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

Chapter 431 Zhang Fuyin
Wu Xie reached out and touched the neck of the person inside the coffin, and found a palm-sized crescent-shaped white jade pendant hanging there, so he took it out of the water.

Upon closer inspection, the front is engraved with a majestic fire-riding Qilin, but it differs slightly in details from the Qilin on Xiao Ge and Mu Yu that Wu Xie had seen before.

In fact, only the Qilin tattoos of the successive patriarchs of the Zhang family are truly unique. Other members of the Zhang family, even those from the same clan, have their own unique Qilin tattoos with subtle variations. Each person's tattoo is one-of-a-kind.

In the past, when he had nothing to do, Fatty would compare the two of them. The younger brother's Qilin had a small Qilin hidden in its eyes, while the wooden fish's was just a blurry flame.

The Qilin on this jade pendant has its left forepaw resting on a round, embroidered ball. The Qilin's eyes are slightly upturned, giving it a very aloof appearance, but its eyes are looking to the right.

The fat man clicked his tongue, "Look at this Qilin, it wasn't someone to be trifled with in its lifetime. Hey, Tianzhen, don't you think this jade pendant seems to be missing something?"

“This thing should have another half.” Wu Xie turned the jade tablet over to the back, where only one line of characters was written in small seal script: “The sound of the zither moves me.”

Wu Xie pondered for a moment, "The other half of the jade pendant should be in his wife's hands."

"A token of love," the fat man muttered. "These two members of the Zhang family are quite romantic. The Zhang family's rules are so outrageous, could they have come here secretly?"

Wu Xie rolled his eyes. "Nonsense."

The fat man pursed his lips. "But where did his wife go? Did something happen to her too? Otherwise, if they were so loving, they would definitely come here to sweep the tomb and offer incense on Qingming Festival."

Wu Xie didn't reply. He stared at the jade pendant for a moment, then suddenly grabbed the edge and twisted it. With a click, the clasp snapped open, and the jade pendant split in two in his hand.

"Hey~" the fat man exclaimed in surprise, "Wow, Tianzhen, I've noticed you're getting more and more awesome lately."

Inside the jade plaque is a shallow groove containing a small black and white photograph.

Wu Xie carefully took it out and found that it was a picture of a very young couple. The background of the photo was an ancient building, which looked like a temple or an old house.

The woman sat on a chair, wearing an elegant cheongsam and a fox fur coat, holding a swaddled baby in her arms.

The man, dressed in a long gown and cotton-padded jacket, stood behind the woman, his hand lightly resting on her shoulder; they were a couple.

The photo is quite old, but because it is well preserved, the outline and face of the person in it are still clear. You can tell that the man in the photo is the one lying in the coffin in front of you. However, at that time he had short hair and his temperament was like that of an elite talent who had returned from studying abroad.

A line of small print is written in the corner of the photo: “Taken in 1903 at an ancient temple in the northern city. It was the dead of winter, with three days of heavy snow. A memento with my wife and children before parting.”

The fat man looked at the cold, lifeless corpse in the coffin and, unusually, remained silent.

A series of light, rhythmic footsteps suddenly echoed in the quiet space, as if stepping on the hearts of Wu Xie and his companion.

They immediately turned to look back and saw that the strange insects on the opposite bank of the lake scattered to both sides as if they had encountered something very terrifying.

The two men became wary and had just drawn their guns when they saw a slender, graceful black figure emerge slowly from around the corner of the mountain wall, holding a flashlight.

It was a very young woman, quite far away. The light from the lamp in her hand couldn't reach her face, so Wu Xie couldn't see her features clearly. He could only see that she was holding a long, gleaming knife, with blood trickling down the blade and dripping onto the ground.

After she passed by, strange insects swarmed up behind her and covered all the bloodstains.

The woman stopped when she reached the lakeside, coldly staring at Wu Xie and his companion.

Wu Xie and Fatty froze on the spot, guns in hand. Fatty muttered in a low voice, "This is bad. This girl is probably the coffin man's granddaughter. We just pried open our ancestor's coffin and got caught red-handed. We're probably going to have a hard time explaining this now. I feel like she could fly over and knock us both out with one blow. What should we do?"

The woman had amazing hearing; she heard everything the fat man said clearly. Looking at Wu Xie and the other man, who both looked tense, she suddenly chuckled, and the coldness on her bright face vanished instantly.

Like a lotus in bloom, even a faint smile is incredibly beautiful.

Wu Xie was taken aback by her laughter and subconsciously returned the smile. What's that saying again? You can't hit someone who's smiling at you. Even if you do hit them, you have to be gentle.

The fat man was also taken aback by the laugh, thinking that this person seemed to have a decent temper and was someone who could be negotiated with, so he tentatively started by saying hello, "Um, hello Sister Zhang, we can explain what happened today..."

Upon hearing his address, the woman in black gave a strange look, a half-smile playing on her lips. She sheathed her knife, pointed to the photo in Wu Xie's hand, and said, "Why don't you take a closer look?"

Wu Xie's gaze shifted to the photo, and he suddenly froze. He then immediately looked up at the woman in black, his expression gradually turning terrified. His lips moved as he said, "Fatty, we're doomed. We've pried open her husband's coffin."

The fat man's words of conversation caught in his throat, and he reacted with equal horror, "What did you say?"

The woman in black crouched down, touched the lake shore, pulled on a chain, and yanked it hard. Suddenly, the lake water began to churn, and a narrow stone path rose from the bottom, leading straight to the bottom of the high platform with the handle of a ladle.

The woman in black slowly walked down the stone path and stepped onto the high platform.

Wu Xie and Fatty subconsciously stepped back to the other side of the coffin, looking at her with embarrassed smiles. "Hello, Senior Zhang. We apologize for our rudeness, but we had no other choice. We hope you can forgive us."

“My name is Zhang Fuyin.” The woman in black gently touched the coffin, looking at the person lying quietly inside, a faint sadness between her brows. “She is the woman in the photo in your hand. The person lying in the coffin is my husband. His name was Zhang Longguan. He died a hundred years ago when he was dealing with this matter.”

Wu Xie's heart jolted violently, and he couldn't help but think of Zhang Wuxun, who had disappeared in the Zhang Family Ancient Building.

The Zhang family is indeed powerful, but ultimately they are still human, and they cannot escape birth, aging, sickness, death, and eternal separation.

Perhaps because of his relationship with the wooden fish and the young man, he felt a strange sense of kinship with the Zhang family in front of him.

“Wu Xie, I don’t know what happened to you, but I know why you came here. After all, it was something we agreed on beforehand.” Zhang Fuyin raised her eyelids to look at Wu Xie and said slowly, “I can tell you what happened here, but you cannot open the hidden tomb below.”

Had it been arranged beforehand? Wu Xie felt a slight chill. With whom? Whom did "we" refer to—Zhang Fuyin or someone else?

The fat man interjected, "Excuse me, but how old are you this year?"

Wu Xie quickly nudged him with his elbow, thinking, "Can't this fatso even get to the point when he asks a question?"

Zhang Fuyin wasn't angry; she just looked at the two of them with amusement. "You can guess."

The fat man's main question wasn't about age, but whether this person was related to the wooden fish. "To be honest, I knew two people from your family before. One of them, a young member of the Zhang family, looks... somewhat like you and your husband. So, if I may ask, what is the name of the child in the photo?"

Zhang Fuyin paused for a moment, remained silent for two seconds, and then said, "His talent wasn't enough for the clan elders to keep an eye on him at all times. To prevent him from repeating the mistakes of me and Long Guan, I had someone send him overseas before I came here. If nothing unexpected happened later, his name should be Zhang Haisi." "You haven't seen him since?" Wu Xie frowned slightly. The name Mu Yu mentioned for his father wasn't Zhang Haisi.

“I have seen him,” Zhang Fuyin said. “In the year he came of age, he came here to find me and his father, and in the end, he took his father Tezuka away.”

"As for the young member of the Zhang family you mentioned, I have never met him, but if you say his features are similar, perhaps he is the child of Xiaosi later."

Wu Xie said, "But his father seems to be named Zhang Menyu."

Zhang Fuyin looked puzzled, as if she had thought of something, and murmured, "Zhang Menyu?"

She pulled the other half of the jade pendant from her collar, turned it over, and found the same sentence written on the other side: "The wind comes from Longguan."

“The sound of the zither moves me, the wind comes from Longguan.” A sigh flashed across her eyes. “Actually, there are two more lines: ‘Boats ripple on the sea, temples stand sway, the sound of tides and rain is heard.’”

The fat man, quick to speak, blurted out, "So you're actually Grandma Fish!"

Zhang Fuyin's temple throbbed, and she glared at the fat man with hostility. "Great-grandmother?"

The fat man quickly slapped himself in the face. "Slip of the tongue, slip of the tongue. But if our previous deductions are correct, then you, senior, should be a relative of our little brother Zhang. He is also a member of the Zhang family overseas."

"Never mind." Zhang Fuyin sighed, having no intention of arguing with him. She had stayed here for many years, simply to hold onto a lingering obsession and avoid the terrifying Zhang family.

"Come with me." Zhang Fuyin walked towards the passage behind the platform. "Everything you want to know is here."

Wu Xie and Zhang Fuyin exchanged a glance, bowed again to the corpse inside the coffin, and then followed behind Zhang Fuyin.

After walking for the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, the three arrived at a cave, where the mountain walls were covered with large murals.

Zhang Fuyin told the two that these were just a drop in the ocean compared to the Changsheng Kingdom where the Gu King resided.

To briefly summarize the main content of the murals, it has nothing to do with the Yongning Tusi family, but rather with a Mosuo tribe that was isolated from the world.

The tribe had a diverse and large population, but they all shared a common problem: a very short life expectancy, and most of them suffered from a variety of strange diseases throughout their lives, with only a small percentage being normal.

Because of its isolation from the world, human reproduction in that place was chaotic, which led to many children with genetic mutations and hereditary diseases resulting from inbreeding.

The Gu King in the previous story was an ultimate product.

The person who caused all of this was someone Wu Xie knew very well—Wang Zanghai.

In other words, this so-called tribe was actually a giant experimental site controlled by Wang Zanghai.

Wang Zanghai discovered the Zhang family, whose members could live for over a hundred years, and learned the secret of intermarriage within the Zhang family. So he personally created a testing ground that was a copy of the Kingdom of the Queen Mother of the West, but it produced one short-lived monster after another.

Wang Zanghai chose this place because it is located at the intersection of the main dragon and the middle dragon in the Chinese dragon vein.

Wu Xie's previous speculation was almost entirely correct: almost all the people of the Changsheng Kingdom, which was established by Wang Zanghai, were deformed, and Granny Monkey was the last surviving remnant of the Changsheng Kingdom.

The last part of the mural is clearly divided into two parts, upper and lower. The upper half of the painting is full of clouds, and a majestic and tall immortal comes down from the cloud top with a qilin to bring blessings to the people below and free them from suffering.

"So, those stone monkey guide figurines in the Snake Tower are actually guiding members of the Zhang family," Wu Xie said. "The people of the Longevity Kingdom regard the Zhang family as gods."

“To be more precise, it’s Zhang Qiling from that era,” Zhang Fuyin said.

"Since you said that Wang Zanghai created a copy-and-paste version of the Queen Mother of the West's Kingdom here, then the things in the hidden tomb below are actually related to the meteorite jade?" Wu Xie went straight to the point.

"What exactly did the Gu King become in the end?" Wu Xie stared intently at Zhang Fuyin, not missing a single change in her expression.

However, Zhang Fuyin had anticipated that he would guess, and said calmly, "He was transformed by Wang Zanghai into a monster that cannot be described in words, incorruptible and indestructible. Although Long Guan killed it, its consciousness is still alive."

"Long Guan was controlled by that consciousness and killed his companions. By the time I arrived, it was too late. In order to prevent greater disaster, he trapped himself and the Gu King together and blew up the tomb."

"It wasn't until eighteen years later, when Zhang Qiling brought Hai Si here, that he brought out Long Guan's remains. However, due to the influence of the Gu King, Long Guan's remains remained unchanged."

It was as if he was just asleep, and because of this, Zhang Fuyin couldn't bear to destroy his body, so Zhang Qiling and the others only took his left hand.

Wu Xie was astonished, "What exactly is that Gu King? Neither of the two Zhang Qilings could defeat it!"

Zhang Fuyin said softly, "Because its source exists forever, its consciousness will not dissipate."

"It!" It's "it" again. This thing is practically everywhere.

"And what is the connection between all of this and the lotus-scorpion totem?" Wu Xie asked the last question.

Zhang Fuyin told him that the scorpion totem had no real connection to this place, but it was related to an ultimate truth. What that truth was, no one except Zhang Qiling knew.

It was the third day since they emerged from the dark cave.

Wu Xie and his companion joined Nie Xiaoba and the others, while Zhang Fuyin once again hid in the shadows.

"Third Master, judging by the time it takes, Wang Baichuan and Chen Yaxiang should have already taken the bait," Nie Xiaoba said in a deep voice.

Wu Xie nodded slightly, "Then let's proceed according to the previously agreed plan."

It's time to get rid of some of these people.

Thank you so much to [Book Friend 20221205033011929] for the generous donation! Sending you love!



(End of this chapter)