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

Chapter 542 The Man Among Demons
Let alone seeing it with your own eyes, just thinking about it is enough to send chills down your spine.

"Don't worry, Fatty's fine. He'll just throw that up." Zhang Wuxun settled Fatty aside.

Seeing Wu Xie's anxiety, she comforted him, "Those things don't actually have much ill intentions towards us. They're probably just bored and playing tricks on us because they've been detained here for too long."

Wu Xie was a little stunned. "This sounds like something a child would say?"

Zhang Haike made over a dozen trips back and forth, finally managing to clean up the mess left by those two heartless and trouble-making guys.

He tossed the bronze helmet back to its original spot, stretched, and walked over, sighing, "He was just an innocent child who died young. Since he couldn't be buried in the ancestral mausoleum, his parents would find a place to hold a small sky burial, and then collect his bones to bury in a place where high monks and masters had inscribed and recited scriptures, in order to pray for a peaceful and healthy next life."

“I just went in and took a look. The wooden pagoda complex is a maze. This place must have been specially selected and built by the previous chief of the Lawa tribe, both to nurture the spirits and to guard the tomb,” Zhang Haike reasonably speculated.

Zhang Wuxun nodded. "This should be the outermost area of ​​the mass burial grounds of the Khampa people, located beneath the mountain peaks."

He explained, “There are five burial peaks of the Khampa people. The active volcanic burial peak we are on is the Maimu Ghost Peak, which is part of the ice burial cliff outside the mountain. The people living inside are people who died due to some strange events rather than natural causes. It is quite evil.”

"Therefore, the spirits of these children constantly absorb the energy of the Yin corpses, and after a hundred years they all become Chi, also called Ying Gu Chi, which is a kind of Yin creature that can change shape like mist."

"They are not very dangerous. They will only take advantage of the opportunity to transform into a familiar form to deceive you when you are not paying attention to inhaling bone powder. If you fail to find the flaw, you will fall for it like the fat man, eat a small part of the bones that belong to them, and then be trapped here forever, caught in the maze, and eventually die."

Zhang Wuxun even chuckled at the end, as if it were something amusing.

"It can kill people, and you still say it's not lethal?" Wu Xie twitched the corner of his mouth, but he really couldn't laugh.

"Compared to those who try to kill you right away, these kids are being quite lenient," Zhang Haike said casually. "Anyone who gets to a place like this deserves what they got; surviving is already a bonus."

Wu Xie felt mocked. He stared at him for a long time before turning to Zhang Wuxun and saying, "I think something's off about him. I don't know if it's true. Why don't you shoot him again?"

Zhang Haike's expression, which seemed to suggest he had seen through the ways of the world, vanished instantly, and he said in a serious tone, "Just kidding, let's not talk about this anymore."

Zhang Wuxun burst out laughing at Wu Xie's defiant expression—a look of wanting to retort but failing to do so.

Wu Xie had just gotten into the mood and hadn't even had a chance to say anything more when this laugh ruined it all.

Zhang Wuxun cleared his throat and explained briefly, "Infant bone demons generally have memories. Although it's considered an evil technique, some people still pray to the gods and earth for a bone tower to protect their children who died young, especially in Southeast Asia, where a demon tower is worth a fortune. As for whether what they ultimately bring home is evil or a spirit, that's hard to say."

Wu Xie somewhat understood the mentality of those who sought the tower, but he could not agree with it. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, what does it matter how prosperous one is? When the great path returns, in the end, one is nothing more than a handful of sand and a handful of dust.

The fat man was still unconscious, so Zhang Wuxun suggested that they rest there for a while until he woke up.

"What did you see inside the demon?" he asked Zhang Haike as he organized his equipment.

The demon can make people see what they most want to see in their thoughts, in order to entice them.

He had assumed Zhang Haike would say "sister" or "Zu Ling".

Unexpectedly, Zhang Haike just turned his head to look at him, thought for a moment, and said, "I saw a group of children standing on the edge of the cliff. The youngest child was pushed off by them. I was standing at the bottom of the cliff. I thought I reached out and caught him, but when I turned my head, I found that my hands were empty. The child fell in front of me and was buried by the snow."

Zhang Wuxun paused slightly while wiping the blade. After a long while, he chuckled softly, sheathed the cleaned hunting knife, and muttered, "It's fake." No one went to save the child. The child lay at the bottom of the cliff for a long time, and no one would have noticed that he was missing.

Wu Xie looked left and right between the two of them, somewhat confused. He seemed to have realized something inexplicably, or perhaps it was just a misperception. But judging from Mu Yu's reaction, this memory from the demon seemed to be real, and the child might have survived.

Although puzzled and curious, Muyu didn't want to bring it up, so he didn't ask.

"How did you recognize it wasn't mine in such a short time?" Zhang Haike asked rhetorically, trying to ease the tension.

Wu Xie yawned, feeling sleepy after his tense nerves relaxed. He rubbed his face and said, "How did you know that the person Mu Yu and I saw was you?"

“I came out of the maze, and I could guess pretty much anything just by looking at your expressions,” Zhang Haike said without any modesty.

Wu Xie knew he was someone whose emotions were easily displayed, and he pouted slightly in annoyance.

He was also puzzled as to why Muyu could tell the real and fake Monkey Kings apart at a glance. They had only been in contact with Zhang Haike for a few hours, which was not enough to distinguish the real and fake Monkey Kings by their tone of voice and body shape.

Upon hearing this, Zhang Wuxun frowned, looking somewhat uneasy. "Because I saw it throw a 'hook' at me as it turned around. It was weird, like a doll performing a ghost play. It was a bit perverted."

"Hahaha..." Wu Xie clutched his stomach and laughed arrogantly.

Zhang Haike's cunning expression froze on his face. He never expected the flaw to be like this, and he was speechless.

Wu Xie laughed for a full minute, then stopped laughing under Zhang Haike's idiotic gaze, found a place to lean back, closed his eyes, and planned to take a nap.

It was quiet around them, and Zhang Wuxun and the other person were resting with their eyes closed.

The moment Wu Xie closed his eyes, he fell asleep. In his dream, he felt light and airy, like a spore that had fallen after a mushroom matured, drifting and swaying in the wind, hanging on the brim of Nils' hat as he rode the goose, flying to the clouds, soaring and enjoying himself.

Just as he was reveling in his joy, a storm suddenly struck. A bolt of lightning, like a giant snake, struck Nils off the goose's back, and his hat was blown away by the gale, falling from the clouds. The tiny spore was torn apart by the storm in the blink of an eye, and his beautiful dream was shattered.

Wu Xie was jolted awake from his dream by a sudden misstep.

Wu Xie's heart pounded in his chest. He sat up abruptly, took a few deep breaths, and clutched his chest, still somewhat dazed.

A cool hand touched his forehead to check. "No fever. Had a nightmare?"

Wu Xie stared blankly for a moment, then said something completely unrelated: "We'll encounter snakes here."

Zhang Wuxun was slightly taken aback, his expression becoming more serious, and asked, "What does that snake look like?"

He did not doubt the truthfulness of Wu Xie's words. He had discovered it as early as when he saw the Bronze Divine Tree. Wu Xie was special; he would resonate with some equally special strange and mysterious traces in certain environments.

“It’s white,” Wu Xie said softly. “It’s a white snake.”

Some people, if you can't catch up with them, they will disappear from your life forever. Even if they existed, you still can't hold onto them.