally fell off the chain bridge. Zhang Wuxun waded into the water, knocked them unconscious, and brought them up with him. He left them to dry on the shallows, then silently stared at his watch, counting the seconds.

Zhang Haixing woke up earlier than expected, and in the short time it took Zhang Wuxun to turn his head, she had already sat up.

"Why are you here?" she asked, staring warily at Zhang Wuxun.

Zhang Wuxun glanced at her indifferently and asked, "Is it strange that I'm here?"

Zhang Haixing's expression froze for a moment. She looked around and, upon seeing the octagonal bell on the ground, immediately questioned, "What exactly is going on? Did you prepare an illusion to ambush us here?"

"Stop flattering yourself." Zhang Wuxun sneered without any politeness. "Do you think the Bronze Gate is some park you can just wander into, or a zoo you can visit whenever you want? It seems you've had such a smooth journey that you, a member of the Zhang family, have forgotten even the most basic vigilance."

Zhang Haixing's face flushed red with anger as she retorted, "Then why did you appear at such a convenient time? Don't tell me it's a coincidence. I don't believe in coincidences at all. Also, don't you think you need to explain to us, your collaborators, about your sudden departure from the team?"

Zhang Wu glanced at her side out of the corner of his eye and caught Feng's eyelids closing as if trying to hide her unease. A mocking sneer appeared on his lips. "I don't think I need to explain anything to you. And put away your little schemes. If I really wanted to deal with you, I would have done it already. You're not so naive as to think that because of your relationship with Zhang Haike, I would be kind enough to give you the chance to yell at me."

Zhang Haixing's face instantly turned ashen. She stood up abruptly and took two steps toward him, but when she met Zhang Wuxun's cold and sharp gaze, her keen intuition for danger made her reflexively stop in her tracks. Every pore on her body seemed to scream for her to retreat quickly and get away.

Zhang Wuxun smiled knowingly, suppressing the bloodlust he had just deliberately released.

Zhang Haixing knew she had been tricked, but all she could do was clench her fists and forcefully suppress the murderous intent in her heart.

She realized that something had changed about Bai Ci, who had disappeared from the Umbungga Glacier Lake and reappeared before her five days later—a change that was extremely dangerous for her. She had no doubt that once her identity was exposed, the hunting knife tucked into Bai Ci's waistband would be plunged into her neck in the next second.

She absolutely must not fight Bai Ci unless absolutely necessary, not out of fear of death, but because she cannot let her temper ruin the entire operation before achieving her desired goal.

Zhang Haixing turned and walked to the edge of the shallows, squatted on a rock, and scooped up a handful of water to wash her face.

Seeing that Zhang Haixing's attitude had clearly softened considerably, Zhang Wuxun also returned to his expressionless state, leaning against his backpack and continuing to rest with his eyes closed.

Half an hour later, Wu Xie and the others also woke up one after another.

Wu Xie was dazed for a few moments, but instantly snapped back to reality the moment he turned and saw Zhang Wuxun. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but considering Zhang Haixing and Feng beside him, he could only glare angrily at Zhang Wuxun, his eyes clearly saying, "I'll settle the score with you later."

Zhang Wuxun's eyes flickered for a moment, pretending not to understand his meaning, then he silently lowered his head, took out the ping-pong ball-sized magic bell from his pocket, hung it on the dagger, and gently flicked it with his finger to make it ring.

The fat man was snoring when Wu Xie woke him up. He looked at the others, then stared intently at Zhang Wuxun for a while, rubbed his forehead, and muttered, "Get up so fast, is the underworld having team building activities now?"

Wu Xie's speechless expression was really funny.

The fat man coughed lightly, "Just kidding, let's turn the page."

Seeing that Wu Xie's expression was still cold, Fatty asked in bewilderment, "What's wrong with you all? You all have such long faces. Have the Black and White Impermanence really taken your souls?"

Wu Xie tossed him some compressed biscuits and a water pouch, then looked at Zhang Wuxun, his expression already calm.

He asked, "Now that everyone is awake, can you tell me what happened? We seem to be inside a Jade Meteor Cave, but strangely, I don't have any memory of the process I went through when I entered this place."

Zhang Wuxun secretly breathed a sigh of relief, nodded, and said, "That's because you incorporated the things you experienced in reality into the illusion. The reason you saw the ghost snakes and corpse grass outside in the illusion is because you had already seen those things when you entered this place."

"What do you mean?" Wu Xie was still puzzled. "You mean, the illusion here has turned the real scenes in my own memories into illusions?"

“That’s right.” Zhang Wuxun pointed to the bronze chain bridge above and said, “Just like this, it has always existed here.”

After saying that, he took out a signal gun from his backpack, reminded everyone to close their eyes, and then fired a shot into the air, instantly illuminating the dark space as if it were daytime.

Wu Xie and the others opened their eyes only after the strongest burst of white light dissipated. When they saw their surroundings, they were immediately shocked and gasped.

As Wu Xie had said before, the space they were in was entirely composed of a single, massive jade meteorite lava vein, but he initially thought that the meteorite had only formed that jade wall after it fell onto the mountain.

But in fact, the entire empty layer in the middle was formed by meteorite bubbles when the jade meteorite lava cooled down, and finally cooled and solidified into what they see now.

The inner walls of the bubble were covered with all sorts of twisted and coiled patterns, as if a wounded, dark green giant snake had once coiled up here, leaving these celestial-like traces and engravings on the still-warm molten lava as its scales scraped over it.

Although he couldn't understand these natural fire patterns, Wu Xie instinctively felt a strange familiarity with them.

It wasn't that he was familiar with the direction and strange patterns of these fire patterns, but rather that the moment he saw them, he subconsciously thought of the eerie flame patterns on Zhang Wuxun's body that he had seen more than once before.

Why did Muyu suddenly lose control when he was about to get close to the bronze gate? It was at that moment that the tattoos on his body suddenly spread to his face, as if something inside the bronze gate was summoning those fire patterns.

In the video recorded by Muyu, he said that he had voluntarily offered blood sacrifices at the altar in the Qinling Mountains more than once. At that time, when the bronze door was opened, blood on Muyu's body could not be stopped from seeping out of his pores.

Does this mean that something inside the bronze door is controlling the wooden fish's body, forcing him to sacrifice himself?

Thank you to the generous donors [Lost Memories, Not You] and [Book Friend 33021203972560] for their generous donations.
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(End of this chapter)