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

Chapter 344 Laying Stone Tracks
The bamboo raft stopped in front of a wooden dock, and night had already enveloped the entire village.

After Zhang Wuxun and the others got off the raft, in addition to the previously agreed-upon final payment, Zhang Wuxun gave them two more bills.

Lan Baihong and the other person thanked them and rowed back home overnight.

They knew the roads in Banna Village very well, and soon found the gravel path leading to Agui's bamboo house by shining their lanterns. The group then went there.

Smelling the lingering aroma of food in the village air, everyone was starving and rushed to A-Gui's house without stopping. From afar, they could see the newly built stilted bamboo platform at the entrance for guarding.

Seeing a group of people approaching from afar, one of the Huo family members on lookout duty asked warily, "Who goes there?" At the same time, he turned the large spotlight on the shelf towards them.

This scene looks exactly like the puppet troops guarding the city gates during the War of Resistance against Japan, a suicide squad preparing for a night raid with high-powered searchlights shining down on the city.

Huo Xiaoli quickly put her fingers to her lips and whistled a few rhythmic notes, a unique way for the Huo family to communicate.

Hearing the noise, the two members of the Huo family who were on guard duty looked through their binoculars and immediately came down to open the wooden door for them.

Upon entering, the fat man immediately scanned the layout and, seeing that there were basically no major changes, his displeasure subsided slightly. He had almost thought that the Huo family had turned A-Gui's house into a bandit stronghold on a mountain.

After Huo Xiuxiu went up the mountain, the person in charge here is now a middle-aged member of the Huo family named Huo Qiji. Fatty had complained about this name before. This person is considered a relatively loyal member of the pro-corruption faction.

"Weren't you traveling with the patriarch? Why did you suddenly come down the mountain?"

Huo Qiji asked, glancing at Zhang Wuxun and the other two. Realizing the situation might have changed, he immediately put his left hand behind his back and gestured to the person in the shadows, signaling the messenger to go up the mountain to investigate.

The person in the shadows of the bamboo building received the order and was about to retreat from another direction when he saw Zhang Wuxun turn his head directly in his direction. He immediately stopped and held his breath. He could feel that Master Yu was staring at him.

Thanks to Huo Xiaoli's timely explanation, Huo Qiji, though still somewhat doubtful, didn't say anything more. He simply arranged for people to boil water, cook, and prepare rooms for them, and then told the remaining members of the Huo family to wait in the meeting place.

Zhang Wuxun then looked away, smiled at Huo Qiji who had noticed the direction he was looking, and then beckoned the two fat men to go up to the bamboo house where they had stayed before.

Watching the three figures disappear upstairs, Huo Qiji narrowed his eyes slightly, gently waved for the messenger to leave, then went to his room next door, looked Huo Xiaoli and the others over before speaking, "Tell me, what exactly happened?"

Huo Xiaoli and the others recounted the whole story, which dispelled his suspicions about Zhang Wuxun and his group.

After resting for a night, Zhang Wuxun and the others braved the light rain and went up the mountain early the next morning to meet up with Huo Xiangu and the others.

They traveled for a day and a night, but when they arrived, they found that Huo Xiangu and her group were nowhere to be seen in the camp. After asking the people who stayed behind, they learned that after losing contact with them, Huo Xiangu sent a team to search for them, but to no avail. So she personally led a team to reopen the mechanism and led the team into the sealed stone this morning, and they haven't come out yet.

It was morning. Zhang Wuxun and the young man exchanged a glance, their expressions both somewhat solemn. They then tidied their backpacks and packed some lightweight equipment inside.

Then, pulling the fat man aside and avoiding everyone's gaze, she whispered in his ear, "Although we don't know exactly where the problem is, the mechanism of the third sealing gate has malfunctioned. According to Tianzhen's hint, this malfunction has a limited number of attempts. Xiao Ge and I will go in and bring them out. You stay at the camp and be careful."

The traitor who secretly helped the hunchback break the tent lamp during the last lynx attack has still not been found. The situation was critical and chaotic at the time, and no one noticed the traitor's actions.

This person is a ticking time bomb. Although Zhang Wuxun has a few suspects in mind, he cannot be 100% sure.

When Huo Xiangu left, she took some of the people who had entered the camp last time, and others who had stayed behind to guard the camp. Although the Huo family members that Zhang Wuxun suspected also went in this time, it was hard to guarantee that there wouldn't be other deeply hidden moles in the camp.

Huo Xiangu activated the second sealing stone, and the mechanism was not yet closed. Once Zhang Wuxun and Xiao Ge went in, they should be able to catch up with them at top speed.

The fat man grabbed him, frowning, and said, "Since there's a limit to the number of times you can go in, what if you get trapped inside and can't get out this time?"

Zhang Wuxun patted him on the shoulder, indicating that he could rest assured, "Zhang Family Ancient Building's trial-and-error mechanism can't be limited to this one time. We still have at least one more chance to get out unscathed."

The fat man knew that if he went in with them, he would definitely slow them down, so he nodded heavily, "Okay, you two be careful too, and come back as soon as possible."

After giving a few brief instructions, Zhang Wuxun and Xiao Ge entered the cave again and soon entered the third sealing stone.

The tomb passage inside was almost unchanged from before, still a smooth stone path. However, after walking a hundred meters, the two noticed something was amiss.

This time, the stone path was much longer than the last one, and near the end of the path, in a very secluded spot, the two discovered a very small fire mark.

This mark is different from the previous two seals; the flame patterns are more complex, as if it is conveying some meaning.

Similar to the unique markings used by the Zhang family, Zhang Wuxun couldn't discern the meaning of this. He could only guess that Zhang Menyu had discovered some kind of pattern in the changes of the passage, and thus left a mark on his third entry to verify his guess.

The next section was still a straight, square tomb passage. The old traces of human repairs on the mountain wall were very clear. After advancing about 500 meters, they found some biscuit wrappers left by Huo Xiangu and her companions when they rested. There were also bullet holes on the wall and specks of blood in a spray pattern on the ground, which extended all the way to the wall.

Something clearly happened here, and the situation was so serious that one of the parties used firearms.

However, apart from a pool of blood by the wall, there was no body present. Moreover, the amount of bleeding was not enough to cause death from blood loss. Perhaps Huo Xiangu deliberately withdrew the shot for the purpose of temporary intimidation, using the serious injury of one of the small leaders to suppress the group.

As long as the person is alive, the remaining henchmen can't rebel, not to mention there are other small forces lurking around waiting for an opportunity to act.

The young man stared at the pool of blood, the lamp in his hand flickered, then he squatted down, took out a bullet from a crack in the stone wall with his fingers, looked at it, and handed it to Zhang Wuxun.

Just by looking at the spiral scratches on the bullet head, Zhang Wuxun knew that the bullet was fired from an MP5 fired by one of Huo Chushi's men. It seemed that his earlier guess was correct; a small group of Huo family members might have been planning to secretly kidnap Huo Xiangu during their rest, using her as a puppet to control the others. After all, the Yangshi Lei and the photographs were in Huo Xiangu's hands, and only Huo Xiangu knew whether the path was right or wrong.

Zhang Wuxun clicked his tongue softly. The master behind this group is no good. He's so impatient and dares to challenge Old Madam Huo to her face.

If it weren't for the extraordinary circumstances, this rain would probably have grown mushrooms on his grave by now.

Zhang Wuxun quietly told the young man his deduction, "This time when they entered, they didn't bring as much equipment as last time. It seems that Old Madam Huo is prepared for a second failure."

Otherwise, she wouldn't have been in such a hurry, rushing in with her people even though she knew the guy had lost contact.

This entry was just an experiment she conducted to verify where the problem lay, and to deal with some of the underlings who were about to burst, so they wouldn't get in the way at crucial moments.

The young man nodded, shone his lamp on the stone path ahead, and whispered, "Let's go."

The two quickened their pace and continued forward. This time, they found many scattered pieces of wood with the bark scraped off on the ground of the stone path. They were all of uniform size, about one meter long and about the diameter of a regular rice bowl, and were long and cylindrical in shape.

Although the wood has dried out, the signs of cracking and mold are not severe, indicating that it has not been there for very long.

“This is eucalyptus wood. Eucalyptus is the most common tree species in Guangxi. This tree grows very quickly, and it can grow to this thickness in three or four years.” Zhang Wuxun said as he squatted down and moved a few pieces of wood from their original position. “And look, there are obvious creases on the bottom of these pieces of wood, which reminds me of the sleepers laid under the train tracks.”

The young man frowned slightly and said succinctly, "Someone has used them to transport things."

“That’s right.” Zhang Wuxun nodded and added, “And judging from those marks, they must have been from something quite heavy.”

Placing these pieces of wood under heavy objects is like putting rollers on the things being transported, which can achieve twice the result with half the effort.

So the question is, who laid these timbers here, and what were they transporting?

The two walked along the timber and found that in some places where there was no timber, there were still marks on the ground. In other words, the timber that was originally in these open spaces was taken away by them after they finished transporting their goods.

How then do we explain the remaining scraps of wood?

Zhang Wuxun pondered for a moment, then suddenly spoke up, "Brother, do you think that Chen Wenjin's expedition team lingered in Banna for so long back then, was it really just for archaeological purposes?"

The young man pursed his lips, pondered for a while, and finally shook his head. His memories had returned in bits and pieces, but they were still incomplete. The fragments of memories in his mind lacked a key string that could connect them.

Zhang Wuxun said in a deep voice, "I think that although the Four Sisters Mountain suffered heavy losses back then, the people behind the organization must have obtained some clues from it. That's why they reorganized the new generation of young people from the Nine Gates and searched for the Zhang Family Ancient Building in Banna under the guise of archaeology."

"During the two years they occupied Banna, they must have found the entrance to the ancient building, then used the code obtained from Mount Siguniang to unlock the sealing stone and bring in the pre-prepared timber. Their ultimate goal was to send something into the Zhang Family Ancient Building."

"But something unexpected happened, and their plan failed."

The person behind this might have obtained the wrong password from Mount Siguniang, just like them, but they were unaware of it. They initially only wanted to find the way for the Zhang family to live a long life in the Zhang Family Ancient Building. At the same time, Zhang Qishan knew that in order to enter the Zhang Family Ancient Building, he had to be led by the Zhang family patriarch.

So, in that era, "it" used its influence, built up over many years, to search extensively throughout the country for Zhang Qiling, who had disappeared after the Four Sisters Mountain incident.

The slumped shoulders were the closest substitute Zhang Qishan had found for Zhang Qiling.

The group then used the guise of archaeology to search for traces of the ancient building throughout Banna. During this time, they must have discovered Miluotuo, which existed between the mountains. The iron blocks they retrieved from the lake bottom were the tools used to deal with Miluotuo.

However, during this search, the health of the person seeking the secret to immortality deteriorated rapidly, and he was on the verge of death. Entering the Zhang Family Ancient Building was now of utmost urgency.

When they finally found the entrance to the ancient building, the person had already passed away, so their original plan to find the secret turned into a funeral procession.

While Chen Wenjin and his team went to explore, the team left behind was killed by Pan Ma's greed and their bodies were dumped in the lake. Xie Jiuye took the opportunity to fill the gap with his own men.

Because they entered with the wrong password, Chen Wenjin and his group encountered a strong alkali trap inside the ancient building, and almost all of them perished. Only a few, including Chen Wenjin, managed to escape through an underwater passageway in the ancient building by chance.

Due to the urgency of the situation, they did not notice that the team members outside had been replaced. Similarly, Pan Ma thought that the person he had killed had come back to life. With a little trickery, Master Jie Jiu made him panic and keep silent about what had happened.

The fake Zhang Qiling was severely injured by strong alkali corrosion and abandoned in the ancient building. He eventually escaped with great difficulty, but it had already assumed he was dead. From then on, he hid in the mountains and cooperated with Pan Ma. Using his familiarity with the terrain, he murdered anyone who tried to enter the Zhang family's ancient building. The foreign mummified corpse in the tree in the valley is the evidence.

Having learned from their first exploration, Chen Wenjin and his team entered the ancient building a second time. They laid out logs to transport the coffin of its leader inside, intending to replace the coffin of the Zhang family ancestor.

During this process, the fake archaeological team suddenly launched an attack, snatched the body of its leader, sealed it with molten iron, burned all the documents, and then fled with the body.

Soon after, it discovered the anomaly and began a nationwide manhunt for Master Xie's group. In 1979, Master Xie and his group fled to Hangzhou, where they faced the largest-scale hunt and were forced to seek help from Old Dog Wu.

At that time, Wu Sansheng was exploring a hidden imperial tomb of the Southern Song Dynasty under the guise of building a shop. Wu Laogou simply used a trick to hide the corpse in the imperial tomb.

With no worries about the future, Master Xie began to confront its power in a full-scale manner.

Thank you so much to [不念] for the generous donation! Sending you a huge heart...*
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(End of this chapter)