Tomb raiding: Trying to become a little painter

"Ha, how naive you are! When you stop being naive, your belly is full of bad intentions!"

Fatty Wang made sarcastic remarks, his face beaming but his mouth never stopped.

"There's nothing we can do. Fatty, you know Wu Xie's situation. He used to struggle to make ends meet. Now it's a bit better, at least he can pay his water, electricity, and gas bills. But it's tough on us guys who have to work hard to help him out!"

Qin Henian didn't help Wu Xie, and continued to tease him along with what Fatty Wang said.

While the group was chatting and bickering, Qin Henian, with his keen intuition, caught a subtle glance. Without making a sound, he saw that Yun Cai's cheeks seemed to be flushed, and her eyes were secretly scrutinizing him. Qin Henian immediately felt a sense of unease.

He can't let the fat man's luck with women slip away!

"Alright, let's go find our rooms first, and we can talk about other things after we've rested for a while!"

After saying that, Qin Henian got up first and slipped away. He went upstairs, looked around at the four rooms with similar decorations and furnishings, and then chose the room on the right that was furthest from the stairs and moved in.

The three people downstairs exchanged glances and were about to go upstairs to choose a room when a loud "bang" from the living room downstairs stopped them in their tracks.

"Father! What happened?"

Yun Cai reacted quickly; upon hearing the sound of a heavy object falling, she was the first to run to the living room on the first floor, asking questions as she ran.

Seeing this, Wu Xie and the other two couldn't pretend they hadn't seen anything, so they all followed Yun Cai toward the place where the incident had occurred.

The group quickly entered the living room on the first floor. As soon as they stepped inside, they saw Ah Gui lying on the floor, trying to get up. Next to Ah Gui was a broken photo frame, with shards of glass scattered all over the floor.

"Father!"

When Yun Cai saw her father fall to the ground, her face turned deathly pale. She quickly knelt down and helped him up. Fatty Wang also diligently kicked the glass shards away with his shoe.

"YunCai, Father is fine. He just saw that some of the picture frames hanging on our wall had fallen to the ground. Just as he was about to pick them up, another picture frame fell down from the wall. I guess the rivets on our wall aren't strong enough to hold them up. Father can just take some time to nail a few more back on!"

As soon as A-Gui stood up, he looked regretfully at the few old photo frames that had fallen on the ground, explaining why he had fallen.

"Alright, Father, I'll take care of these photos later. You're getting old, so leave the delicate work to me. Let me help you to the side to rest!"

As they talked, Yun Cai helped A Gui to a recliner in the living room and gently helped him sit up before turning to stare at the broken pieces on the ground. Yun Cai's brows furrowed slightly.

That fleeting moment of furrowed brows was caught by Fatty Wang, who had been observing the clouds, and he quickly stepped forward, smiling broadly at the clouds.

"Little Cloud, let your chubby brother clean up these picture frames and broken glass on the ground. What if you girls accidentally cut your hands while cleaning these things?"

Fatty Wang scanned the living room and found a trash can and a broom in a corner. He quickly walked over, picked up the broom, rolled up his sleeves, and got ready to work.

"Little Innocent, could you help Fatty find the dustpan? I'll empty it out after he sweeps up the broken glass!"

While urging his son Tianzhen to do his work, Fatty Wang squatted down in the area with the most picture frames and fragments, preparing to pry them open with the broom head to see if there were any well-preserved, dust-free photos left.

Crunch!

Crunch!

The sound of shards of glass being turned over was loud and creaking. After a few prying motions with the broom head, two or three normal-sized black and white old photos and some small black and white headshots were folded from the bottom of several old photo frames.

"Hey? Fatty, this photo looks like it's full of people from the Banna archaeological team back then! I don't recognize the other people next to me; they're probably other staff members from the team. But I think I see Aunt Wenjin and Aunt Huoling when they were young... and Xiao Ge and Jie Lianhuan too... The other person looks like a villager; judging from their clothes, they were probably local guides hired by the archaeological team..."

Wu Xie stepped forward to help clean up the broken pieces on the ground. After searching through them for a while, his eyes suddenly fixed on a black and white photograph that had been crushed by glass shards. He observed it for a few seconds before making a sound of disbelief.

In what seemed like an instant, Wu Xie felt as if something had grown in his brain...

The names on the list of members of the archaeological team in Banna from back then appeared before his eyes one by one. There was his third uncle, as well as people from the other nine sects. So why were they so obsessed with this place, Banna?

Perhaps he should think about it the way the older generation did back then. There might be something here that he hasn't found out yet. And coincidentally, this is also the hometown of the guy he found out about, and the guy just happens to be on the archaeological team's list. Too many coincidences are no longer coincidences.

It seems he needs to find out what the previous archaeological team in Banna actually did in Banna.

"Hey! Tianzhen! What are you looking at? You've been staring blankly for ages!"

Just as Wu Xie was pondering, Fatty Wang finished his work efficiently, turned around and noticed Wu Xie's dazed expression. He quickly raised his fat hand and waved it in front of the human-faced gate.

"It's nothing, I'm just thinking about a problem. I'll discuss it with you guys after dinner and when we're resting tonight!"

Wu Xie mumbled something under his breath, giving Wang Pangzi a look that he couldn't say what he was thinking openly.

Fatty Wang was quick-witted; in the blink of an eye, he seemed to understand something and started helping Wu Xie by making up random things to gloss over the matter. He also took the mess he had cleaned up in the house with him when he left.

As soon as Wu Xie and his two companions went upstairs, they were blocked by Qin Henian at the top of the stairs on the second floor. Without saying a word, he gestured for them to follow him into the bedroom he had chosen.

boom!

Click!

The door was closed and locked in one swift motion. Once only four people remained in the room, Qin Henian raised his hand and made a hand seal, casting a faint golden-red light throughout the room. Only after the light covered the entire room did Qin Henian breathe a sigh of relief, casually walk to the bed in the bedroom, and plop down on it.

The other three also relaxed the moment Qin Henian relaxed, and each found a place to sit casually in the empty space of the room.

"Fatty, Little Brother, Henian, the old photos downstairs, the list of the archaeological team members in Banna... and Little Brother's hometown, and photos... the connections are just too coincidental..."

What Wu Xie didn't say was that these things were like a connected thread, pulling one and then pulling another, and he guessed that his unreliable old fox, his third uncle, was trying to get him to do something again.

"An archaeological team wouldn't come to this guy's hometown without a reason; there must be some connection..."

Furthermore, Wu Xie recalled that Zhang Dafoye, the former leader of the Nine Gates, also had the surname Zhang, and that Xiao Ge had been sent to his side by his third uncle for so long. If there was nothing suspicious about it, it would be impossible for Wu Xie, who was very curious, not to have any doubts.

Wu Xie spoke directly, stating his thoughts as soon as he opened his mouth.

"There is definitely a connection. After all, it's not the first time that you, Little Innocent, have been fooled by that old fox, Third Master. But the purpose of us brothers here is to help Little Brother find his home and see if we can help him recover some of his memories."

"Fatty, I don't believe you didn't see that cold face on the guy's face in that photo just now!"

Fatty Wang didn't think Wu Xie's suspicions were anything to worry about, because that was just Wu Xie's personality. But there were priorities, and finding Xiao Ge's house was the most important thing.

As for the archaeological team from Banna back then, they've already arrived, so we can continue our investigation slowly.