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

Chapter 465 String-Touching Mechanism
That kind of black was so gritty and mottled that it made people feel very uncomfortable. It wasn't just plain black; it looked like a lot of grayish insects had been flattened and stuck to the horse's body.

Although it appears smooth under the reflection of the tinderbox, it gives the impression of numerous tiny black ash lumps tightly packed together.

Zhang Haike thought this might be a type of lacquerware that had been corroded by something and turned into this state.

The interior of this lacquerware was likely hollow, woven from dried fibers treated with wisteria and then coated with lacquer, so the outer layer was just a copper shell.

Everyone unanimously decided to take a look at this thing, believing that the only unusual thing in this tomb was likely part of the local mechanism.

"Don't use your legs, walk across the tightrope and take a look," Zhang Haike reminded him.

The so-called steel cable is actually just a piece of steel wire about the thickness of a mung bean. Everyone has one, but the Zhang family only used it when they were children because the wire cannot support the weight of an adult.

Several people tied the steel wires together into one, went around the bronze horse to both sides, and pulled the steel wire to pass over the horse in mid-air. In this way, people could climb on the steel cable to observe the bronze horse without touching the ground around it, so as not to accidentally trigger the mechanism.

Then the group looked at the young man. Because the steel wire itself is elastic, and due to the torque, the people pulling the steel wire on both sides need to exert a great deal of strength, so the people walking on the steel wire must be lighter.

The young man was the thinnest and lightest among everyone present. He understood immediately and was about to jump forward when Zhang Haike stopped him.

“I’ll do it. He’s too young. If he makes a mistake, we might all be in trouble,” Zhang Haike said to the others.

The Zhang family children, even those only two or three years apart, are worlds apart in terms of courage, experience, and temperament. Thirteen and fifteen are completely different concepts.

No one objected. Zhang Haike rolled up his sleeves and trouser legs and said to the young man, "Go down to the ground first, and come down when everything is alright."

The young man simply stared at the bronze horse without moving.

Zhang Haike repeated himself before the young man slowly spoke, "I know you won't listen to anything I say, but I know you're likely to be in grave danger this time. You can leave me a keepsake so that if anything happens to you, I can take it back to your parents."

Zhang Haike frowned, and the others also looked at the young man with some dissatisfaction.

Although the Zhang family had a tradition of not caring about such things, the saying that "a jinx brings bad luck" easily makes people avoid such things, thus keeping some very important feelings to themselves.

But saying such things at such a serious time, especially coming from the mouth of a young child, regardless of whether it's true or not, still makes people feel a little uncomfortable.

"Why?" he asked.

Seeing that they were all interested in hearing, the young man stopped hiding his thoughts. "Because we are all clueless, we have been using the reasonable problem-solving methods we have learned before, but we don't understand anything here. Even if we know a lot of knowledge, it will not be applicable to this place, and we will inevitably fall into a very terrible trap."

Zhang Haike looked at the bronze horse again, exchanged glances with the other children, and suddenly felt a sense of unease. He quickly asked, "What misunderstanding?"

“What we’ve learned is useless to this ancient tomb,” the young man said. “In other words, we’re just like ordinary people here.”

The young man's words startled everyone, and cold sweat broke out on their backs.

Although they had been trying to apply their knowledge to the ancient tomb since they entered, they were only trying to bring it back under their control. But the truth is, the so-called feng shui layout and the inverted mechanisms were all far-fetched. All their deductions were just their own guesses. They had never seen an ancient tomb with such a layout before. Everything here was shrouded in mystery, and they had no clue about it from beginning to end.

Faced with an ancient tomb about which we know nothing, the best solution right now is to cut our losses and leave immediately.

But can they give up?
Obviously not. The die is cast, and at this point, they have absolutely no courage to give up.

They were all hot-blooded young men who didn't understand the meaning of "cutting off one's own arm to save one's own flesh." They had worked so hard for so long and were on the verge of success. If they were to give up so easily, how could they face their clansmen when they returned home?

One of the children chuckled twice, whether to bolster his courage or to show disdain.

Zhang Haike thought for two seconds, then finally sighed, "Being born into the Zhang family means we don't care about these things. You should go up now."

Upon hearing this, the young man said nothing more, turned around, climbed onto the wall, and crawled out through the hole.

As his figure disappeared into the cave entrance, the child who had laughed twice earlier spat out, "That brat is so ignorant."

Zhang Haike didn't respond to him, but simply waved his hand to signal the children on both sides of the steel cable to get ready, and said softly, "Let's go!"

After saying that, he bent down, jumped up, stepped on the shoulder of the remaining child, and climbed onto the steel cable.

The steel cable suddenly sank downwards, and the children on both sides gritted their teeth and pulled hard. Zhang Haike hung upside down below, seized the time to climb up to the top of the bronze horse using both hands and feet, then hooked his legs onto the steel cable, let go, and carefully lowered his upper body by using his waist and abdomen to control it, until his head was close to the edge of the bronze horse.

Zhang Haike tilted his head back, making his face parallel to the bronze horse, adjusted his posture, and then reached behind him to his waist, taking out a bottle of "slag water" from the treasure pouch hanging there.

It was a mixture of strong acids. He unscrewed the cap and carefully dripped it onto the bronze horse's back.

A burst of acidic bubbles rose up, and Zhang Haike turned his face away. The acid quickly corroded a large hole in the bronze horse's back, revealing its internal structure.

Zhang Haike put away the slag water, lit a tinderbox, and probed into the melted hole. He found that the mechanism inside was indeed complex, with hundreds of silk threads visible, all of which were very taut.

Looking through the gaps in the silk threads, you can see a small disc suspended in mid-air above all the threads, filled with small iron beads.

Although the iron ball is badly rusted, you can still see that it was originally engraved with many intricate patterns.

This is a highly sensitive trigger mechanism. Underneath the disc is a balancing box invented by Lu Ban. With the slightest vibration, the disc will tilt, causing the iron ball to roll off the disc and fall into the mechanism box below.

The disc has now regained its balance, but the falling iron ball hits the silk thread and bounces along the way, triggering a mechanism with each silk thread.

There are hundreds of threads here, and the iron ball can trigger seven or eight different mechanisms at once depending on which thread it touches.

(End of this chapter)