The Unorthodox Tomb Raider

Suppressing the surging anger in his heart, Chen Yulou's smile returned.

................

In the evening, Fang Yun and his two fellow disciples, Partridge Whistle and his brother, gathered in the courtyard to discuss how to lift the curse on the Ghost Eye.

Partridge Whistle joined the Mountain Moving Clan at the age of thirteen and was constantly on the move. Except when he found elixirs and needed to bring them back to the clan, he had no time to visit his clan.

Therefore, he didn't know much about the Ghost Cave. He only knew that returning the Muchen Pearl to the Ghost Cave would lift the curse on the Ghost Eye. The Ghost Cave was located at the foot of Mount Zaglama, which had now become a desert with nothing but yellow sand.

Therefore, he decided to rest in Chenjiazhuang for two days before returning to his clan to search for records left by his ancestors.

The Zaglama tribe has been searching for the Ghost Eye Curse for over three thousand years and already knows how to break it; all they lack is a Muchen Pearl.

After hearing Partridge Whistle's decision, Fang Yun nodded, pondering to himself.

Returning the Muchen Pearl to the Ghost Cave is indeed a way to lift the curse on the Ghost Eye, and the Ghost Cave is located in the Jingjue Ancient City, so it's not difficult for him to find.

However... he didn't want to do that. He preferred to go to Kunlun and use a ritual to close the connection between the imaginary space and the real world, thereby lifting the curse of the Ghost Eye.

Because the Muchen Pearl contains mysterious power and has some connection to immortality, he does not want to let it go.

If the Muchen Pearl is returned to the Ghost Cave, the Ghost Cave can swallow it. He is not an ancestor of the Demon Kingdom, and he has no special means to enter the Ghost Cave and take out the Muchen Pearl.

The path to Kunlun for the sacrificial ceremony, where the Muchen Pearl can be taken away after the ceremony, is what he truly desires.

Therefore, he planned to return to the Zaglama tribe with Partridge Whistle. If Partridge Whistle could find information about the Demon Kingdom in the tribe, then they would go directly to the Kunlun Mountains to find the ruins of the Demon Kingdom and complete the sacrifice.

If Partridge Whistle fails to find information about the Demon Kingdom and wants to go to the Ghost Cave, then he can use the excuse that "he happens to know about the Demon Kingdom" to lead the route towards the Kunlun Mountains.

Chapter 109 Zagrama!

(The transitional chapter will end soon.)

After a long and arduous journey, more than half a year has passed since we started searching for the Yelang ancient tombs.

In the following days, Fang Yun also had a rare moment of free time.

Partridge Whistle and Old Foreigner will plan the route to Zaglama; he just needs to follow along, and he doesn't need to worry about anything else.

So, for the past few days, he has been busy with his own things, practicing Zhongyuan Qigong and Zhongyuan Danjue.

Although he learned these two techniques from the system, learning them is one thing, but he still had to practice them himself... After all, cultivation techniques don't automatically advance to higher levels, and alchemy techniques don't automatically give him alchemy skills.

It wasn't until the fifth day that Partridge Whistle decided to return to his tribe.

The Unloading Ridge Sect is the most powerful sect in the world. They have extensive information channels and know a great deal about ancient dynasties and tombs. He and the old foreigner have already searched through all the ancient documents in Chenjiazhuang that they need.

Next, we need to return to the Zaglama tribe, retrieve the tribe's records, and finalize the itinerary for returning the Muchen Pearl.

After packing their luggage and supplies, the four of them bid farewell to Chen Yulou and left Chen Family Village.

Partridge Whistle waved to Chen Yulou, who was standing outside the gate of Chen Family Village, and said with a smile.

"Brother Chen...you are a man of great talent."

Upon hearing Partridge Whistle's words, Fang Yun smiled and nodded.

"In this respect, neither of us is as good as him."

Chen Yulou was kind-hearted and ambitious, and his family had the resources to do so. This chaotic world was the perfect opportunity for him to make his mark.

Two days ago, he completed the entire map of human skin and drew a detailed map of the tomb of the King of Xian. As long as Chen Yulou follows the map, he can easily collect the gold and jade artifacts from the tomb of the King of Xian.

Although he picked out all the good ones, what he considered good might not be what others considered good.

In Chen Yulou's eyes, there is no such thing as good or bad condition or old age for funerary objects; the most valuable ones are the best.

There's nothing worthless in the tomb of the King of Xian... If Chen Yulou had the connections, he could even set his sights on those bronze artifacts, which are the most precious.

........................

"Isn't Guizhou right next to Hunan?"

"You Zaglama people migrated to Guizhou?"

As Fang Yun walked along the mountain path, he was startled.

He had previously asked Partridge Whistle why he refused Chen Yulou's offer of a carriage ride. Partridge Whistle told him that the Zaglama tribe had migrated to the mountains of Guizhou decades ago and lived in caves deep in the mountains.

The Hui people have to traverse countless deep mountains and forests on their journey, and can only do so on foot.

"Yes, you'll see when you get there. Qianshan is a great place."

Hua hugged Fang Yun's arm and explained with a smile, seemingly excited because they were almost home.

"It's because of the curse of the Ghost Eyes." At this moment, Partridge Whistle also sighed.

“Our clan originally came from outside the region and migrated to the belly of Shuanghei Mountain. Then we discovered the bottomless ghost cave. The clan priest told the clan members through divination that there was a golden jade eye in the east. If we put that eye into the ghost cave, we could see the inside of the ghost cave.”

"So our ancestors made a replica of a golden jade eye and put it into the Ghost Cave... You know what happened after that."

"Therefore, in order to break the curse of the Ghost Eye, our clan entered the Central Plains to search for the Dust Pearl. Later, we discovered that the farther away from the Ghost Cave, the weaker the curse's power became. So our clan migrated from the borderlands to the Guizhou region..."

"Our clan now lives in Guizhou. If we migrate again, we will have nowhere left to go but south to the sea. Fortunately, we have found the Muchen Pearl!"

At this point, Partridge Whistle sighed again, but the smile on his face never left.

He had always been reluctant to talk about the curse of the Ghost Eye, but now that the curse is about to be broken, it will no longer be a taboo nightmare!

Upon hearing Partridge Whistle's words, Fang Yun nodded thoughtfully.

As expected, Zaglama couldn't possibly be completely unaware of the Ghost Eye Curse in order to protect himself, so it seems we won't need his advice this time.

.....................

Although the road to Qianshan is not easy to travel.

However, Guizhou and Hunan are only separated by one place. Under Partridge Whistle's guidance, the group arrived at the Guizhou Mountains, which Partridge Whistle had mentioned, in just four days.

Here lies a continuous mountain range, and in the center of that range stands a lush, green valley.

Looking into the distance, one can see rows of wooden and bamboo houses built in the valley. These buildings rise steeply along the terrain and connect to a natural crevice in the mountain. The area around the crevice is full of pavilions, and dwellings have also been built inside the crevice.

· ·········Request flowers· ···

At first glance, it really does look like a secluded sanctuary of a martial arts sect.

The Mountain Moving Team is a pearl-hunting squad within the Zaglama tribe. They bear the mission of their tribe and hold a high position within the tribe. As soon as they entered the mountains, Zaglama people came up to greet them and surrounded Partridge Whistle and his two fellow disciples.

After hearing from Partridge Whistle that they had brought back the Muchen Pearl, the entire valley was in an uproar.

Cheers and cries echoed throughout the valley.

After chatting briefly with these clansmen, Partridge Whistle, along with his junior brothers and sisters and Fang Yun, went to visit the elders of his clan.

 …

The Zaglama people I saw earlier were all quite young, mostly a few years old or teenagers, with very few over twenty years old; I only saw about five or six.

Today, the entire Zaglama ethnic group numbers no more than two hundred people, not even enough to constitute a village.

Partridge Whistle, Old Foreigner, and Hua Sanren almost represent the entire younger generation of the Zaglama tribe.

The rest are all older people... those curses have already manifested and taken effect, and now they can hardly move freely and can only stay at home.

Partridge Whistle cared deeply about his people, and this visit took him three or four hours.

At the same time, there were also many gains in those three or four hours.

As Fang Yun had predicted, the Zaglama tribe had left behind a lot of information about the Ghost Cave and the Ghost Eye Curse, which was passed down from generation to generation and collected by the Zaglama people in the belly of the Qian Mountains.

After a hearty dinner, Partridge Whistle dispersed the excited clansmen and, along with Hua Laoyangren and Fang Yun, entered the clan ancestral hall in the heart of Qianshan Mountain to search for clues.

(Please forgive any punctuation or sentence breaks in this chapter. Of the 10,000 words I wrote today, I only posted two chapters. The rest were lost due to disk corruption. I'm currently identifying the images and then making corrections, which is very troublesome. Once I've identified them all, I should be able to post seven chapters on the 11th.)

(I got vaccinated today, and my cold is completely gone. I'll still be up at 5 AM every day.)

Chapter 110 The Secret Text of the Ghost Cave, The Journey to Kunlun!

(This chapter isn't entirely accurate, but it's easier to understand this way. For the sake of convenience, I'll write it this way. The next chapter will begin with Kunlun!)

The Zaglama shrine is brightly lit by candlelight.

On the table in the center of the ancestral hall, there are hundreds of ancient books. On the ground next to the table, there are two bamboo baskets filled with ancient stone slabs, ancient silk books and rubbing cloths.

Fang Yun and his three companions sat down in chairs and carefully examined these ancient records.

These are the findings of the Zaglama tribe over the past thousand years; every piece of information relates to the Ghost Cave or the Muchen Pearl.

"Exquisite..."

"I see..."

Fang Yun held a bluestone slab engraved with ancient characters, and was startled after reading its contents.

The stone slab records the reason for the destruction of the ancient city of Jingjue. He should have read about this in a book in his previous life, but he had long forgotten it.

The inscription on the stone tablet reads that a thousand years after the Zagrama tribe left Mount Zagrama, a prophet in the tribe discovered through divination that there was something unusual about the location of the Ghost Cave. So the prophet led a part of the tribe back to Mount Zagrama.

But at this time, a powerful nation called Jingjue had already emerged in the Zaglama Mountains. The queen of Jingjue could use the power of her eyes to see into the Ghost Cave and summon an army of black snakes to conquer countless surrounding countries, becoming the strongest nation at that time.

Because they wanted to get close to the Ghost Cave, the prophet and his people were discovered by the people of Jingjue, who captured and killed several of them.

Left with no other choice, the prophet disguised himself as a wizard and went to the neighboring kingdom of Gumo. There, he conspired with the prince of Gumo to poison the Queen of Jingjue and also instigated several other countries that had been oppressed by Jingjue to overthrow the ancient kingdom.

But just as the Jingjue Kingdom was about to be overthrown, a massive sandstorm descended, sweeping across the land and engulfing Jingjue and several surrounding countries.

At this point, everything was buried under the yellow sand, and no one could find the Ghost Cave again.