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

Chapter 269 Name Zhang Menyu
(This chapter adds some personal settings, explaining the origin of the wooden fish and the Zhang family member who is suspected to be the wooden fish's father.)
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In less than the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea, the body was completely cleaned up by the transparent worms in the water, leaving not even a trace of bone.

The circular altar in the center of the main hall is very high, at least two stories high, with a set of steps that spiral like a snake in front of it, going up the altar.

Near the outer edge of the water channel, there are bronze pillars standing on the steps. They are regularly shaped and carved with the same kind of mythical bird pattern. The top of the pillar is exactly the head of the mythical bird.

Each pillar is about the thickness of a bowl, and the bronze pillars are spaced about half a meter apart, connected by uniform bronze chains, like an iron chain bridge.

Directly in front of the canal was a small square altar, on which were placed some bronze sacrificial vessels. They were shaped like a combination of an incense burner and a small-mouthed vase, and inside them was a solidified paste that was reddish to black, emitting a faint fragrance.

Zhang Wuxun strongly suspected that the blood inside had been processed by ancient people using some unknown method.

To be honest, the ancient tribe that built this altar really loved blood; all sorts of mechanisms required blood, and other liquids wouldn't do.

Zhang Wuxun was utterly speechless at the fact that even just giving someone a boost of their system energy required him to bleed out.

The small altar here serves not only as a place for sacrifices, but also as a mechanism to access the other side of the canal.

The bronze vessels on the altar were not placed randomly. If you look closely, you can see that there are many small grooves on the altar table, and the bronze vessels are fixed on them. Each vessel has a small protrusion on its bottom, which allows it to slide freely in the groove.

However, this cannot be moved casually, because the stone slabs in this area around the altar are hollow underneath.

In other words, beneath the stone slab are pools connected to water channels. Moving the bronze vessels arbitrarily would trigger the wrong mechanism, causing anyone standing around the small altar to fall in and be devoured by the terrifying creatures lurking in the darkness below.

It can be said that all the mechanisms here are related to the Crimson Flame Bird tattoo, and are prepared for the descendants of that ancient tribe. Only those with the same Crimson Flame tattoo as Zhang Wuxun are qualified to walk out of here alive.

Zhang Wuxun only learned about the origin of the other bloodline in his body when he came here last time.

He was very curious. Since he had two special bloodlines, if his father was indeed a member of the Zhang family, then who was his mother?

His memories before the age of five are almost entirely blank. He only vaguely remembers dreaming that he seemed to be in a very cold place where it snowed almost every day, a vast expanse of white.

In his dream, everyone around him was like an ice sculpture, cold and unresponsive. No matter how hard he tried, he could never see their faces clearly. He only remembered that they were wearing old-fashioned robes with a strong folk style.

Until one day, a man in black suddenly appeared in that place. He was covered in thick robes. When he stretched out his big hand, little Zhang Wuxun noticed that the man's two fingers on his right hand were unusually long.

He didn't know what the newcomer said to those cold-hearted people, but later, he was led away by that person in a daze.

After that, he lived with other children from the Zhang family overseas and learned various mechanical skills together.

Zhang Wuxun never asked the adults about his biological parents, and the adults didn't seem to want to tell him either. The person who brought him back to the Zhang family only mentioned it at the beginning, saying that he was picked up from an "ancient temple" and kept as a pet, so they called him Muyu.

He grew up in this muddle until he was eighteen.

Until one day, he found a tattered scroll hidden in the floor tiles under the cabinet in his room. The scroll was signed by Zhang Menyu.

He didn't know who this Zhang Menyu was, but his intuition told him that he had a close relationship with him. So he spent two years investigating and finally found a small village in Banna, a Yao ethnic minority area in Guangxi. Based on the records in the tattered scroll, he went down into the lake and found traces of the existence of the Zhang family's ancient building.

Because he was prepared, he was not panicked when he was swept into the mountains by the whirlpool. Unfortunately, before he could even see the true face of Zhangjialou, he was surrounded and beaten by Miluotu in the mountain. He was no match for the enemy, and he died in a way that he felt aggrieved about.

Therefore, he easily accepted being transported to another time and space by the system, as this was perhaps the only way for him to figure out his origins. Unfortunately, what he didn't expect was that the waters here were far deeper than he imagined.

Pulling himself out of his thoughts, Zhang Wuxun reached out and moved the bronze vessels to their proper positions.

With a clatter, the stone slab beneath their feet trembled, and the stone slab behind the small altar sank down, revealing a narrow depression. In the depression was a small bridge made of bronze chains that led directly to the other side.

Below the bridge lies a calm yet treacherous body of water.

Zhang Wuxun walked across the bridge and went up the steps to the top of the central altar.

The altar was not flat; it was concave like a bowl, with only one staircase leading to the platform in the center. Around the staircase were countless white bones, some of them animal bones and some of human bones, all emitting a faint blue light. It was a horrifying sight—a mass grave.

Between the bones, various jewels and gems could be seen hidden below. In this environment, those gems seemed like the songs of sirens on a deserted island reef, terrifying yet alluring.

Zhang Wuxun put down his backpack, stood by the bowl, took out the dark-patterned white robe from his spatial storage and put it on, then put on the matching silver-white mask that the system had given him, covering the upper half of his face.

As he descended the stairs, with each step he took, he felt as if he were on his way to the execution ground.

The blood basin on the platform was still there, with traces of Zhang Wuxun's last bloodletting still remaining on it.

Sitting cross-legged in the middle, Zhang Wuxun pulled out a small knife from his waist and made several cuts on his wrists to ensure that the blood could flow out smoothly and continuously.

Then he closed his eyes and mentally called upon the system.

Blood flowed down the grooves into the bottom of the disc, the mechanism activated, and the disc, carrying Zhang Wuxun, slowly sank below.

The stone slab above his head had closed at some point, but Zhang Wuxun had no time to care about that now.

The dizziness and numbness caused by blood loss made it impossible for him to even perform a simple action like raising his eyelids.

His body felt as if it had fallen into an ice cellar, the biting cold relentlessly piercing into his body like needles.

Just as he was wondering if he was going to freeze to death here, a surge of heat suddenly welled up in his right chest and gradually spread throughout his body along his veins.

Zhang Wuxun's mind began to feel foggy, and soon he lost consciousness.

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(End of this chapter)