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

Seeing the incredibly familiar kettle that should never have been there, Wu Xie's heart sank, and he knew something was wrong.

He remembered clearly that these pieces of equipment had been thrown out by him and the fat man to buy time when the paper figures first launched their attack, and they had long since perished in the bellies of some unknown paper figure.

He's probably run into a fake right now.

"Drink up, what are you waiting for, you idiot?" The fat man held up the water bottle, wondering why he wasn't opening his mouth. "Your voice is so hoarse, it sounds like you've been wailing for your ancestors all night. It's really irritating to my ears."

Wu Xie took a deep breath, trying to control his expression. He subtly reached behind his back and touched a stone, which he then quietly grasped. Only then did he feel a little more at ease.

"I don't need it, you drink it, I can still hold back," he said, forcing himself to speak.

"Hey! That's strange. I've never seen you so polite before, and you even know how to give way to Fatty. What? Are you afraid I'll poison it?" Fatty glanced at him, a faint red light flashing in his eyes.

Wu Xie keenly sensed that deep-seated desire and greed for his prey, and casually responded, his eyes already turning completely cold.

He gripped the stone tightly, leaning his body slightly forward as if it were a casual movement, his muscles subtly tensing.

"Look at your cowardly little brat." The fat man grinned, then seemed to sense something was wrong, his face suddenly darkening. "What are you doing hiding your hands behind your back all the time?"

He then reached out to look.

Seeing that he was about to be exposed, Wu Xie's eyes flashed with anger. He let out a low shout and, the moment the fat man bent over, he smashed the stone he had been holding for a long time straight into the fat man's neck.

"Pfft," a faint sound of deflating air escaped from under his hand, the stone easily piercing half of the fat man's body.

Fatty froze completely. Under Wu Xie's astonished gaze, Fatty's skin began to turn yellow and wither like crumpled paper money, peeling off layer by layer until it became a blank face in the blink of an eye.

Wu Xie quickly picked up the lighter from the ground and lit it. He found that the flame had returned to normal color and was about to breathe a sigh of relief when he suddenly saw something that made his eyelids twitch. He staggered back a few steps and quickly put an arm's length distance between himself and the cardboard figurine he had smashed.

The instant the firelight flared up, he clearly saw something wriggling beneath the paper figure's skin, like blood vessels swelling from heat, bulging as if it could burst through the thin paper at any moment.

"...Hiss...I've found it..."

"...He discovered it..."

What did you find?
A muffled murmur reached his ears, indistinct and unclear. Wu Xie, with a mouthful of blood on his tongue, focused intently on listening.

"...Hiss...He's looking over here..."

"...What should I do...what should I do..."

"...Hide it..."

"...Hide quickly..."

In the dim, flickering light, the rustling sounds suddenly became impatient, a cacophony of voices, tinged with excitement, like mischievous children playing hide-and-seek with adults.

Wu Xie's hair stood on end uncontrollably, cold sweat broke out, and his scalp tingled.

This is terrible!

Because he discovered that these sounds came from all directions and were everywhere, meaning he was surrounded!
"……laugh……"

As if sensing his thoughts, the surrounding noise suddenly fell silent.

Just then, a sudden burst of laughter rang out from behind him, almost touching.

Wu Xie subconsciously turned around, and a grayish-white blur flashed past his peripheral vision. A cold wind blew behind him, as if something large had instantly moved away from him.

Wu Xie couldn't help but shiver, his breathing becoming rapid. At this moment, he was like Tang Sanzang who had mistakenly entered a demon's cave, not daring to make any rash moves.

"...Not enough, not enough..."

"...not enough to eat..."

The soft sound suddenly drew closer, then swirled away as Wu Xie looked at it.

"...Eat...eat him..."

"...Eat him...Eat him!!!"

The standoff lasted less than half a second before the impatient voice suddenly turned shrill, like a taut string being wildly scratched by a cat's claws. Each cry was frantic and like a ghost's wail, shattering the silence and echoing throughout the space: "Eat him!!"

"Eat him!!!"

The scene was completely out of control. Countless shrill screams swarmed towards Wu Xie. A cold wind raged, but all that could be heard was the sound and the stench; no one could be seen. The excruciating pain all over his body seemed to be an illusion.

What exactly happened? Wu Xie rubbed his arm vigorously. The pain from the wind blades still seemed to linger on his skin, but there was no damage to his flesh.

Wu Xie was surprised, but then he quickly calmed down after realizing something. Since entering the area of ​​the meteorite, similar hallucinations had occurred frequently, and he had experienced them before, so he was not flustered.

Wu Xie closed his eyes tightly, silently repeating in his mind, "It's fake, it's all fake, I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming..."

And just as he realized that it was all an illusion, all was silent.

The only sound in the entire space was his breathing, amplified by the echo, as if he were trapped in a small dome.

A clear and melodious copper bell suddenly rang in my mind, and my senses became instantly clear.

Wu Xie suddenly opened his eyes, took a deep breath, and was immediately choked by the damp dust floating in the air, coughing incessantly.

Fearing to alert some unknown danger, he suppressed a few coughs, but suddenly realized that something was wrong; the ground beneath him seemed to have been trembling.

He suppressed the itch in his throat, squinted, and carefully looked around. A faint light pierced through the dust, filtering in like thin veils. This light was enough for him to clearly observe his surroundings.

This is a rectangular, low-ceilinged wooden space, commonly known as a coffin.

Moreover, it seemed to be a coffin suspended in mid-air, swaying with the slightest movement, and one could vaguely see the silver chains binding the coffin outside.

"..." Staring at the huge hole in the coffin lid, Wu Xie's expression went blank for a moment.

"What the hell did this happen to me?" Wu Xie struggled to turn over, and something under his back made the wounds on his back ache as if ants were gnawing at them.

He reached down and touched a handful of damp, rotting bones. The round ones were skulls, which seemed to be adorned with a series of hard, curved decorations, as well as many oval beads of varying sizes.

Wu Xie judged that these should be the ornaments buried with the remains. The shape resembled the animal-shaped ornaments commonly worn by Tibetans, as well as dzi beads and agate.

As he touched her, his fingertips inadvertently caught a strand of hair that emitted a putrid stench, and the shadow of being dominated by the forbidden woman immediately surged into his mind.

He hurriedly shook it off, sat up halfway, shifted the bone under his buttocks to the side, put his hands together, and murmured "Amitabha" to bolster his courage, "No intention to disturb, may evil not invade, may no strangeness be blamed."

As he read on, he suddenly remembered what happened to the fat man before he went into the coffin.

Wu Xie frowned, thought carefully for a moment, and it seemed to be... the paper doll... the blood on the tip of the tongue... and then... oh, he remembered everything.

He was being beaten by the cardboard cutouts at the time, and the fat man was hanging on the cliff below. Then he was knocked away by the crazed cardboard cutouts.

Could it be that this place is actually below the cliff, and the fat man moved him into this coffin? Where is the fat man?
Or was he knocked off a cliff by the cardboard doll and fell directly into a coffin?

He glanced at the hole above and thought this was more likely.

Wu Xie carefully bent over and squeezed his upper body out of the hole in the coffin lid. Following the chains binding the coffin upwards, he saw a very thick, pale, irregular horizontal beam, like a main beam, inserted between the cave wall and the dome.

Looking further into the cave, there are even more such crossbeams, their wooden surfaces appearing to be covered with some kind of luminescent moss, giving the beams a soft, snow-like fluorescence in the darkness.

Wu Xie was momentarily stunned, as the scene before him seemed to overlap with that unforgettable image from his memory.

He subconsciously slowed his breathing. For some reason, he had a feeling that these beams were alive, and the coffins hanging from them looked strangely like the cocoons hanging under the nine-headed cypress tree in the Lu Palace.

Many years later, the shock that the eerie, demonic giant tree brought him back then is still vivid in his mind.

Wu Xie licked his dry lips, a strange sense of unease rising within him because of this absurd idea.

If his guess is correct, then what he is about to face is a colossal creature dozens of times larger than the Nine-Headed Cypress of yesteryear.

Wu Xie let out a long breath, sorting out his chaotic thoughts. Thinking of Mu Yu and Zhang Haike, whose whereabouts were still unknown, his eyes gradually hardened.

First, he had to find Fatty in all those countless coffins, then find an exit together, and then figure out a way to reunite with Muyu and the others.

Wu Xie cautiously climbed out of the coffin and tried to grab the thick vines that resembled chains in front of him. The vines were as thick as teacups, and dozens of them were tightly wrapped around each coffin.

The pale green vines looked like hard iron, but when you touched them, it felt like you were holding a piece of cold jade, cool and supple to the touch.

Wu Xie turned his head and looked around. He estimated the number of coffins on the left and right, and chose the one on the lower left that was closest to him, about three meters away.

Then, holding onto the vines, he carefully moved to a slightly sturdier spot where the coffin lid wasn't completely rotten. He took a deep breath, imagined himself as a nimble magpie, and swung backward with all his might, stepping on the coffin.

As the coffin swung back and forth like a swing, seize the opportunity and leap forward in mid-air in a hurdle-like motion.

With a muffled "thump," Wu Xie landed squarely on the coffin lid.

The coffin lid beneath his feet made a creaking sound as if it were about to collapse under the weight, but Wu Xie's attention was completely focused on what was behind him.

Just now, in the instant he jumped up, he seemed to hear the clear sound of a copper bell. (End of Chapter)