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

Chapter 525 Parasitic Meteorite Tree
This is the lower level of the stone fortress, a sturdy stone chamber built of bricks, about a third the size of a basketball court, with recessed niches carved into the walls on both sides.

Looking around, almost every niche contained a skeleton, which at first glance resembled the remains of lamas who had passed away in meditation.

Upon closer inspection of their clothing, it was discovered that they were all wearing the clothes of the Khampa people, but the style of the Khampa Tibetan robes that Wu Xie had seen Zhang Wuxun wearing before appeared to be more ancient and heavy.

He subconsciously turned to look at Zhang Wuxun, wanting to say that these were all his ancestors, but then felt it was inappropriate.

Muyu is a member of the Zhang family. His current identity may simply be a cover for some kind of cooperation with Kangbaluo, such as dealing with the Yama Riding Corpse.

Zhang Wuxun saw through his thoughts, smiled, but didn't explain anything.

The fat man was mumbling in his sleep, seemingly dreaming of something wonderful. His saliva was practically dripping from the corners of his mouth, and he was tightly embracing the withered corpse, looking very affectionate.

Zhang Haixing opened her eyes, glanced around, and then closed them again in pain. Her face was pale, and her expression showed that the head injury was making her very uncomfortable. With such a big rock hitting her, a concussion would be considered a serious injury.

"Let them recover from their dizziness. Let's check the situation here first." Zhang Wuxun walked around, searching for something. "There must be other entrances here."

Otherwise, the one-time use bronze door cannot be opened, and the sacrificial female corpse would have to be put in from somewhere.

Wu Xie nodded in agreement, picked up a Tibetan knife, and found that it was completely rusted into mud and crumbled into pieces with a pinch.

"It's strange. The Khampa people come and go, why didn't they collect the remains of these people and bury them in a suitable place?"

Wu Xie pinched the white bone arm, and it shattered into several pieces without him even exerting any force. He looked at his hand in confusion, wondering how it could be so brittle. "There was air flowing into this place before, so it must have been at least several decades to decompose to this extent."

"And why did these people die here? Their bones are so neatly arranged, it doesn't look like they killed each other, but rather like they were peacefully waiting to die."

Zhang Wuxun pondered for a moment and said, "One possibility is that these people were the group that came to transport the sacrificial offerings for the King of Hell's corpse ten years ago, but something happened during the process that caused them all to die here."

Moreover, judging from the appearance of these skeletons, they gave up struggling after realizing they had been attacked. Why? Was there something in this stone chamber that posed a fatal threat to them?

Wu Xie started to have wild thoughts, "Could it be that the thing in Yama's brain went on a killing spree and sucked them all dry?"

As he spoke, he stepped forward to examine the remains closely. The surface of the skeleton only showed some old fractures from years past, indicating that the injuries were severe. However, there were calluses that had grown along the fracture lines during the healing process, suggesting that the injuries occurred during the recovery period, likely from training or fighting in the past.

Although the beads and accessories on the Tibetan robe have become mottled due to oxidation, they are generally in good condition.

Zhang Wuxun walked to the back of the stone chamber. The last wall had no niches; the entire wall was covered with crooked Tibetan script.

The lower half of the text was blocked by the rolling stones. Zhang Wuxun moved the stones aside, and the inscriptions on the wall below gradually emerged.

Seeing this, Wu Xie came over to lend a hand, but Zhang Wuxun pointed at his wrist and said, "Stay away, don't you want your hand anymore?"

Wu Xie chuckled twice, took two steps back to stand aside so as not to bother him, and felt a sense of relief. The wooden fish he knew was back.

After Zhang Wuxun finished moving the stones, he glanced at him and found it somewhat amusing. "What are you grinning about? Come and look at this."

"What?" Wu Xie eagerly came closer.

“Some records are related to the Yama riding a corpse as a sacrifice,” Zhang Wuxun said.

He roughly deciphered the text and found that it was just a few simple notes, without a detailed record of the origin of Yama riding a corpse. The top part was the preparation steps for worshipping Yama, and the middle part was a messy picture of Yama, which was not carefully carved at all, as if it was just a doodle. The bottom part was a series of Tibetan names, and in the second to last row, he saw the name of his uncle, Logonbu.

It seems that Uncle Gongbu also participated in the ritual of Yama riding a corpse and returned alive.

In this way, the existence of those skeletons becomes highly suspicious.

Zhang Wu turned around and counted the number of skeletons. "Thirteen, one more than the prescribed number of people for the sacrifice."

Wu Xie was taken aback, then frowned and said, "There's one more? Could it be that something went wrong during the process, and the last sacrificial ceremony failed?"

Zhang Wuxun had already headed towards the bones and quickly found a female corpse among them. After swiftly examining the limbs, he sighed, "Your previous guess is very likely the truth. The bones of this female corpse's upper and lower limbs were smashed with a hammer before she died."

The female corpse that was used as a sacrifice is still here, but other Khampa people have become sacrifices. It's hard to say whether this dramatic outcome can be considered retribution.

"careful!"

Suddenly hearing Wu Xie exclaim in surprise, Zhang Wuxun snapped out of his thoughts and saw several silver threads about to wrap around his fingers. He immediately raised his hand and knocked the skeleton away.

The female corpse slammed against the wall and shattered into a pile of broken pieces. Her skull rolled several times on the ground before stopping a short distance from their feet.

"Ten years have passed, and this thing is still alive."

Wu Xie picked up a stone and threw it like a bowling ball, knocking the skull further away to prevent those things from getting close again.

Zhang Wuxun dismantled the skulls of the remaining twelve skeletons, finding them empty. It seemed that the skeleton had ultimately chosen to reside in the sacrificial offering.

He stared at the woman's skull for a moment, then said, "I want to smash this skull to see what the parasitic meteorite inside looks like. You stay away from me."

"Okay, be careful." Wu Xie knew that since he had brought up this idea, he must be confident.

Zhang Wuxun nodded. He didn't intend to make direct contact with the thing. He picked up a boulder the size of a cartwheel and aimed it at the skull, smashing it down.

The skull is the hardest bone in the human body, but even the hardest bone will decay and become brittle after ten years.

With a soft thud, the flat stone struck the snail, as if hitting it, and it sank straight to the bottom, leaving it no room to struggle.

Zhang Wuxun and the other man stared intently. In the crack between the stone and the ground, a pool of crystal-clear, emerald-green liquid was slowly crawling out, like an apple-flavored gummy candy that had been pressed under a hot water cup and was gradually melting due to the temperature.

The liquid was stretched into a long, thin strip, like a blade of grass stubbornly growing out of a crack in the rock, with the first part already climbing up the stone.

Zhang Wuxun and the other watched as the thing climbed onto the rock, seemingly waving in the wind, happily stretching out its tentacles, and finally transformed into a crystal-clear green coral tree.

The light from the small lamp shines directly onto the wall behind it, creating shimmering, almost bewitching, light and shadow effects. It's like an ancient crystal sculpture, a museum exhibit.

Or, to be more specific, it is a rather abstract, neural tree diagram of the brain.

Goodnight (-ω`)