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

Chapter 297 The Qilin is Wrong
(My darlings, I have some bad news. I've started having a fever again. I don't know if it's from a sore throat or something else, but I'm really dizzy. I'm just barely managing to finish writing today's content.)

If I update tomorrow, it means my fever has subsided. If not, I'm very sorry, just letting you know in advance. Good luck!
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Seeing that the two looked strange, as if something terrible had happened, Jude Kao asked them a question.

With a stiff upper lip, A-Tu walked to a spot where Jude Kao's cane couldn't reach and quietly recounted what had happened.

When Jude Kao heard that his hundreds of millions of dollars worth of high-quality equipment had all gone down the drain, he immediately rolled his eyes in anger and nearly fainted.

His subordinates, who were standing guard nearby, promptly took out the medicine and fed it to him. He patted his chest and calmed down for a while.

Jude Kao suppressed his anger. "Send a small team to guard the lake. The rest of you, hurry up and move all the remaining supplies over to strengthen the defenses. I don't want to see any more problems with these supplies; otherwise, you know the consequences."

A Tu immediately responded, turned around and took two steps, when he suddenly heard Qiu Dekao sigh behind him, "Sure enough, no matter how much training she receives, she still can't compare to A Ning."

A Tu's eyes instantly welled up with endless resentment, and his fists clenched tightly at his sides.

Ah Ning, Ah Ning, why can't that woman rest in peace even after she's dead? When she was alive, she always put me in a superior position in front of the boss. I finally managed to outlive her, but the boss still has a thing for her. A bunch of people in the company who are opportunistic are also very dissatisfied with me, which makes it difficult for me to do my job properly most of the time.

Damn it, if it weren't for Lao Hu saying that the woman's body had been blown to bits along with the snake, she would have dug it out and scattered the ashes.

Jude Kao's men waited anxiously by the lake, the sun blazing down, and no amount of water could stop their lips from cracking. But even as the sun was about to set, they saw no movement on the lake.

Some people couldn't help but wonder, "Could those four people have drowned?"

Someone nearby rolled their eyes and said, "You've seen what those four guys are capable of, do you really think it's possible?"

Unfortunately, both of them had worked under Aning for a period of time, one of whom was A-K, who almost died in the sandpit near the Devil City.

Now reassigned to A Tu's command, the newcomers naturally disliked the old ones, and they were assigned to this thankless and arduous job. They must have felt uncomfortable, but since he was their new leader, they dared not offend him and could only endure it.

"Team Leader Ning is so much better. She's approachable and easy to talk to. Unlike this one, ha~" Ah K muttered under his breath, "She's more arrogant than the boss, bossy and domineering, as if everyone should fawn over her. She'll make things difficult for anyone she doesn't like. She's petty and narrow-minded. If she's so capable, why doesn't she just fly to the moon?"

Seeing that he was about to mutter something, his companion quickly shushed him, saying, "A-Tu is coming."

Ah K immediately shut his mouth and stood up straight.

A-Tu didn't hear their conversation; he just came over to inspect the area, asked if there was anything wrong, and then went back.

Jude Kao sat in a makeshift shed under the shade of a tree, enjoying the cool air, listening to the bearded foreigner report on the losses from this statistic, his dragon-headed cane clattering in his hand.

The bearded foreigner shrank his neck, held his breath, and waited for his boss's instructions. Only when Jude Kao waved his hand weakly did he secretly breathe a sigh of relief and slip away to the side.

The bearded foreigner inwardly groaned. Super Wu and Super Fish had almost gotten him into serious trouble this time. Fortunately, the situation was so chaotic that no one noticed that Super Wu and that fat guy Wang were standing right next to him.

Thinking to himself, he quickly made the sign of the cross on his chest, held up the cross necklace around his neck, and silently prayed to the sky.

The moment she opened her eyes, she met A-Tu's gaze, who was standing not far away.

A-Tu was standing there with a cold face, staring at him with unfriendly eyes, and it was unclear how long she had been standing there.

The bearded foreigner's heart skipped a beat. He almost thought he had been exposed, but then he realized that he wasn't an undercover agent, so what could he possibly expose?

Moreover, the boss had given instructions from the beginning that he would be in charge of logistics, while A-Tu would be in charge of guarding and intelligence gathering. If any outsiders sneaked into the camp and caused damage, that would be A-Tu's responsibility.

Thinking of this, the bearded foreigner immediately straightened his back and glared back defiantly.

A-Tu rolled her eyes and silently cursed, "Idiot."

The bearded foreigner only saw her lips move twice, but it was too fast for his barely passable Chinese to read the lip movements of those two words in time. However, judging from A-Tu's expression, he knew she definitely didn't say anything nice.

The bearded foreigner snorted, exhaling a breath from his snort, no longer wanting to pay attention to her. He turned around and went to help his team tidy up the pieced-together equipment that, after some repairs, could barely last one or two more uses.

Meanwhile, Zhang Wuxun and his three companions, who had tricked Jude Kao and then hid underwater, were now safely exploring the Han-style tower while wearing scuba gear.

Because they needed to leave the water before the siphon tide arrived, they split into two groups. Zhang Wuxun and Xiao Ge each led one person and began a thorough search from bottom to top.

Finally, the four of them met on the third floor and looked up, discovering that there seemed to be a small space hidden in the spire above.

Zhang Wuxun wrote a line on the underwater magnetic drawing board he had taken from Qiu Dekao and showed it to the four of them: "Since we haven't found any special clues down there, why don't we go up and take a look?"

The young man nodded, his expression somewhat urgent for some reason.

The four of them paddled up the water. Unlike the rest of the tower, which was made entirely of wood, the partition between the third floor and the spire was clearly made of molten iron. On the circular iron wall was carved a majestic fire-riding Qilin.

A fiery red jade bead is inlaid around the eye of the Qilin.

The fat man reached out to touch it, but Zhang Wuxun stopped him and gestured for him not to move.

Then he wrote on the drawing board: "Look closely, this is not an ordinary coral drum bead, it is a Tibetan Sheba bead."

Tibetan Sherpa beads, also known as Tibetan Sherpa beads, are a type of Qing Dynasty bead named after the Sherpa people of the snowy region of Nepal. They have small holes, are coral-colored, and opaque. The most authentic Sherpa beads are actually made from powdered red coral.

After the Western Xia people were exterminated in the Yuan Dynasty, they settled in the Himalayas and invented this bead-making technique. It began to be used as currency and property in the mid-Yuan Dynasty. It gradually entered civilized society and became known to the world in the late Ming Dynasty, but its original formula and technique were lost again during the Kangxi period.

The world recognizes that only beads made before the 20th century, that is, before 1900 AD, are considered genuine Tibetan Sherpa beads.

However, this Sheba bead in front of us does not have any pitted or uneven marks of time, which means that it has never been worn since it was made.

Although their market price may not be comparable to some jewelry and jade, in the eyes of true connoisseurs, Sherpa beads of this age are almost priceless.

After Zhang Wuxun finished explaining, the fat man blew a bubble and made a picking gesture.

Zhang Wuxun rolled his eyes and slapped back the outstretched hand. This fatso dares to mess with things in the Zhang family tower.

The fat man shrank his neck, looking somewhat innocent with the air nozzle in his mouth.

He simply thought the bead was so beautiful and had such an auspicious meaning that he would take it to add to Yun Cai's headdress on her wedding day, and hang it on her forehead with a chain; it would definitely look beautiful.

The young man ran his fingers along the Qilin pattern but found no mechanisms or locks. In other words, the space above was completely sealed off.

Now Zhang Wuxun and the others were even more curious. What exactly was inside that was hidden so well?

However, they couldn't just drop bombs here, for fear that the entire tower would collapse before the iron wall was breached.

The young man's brows furrowed even more as he examined the Qilin carving inch by inch under the light. Suddenly, he noticed something was wrong and quickly turned to give Zhang Wuxun a hand signal.

Zhang Wuxun leaned closer and saw the young man write four characters on the drawing board: “Qilin is wrong.”

Is the Qilin wrong?

Zhang Wuxun frowned. How could the Qilin be wrong?
But how could the guy not recognize the tattoos he's had for so many years?
Zhang Wuxun then pointed upwards, indicating that he would take a look.

The deliveryman stepped aside and stood with a light on, allowing Zhang Wuxun to examine the iron kylin closely. Only then did he understand what the deliveryman meant by "the kylin is not right".

It turns out that there are two layers of engravings on the iron wall after the molten iron was cast. The surface is a Qilin, but there is another picture hidden in the middle of the Qilin.

The Fire-Treading Qilin is raised from the wall in the form of a relief, with a very shallow layer of engravings underneath, hidden in the gaps of the relief, perfectly concealed among the Qilin, and it is really hard to find without careful observation.

Moreover, the engraving hidden in the middle looks somewhat familiar.

Something suddenly flashed through his mind, so fast that Zhang Wuxun didn't have time to react.

Upon closer examination, the brain had already hidden that fragment.

"Damn it!" Zhang Wuxun cursed inwardly, why did it have to fall apart at this crucial moment?

When Wu Xiaoxie told them about their new discovery, both of them were shocked.

The fat man made a wild guess: "Brother, do your Qilins have males and females?"

The young man glanced at him indifferently.

The fat man understood and shut up. "Okay, I get it. There are only males, no females."

Wu Xiaoxie patted him on the shoulder, "Stop thinking about all this nonsense. What we need to do now is figure out how to break through this iron wall."

The fat man strolled around the floor a couple of times, as if taking a leisurely walk, when suddenly he had a brilliant idea: "Since the inside is covered in molten iron, why don't we go outside and take a look? If we dismantle that spire from the outside, we can get inside."

Wu Xiaoxie gave him a thumbs up, "Not bad, Fatty, you're smarter than all of us."

Turning to look at Zhang Wuxun and the other man, he said, "Muyu, Brother, let's go out and take a look."

Zhang Wuxun and Xiao Ge felt that this trick might not work. Since the inside of the tower was sealed off in the first place, there was no guarantee that molten iron wouldn't be poured on the outside of the tower as well.

However, rather than waiting to die, it's better to go out and see.

The four swam to the top of the tower, clung to the tower body and stopped. Upon closer inspection, they realized that the outside of the tower tip was just an enlarged bronze bell, making it even more difficult to reach it.

The fat man tapped the door with his dagger and wrote with some frustration, "Why did you Zhang family turn a wooden pagoda into a turtle shell? Don't you plan to let your future generations go inside to visit it? Or is there some earth-shattering secret hidden inside that you can't let anyone know?"

Zhang Wuxun was also frustrated, but then he thought about it and realized that since the Zhang family had chosen to sink the entire Yao village into the lake, they certainly didn't want outsiders to know anything about it.

Wu Xiaoxie sighed and comforted them, "If it were that easy to get in, Chen Wenjin's expedition team, Qiu Dekao, and Ta Jianshou would have already seen everything inside. What chance would we have? Let's think of another way."

The fat man scratched his head, racking his brains for a solution, but as soon as he came up with one, he immediately rejected it himself. "We can't use an electric drill underwater, are we supposed to use a hammer? That would take forever."

The young man hadn't offered any opinion, but had been groping around on the bronze tower's spire. Suddenly, he seemed to have discovered something and reached out to Zhang Wuxun.

Zhang Wuxun was still racking his brains over the images that had flashed through his mind earlier. He had a premonition that as long as he could remember what they were, he would definitely be able to enter the bronze tower.

So he didn't see the delivery guy reach out his hand until the delivery guy patted him on the shoulder and he came to his senses.

The young man thought Zhang Wuxun was affected by something on his body again. After taking a closer look, he found that there were no red marks on the right side of his face under the diving mask, and then he was relieved.

The young man led Zhang Wu over, pointed to three irregular indentations on the bronze wall at the top of the tower, blended into the ancient patterns, and then made a circle with his hand.

Zhang Wuxun was taken aback. What did that mean?
In an instant, a flash of inspiration struck him, and he suddenly understood what the young man was trying to say.

He hurriedly pulled out a small black and gold ball from his spatial storage, his fingers flying across the screen. He quickly disassembled the mechanism into the last piece he could manage, then looked at the three irregular pits and placed the object in one of them. To his surprise, it fit perfectly.

This black and gold ball was the first mechanical ball he pulled out of the belly of the blue-eyed fox corpse in the Lu Palace. He never expected it would be used here.

Zhang Wuxun quickly took out the system from the underwater tomb that he had obtained by sacrificing his health, disassembled it to the last step, and embedded it into the small pit.

Wu Xiaoxie and Fatty also noticed what was happening and quickly gathered around, staring in disbelief at Zhang Wuxun's actions.

Soon, the third small ball, which had been pulled out from under the tail of the Qinling giant snake, was also filled.

And then... well, that's it.

The fat man raised his thick eyebrows, his meaning clear: "That's it?"

Zhang Wuxun was also a little confused. How come this was different from what he had imagined?
Wait a minute, Zhang Wuxun's eyes suddenly lit up. He exchanged a glance with the young man, and the two immediately turned around and rushed into the tower.

Wu Xiaoxie had some understanding of Qimen Dunjia, but it was clear that the mechanism in front of him had absolutely nothing to do with Qimen Dunjia. At this moment, he was just as bewildered as the fat man.

Seeing that the two men had run off without saying goodbye, he quickly grabbed the fat man and chased after them.

Swimming back up from the first floor to the top of the tower, they saw that the iron wall, which had left them helpless just moments before, had now silently shrunk and opened up a 30-centimeter-wide gap.

The circular iron wall was supported by six thick, jet-black chains.

Everyone must remember to keep warm and get plenty of rest. Don't let this awful illness leave you feeling weak and listless like I did. It comes on like a landslide, but recovery is a slow and painful process (╥﹏╥).
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(End of this chapter)