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

The fat man hummed a little tune on a whim, his voice sounding like he was playing an erhu: "Time is merciless, making us grow old, the sun shines on the evening glow... the south wind blows through my heart..."

"Huh?" Zhang Wuxun and Wu Xie both had the same bewildered and somewhat indescribable expression on their faces.

Zhang Haike rubbed his forehead with his fingertips and smiled. "So, those legends might not actually be legends after all. The creatures in those legends might have actually existed."

The fat man subconsciously touched the egg in his backpack, hissed, and pretended to be scared, winking, "It's terrifying to think about, brothers."

Wu Xie expressed his disdain for him with a sneer, "Don't think about it too much, let's just focus on the present. If dissipating one's own energy is the evolutionary method chosen by the giant snakes."

"So the question is, what forced them to choose this rather dramatic evolutionary path?"

Trillions of years ago, in that era of unbridled growth, the energy on this planet was sufficient for various powerful races to thrive.

But a meteorite shower hundreds of millions of years ago changed everything. The powerful energy carried by the meteorites polluted and assimilated the planet's original habitable energy, causing the extinction of many species.

Other races that barely survived and lived in the same era as the serpent's ancestors began to fight for survival resources. After countless racial conflicts, in order to ensure the continuation of the entire race and to have enough energy to reproduce, the serpents had no choice but to choose this way to save themselves.

The disintegration and dissipation of energy is a sacrifice, but that pure, flesh-like red energy also brings better vitality to future generations.

Perhaps the giant snakes of the past had extremely long lifespans, but this species had to give up this advantage when it chose to evolve. The snakes that can be seen in snake nests today are only slightly stronger than the snakes in the wild.

In this peaceful era, dangerous species have long been eliminated, and they probably retain less than one-thousandth of their ancestral toxicity and cellular activity.

The second clue the young man left them was a prophetic phrase: "The Cangteng returns to its nest, to see the person who will clear its name."

The young man's second visit to the snow-capped mountains of southern Tibet was fifty years ago. What did he learn during that long period of time? What did he see after arriving here? These experiences led him to decide to seal the ancestral bell away forever, placing it in a place that even the Zhang family could not reach.

What about Zhang Menyu? And the system's first host, they also came here and saw the same things that the young man had seen.

Faced with that thing, they made a different decision than Xiao Ge, but in the darkness, Zhang Wuxun seemed to hear the sound of the gears of fate meshing.

At this moment, time stands still, as if the white horse has stopped moving.

Countless red dots of light floated in mid-air like fine sand, swirling around Zhang Wuxun. Sometimes they resembled ripples in a galaxy, and sometimes they were like wisps of smoke. The ever-changing scene was fleeting.

He saw a weary serpent traverse the desolate desert, climb over towering mountains, walk through muddy swamps, and cross snow-covered plains. It stood upright, forging ahead without hesitation, casting aside all the shackles that bound it.

It came here, and then calmly faced its death.

He watched as the enormous figure gradually faded into nothingness, transforming into a crimson meteor like a dazzling firework, its flames extinguished, and its afterglow dissipated.

In the last glimmer of night, he heard the heavy gate slowly open, and the desolate sound of bells echoed throughout the snow-capped mountain. Someone had come. He heard the cries of eagles circling in the sky, and the low chanting of Buddha amidst the sound of wind chimes in the rain.

Suddenly, a soft touch swept across his left cheek, like a leaf blown by the wind, gently passing by his side and falling.

The silence receded like the tide, and everything came alive.

He vaguely heard someone calling his name. He opened his eyes and saw that everyone was still gathered in that area, but the red color had completely disappeared.

In the blink of an eye, the stones beneath Wu Xie and his companions had completely changed!

Zhang Wuxun closed his heavy eyelids and perked up to warn them, "Watch out, something's coming." A rustling sound accompanied their approach as countless thick, snow-white vines spread from all directions, quickly enveloping them. Wu Xie and the others cried out in alarm.

Before they could react, the ground beneath their feet suddenly trembled and then abruptly sank, the stone slabs collapsing and shattering like tofu blocks, and a feeling of weightlessness swept over them in an instant.

As it fell, the snow-white vines that emerged from the crack seemed to be seeing long-lost relatives, and they happily curled up and chased after it from behind.

With a scream from the fat man, a snow-white tentacle as thick as a bucket emerged from the darkness below. It twisted in mid-air, binding the four people who were clinging to the stone wall together like a bundle of dumplings, and then mercilessly dragged them into the bottomless abyss below.

Their limbs were squeezed in an instant, as if they had been swallowed into the stomach of a giant beast.

﹉﹉﹉﹉﹉

After an unknown amount of time, Zhang Wuxun was awakened by the feeling of being tightly bound all over his body, and his eyes were covered by soft branches, leaving him in complete darkness.

Zhang Wuxun struggled a few times, and the thing binding him started to shake. He immediately realized that he was hanging in mid-air like a cocoon.

Could it be that those white vines were using them as a food reserve?

How come those soft, limp vines look just like the Hydra Cypress? Or is this another variant of the Hydra Cypress?

Zhang Wuxun pondered silently, then pulled out two or three thin blades from the inner pocket of his sleeve. He moved them with difficulty, found a slightly thinner tendril, and began to cut it with the stacked blades.

Although these tendrils are soft to the touch, their outer skin is very tough and has an extremely strong healing ability. After finally managing to grind them open halfway, before Zhang Wuxun could even shift his position, the cool sap inside flowed out and immediately formed a scab.

Zhang Wuxun: "...Damn it!"

He was so angry he almost laughed after all his hard work for nothing.

No one knew where Wu Xie and the other two had been kidnapped to. Apart from his own movements and breathing, the only other sound was the rustling of leaves.

Zhang Wuxun was a little anxious. Staring at the tender tendrils in front of him, his jaw moved unconsciously.

Instinct told him that these tendrils seemed to be... edible, just like how hatchlings return to eat the nutrient-rich eggshell after hatching.

But snakes don't seem to eat eggshells!
Damn it, has he mutated? Why is such a thought even popping into my head? He's not human at all!
Zhang Wuxun was caught in a mental struggle.

How can you eat this thing? We don't even know what species it is. What if it's poisonous?

But it seemed like it really was edible; he could even vaguely smell the fragrance emanating from the sap in the vine.

Zhang Wuxun bit his tongue hard, wincing in pain. His mind cleared considerably, but the faint fragrance from before became even clearer. This was no illusion!

What's frustrating is that his body is screaming with intense hunger, as if he has become a fledgling bird in its nest, mouth agape, waiting for its mother to feed it.

How long has he been unconscious? How can he be so hungry—so hungry, so very hungry… I really want to eat…

Zhang Wuxun pursed his dry lips, trying to suppress the urge to devour them, and pondered why he thought the tendrils were edible.

Oh, it's instinct. (End of Chapter)