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

Chapter 363 Hundred-Meter Corpse Forest
Passing through a hidden passage in the stone wall of the pool, Zhang Wuxun arrived at a narrow stone chamber.

The stone chamber was dark and long, stretching as far as the eye could see. What was most astonishing was that the walls and ceiling were covered with mummified corpses dressed in flowing white robes, emitting a strange, stench of decay.

what's the situation?
Zhang Wuxun frowned deeply, utterly puzzled. How could there be such a devilish place in the Zhang Family Ancient Building?
This is clearly a forest of corpses! What are the Zhang family doing here? And what's the purpose of hanging these mummies here?

Are they planning to use these stink bombs to scare away the enemy? That's just too grotesque.

Unable to bear the stench of the fermenting, dried corpses, Zhang Wuxun put his gas mask back on and walked up the steps.

When he got closer, he realized that these mummified corpses hanging from above like sausages were barefoot and dressed in relatively precious white silk fabrics. Although they were almost completely decomposed, the material was still clearly uniform.

Unsure of the purpose of the corpses, Zhang Wuxun did not move them rashly. Instead, he turned the flashlight to its maximum beam and carefully approached to examine the corpses.

He soon discovered something suspicious: all the mummified corpses had an ancient jade ring around their necks, and they all had a uniform and strange posture.

They all had their heads down, their eyes deliberately kept open, staring down at the floor with a fierce expression. The muscles on the surface of the mummies were shriveled and twisted, and their mouths were slightly open as if small monsters lived inside, making them look even more sinister and terrifying.

Meanwhile, a copper bell the size of a teacup was hanging from the left foot and right hand of these corpses with red silk threads. When the light swept into the distance, he found that countless dense red silk threads strung these bells together.

All the corpses were like being shrouded in a giant red spider web, the fine mesh resembling the eyes of a cluster of black holes, sending a chill down one's spine.

Zhang Wuxun wondered to himself, could this be some kind of special funeral rite?
As soon as this thought crossed his mind, he couldn't help but look deeper into the darkness of the corpse forest. Could it be that a very, very important figure from the Zhang family was buried there? That would explain the massive scale of the burial.

But this style of burial feels incredibly eerie no matter how you look at it. It's more like these corpses were arranged into a strange array, just to lock in some kind of terrifying creature inside.

The reason for this speculation is that the heads of these mummies are all bald, without hair, and under the white gauze clothing, there are faint bluish-black Sanskrit patterns wrapped around the skin of the mummies, exuding a strong ominous aura.

In other words, these people were likely monks or high-ranking monks during their lifetimes.

In this light, the contents of the object locked behind the mortuary become even more suspicious.

Could it be some terrifying monster? Like Zhu Jiuyin?

Following the trail, the wet footprints emerging from the water led them into this forest of corpses.

After thinking for a moment, Zhang Wuxun put away his flashlight and stepped inside. To avoid touching the threads, he shrunk his bones and nimbly weaved and jumped between the red threads, quickly covering a distance of more than ten meters.

Zhang Wuxun stopped to observe for a few seconds. Just as he was about to continue forward, a strange, creepy feeling suddenly surged up his back. He immediately turned his head to look back, and this startled him so much that he broke out in a cold sweat.

The heads of those mummies actually moved!
At first, they were all looking at the ground, but now, they all turned their heads to look at Zhang Wuxun, their dark eyes like hooks piercing straight at him.

An octagonal silver dart silently appeared in his palm. Zhang Wuxun stood motionless, staring expressionlessly at the hundreds of dried corpses.

However, after several minutes, the mummified corpse just stared at him, seemingly monitoring him, without making any other moves.

It seems that as long as the bell on the red thread isn't touched, the mummified corpse won't make any move.

Zhang Wuxun frowned almost imperceptibly. "Fine, if you guys don't move, then I will." He then turned around and continued to avoid the red line as he walked further in, leaving the gaze of the mummified corpse behind.

After walking for about a hundred meters, the forest of corpses finally came to an end.

Along the way, there are at least a thousand corpses in this forest of corpses.

Zhang Wuxun crawled and leaped through the narrow gap between the red lines, rolled on the ground, and stood up. In front of him were two sets of downward stone steps, and behind the steps was a stone door, which had been pushed open a crack.

When the light shone through my hand, I could see many tiny specks of dust floating around the cracks in the stone door.

Looking back at the forest of corpses, they found that the corpses had returned to their original state, with their heads bowed and looking at the ground.

As I slipped through the crack in the door, the sound of flowing water in my ears instantly became several times louder.

Before them was a huge stone chamber, with more than sixty enormous cast iron coffins neatly arranged on both sides. Each coffin was as big as a double-door refrigerator, and they were placed side by side in the chamber.

The carvings on the stone wall are very simple and there is nothing special about them.

But if these were just ordinary burial coffins, there would be no need to make such a big show of it outside, so there must be something special behind them.

Zhang Wuxun glanced at the time on his wristwatch; another two hours had passed. He recalled his current location, which should be deep beneath the quicksand courtyard in front of the ancient building's entrance. Perhaps Wu Xiaoxie and the others hadn't entered yet, as he hadn't sensed any fluctuations in the quicksand layer.

He carefully examined the coffins and finally found a special fire-pattern mark on the side of the ninth coffin on the left.

I was a little surprised. Zhang Menyu had actually been here before?
Zhang Wuxun couldn't help but become more curious about what was hidden here; perhaps this was also the purpose for which the Wang family had gone through so much trouble to come here.

So what is Zhang Menyu's purpose in coming here?
Behind the stone chamber is a straight tomb passage. Here, the scene changes significantly. The stone walls on both sides are no longer monotonous gray and white carvings, but many brightly colored murals.

The vast expanse of crimson red resembles randomly splattered bloodstains, while the bright yellow sun and indigo sky reflect each other. Below, there are snow-capped mountains, verdant grasslands, and humans and various exotic animals, creating a strange and eerie combination of solemnity and desolation.

This is a Thangka painting depicting a funeral procession and Nirvana, imbued with Tibetan style. The sun atop the mountain has transformed into a golden crow, its crimson eyes gazing down upon the ground. A long, massive procession of people dressed in ancient Tibetan robes stretches from the snow-capped mountains to another black mountain range. Fiery lava cascades from a towering black gate, flowing into a canyon filled with bones.

The mural on the right continues the same scene, with the funeral procession now reaching the front of the canyon, accompanied by a hundred beasts and a thousand birds.

The funeral procession surrounded a huge, dark green square coffin at the very center. The expressions of the people and animals were so devout that they were almost frenzied. They walked into the lava without hesitation, but the scorching flames did not engulf them. For within the flames was a black chain bridge that stretched from their feet into a giant black gate.

Two rows of humans stood on the bridge. One row wore ancient white cloaks with silver masks covering half their faces, while the other row wore black with gold masks covering their entire faces. The details here were unclear, as if they had been deliberately blurred. Under the cover of the flames, only the general outline of the pattern could be seen.

Zhang Wuxun was completely stunned on the spot. Some fragmented thoughts flashed through his mind, but when he came to his senses, he couldn't grasp those fragments no matter what he did.

He frowned. The giant gate on the black mountain range looked very much like a bronze gate, but a voice in the darkness told him that it was neither a bronze gate nor a fake bronze gate made by the Zhang family in the Himalayas.

Tibetan people, Thangka paintings, a bald, mummified corpse outside, and black mountains—

What exactly is this mural, brimming with ancient Tibetan charm, trying to express?
Zhang Wuxun suddenly realized that the black mountain meant "Kunlun Mountain" in Turkic.

The southeastern end of the Karakoram Mountains is adjacent to the Himalayas! In Tibetan, the Himalayas are also known as the "homeland of snow".

Mount Kunlun is the ancestor of all mountains. Many ancient myths and legends are related to Mount Kunlun, so it is also known as the birthplace of the Chinese people.

The Kunlun Mountain Pass is located in southwestern Qinghai. According to the Classic of Mountains and Seas - Western Classic, the legendary Kunlun Wonderland is inhabited by the Queen Mother of the West, who has a human head and a snake body and possesses the elixir of immortality.

They have confirmed that the underground palace of the Queen Mother of the West is located in the rainforest of Golmud in Qinghai. The Huainanzi says: "The hill of Kunlun, or the upper part is called the cool wind, and one will not die if one climbs it. Or the upper part is called the Xuanpu, and one will become spiritual if one climbs it." Golmud City is located on the north side of the middle branch of the eastern section of Kunlun Mountain. Starting from Golmud, going west along the highway leads to the Kunlun Mountains.

The "Biography of King Mu" records that King Mu of Zhou once ascended the Yellow Emperor's Palace on Kunlun Mountain, and then went west to Yaochi to visit the Queen Mother of the West. The canyon in the mural may be the mysterious Valley of Death on Kunlun Mountain, as well as the black giant gate that pierces the clouds.

“Karmic fire—the gates of hell…” Zhang Wuxun murmured absentmindedly, “Perhaps, the words Wang Zanghai left in the snake-browed bronze fish, ‘The karmic fire of hell will burn away everything of the one who opens the gate,’ were not referring to Changbai Mountain, but to the Karakoram Mountains.”

Zhang Wuxun's head felt as if it had been struck by a bell, and everything suddenly became clear and bright.

He hurried through the passageway, the sound of water growing louder and louder, the amplified echo in the empty stone chamber seeming to be right next to his ear.

Passing through an arched stone gate, a very wide underground river stretches out before you.

This is a huge circular stone chamber built entirely on the mountainside, about the size of half a football field, with nine thick pillars standing on the edge of the cave.

In the middle are seven slightly thinner stone pillars, which support the Seven Star Treasure Top above like large umbrellas. The pillars are carved with seven coiled dragons chasing the pearl. Each dragon is a different color and has a different expression, all of which are human-like in their joy, anger, sorrow, fear and madness.

The nine pillars on the edge are carved with nine-fold lotus flowers, spiraling upwards layer by layer like steps.

Behind the first underground river, there is an even wider river with clear water flowing gently. On the lotus-shaped stone platform in the center stands a three-story stone tower, solemn and heavy. Nine thick chains are wrapped around the tower, and the other end of the chains is deeply embedded in the nine petals of the stone platform.

Above the stone tower, on the dome, is a huge octagonal bronze bell, quietly enveloping the tower's tip.

Before Zhang Wuxun's eyes, the hanging bridge over the first river had been lowered and was suspended in the air on both banks. On the second river, seven stone bridges had been built, each with a different appearance, and a ferocious animal stone sculpture was placed at the bridgehead for intimidation.

The sloping beams on the top of the tomb are covered with various strange reliefs, all of which are made into hook-like shapes, such as eagle beaks, fish tails, Guanyin's hands, and vines.

Zhang Wuxun could tell at a glance that these reliefs were disguised. The purpose of installing these hooks was to allow ropes to cleverly pass through these reliefs. They were originally set up by the craftsmen for hoisting and transporting something. After the work was completed, these stone hooks were carved into various patterns.

A brand-new climbing rope was hung on the top of the tomb near the archway, running from one end to the other of the stone bridge. The rope cleverly passed between the stone hooks, forming a rope bridge that people could cross.

Zhang Wuxun silently thought to himself that the Wang family members must be quite skilled at threading needles.

Clearly, there must be something fishy about these seven bridges. If you go to the wrong one, something terrible could happen. So, to avoid unnecessary trouble, Huo Xiaoli chose to take a different route.

Zhang Wuxun walked across the hanging bridge and stood on one side of the seven stone bridges, gazing at the dark figure that suddenly appeared in front of the tower on the other side of the bridge.

The dark figure wasn't surprised to see Zhang Wuxun. Instead, he smiled, as if it were a reunion of long-lost friends, and said in a very familiar tone, "You've come."

Zhang Wuxun looked at him expressionlessly and said sarcastically, "How shameful are the faces of you Wang family members that you always cover them up? We're already so familiar with each other, what's the point of covering them up?"

Huo Xiaoli raised her hand to adjust the bronze fox mask on her face and sighed, "There's nothing we can do; when we do certain things, there are rules that require this kind of ritual."

Zhang Wuxun glanced at the stone tower behind him and said calmly, "What? Can't get in, or have you already gotten what you wanted?"

"Do I look like one?" Huo Xiaoli shrugged. "I knew you wouldn't be fooled, so I waited for you here beforehand."

"Then come and die obediently," Zhang Wuxun said coldly. "I'll leave you a whole corpse, put you in a crystal coffin, and send you to your base."

While speaking, Zhang Wuxun had already scanned his surroundings with his eyes and found no trace of the backpack or anything like that, so it seemed to have been hidden in advance.

Thank you so much to [花花果赖] and other generous donors! Sending you a big heart (v)


(End of this chapter)