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

Chapter 484 Snow Falcon Delivers a Message
The fat man chuckled, "With such a disunited team, I seriously doubt whether we'll ever actually find the Bronze Gate."

Wu Xie gazed at the pale, frozen lake and exhaled a puff of white breath. "Let's go back and wait. He'll definitely come back."

The two men returned to the Lama Temple with their guns, closed the wooden planks, and went up to the second floor. They saw Zhang Haixing standing at the window, leaning half her body out and carefully observing the window frame.

Upon seeing the two enter, Feng hurriedly approached them with a nervous expression and asked in a low voice, "Where is Mr. Bai?"

"Bai Ci has returned to Kangbaluo. We can't leave tonight. It looks like we'll have to wait for him." Wu Xie gestured with his chin towards the window. "What's she looking at there?"

Feng turned his head and looked over, a barely perceptible hint of darkness flashing in his eyes. "Miss Zhang is checking if the black shadow that flew away earlier has left any clues."

As soon as she finished speaking, Zhang Haixing turned around and waved to them, "Feng, come and see what kind of animal left these scratches."

Wu Xie and the other man followed, asking curiously, "What did you find?"

“Claw marks of a beast.” Zhang Haixing pointed to a wooden board on the window frame.

There are two very clear sets of claw marks on the wooden board, slightly smaller than human handprints. Each set has four claw marks, three longer in front and one shorter in the back. The shape is scattered and then converges, with sharp ends, like two clusters of knife flowers deeply carved into the wood.

The temple was built using specially treated Merbau wood, which is exceptionally tough and durable. Even if you were to scratch it with a knife, it would take a lot of effort to make such a deep mark.

The fat man stretched out his arm, stretched out his fingers and traced the direction of the claw marks. He then brought his five fingertips together and pulled them back, sticking his little finger to one side. He stared at the four fingers that were together thoughtfully.

A few seconds later, he hissed, "Hey, Tianzhen, don't you think this mark looks familiar? Where do we usually see marks like this?"

Wu Xie mimicked him with his hand, and a thought suddenly popped into his head, "Only four toes, so the only ones we've ever seen are... chicken feet!"

The fat man snapped his fingers smugly, "That's right, if these special markings weren't from chicken feet, I wouldn't eat sweet and sour chicken feet for a year."

Zhang Haixing rolled her eyes at him speechlessly, "Who cares if you eat chicken feet or not? Open your eyes and look, have you ever seen a chicken foot as big as a human hand? That must be a phoenix claw."

The fat man looked at Zhang Haixing with disdain, his face showing that she was beyond redemption. "I only said that the shape looks like a chicken foot, I didn't say that it is a chicken foot."

"Even a long-tailed pheasant couldn't possibly fly to such a high-altitude snowfield. In my opinion, such a large mark must belong to a rather large eagle, or some other bird of prey."

“Aren’t you right, Comrade Dung?” The fat man pulled Associate Professor Feng, an animal professor, to vouch for him.

Feng was immune to his nonsensical way of addressing him and nodded, saying, "These are indeed claw marks left by eagles or falcons. Only they can fly freely on the snowy plateau. However, there is nothing else besides these marks, otherwise I could analyze more detailed information."

Zhang Haixing ignored the fat man's smug look and said, "Judging from these claw marks, that bird of prey must have been quite large. Living in cold regions, to grow to this size and be domesticated, it's probably only a gyrfalcon, what people commonly call a gyrfalcon." "Domesticated?" Wu Xie grasped the key point in her words and asked suspiciously, "Regardless of whether this bird is a gyrfalcon or not, how do you know it was domesticated?"

Zhang Haixing sneered and calmly explained, "Bai Ci only broke the window and jumped into the lake after hearing the gyrfalcon's movements. Gyrfalcons cannot go into the water. Assuming his goal was to catch the gyrfalcon, there was no need for him to jump into the icy lake."

“So that gyrfalcon must have been tamed and flown here to deliver a message to Bai Ci,” Zhang Haixing said with certainty.

Wu Xie and Fatty exchanged a glance, both feeling that what she said seemed to make some sense.

So, it seems that Bai Ci saw the gyrfalcon flying in mid-air the moment the window broke. If it was a falcon tamed by the Khampa people, he would have recognized it as a messenger falcon. The messenger falcon had apparently dropped something into the water, and Bai Ci jumped in after it.

Bai Cixin was concerned about the safety of the Kangba people. After receiving the message, he immediately used a method unknown to Wu Xie and the others to travel directly to Kangba through a secret route in the frozen lake.

This is precisely what Zhang Haixing is very dissatisfied with. She feels that Bai Ci has kept too much from them. Since they are a team and have the same goal, they should share any information they have.

“We’ll rest here for the night and set off first thing tomorrow morning.” Zhang Haixing patted Feng on the shoulder and said, “This time your star map will come in handy.”

Wu Xie frowned. "You mean, we're not going to wait for Bai Ci?"

Zhang Haixing sneered, "I am the leader of this team. Someone like him who leaves the team without permission has no regard for everyone's safety or the mission. We don't need to wait for him."

"You old woman, it's one thing to be old, but you're also a handful. What, do I have to report to you every time I go home?" the fat man said unhappily.

Zhang Haixing was initially angry, but then quickly realized what was going on. She cast a suspicious glance at Wu Xie and Fatty, and asked tentatively, "You've only known each other for a short time. What kind of spell has he cast on you that makes you two so protective of him?"

The fat man reacted quickly, immediately rolling his eyes at Zhang Haixing with disdain. "Just for his face, I find him pleasing to the eye. So what? Besides, he's the bodyguard we naively hired before we set off, and he hasn't even been of much use yet. We can't let that money go to waste."

Zhang Haixing didn't care whether the fat man left or not; her focus was on Wu Xie. She looked directly at Wu Xie, her tone carrying a hint of threat, "Whether Bai Ci comes back or not tomorrow, we have to set off. You know, taking you with me is inconvenient, but it's not a very difficult thing for me."

“We’ll still have to cooperate eventually, and I don’t want to make things too ugly.” Zhang Haixing glanced at the fat man with an arrogant expression. “As for this noisy fat man, I have plenty of ways to shut him up forever.”

Upon hearing her words, Wu Xie's face immediately turned cold, and he drew the pistol tucked into his waistband. "You can try!"

The fat man hadn't even put the gun down from his back when he swung it into his hand, cocked it, and pointed it directly at Zhang Haixing. He raised his eyebrows and looked furious. "Trying to cause trouble, huh? Then let's see if your arrow is faster or the bullet in my hand is faster."

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