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

Chapter 539 The Face Behind the Door
The roar and echo of the explosion lingered and reverberated throughout the empty cave, causing the water to ripple and tremble for a long time before gradually calming down.

When everyone opened their eyes, the bronze tortoise, still burning with corpse oil, resembled a giant torch, emitting a foul odor that made people want to vomit.

Zhang Wuxun silently pulled out a gas mask and put it on. Wu Xie and the others then snapped out of their daze and quickly followed suit. Afterward, the group returned to the stone gate that had been bombarded by signal flares.

The human bone mountain there had been affected by the commotion earlier, leaving no complete corpses; your head, his hip bone, Zhang San's toes were all scattered together.

The bones that were blown away by the blast wave but not shattered were still covered in corpse oil and sparks, and were still burning, crackling and popping like the tempting sound of beef bones on a grill.

Hearing the sound, the fat man involuntarily swallowed, and immediately received several accusatory and perverted looks from Wu Xie and the others.

The fat man sniffed, obediently covered his nose, and said in a muffled voice, "Why are you all looking at me? This thing stinks."

Everyone was speechless. If it didn't smell bad, would you really want to take a bite?
After the banter ended, the four of them split into two groups. Zhang Haike and Fatty went to study the stone door, while Zhang Wuxun and Wu Xie turned to examine the bones.

Zhang Wuxun and his companion picked up a few bones from the water that could barely be identified as hand bones, but strangely, they did not see any distinctive features of the Zhang family members on the finger bones.

"It seems that not everyone with the surname Zhang practices finger dexterity." Wu Xie looked at Zhang Wuxun for confirmation.

Zhang Wuxun looked down at his left hand. "The Zhang family members practice the 'Finger of the Tomb Raiders' technique. The better their talent, the fewer fingers they need to use."

Wu Xie was surprised, "Then these people..."

“There’s another possibility: they were chosen separately as a group to be sacrificed, so there was no need for them to practice,” Zhang Wuxun said calmly.

Wu Xie was stunned. It was clearly a very sad thing, but when he heard Mu Yu say it in such a nonchalant tone, it was as if he had long been accustomed to such phenomena, neither angry nor happy, and had long been indifferent to the arrangements of his predetermined fate.

"Won't anyone resist?" he asked, unable to bear it.

"Resist?" Zhang Wuxun chuckled. "The result of resistance is no different. Some things always have to be done by someone."

"In such a family with extremely strict rules, standing out would only bring disaster."

It is not just a personal disaster, but a misfortune for everyone.

On the other side, Zhang Haike and Fatty worked together to move the centipede corpse lying in front of the stone gate to the side. The huge insect shell had been burned to the point of being just an empty shell, and the centipede's head had been blown into pieces, so that it was basically unrecognizable even when pieced together.

The fat man dragged a long, segmented leg toward the water in the distance, muttering to himself, "This thing looks scary, but once it's cooked, it's no different from a roasted grasshopper."

After huffing and puffing for a long time, the two finally cleared out the area in front of the stone gate.

The two men leaned forward to examine the door. It was a pair of doors that joined together in the middle. Zhang Haike raised his hand and knocked on it for a while, then said, "This should just be an ordinary push door, without any special mechanisms or measures."

The fat man glanced at him sideways and heard him continue, "If it were just a centipede soaking in corpse oil, I don't think that would be a reason for the Zhang family ancestors to decide to seal this place off."

"Whoosh?" the fat man said in a foreign accent.

Zhang Haike shook his head and said regretfully, "Why they did that back then is probably impossible to verify now."

“Then open the door.” Zhang Wuxun stepped forward and said without hesitation.

The door hinges of the stone door were relatively intact and not broken, but when you pushed it, you would find that there seemed to be something very heavy blocking the back of the door.

"Let Fatty have a turn." The fat man spat into his palm, rubbed his hands together, and was eager to try. Zhang Wuxun and the others readily made way and gestured for him to step aside.

The fat man took a few steps back, fidgeted a few times, stomped his feet in preparation, and then charged forward like a rocket, using his own body as a human bomb. In the next second, he was bounced back and fell into the water on his back.

Everyone: "..."

Zhang Haike clicked his tongue twice, "I thought it was going to be something big, but it turned out to be a huge mess."

The fat man winced silently in pain, clutching his shoulder as he sat up and explained, "This is because I don't have enough of my own energy, that's why I made a mistake. I'll try again once I've recovered."

"Never mind." Zhang Haike waved his hand calmly like an old scholar, as if addressing a student who had failed the exam, his tone heavy, "I'll do it."

Without saying a word, he launched a flying kick, a perfect front kick that slammed into the middle of the stone gate.

With a loud crash, the stone door trembled violently, and something was heard falling into the water behind it. The cracks on the door hinges widened even further.

Zhang Haike grunted and continued his fierce attack, kicking the two stone doors with three or four powerful blows, creating a gap about half the width of a person's side between them. Only then did he leisurely withdraw his legs.

Wu Xie stared at his face, which was exactly the same as his own but slightly cunning, and secretly swallowed. He thought to himself, "My goodness, what kind of massive mutated upright ape is this? Are his legs made of iron?!"

"Who wants to go through first and take a look?" Zhang Haike said. "I feel like there's something even heavier behind us."

"I..." Wu Xie raised his hand. If he didn't work harder, he would really be no different from a useless pancake who was just lying around getting by.

"I'll go." Zhang Wuxun had already taken off his backpack, and was stretching his bones to make himself narrower and shorter. "The door is about the thickness of a hand. You might get stuck if you go in."

Wu Xie withdrew his hand silently in shame, feeling ashamed and helpless, like a mule that had exhausted the horse.

The fat man patted him on the shoulder reassuringly, "You'll get used to it. There will be many more days like this in the future. We mortals have our own advantages too."

Wu Xie felt a little gratified, and also had some expectations, "For example?"

"For example, Fatty can endure hardship and isn't afraid of suffering, and you, Innocent, are quick-witted; if anything happens, you can just grab me and take me away." Fatty said this with great seriousness.

Wu Xie gave a cold snort and broke off half a compressed biscuit to stuff into his mouth.

After shrinking his body, Zhang Wuxun resembled a thin young man. He swayed towards the crack in the door and slipped through as easily as a piece of paper.

Wu Xie and the others hurriedly stuck the tinder into the head of the entrenching tool and pressed their eyes against the crack in the door, trying to see inside.

They saw Zhang Wuxun walking up the stone steps, one by one, and lighting a cold flame near the door.

With the light shining through, Wu Xie and the others looked down through the crack in the door and saw the patterns on the so-called stone steps that Zhang Wuxun had walked on, as well as the thing that was wedged in the crack. It was also a piece of bronze, lying horizontally in the water, its surface completely rusted beyond recognition.

The fat man scoffed, "More of this junk. Can't you come up with something new to broaden my horizons?"

As soon as he finished speaking, the bronze behind the heavy door moved slightly, and then a face appeared behind the gap.

Like children playing hide-and-seek, they peeked out, looking at them curiously.

The bamboo grove rustles; the moon shines tonight; I can take a bath later. Life should be like this. —Nanpai Sanshu