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

Chapter 375 Silk Array Illusion Bell
The original mural changed color in the blink of an eye.

"Fuck!"

Wu Xiaoxie and his companion were immediately stunned.

"What is this? Is it a magic trick?"

"My goodness, this is amazing! How did it change color so quickly?"

The fat man looked at the cigarette pack in his hand with some disbelief. Sure enough, it was the Yellow Crane Tower cigarettes he had gotten from Tianzhen. How did he develop this special ability?

Seeing his expression, Zhang Wuxun knew what he was thinking, so he pointed to the iron box under the mural and explained, "The point is not about lighting a cigarette, but about the powder in the can. Look."

The two fat men were shocked when they saw the can. "Where's all the powder? Did it burn?"

The red powder in the can was ignited by the cigarette inserted inside, and it burned completely in just a few seconds.

Zhang Wuxun walked over and touched the mural, then showed them the red stain on his fingertips. "This is a special method of concealing the mural. The red powder is a medicinal material made from the petals of a plant called Danlu Vine. As the name suggests, it's a flower that looks like a dewdrop. From flowering to fruiting, it only has one petal. Its effects are somewhat..."

The fat man raised his eyebrows and grinned slyly, "What effect? ​​You just made Tianzhen and me hold our breath, was it that?"

Wu Xiaoxie was initially confused, but when he saw the fat man's lewd smile, he immediately understood and moved away from the cauldron. "Damn, how come you Zhang family put this kind of thing in a cauldron, and so much of it, like you're doing wholesale? I thought it was some kind of dyed incense ash."

"This is related to the tiny insects on the mural I mentioned earlier."

Zhang Wuxun explained, "The smell emitted by the burning Danlu vine is difficult for a person to detect with their sense of smell. If the amount is small, it will be metabolized quickly, but it has a great effect on these insects. Once they enter spring, these insects will become transparent, and the real murals hidden underneath will become visible."

Wu Xiaoxie asked him, "Then what were those sounds like knocking on glass just now?"

"Oh, that's because the mechanism inside the mural was activated. When the insect crawls around looking for a suitable mate, the mural changes weight, which activates the small mechanism behind it."

After Zhang Wuxun finished explaining casually, he fed some water to the young man who had half-opened his eyes at some point.

The young man's gaze swept over Wu Xiaoxie and the fat man for a moment before he fell into a deep sleep again.

Zhang Wuxun bent down and steadied him on his back, then gestured with his chin to Wu Xiaoxie and the other man, "Let's go, let's hurry and get out of here."

The fat man looked left and right, puzzled. "Which way do we go? The door isn't open."

Wu Xiaoxie had already observed that on the mural after it appeared, one of the Qilin's front legs on the ground was shaped like a three-legged cauldron hidden in the flames. He immediately turned his head to look at the bronze cauldron in the center and carefully examined the wear and tear between the floor and the three beast legs.

He then called out to the fat man, "Fatty, come on, let's turn this cauldron together."

Zhang Wuxun was somewhat gratified. Wu Xiaoxie had an innate talent for observing the inscriptions on the murals; he was very good at finding the hidden differences within them.

It's like a seasoned tomb raider who's spent half his life digging tombs; once inside, he can spot the traps just by glancing around. It's a keen perception that transcends even a sixth sense.

The two men held onto the edge of the cauldron and first turned it clockwise. With their push, the cauldron slowly began to rotate around its axis.

After turning halfway, the mural wall also began to rotate, until the bronze cauldron had rotated a full circle. The flip-door on the mural then opened completely, revealing two gaps on the left and right, each about the width of three people.

"Which way?" Wu Xiaoxie turned to ask Zhang Wuxun.

“It’s all the same.” Zhang Wuxun stepped over the gate first. Behind him were still stairs leading upwards. He deliberately avoided a stone brick two steps ahead.

Fatty and Wu Xiaoxie quickly followed, stepped on the brick, flipped the door over, and turned back to close it in an instant.

After walking along the steps for more than ten minutes, the path ahead turned into a repaired stone path. I could hear the sound of flowing water, and the air began to feel humid.

The fat man couldn't help but cough a few times before putting his gas mask back on.

"Put them on, everyone," Zhang Wuxun suddenly said with a stern face.

Wu Xiaoxie was puzzled. He turned his head and looked at the seams at the top of both sides of the stone path. He saw that they were all carved with fist-sized beast heads protruding from the wall, with a distance of one meter between each pair. He immediately cursed under his breath, "Damn it, are these air vents?!"

Zhang Wuxun nodded, put on a new protective suit and mask, changed the young man into a new one, and put another protective suit over his clothes.

Wu Xiaoxie and the other person quickly followed suit, and only after everything was ready did they move forward again.

Zhang Wuxun walked faster and faster, until he was almost running.

The fat man glanced back unintentionally and immediately cried out, "Run! The poisonous fog is coming!"

It turned out that the mechanism had been quietly activated at some point.

A thick fog, carrying the aura of death, was descending from the sky at a visible speed, gradually approaching this direction.

Ahead of the stone path was a huge cave in the mountain. They ran faster and ran towards it, but accidentally stepped into the water. Several white corpses lay sprawled on the shallow beach by the water's edge, covered with countless tiny air bubbles.

The caves here seem to be sealed off, leaving them with nowhere to retreat.

“The bones are fake.” Zhang Wuxun glanced at them only, then walked straight into the deeper part of the pool, reminding the two of them without turning his head, “Follow me, there must be a path underwater.”

The skeletons placed there were merely a psychological suggestion, meant to crush any intruder's last hope of survival.

Seeing that the white mist was about to gather here, the fat man cursed under his breath, "Damn it, let's just die, you naive guy, let's get out of here."

The two stumbled and plunged into the water, swimming past Zhang Wuxun one after the other. Sure enough, they found a hidden door that had been opened at the bottom of the pool, and the two quickly swam in.

The waterway was pitch black. Wu Xiaoxie swam forward, feeling his way along the walls on both sides. After swimming about seven or eight meters, light suddenly appeared ahead. Through the water, he could clearly see that the space above was completely enveloped in a faint green amber light.

The fat man surfaced before him, ripped off his gas mask which had become ineffective after getting wet, and pulled Wu Xiaoxie up. The two of them, soaking wet, walked up the steps.

Then they discovered that this was a completely irregular cave, filled with a sinister, eerie green light. The ceiling was covered with green stalactites that grew downwards like liquid, as if they were stalactites that had been half-melted by alkaline gas and then solidified and hung upside down here.

In front of the steps is a single-log bridge made of iron chain, about seventeen or eighteen meters long, built over the water, leading straight to the cave entrance.

Wu Xiaoxie and Fatty were overjoyed, thinking they were about to reach the poisonous gas cave filled with pools of water, only to find Zhang Wuxun already carrying Xiao Ge on his back, standing on the iron chain bridge.

The two rushed over, and when they saw it, their smiles instantly froze.

From the middle of the iron chain bridge to the entrance of the cave ahead, extending all the way into the circular cave, countless red silk threads stretch across, so densely packed that they resemble a spider's web. Each thread is covered with countless symmetrical fruits—hexagonal copper bells.

The fat man involuntarily took a step back and clicked his tongue, saying, "Damn, the Zhang family's security system is really amazing. Who can get through here unless they're squeezed like noodles?"

"We can squeeze ourselves into a turtle shape," Wu Xiaoxie murmured. "That way we can climb from underwater to the other side."

"How can we squeeze through?" The fat man tilted his head to look at him. "As long as I can get through, I'd be willing to squeeze like a turtle, or even become a dung beetle."

The latter half of the suspension bridge was completely submerged in water. Zhang Wuxun looked up at the cave and saw that it was also covered with bells.

The red silk threads resemble a vast infrared wall, with bells on them serving as warning devices. If one is accidentally touched, all the bells will start shaking together. Those affected will not last more than three seconds before falling into hallucinations and either drowning or being killed by poison gas.

"Can dung beetles swim?" The more nervous Wu Xiaoxie became, the more uncontrollably his thoughts would wander, which was actually a way of calming himself down.

"Damn it, how would I know?" The fat man's expression was extremely ugly. "I'm not the coach."

He then turned to Zhang Wuxun and said, "Coach Zhang, give us some pointers. How should we proceed?"

Zhang Wuxun lived up to expectations. After looking at both sides of the cave, he immediately said, "There must be a mechanism here that can fill the entire cave with water, so the bell won't make a sound once it's filled with water."

Wu Xiaoxie and the other looked at him expectantly. Zhang Wuxun handed Xiao Ge to Fatty to carry on his back, and then turned around and walked back to the other side of the suspension bridge. There, the walls were inlaid with many openings shaped like dragon mouths and fish mouths, which must be the water inlets.

Zhang Wuxun reached out and touched the chin of one of the dragons' mouths, then pulled out the small plug below. The dragon's mouth, which had been tightly closed, immediately opened at a 60-degree angle. However, strangely, the ball bearing inside was stuck inside the dragon's mouth, and there were many very fresh polishing marks on the ball bearing.

Looking at the next one, it was the same. After activating the mechanism, nothing came out of the dragon's mouth. The ball bearings were forcibly ground down and squeezed into the water inlet. The other fish mouths were air vents located here.

Zhang Wuxun's expression changed slightly. "Damn it, someone was here before us and tampered with these mechanisms."

A thick, white mist began to billow from the fish's mouth, as if it were alive, slowly spreading through the air, its claws outstretched.

“The alkaline gas will spread quickly. Without water, we’ll have to grit our teeth and get across.” Zhang Wuxun immediately ran back to the suspension bridge, picked up Xiao Ge, and said to Wu Xiaoxie and the other, “I’ll go across first, you two follow behind.”

Wu Xiaoxie and Fatty watched nervously as he stepped across the first red silk thread, then displayed extraordinary flexibility. Even carrying a person on his back couldn't stop his silky smoothness. He moved lightly, like a flexible ribbon, and swiftly covered a great distance.

The fat man followed for two steps, his eyes practically popping out of his head. "After all that, my herniated disc is definitely going to bulge out."

Wu Xiaoxie tried to imitate Zhang Wuxun's movements a few times, only to sadly realize that unless he were reborn from his mother's womb, he simply couldn't complete it.

"Didn't he bring a flashlight?" The fat man suddenly exclaimed as if he had discovered a new continent, almost jumping up on the spot. "That son of a bitch, he just went through without even turning on a light."

Zhang Wuxun quickly reached the other side, put the young man against the wall, and then returned to the suspension bridge, waving to the fat man, "Hurry up and cross, I'll watch the bell for you."

With Zhang Wuxun leading the way, the fat man became much bolder. "Let's take a gamble. Success or failure is just a step away. My sister is still waiting for me at home. We've come this far, we can't give up here."

As he spoke, he bent down and lifted his leg, managing to bypass several lines and reach Zhang Wuxun's side without any danger.

The bells behind were even more densely packed than before. Zhang Wu shouted urgently, "Jump!"

The fat man roared and jumped up, squeezing his feet through the tiny gap between the four strings like he used to jump rope as a child. Then his body followed, and miraculously, he didn't touch a single string.

Just when Wu Xiaoxie thought he would land safely on the bridge, the fat man, who was busy sucking in his stomach, already had a premonition that he was doomed.

Sure enough, the moment his feet touched the bridge surface, his body lurched forward due to inertia. Even though he managed to control himself, his arm still touched a thread.

At that moment, everything around seemed to be in slow motion. In the fat man's wide pupils, filled with terror, he saw a slender hand, accompanied by a blur, pass directly through several threads and steadily pinch the trembling bell between two fingers.

With a whoosh, the stagnant air instantly dissipated, the afterimage vanished, and Zhang Wuxun slowly released his hand, the entire process incredibly steady.

The fat man wiped the cold sweat from his brow and was about to speak when Zhang Wuxun interrupted him, "Keep going."

Upon seeing the incredibly complex net ahead, the fat man almost cried. "How am I supposed to get through this? Wooden Fish, you might as well just knock me out."

Zhang Wuxun calmly said, "Your body isn't flexible enough; I can't carry you."

"I'm not flexible enough? How did that guy get across?" The fat man pointed to himself and hesitated, "I did some yoga for a couple of days."

Zhang Wuxun had already picked up the other bell and slowly lifted the silk thread with the bell hanging on it, making the gap in the net a little bigger. Then he looked at the fat man with a "what nonsense are you talking about" look.

"Believe in yourself, you can do it," he encouraged. "Don't worry, if I run into you, I'll smash the bell."

"Damn it!" the fat man cursed, took two deep breaths, spread his arms in a crane-spreading-wings gesture, and then let out a low shout, "Eeya—"

Then he leaped up, charged forward, and squeezed through the gap in the net, landing face-first in the water.

The fat man stood up from the water, wiped the water off his face, and looked relieved.

"Hurry up." Zhang Wuxun held the bell without moving, only urging him, "It's easier to walk from here. I'll stay here and watch over Tianzhen. You take Xiao Ge out first, and we'll be right behind you."

The next chapter is a highlight, so get ready if you want to see battle-damaged fish!
Good night

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(End of this chapter)