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

Or perhaps, it's not just about immortality.

Thinking of the religious statues that Feng's advance team carried with them, and the Praise God Gate that Feng had been longing for.

Zhang Wuxun felt his mind was in complete turmoil. It seemed that the secrets behind this quiet company were more complicated than he had imagined, and the identity of the mastermind behind it all was also very questionable. He was even more mysterious than the Wang family in the past.

Even Zhang Haike and his team only managed to find out the company's apparent boss; the real controller remained hidden in snippets of conversation from beginning to end, never seen or traced.

A cold glint flashed in Zhang Wuxun's eyes. No matter how well he hid, he was someone who had to be eliminated in the end.

After taking one last look at the group, Zhang Wuxun left signal marks on the three leaders before slipping into a side path. He then used his senses to navigate the maze of stone paths, gradually arriving in front of the German group.

So what if the Zhang family traitors altered the markings? Who is the cat and who is the mouse? It's not up to them to decide.

He wanted to see what was going on up ahead.

Zhang Wuxun would occasionally circle back to the path ahead to check the forged marks, placing a lit glow stick as bait to confirm that the people from Anjing Company were still following this path before he felt at ease.

After walking for another fifteen minutes, Zhang Wuxun suddenly noticed something unusual about a spot on the mountain.

In the other cave passages, snakes roamed more or less, and long red bars covered the map of the danger perception system. Only that one place was completely blank, without a single snake.

Any anomaly in this perilous underground mine would be enough to alert Zhang Wuxun. He slowed his movements and focused intently on carefully discerning the situation.

The absence of red indicates that the creatures in that place are not living beings with warmth, but if they are not living beings, how could the snakes that rule this mine avoid it at all costs?

Could it be that the traitor from the Zhang family wanted to lure Zhang Wuxun and the others to that empty space?
Zhang Wuxun decided to investigate.

The journey was calm, but Zhang Wuxun became increasingly vigilant, because the radar in his mind would ring louder the closer he got to that direction.

Finally, after turning a bend, the view ahead opened up dramatically.

The stone path seemed to have reached its end. The entire cave gleamed under the flashlight beam, revealing a wide altar carved directly from the mountainside. On the altar stood a towering, pure gold statue, its head resting against the cave ceiling, its head slightly drooping, with broad wings, a human body and a snake's tail, resembling a wall.

Staring at the familiar face on the statue, Zhang Wuxun let out a long breath. It was the Queen Mother of the West.

Whether it was sensing the gaze of a stranger, the eyeballs on the statue's face suddenly twitched almost imperceptibly. Zhang Wuxun reflexively looked over and met the eyes with overlapping spiral pupils...

"Ring ring—"

A very faint bell sound rang in my ears.

The ancestral bell hanging at the waist moves automatically even without wind.

Zhang Wuxun suddenly slammed his knee into the object in front of him, sending it flying. He then retreated abruptly, slashing the strange claws that were extending from his back with his sword.

The moment he turned his head, the two long-winged, snake-tailed monsters that had been motionless to the side pounced on him. Zhang Wuxun spun around and swung a high whip kick, sending one of them flying off its head. Then, without looking back, he swung his knife behind him and swatted away the other monster's pincer-like claws.

Turning around, a flash of silver light appeared, and the monster behind him stood upright in place, its head rolling off half a beat later.

The headless monster lay on the ground, trampled underfoot by the swarming other monsters.

Inside the cave, the tall, golden statue of the Queen Mother of the West had vanished. Wherever Zhang Wuxun's line of sight was out of reach, the long-winged, snake-tailed monsters that had been surrounding him would rush to attack.

They are moving, but within the range of crisis perception, their figures remain gray.

After severing the heads of more than a dozen monsters, Zhang Wuxun retreated to the edge of the cave while fighting. Looking at the remaining long-winged, snake-tailed monsters facing him, motionless as if playing a game of "statues," he thought to himself, "So that's how it is."

These monsters are not actually very strong. Their bodies are jade-like mummies, and their weaknesses are obvious. Ordinary people with enough strength can cut off their heads. Moreover, when a person looks directly at them and is within their line of sight, they become motionless as if bound by some kind of contract.

However, they have a mechanism that causes a momentary lapse in concentration. When you turn your back to them, or if you inadvertently make eye contact with their grayish-white swirling eyes, your brain will involuntarily become disoriented for a moment. The monster in front of you will suddenly and strangely transform into a familiar person in your view, and it will be speaking to you. Most people will subconsciously listen carefully.

In that instant, the monster will pounce at incredible speed and twist your head off.

They are very strong, and their attack methods are somewhat limited: twisting necks and pulling out heads.

It seems that the imposter Wu Xie was killed by this thing.

In other words, this winged, snake-tailed monster has a very wide range of activity, possibly even encompassing the entire mine.

While wondering whether a large mirror would pause or continue attacking if it were placed directly in front of the monster's face, Zhang Wuxun moved his body and used the trigger mechanism of being able to face but not look directly at to kill the remaining monsters.

With his fingers gently stroking the ancestral bell hanging at his waist, Zhang Wuxun carefully observed the stone cave and realized that this was no longer the one at the end of the stone path where he had first stepped in. No wonder the Golden Queen Mother of the West was gone.

It seems that the double pupils of the Queen Mother of the West statue, covered with strange runes, are indeed peculiar. A single glance can cause one to lose consciousness and then involuntarily walk into the monster's lair to be surrounded and killed.

Fortunately, he listened to advice and kept Zu Ling with him at all times this time.

Zhang Wuxun squatted down to examine the mummified bodies of the long-winged, snake-tailed corpses. To his surprise, he discovered that their skeletons were perfectly assembled as a whole, as if they had always looked like that since birth.

what's the situation?
Weren't these monsters actually pieced together by someone later?

Zhang Wuxun squatted down and thought for a while before checking the heads that served as the control center.

The skull is longer and more pointed than a normal skull, so the dry brain inside is only about the size of a thermos lid. It is soft to the touch and feels bulging, somewhat like a squishy toy wrapped in a thin film.

Curiosity got the better of Zhang Wuxun, so he stabbed one open with his dagger. "Biu," the semi-pasty contents spilled onto the ground, and a few drops splashed onto Zhang Wuxun's fingers. Instantly, he felt a burning pain, as if the skin had come into contact with concentrated sulfuric acid, and brown spots with signs of aging and wrinkles were burned on that spot.

Zhang Wuxun was taken aback. What was going on? How could the monster's brain fluid be so toxic!
What surprised him most was that after a dozen seconds, the wrinkles and spots showed no signs of healing, as if the skin and the surrounding cells had been completely killed.

How could that be? Even if it were a real sulfuric acid burn, with Zhang Wuxun's healing ability, new flesh would grow back in no time.

A sudden, extremely bad premonition rose in Zhang Wuxun's heart. He ignored the injury on his hand and stared intently at the seemingly ordinary puddle of viscous liquid on the stone ground, then cut off a small piece of the dried corpse jade's tissue and threw it into it.

Without any reaction, the pool of slime seemed to suddenly become harmless.

Zhang Wuxun refused to believe it and took out a piece of gauze from his spatial storage and threw it in, but there was still no reaction.

He even poured out iodine and alcohol to test it. Apart from changing color and being diluted, the sticky liquid was even more stable than C4 before it was detonated, which could be kneaded and rolled at will.

Zhang Wuxun remained silent for a long time, then pricked his finger and dripped his blood into it. With a sizzle, as if water had fallen into a pot of oil, the sticky liquid instantly boiled up until the few drops of blood were burned away.

Zhang Wuxun's lips curled into a sinister smile, his aura terrifying.

Therefore, this is a blood toxin specifically targeting the Zhang family. As for whether it contains neurotoxins, it is currently unclear.

Only members of the Zhang family who betrayed the Zhang family could create something like this.

"Damn it." Zhang Wuxun slowly stood up, his pupils narrowed, his eyes filled with endless violence and killing intent.

……

It was already 3 a.m. when a commotion suddenly broke out at the back of the Quiet Company's line, alerting Kenga at the front.

"What's all the fuss about?" Kenga asked, clearly displeased.

The road was so narrow that only one person could pass at a time, and it was difficult to turn around even when carrying a lot of equipment. He had to shout at the top of his lungs.

The two people at the back of the line hurriedly relayed the situation to those at the front.

"What? Someone's missing!"

Kenga didn't believe it. The road was almost completely straight, and with the glow sticks of the small group ahead marking the way, it was impossible for anyone to get lost.

There's a high chance something bad has happened.

He immediately ordered the team to turn back and search for the two missing people.

At this moment, Zhang Wuxun was hiding in a stone cave at the top, his aura completely concealed, silent in the darkness, like a cold stone.

The group quickly retreated to the last entrance they had entered, with glow sticks still stuck in the rock crevices.

On the way back, they did not see the two missing people, nor did they find anything they had left behind.

Even if attacked by a snake, one would still make a struggling sound.

But that's the truth; none of the people at the back of the line noticed anything unusual.

Kenga sent out a few of his men, guns in hand, to continue searching along the route they had come from. "The column is halting. You guys, keep searching in the back."

“Mr. Zhang, I would like to know what happened.” Kenga looked at the two members of the Zhang family and spoke in a low voice.

"You led us this way, so you know this place very well. Can you tell me where my people went?"

Upon hearing this, one of the Zhang family members turned to look at him. The sinister look between his brows completely ruined the original handsome features of his face, and he exuded an indescribable evil aura.

"Calm down, Mr. Kenga. This is normal. It's three in the morning. The Jade Corpses in the snake mine should have woken up and come out to forage." Zhang Nian glanced at his watch and casually adjusted his combat gloves.

“The Corpse Jade Man?” Kenga frowned, realizing that Zhang Nian was hiding something from him, and immediately said unhappily, “What is this thing? Are there other monsters here? When we agreed to cooperate, you didn’t tell me that this would happen.”

He had already lost nearly half of his men to the giant jellyfish, and two more had just disappeared. If this continued, he would be left with no one to command!

"The Corpse Jade Man is the Goguryeo Man who was cursed by the Double-Pupiled Serpent God."

Zhang Nian began to tell the story in an aria-like tone: "Legend has it that more than 1,500 years ago, the leader of the Ge Que Qiang Qiong tribe received a divine decree from heaven, instructing him to worship a statue with double pupils, a human head, and a snake's body. That statue was the legendary Queen Mother of the West who ascended to immortality."

"The oracle said that as long as he believed in the Queen Mother of the West and became a follower of the snake, he would gain longevity. So the leader began to gather his people to raise snakes on a large scale, and following the oracle's instructions, he began to imitate the Queen Mother of the West's experiment on immortality by fusing humans and snakes together. He successfully extended his lifespan and gained a powerful body."

"But people are never satisfied. Long life will eventually come to an end. The leader of the Gokuangqiong wanted to become a god worshipped by everyone, just like the Queen Mother of the West. So he began to add another kind of long-lived bird to his experiments. In the end, he turned all his people into monsters with wings and tails but no intelligence. He himself did indeed get the long life he wanted."

"The price is that he and his people will never be able to leave this prison he built with his own hands."

"After who knows how many centuries, the Zhang family's spirit-raising people came here following the clues to immortality. He led the Kangba people to use meteorite jade armor pieces to contain the monsters that the Gequn and Qiangqiong people had transformed into. He also obtained a meteorite from outer space to use special energy radiation to counteract the side effects on the monsters. As time passed, the monsters gradually disappeared."

Seeing the undisguised greed on Kenga's face, Zhang Nian smiled sarcastically, "Of course, it's just a story, mostly made up. Just listen to it and don't worry about it. Mr. Kenga, if you're really curious and want to do research, you can catch a few of the escaped Corpse Jade People and use them for experiments. You might get some unexpected results."

Another member of the Zhang family standing nearby listened to his utter nonsense and scoffed disdainfully, but said nothing. He simply hugged the long sword in his arms tightly and silently recited the three words "Zhang Qiling" in his heart.

He wanted to get his hands on whatever was there and then force Zhang Qiling to meet him.

"We'll see. It would be better if we could capture him." Kenga suppressed the greed that he had deliberately shown on his face. "But we have no idea when the Corpse Jade Man you mentioned appeared or when he took away my two men."

“Most importantly, we haven’t seen any sign of the Zhang family’s team since we entered the snake mine,” Kenga said, looking at Zhang Nian with a slightly suspicious gaze.

"Mr. Zhang, you haven't led us to the wrong place, have you?"

Zhang Nian chuckled and walked to the marked stone wall that had been tampered with. He then examined it with his naked eye for a while, shining a light on it.

But then he saw something, and the arrogant expression on his face froze, the corners of his mouth slowly curving into a straight line. (End of Chapter)