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

Chapter 515 Kunmu Panshi
Zhang Wuxun held the two black beads he had pulled out of the clay figure's eyelids, tracing them with his fingertips as if he were pondering something.

Immediately afterwards, Wu Xie watched as he pinched the bead, brought it close to his nose, and sniffed it, his expression somewhat strange.

"?" Wu Xie took the bead that Fatty had just taken out, and imitated him by sniffing it, his face showing surprise.

"This is so strange, it actually smells good."

A very special, indescribable fragrance.

The fragrance is very faint, emanating from the beads little by little; you can't smell it unless you get close.

Strangely, Wu Xie's previously mild hunger was suddenly aroused, and he even had an urge to swallow the bead whole.

This impulsive and resolute action startled even Wu Xie himself. He immediately came to his senses, saw Zhang Wuxun reach out for it, and quickly tossed it to him, explaining his feelings from just now.

"You be careful too."

Although Muyu's willpower was much stronger than his, he couldn't quite imagine the scene of Muyu eating the unknown things dug out of other people's corpses; it was just too damn horrifying.

"Yes, it is indeed the fragrance from these beads."

Zhang Wuxun nodded and explained, "There are three such beads in total. The one I saw before should have been taken out of this person's mouth."

"It's still fragrant in its mouth? It's a tongue-pressing jade." The fat man suddenly became interested and gestured with both hands. "The golden fragrant jade taken out of the ancient corpse's mouth is worth a lot of money."

“It’s neither the Jade Tongue-Pressing Jade nor the Golden Fragrant Jade,” Zhang Wuxun said.

"I only heard the old clan chief mention that there is a kind of mountain god stone called Kunmu Pan. It is said that a long time ago, when offering sacrifices to the mountain god, these beads would be sealed into the seven orifices of the person who was offered the sacrifice. These tiny pores would filter out the impurities on the person's body, leaving only the fragrance of the flesh inside the beads."

The fat man gasped, "So this is a special spice for curing meat?!"

Everyone suddenly realized why Zhang Wuxun had said earlier that this person was a sacrificial offering.

Zhang Haixing was more interested in where Zhang Wuxun had seen these beads before.

“The one I saw was taken out by Zhang Qiling from a mechanical box,” Zhang Wuxun said. “That mechanical box and notebook were left behind by that group of Germans. As for how they managed to get the bead out of the sealed bronze door through the mud, I have no idea.”

Zhang Haixing frowned and thought for a moment, then said, "Go on."

“Although it was a sacrificial offering, I feel that this person was probably willingly stuffed with the Kunmu Coil and locked here,” Zhang Wuxun said. “This thing was originally a sacrificial offering, but now it has become a cocoon.”

“Strip all the mud off his body.”

Everyone pitched in, and soon, a semi-transparent human body appeared before them. Surprisingly, most of the clothes on his body were still relatively intact. It was a long, old-fashioned leather coat that had been soaked and hardened by mud, with the hem almost reaching his ankles.

The fat man scraped the fabric with the tip of his knife. "Who is this person? So great. Is he Tibetan?"

“No, he’s a Han Chinese.” Zhang Wuxun reached out and pulled an ornament from the man’s neck; it was a piece of warm, smooth white jade.

He looked at the pattern on the jade pendant, then at Zhang Haixing. "The Qilin pendant belongs to the Zhang family."

Zhang Haixing was stunned for a moment, her expression changed drastically, and she snatched the jade pendant to take a look. It really did have a fire-riding Qilin engraved on it.

Everyone fell silent. If it was a member of the Zhang family, the possibility of them willingly becoming a sacrifice was even greater.

Zhang Haixing spoke softly, "This is actually a human molt. There is no name on the Qilin token. Although I don't know why it appeared here, I am not completely unaware of what it is."

The fat man readily asked, "So what is this?"

“I came prepared, and I wasn’t entirely unprepared for what we would see,” Zhang Haixing said.

“This is corpse jade, a strange type of jade formed when a human corpse petrifies under specific conditions.” Zhang Haixing put the jade pendant away and continued, “We have opened many ancient tombs that are over thirty centuries old and often find similar cases.”

"This kind of corpse jade takes a very long time to evolve and requires a very stable environment."

"In other words, a specific environment can accelerate the petrification of a corpse, and even preserve the basic shape of the corpse." Zhang Haixing pointed to the cocoon on the ground. "But I have never seen a case where the entire corpse has turned into this before. It is very special."

Wu Xie thought to himself, "The Zhang family is just that uniquely awesome."

"I think I've seen it before." A thought flashed through Wu Xie's mind, but the white light was too fast for him to catch.

"If it's a sacrifice, then what was he offering it to?" he asked. "Are there other living creatures here?"

He suddenly remembered Zhang Wuxun's wary look earlier. Could it be that some strange creature was secretly observing them?

If it really exists, the horror would probably be far beyond imagination.

Wu Xie looked up at Zhang Wuxun, his expression grave.

Zhang Wuxun's attention was more focused on the blood that had just dripped onto the pattern. Sensing Wu Xie's gaze, he turned his head and nodded slightly to him.

Wu Xie breathed a sigh of relief. He focused the flashlight beam on the area on the Corpse Jade's chest and discovered that all the black cotton-like patterns had converged into a black mass on the chest.

"I don't know," Zhang Haixing replied to his question, looking around.

"Even if there were any living things, they would probably have been washed away by the previous silt."

"Then what is this dark, indistinct mass? Was this person poisoned before they died?" the fat man asked.

“All I know is that in our family records, it seems that something is taking shape inside the chest cavity of all the corpse jades.” Zhang Haixing took down the climbing axe hanging on her backpack and pointed at the black mass from a distance. “This should be it.”

“Look at these black cotton-like fibers. All the corpse jade we saw before, these fibers were scattered throughout the corpse, but they all showed signs of gathering in the chest cavity.”

“And in this one, all the cotton fibers are concentrated in the chest cavity. This corpse jade has probably been here for over a thousand years.” Zhang Haixing’s eyes began to shine. “Come on, let’s knock open its chest cavity and see what’s inside.”

The fat man, who was on the other side of the corpse jade, waved his hand upon hearing this, "No need to knock anymore, it's already broken here."

As he spoke, he ripped off the clothes from the back of the corpse, and a bunch of black cotton wool fragments fell out with a rustling sound.

The fat man bent down and pointed to a large hole in the back of the corpse. He and Zhang Haixing had kicked and pushed it, and the spider web on the back had been shattered into small pieces and powder.

"Empty?" Wu Xie asked in confusion. "Could this just be a natural phenomenon? Have you ever opened a corpse jade like this before?"

"It's not what you think." Zhang Haixing's face darkened. "Could it be that something inside escaped just now?"

"Damn it, it's alive?" The fat man quickly threw away the rag in his hand, grabbed the shovel beside him, and said, "Where did it go? Did it get mixed in with the mud and wash out?"

“Possibly.” Zhang Haixing squatted down and examined the corpse jade carefully. “This curled-up posture isn’t for protection; it’s as if it’s trying to trap something inside its body.”

"not necessarily."

The fat man gripped his shovel and scanned his surroundings. Suddenly, he caught sight of something and shouted, "Over there!" Everyone turned around instantly and saw a black shadow appear in the spot where Zhang Wuxun had been staring.

In the darkness, the shadow was half-hunched over, seemingly watching them as well.

Zhang Wuxun lit a cold flame, aimed, and threw it. In the flash of the flame, they saw that it was a pillar, slowly rising from the edge of the bronze disc, about the thickness of a bowl and half a person's height.

The pillars are also made of bronze, and are engraved with very complex patterns, a hundred times more delicate than those on the surrounding cave walls.

The pillar is also inlaid with two wing-like objects on both sides, making the whole pillar look like a tall bird standing on the ground.

"A flying stick?" the fat man asked curiously.

“It’s a mechanism.” Zhang Wuxun took a few steps and saw another pillar rise up not far from the one he had just seen.

Then, in a similar manner, a rod appears every four or five steps, centered on them and the corpse, forming a circle around the corpse.

Wu Xie and the others looked at each other and waited quietly for a while, but the danger they had imagined did not appear.

"What's the point of all these sticks suddenly appearing?" the fat man muttered. "If they're just for decoration, I have to say, this is a bit boring."

Wu Xie thought for a moment, "It's a mechanism related to gravity, right? We must have accidentally touched something and triggered it."

Zhang Wuxun squinted at the bloodstains on the engraving. Just now, one spot suddenly shrank back by more than ten centimeters. Obviously, the main force that triggered the mechanism was not these few people.

"Try going back out." He subtly gestured for Wu Xie and Fatty to retreat towards the bronze door.

After everyone left the disc, the bloodstains on the engravings spread rapidly forward a bit more, and the thing retreated as well.

Sure enough, after a moment's hesitation, the surrounding pillars silently sank into the ground.

Zhang Haixing squatted down and looked at the edges where the pillars met the ground. "The gaps where they meet are cleverly hidden in the patterns. There are probably many more traps in this cave. We have to be careful."

“No, there’s only this one mechanism,” Zhang Wu asked.

The others looked at him, puzzled. Zhang Haixing asked, "How did you know?"

A strange smile appeared on Zhang Wuxun's lips. "I noticed it from the very beginning."

"What?" Zhang Haixing subtly put her hands behind her back.

“There’s something big here.” Zhang Wuxun loosened his clenched right hand, the blood on his palm already dried. “It’s in this cave.”

"What is it?" Zhang Haixing pressed.

"Stop pretending." Zhang Wuxun chuckled. "You must have already guessed it, right?"

"When did you get injured?!" Wu Xie felt a sharp pain in his heart as he was burned by the glaring red blood in the palm of his hand. He pursed his lips, but given the tense situation, he had no choice but to suppress his many questions.

Although he was just as confused as the fat man, he still cleverly stood next to Zhang Wuxun.

Zhang Haixing almost thought her disguise was about to be exposed, and she nearly jumped up to take action.

Upon hearing Zhang Wuxun mention this, she quietly loosened her hands behind her back. "So what are you planning to do?"

She paused, then added, "Let me make it clear beforehand, this is a matter for you Khampa people, and I will not get involved."

Zhang Wuxun smiled to himself, thinking to himself that you wouldn't have a choice then.

"Find that thing first," he said.

"How do we find it?" Wu Xie actively participated.

Not to be outdone, the fat man looked left and right, "What, the so-called 'ultimate bird' that your Zhang family talks about is right here, and you still have to find it yourselves?"

Zhang Haixing glanced at him speechlessly and rolled her eyes.

Zhang Wuxun reached out to the fat man for the water bottle, "Try to circle its location first."

"What? We only have half a pot of water left." The fat man said, but still took it out of his backpack and handed it to him.

Wu Xie keenly noticed something from Zhang Wuxun's actions and exclaimed, "Drawing blood!"

He looked down at the patterns on the ground and muttered to himself, "No wonder I felt this thing looked familiar. I saw a similar large iron plate when I was in the Four Sisters Mountain. It also had many of these patterns. I poured a lot of pig's blood on it before I could activate the mechanism."

Zhang Wuxun paused, the blade resting on his hand, and said in a flash, "You've reminded me."

"It's all about participation." He closed the kettle lid and looked everyone in the room up and down. "Who wants to go first?"

Zhang Haixing said reluctantly, "Didn't you already plan to dilute it with water?"

Without saying a word, the fat man grabbed Feng, who was pretending to be dead, and slashed his arm.

Feng screamed as blood flowed out and slowly seeped into the cracks, gradually flowing along them like a flower blooming on the cracked bronze floor.

The fat man clicked his tongue in amazement, "This thing is pretty awesome."

A few minutes later, the bleeding from Feng's arm had stopped on its own, and a complex pattern appeared on the ground that they couldn't describe.

The crowd gathered around, staring down at the blood-red pattern that was no longer spreading further, and then fell silent.

After a long silence, the fat man broke it, "Is this an alpaca?"

Feng's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets; he clearly couldn't believe that the blood on his body had drawn such a ridiculous pattern.

He was almost in despair. "God! Why is it an alpaca?"

Wu Xie sighed, "If that thing is your God, then it's clear that your God is expressing anger; it's not satisfied with your blood."

Feng glared at him angrily, "It's not my God, it's a god of praise!"

"Thumbs up for the poop." The fat man pulled him aside. "Don't block the way. Next up, if I may be frank, this is the only way to find poop. Ordinary blood probably won't work."

Just as Wu Xie was about to speak, Zhang Haixing stepped forward, cut her hand, and squeezed the blood up from a different angle. "I'll go first."

Her goal was clear: eliminate the problem as soon as possible.

Since ordinary blood is useless, her "extraordinary" blood will have to be tested sooner or later.

good night