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

Zhang Wuxun could easily decapitate people with his bare hands as easily as picking melons or squeezing fruit when switching between his long-scaled forms, which is why he said it was done by non-humans.

The path to the Goqunqiong tribe was above. Dan cautiously explored a short distance but did not find the dangerous creature. He and Zhang Wuxun, who had come to search for people, returned the way they came and moved stones to block the hole in the treetop.

It's almost 4 a.m., and according to the notes, the large red and white jellyfish outside will finish foraging and return to their nests in two more hours.

The rest of the journey took place underground, where there was little difference between day and night. So, the entire day was spent by Zhang Wu and the others resting.

After six o'clock, Zhang Wuxun took Zhang Haike and Dan out for a while and returned to the previous camp. Amidst the chaos that resembled a tsunami, they retrieved their weapons and equipment.

After that came meals, arrangements for people to take turns on guard duty, and rest.

When Zhang Wuxun woke up, he saw Wu Xie sitting by the campfire, fiddling with several thumb-sized porcelain bottles that Fatty had taken from "New Wu Xie".

These are six handicrafts from the Republic of China period. Judging from their shape, they are imitations of the Song Dynasty white-glazed Yuhuchun vases with carved patterns of ascending to immortality and large bellies and slender necks, only the overall size is reduced by many times.

In the firelight, he held one of the bottles between two fingers and slowly spun it, his eyes fixed on the shadow the bottle cast on the ground. A few seconds later, he pressed his left eye against the bottle opening, which was about the size of his fingertip, and looked inside.

"What did you find?" Zhang Wuxun sat down next to him and asked softly.

"There's also a complete set of ink paintings depicting 'Seeking Immortals in the Snow' hidden inside the bottle," Wu Xie exclaimed in amazement.

"It's hidden inside these miniature nested bottles, and unlike the usual double-layered nested bottle interior mural technique, this kind of craftsmanship requires even more skill."

"The craftsman first carves a part of the pattern on the small blank body that is half-dried in the shade. Then he uses a specially made fine brush with a micro-hook to outline the remaining blank inner wall. Then he sculpts a slightly larger outer blank on the outside of the successfully shaped small blank. The mouth and bottom of the bottle have a rotatable mortise and tenon structure. The craftsman then uses his superb skills to draw the desired pattern on the inner wall of the outer large blank in the gaps of the small blank with a brush."

"In this process, it is necessary to maintain the accuracy of blind drawing and ensure that the final fired product will not cause the inner body to crack the outer body due to thermal expansion. The whole process sounds simple, but it is unimaginably complicated to do."

The earliest origin of nested porcelain vases can be traced back to the eighth year of the Qianlong Emperor's reign. They were originally high-difficulty works of art created to meet the emperor's aesthetic needs. The outer vase was decorated with openwork carvings, while the inner vase was decorated with painted designs. They often incorporated famille rose, blue and white, and enamel techniques, and commonly featured auspicious patterns such as the "Fu Shou" (福寿) motif and the "缠枝" (缠枝) motif. After all, these were presented to the emperor, and anything less than extravagant or auspicious would be a capital offense.

The porcelain pieces that have survived to this day are all decorative porcelains that were once used in the imperial court and are displayed in museums for people to see.

This set of stacked porcelain vases is a rare example of understated elegance, with only ink-wash colors on the surface, except for the signature, which is a tiny red micro-carving so small it's almost invisible to the naked eye.

"I looked at it carefully. This set of pictures has a very hidden sequence. By shining light from directly above into the inner wall of the bottle through the mouth, and carefully using tools to help rotate the embedded small bottle, and turning it to a certain angle, you can embed the signatures into the magical artifacts held by the alchemists in the pictures, and you will get a new human-shaped map."

Wu Xie spoke at length, a light sweat beading on his forehead. "I have a feeling that these sorcerers are searching for a legendary tomb, and the tomb's occupant is that immortal."

Upon hearing Wu Xie blurt out the words "big tomb," Fatty's ears perked up, and he darted over, drawn by the scent. "Which big tomb? Who is the tomb's occupant?"

Wu Xie let out a long sigh and shook his head, "I don't know yet."

"Let Fatty take a look." The fat man was a little impatient. He picked up a small porcelain bottle from the ground, squinted one eye, and looked inside the bottle.

Like a fat orange cat perched by a window, eyeing a sparrow flapping its wings in mid-air through the glass, making clicking sounds that trigger its hunting instincts as it watches.

The fat man pondered, "That imposter Wu Xie brought these porcelain bottles here. Could it be that this great tomb is under the snake mine we're heading to?" As soon as he finished speaking, the fat man retorted to himself, "No records have been found of any ancient dynasty existing in this snake mine ten thousand years ago. Before the fragment of the extraterrestrial meteorite that hit the Bai She Clan ruins was affected, didn't Dan say that this was a primeval jungle?"

"Let me see who signed it and see if I can find any clues." Zhang Haike took out the high-powered magnifying glass embedded in his watch, which was specially designed for examining the patterns on antique surfaces.

Zhang Haike spun the porcelain bottle, looking at it as he drew the pattern on a piece of paper.

"What is this?" Zhang Haike looked at the pattern with hesitation, as if he had thought of something, and a hint of doubt flashed in his eyes.

"What? Can you even understand this? You're stammering. Let me, Fatty, see what's going on."

The fat man craned his neck to take a look, his brows furrowed, and he clicked his tongue, exclaiming, "How come it's another damn deformed person?"

"This is bad, we've come out here to mess with deformities," the fat man said.

The drawing Zhang Haike made on the paper was a human hand, but it had seven well-proportioned fingers.

Is it a special mark of a craftsman? Or do craftsmen naturally have seven fingers?

Wu Xie stared at the pattern on the paper and murmured, "Seven fingers, why do I feel like I've seen this pattern somewhere before?"

The fat man came over to encourage him, "Comrade Tianzhen, keep it up! Think carefully, does your family also have antique collections made by this person? Did you see them when you were a child?"

Wu Xie frowned, struggling to think. That vague sense of familiarity was like a worm crawling around in his temporal lobe. He could feel it crawling, but he just couldn't grasp it. The more he thought about it, the more his head ached.

"Alright, Wu Xie, you should rest." Zhang Wuxun interrupted him. "This thing isn't really related to what we need to accomplish right now. Put the bottle away and think about it later when we have time."

Wu Xie rubbed his temples wearily and hummed in agreement. He thought that after returning to Hangzhou, he would carefully search the old house to see if there were any clues among the old objects left by his grandfather.

Seeing this, Zhang Haike swallowed the words that were on the tip of his tongue.

The fat man quickly packed up the bottle and put it away, then sent Wu Xie to bed.

……

At nine o'clock in the evening, after dinner, everyone took all the equipment they needed and extinguished the campfire.

Zhang Wuxun climbed up first and moved the stone blocking the cave entrance. After sensing and probing and finding no danger, he called Wu Xie and the others to climb up as well.

The group walked a hundred meters into the stone path, and at a corner ahead, the imposter Wu Xie's head was still lying there, unattended.

The small trap Zhang Wuxun had hidden under his head hadn't been triggered, so it seemed the head-twisting monster hadn't bothered the area again. (End of Chapter)