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

Zhang Wuxun disassembled and stored the mechanism away, and the group continued on their way.

The road above the black tree was clearly dug and built by later people who found this place and discovered that the Gokuqiangqiong tribe had been buried underground by geological disasters.

The stone path winds downwards, the steps are crudely constructed, and in some places it is so narrow that only one person can pass sideways.

The group walked down the mountain for more than ten minutes, like walking on a winding road, until finally the scenery ahead changed.

The stone walls on both sides suddenly disappeared, revealing a cliff in front.

Zhang Wuxun peered down and saw a foothold built directly into the cliff face. He then warned the people behind him, "Be careful. Drive rock bolts into the cliff edge and use ropes for protection when you walk."

This shallow indentation can only fit about a third of a toe; it's for people like the Zhang family who are good at walking.

The space at the end of the stone path was also cramped, so Zhang Wuxun and Zhang Haike first stepped on the cliff wall and jumped down quickly at an angle of nearly 30 degrees to check the situation at the bottom of the cliff. Dan, who was at the end of the group, stayed behind to protect Wu Xie and Zhang Haike.

Wu Xie found the right spot and hammered in the rock nail. Just as he tied the rope, a white streak of light flashed before his eyes. He quickly turned around and gestured for Fatty and the other man to close their eyes.

Behind him, a white light, as bright as the sun, illuminated the entire space.

Silently counting the time, Wu Xie felt the strongest burst of light pass by. He squinted and turned around, only to see a huge bubble-like volcanic rock cave space at the bottom of the cliff, resembling a honeycomb. The surrounding cliff walls were covered with dense caves, so many that it was difficult to see the end of the ceiling.

The white light gradually faded, and the view darkened again. Several faint fluorescent lights flickered across the bottom of the cliff, indicating that Zhang Wuxun and his companion were throwing glow sticks around.

After throwing out a few, Zhang Wuxun lit cold flames to mark the positions of the people above.

Then he closed his eyes, and a trace of his usually restrained aura emanated from his body.

There were many snakes here. As soon as he arrived, he felt countless auras and molecular signals permeating and enveloping the entire snake mine. Some were weak, some were retreating, some were curious, and some were warning and hostile.

Zhang Wuxun suddenly opened his eyes, his pupils narrowing into a golden line, and he turned his head to look in one direction.

There, a reddish-brown snake, as thick as a forearm, which had recently completed a hunt, was struggling to swallow a black snake two sizes smaller than itself.

Suddenly, as if sensing something, the snake stiffened for a few seconds, then twitched and contracted its abdomen, spitting out the small black snake that it had swallowed most of. Then it lay stiffly on the spot, motionless, as if it were dead.

Zhang Haike, who was standing to the side, felt a chill run down his neck, making his hair stand on end.

He suppressed the urge to rub his arms, gripped the hilt of the knife in his sleeve with one finger, and scanned his surroundings warily.

After a while, finding no danger nearby, he lowered his voice and asked Zhang Wuxun, "Did you sense anything just now?"

"What do you feel?" Zhang Wuxun blinked, his pupils returning to normal. He withdrew his gaze, and his aura returned to its dormant state within him.

The red snake waited a few seconds, and when it realized that the terrifying intimidation had disappeared, it immediately began to move, its tail tip vanishing into the shadows in the blink of an eye.

The creatures in the mine valley have become active again.

"Didn't you feel it?" Zhang Haike frowned, thinking to himself that something was wrong. This guy's senses were always more acute than his own; there was no way he wouldn't have noticed.

“Just now, it seemed like a very dangerous, large thing passed by us very quickly. Do you think it was the thing that twisted off the fake Wu Xie’s head?” Zhang Haike asked.

"No." Zhang Wushen blurted out without thinking.

It has a strange, almost futile, sense of trying to cover something up.

Zhang Haike was puzzled at first, then seemed to understand something and looked at him meaningfully.

So it was you.

Zhang Wuxun gave a perfunctory smile, returning him a knowing, professional one.

Wu Xie and his two companions rappelled down using ropes, and looking at the countless caves, they felt a chill run down their spines.

"I'm exhausted!" The fat man panted, hands on his hips, and asked the most profound question, "Are you Zhang family members transformed bees? So many beehives, which way are we going next?"

“Each of you take a direction and search for traces or marks from bottom to top. The Zhang family used to frequent the snake mine for a long time, and they are used to leaving marks in places they have been.” “Moreover, Zhang Qishan’s men have also been here, and there was a dangerous incident at the time. They must have left traces that time cannot erase.”

Zhang Wuxun was the first to choose a direction that he felt might have clues, and Wu Xie and the others also dispersed.

……

"There are bullet holes here," Zhang Haike was the first to speak up, indicating that he had made a discovery.

Wu Xie waved his flashlight to indicate, "I have one too."

The fat man picked up a limp little black snake. "Here's a little gift for you. Can we eat this after we've cleaned it up?"

“I just threw up, it’s best not to eat it,” Zhang Wuxun refused.

The fat man, being a bit cheeky, leaned closer and sniffed. "There really is a smell. Who's so uncivilized, spitting everywhere? Teacher Zhang, deduct a little red flower from its head to teach it a lesson."

Wu Xie shone a light on the black snake to gauge its size and replied, "Taking red flowers as a reward is only effective in kindergarten. Anyone who can eat this little snake is at least a junior high school graduate. Taking red flowers won't work; the snake won't even acknowledge you."

The fat man tossed aside the little black snake, wiped his hands on his trouser leg, and said, "There are bullet holes in so many of them. We can't possibly go in and search them all one by one, can we?"

Dan, who had been silent all along, spoke up at this moment: "No need for that trouble, I've found the Zhang family's mark."

When everyone turned around, they saw Dan hanging with one hand in a cave six meters above the ground, and they quickly gathered around him.

Zhang Wuxun quickly climbed to that spot and saw that the entrance to the cave was covered with densely drawn symbols representing danger to the Zhang family.

With a powerful tumble of his arm, he flipped inside, his gaze quickly sweeping over the numerous chaotic and complex markings. Among them, he found the most unique one, a mark belonging to Zhang Qiling, signifying extreme danger.

“This is it,” he shouted down. “I see the little brother’s mark.”

When Wu Xie heard this from below, his first reaction was one of familiarity and relief. Even though the place where the mark appeared was a den of wolves and tigers, the panic and confusion hidden deep in his heart instantly dissipated.

He was like a snowball being pushed around in a swirling snowstorm, constantly getting stained and falling, constantly gaining and losing, the snowball growing bigger and bigger until one moment, the snowstorm stopped.

He couldn't see the road ahead, but at this moment he wanted to stop.

"Tianzhen, what are you standing there for? Come on up here."

The fat man was calling him, the wooden fish was waiting for him, and there was another person ahead. He still couldn't see the road clearly, but he knew the direction.

Which way should we go? Go back where we came from, and go back where we're going.

Wu Xie climbed up the cliff face, stepping on its sharp edges, but Zhang Wuxun grabbed him by the collar and lifted him up with the last step.

No amount of warning signs could stop them, just like the Zhang family members who had left their mark here before. Their mission and their lives were intertwined, and they would fight to the death.

Without saying much, the group continued on their way.

The cave they entered contained several smaller caves, each with numerous random markings at its entrance. Zhang Wu and his companions followed the caves marked by Xiao Ge.

After marking seven or eight signs in a row, Zhang Wuxun habitually released his sense of danger to explore the path ahead. The number of snakes appearing nearby was gradually increasing, but nothing seemed amiss.

However, Zhang Wuxun still turned around and asked Zhang Haike for a map to compare and confirm the location.

Zhang Haike and Fatty walked at the end of the group. Zhang Wuxun took two steps back, about to speak, when he suddenly stopped.

Just now, within the range of his perception, a reddish-brown shadow flashed by.

What caught his attention was that the shadow appeared abruptly, was very large, and disappeared in a flash; it was human-shaped.

Wu Xie noticed that Zhang Wuxun's eyes suddenly sharpened, his pupils narrowing on their own, like a snake eyeing its prey, about to launch an attack.

"Someone's following us," Zhang Wuxun whispered. (End of Chapter)