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

Chapter 284 Fake Archaeological Team

(You guys don't like me posting two chapters together? Okay then, I'll post them separately from now on.)
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The fat man asked, puzzled, "What do you mean?"

Zhang Wuxun explained, "Pan Ma's tattoos are always visible and there is no temperature restriction, while Xiao Ge's and my tattoos only appear when the body temperature rises to a certain level."

"The Qilin on Panma's body is at most a high-quality imitation. I asked Panma's son, and he said that the tattoo was done by his grandfather when he saved the life of a Miao shaman. In gratitude, the shaman tattooed this on his father's body when he was a child. It is said to have the effect of preventing Gu worms."

After listening, Wu Xiaoxie and the other person suddenly realized what was going on.

Wu Xiaoxie said in a deep voice, "Agui said that the old man is very stubborn and it will be difficult to get him to talk. Moreover, I always feel that he has a strange hostility towards Xiao Ge. But after Muyu said those words, that hostility suddenly shifted to Muyu. So Muyu, what did you say to that old man?"

Zhang Wuxun smiled calmly, "He has something to hide. My words touched a nerve, so of course he reacted strongly."

"A sore spot?" Wu Xiaoxie's eyes lit up. "What sore spot?"

Zhang Wuxun said, "I found out some things recently that are related to the expedition team from back then."

As he spoke, Zhang Wuxun turned around and handed Wu Xiaoxie a palm-sized, red plastic booklet from his backpack on the bed.

"An archaeological work permit?" Wu Xiaoxie read the words aloud, opened it, and found that the papers inside were old and yellowed, with traces of insects gnawing on the edges. Then, looking at the photo on the first page, he was immediately shocked, "Huo Ling!"

"What?" The fat man tilted his head and leaned over to take a look, and was also surprised. "Holy crap, where did you get this wooden fish?"

“Golmud Sanatorium,” Zhang Wu asked.

"When did you go to Golmud?" Wu Xiaoxie frowned slightly. The forbidden woman in the sanatorium was no pushover; Muyu had suffered a loss when she faced her last time.

Zhang Wuxun touched the tip of his nose, speaking somewhat evasively, "Uh... last time, Chen Wenjin's words gave me some ideas, so I thought I'd try my luck at the sanatorium, and I ended up discovering a shocking secret. Let me tell you the details..."

Wu Xiaoxie scoffed, as if to say, "Go ahead and make things up. I'll just watch you make things up quietly."

The fat man rubbed his hands together, stood beside Zhang Wuxun like a protector, pressed him down on the stool, and said righteously, "Confess and you'll be treated leniently; resist and you'll be punished severely. Tell the truth!"

The young man silently stood on the other side, looking at Zhang Wuxun with the same expressionless face.

Wu Xiaoxie smiled sinisterly, "Muyu, I've noticed you're quite the sneaky troublemaker. See those two guards here? You won't escape our grasp this time. If you don't confess, we'll give you a tickling torture!"

Zhang Wuxun was dumbfounded and didn't know whether to laugh or cry after the series of bizarre actions. He complained, "You three are too ruthless. Okay, okay, I'll confess."

Zhang Wuxun, in his honest but somewhat naive manner (or so he said), mixed up some things that only appeared in the original storyline with his half-truths and half-lies.

In fact, he didn't go to Golmud at all this time. The so-called work permit was something he temporarily conjured up using his materialization ability. Right now, he can only fool people with his words.

“Last time we only searched 306, so this time I focused on checking the other rooms. I found this in a drawer of a table in another room that was almost the same size as the basement.”

Zhang Wuxun pointed to the red booklet in Wu Xiaoxie's hand and continued, "There were some other documents with it, but they've been eaten away by insects. From the few words that are still legible, I think they were notes torn from the book, as if they were left there intentionally." "Notes left there intentionally?" Wu Xiaoxie asked doubtfully, "What was the content?"

Zhang Wuxun's expression turned serious, and he said in a deep voice, "The expedition team is fake."

"what?"

Wu Xiaoxie and the other two didn't quite understand what he meant.

Zhang Wuxun was also somewhat uncertain, saying, "I don't know if Huo Ling meant the entire expedition team was fake, or just some of the members, but what is certain is that something must have gone wrong with the expedition team at that time."

"Of the guides from back then, only Panma is still alive. He is the only one who knows what happened to the expedition team on the mountain back then, so I thought I would try to trick him, and sure enough, he revealed a flaw."

Zhang Wuxun looked at Wu Xiaoxie and asked, "When we were in Buffalo Head Gully, did you notice that when Panma first saw Xiao Ge, his expression changed slightly? He definitely recognized Xiao Ge, and he even seemed hostile towards him. I suspect that either he witnessed the incident that happened to the expedition team back then, or he was a participant in the incident."

"With these two points, we can pretend to be related to those people from back then. The old man is getting on in years, and what he cares about most is his family. As long as we use coercion and inducement appropriately, it won't be difficult to get him to talk."

This was the plan he came up with, because he knew the original plot: after Wu Xiaoxie and Fatty lost contact, in order to get Panma to take him up the mountain in the rain, he deliberately pretended to be a ghost to scare Panma. As a result, Panma went all out and decided to kill him, and Wu Xiaoxie almost suffered a fatal blow.

That old guy is no pushover; Zhang Wuxun needs to find a way to get rid of him to prevent future trouble.

After listening to him, Wu Xiaoxie pondered for a while before saying, "I think this method is feasible. Let's discuss the details further."

After whispering amongst themselves for a while, the group finally decided that Zhang Wuxun and Wu Xiaoxie would go and bluff Panma, while Fatty and Xiaoge would stay at Agui's house to figure out how to deal with the two iron lumps.

After lunch, the previously sunny sky suddenly turned gloomy, looking like it was about to rain.

Zhang Wuxun and his companion followed the bluestone path to Panma Old Man's house.

Panma's son was chopping wood in the yard when he saw the two men. He wasn't surprised at all and simply said, "Please come with me."

He led the two to the back room, where Old Man Panma was sitting cross-legged on a straw mat, a pipe dangling from his mouth, smoking idly, his eyes fixed on the window, his thoughts already wandering elsewhere.

His son called him several times before he seemed to react. His cloudy eyes rolled around, and his neck slowly turned as if frozen. He stared at Zhang Wuxun and the other man standing at the door for a full minute before saying in a hoarse voice, "Come in and sit down."

How bizarre this scene is!

Wu Xiaoxie glanced at Zhang Wuxun, and seeing him nod slightly, the two of them went inside together and sat on the two cushions in front of Panma.

A gust of wind picked up, and the window slammed shut with a crash, causing the thin wooden sticks supporting the window frame to fall down.

A cool breeze blew in, dispersing the humid air in the room and bringing a refreshing coolness.

(End of this chapter)