Tomb Raider: I Am Hu Bayi's Cousin

Hu Ming pointed the group toward the door leading to the front hall.

Two couplets carved from wooden boards hang on a pair of pillars in front of the gate.

The surface was covered with mold-like clumps. After wiping away the dirt, the contents of the couplet came into view.

Having triumphantly triumphed at Yanran, I still yearn to compose poems in Qufu.

These are two very ordinary couplets, which roughly mean that the owner of this courtyard has military merits and is a soldier.

The undercurrent at the bottom of the lake was becoming increasingly rapid. In their perception, the center of the undercurrent was clearly deep within this ancient building.

This made Wu Xie somewhat uneasy. The current was becoming increasingly rapid, which meant that the resistance would be greater when they returned the way they came.

Furthermore, with more than half of their oxygen already used up, the situation was truly dire.

But ahead, Hu Ming and his brother had already passed through the portal and entered the ancient building deeper inside.

The fat man, rubbing his hands together, followed the two with great interest, completely without any worry.

Seeing this, Wu Xie sighed slightly, gave up on trying to persuade the three, and swam over.

Now that we've found this place, how can we possibly leave empty-handed without digging out some useful information?
At this moment, Hu Ming, who was walking at the front, had already arrived at the entrance of a front hall along the corridor, where he stopped and waited for the people behind him.

The front building had been submerged in water for many years, and most of it was completely rotten. Only the frame built with wood that had been treated with special methods remained unchanged.

According to the customs of the Han people in the past, there must have been plaques, memorial tablets, and other similar items in the front hall of wealthy families. These items would inevitably reveal some information about the owner.

Of course, Hu Ming knew that this was a building on the ground floor of the Zhang Family Ancient Building, and he knew who had lived here before.

There are definitely no memorial tablets or pavilions here. The memorial tablets and other items belonging to the deceased ancestors of the Zhang family are all buried underground!
However, Hu Ming did find a plaque that was almost completely rotten in the front hall.

The specific content above is no longer legible. After wiping away the attached material, only the signature on the lower right side remains relatively clear.

Master Zhang!
The only characters that can be vaguely made out are these few. They are very beautiful calligraphy, written in the slender gold style, which demonstrates profound skill.

He casually tossed the plaque to Wu Xie, who was rushing over from behind, and continued along the corridor, ignoring how complicated Wu Xie's inner thoughts were upon seeing it.

The source of the underwater current, the entrance to the first underground level of Zhang Family Ancient Building, is not far ahead.

It took them about five minutes to swim through the narrow corridor before finally reaching the back room after winding and turning around.

The door to the back hall was locked with a rusty lock, and there were no windows nearby for anyone to enter.

Seeing this, Hu Ming flipped his hand and pulled out his treasured sword, completely disregarding that the current patriarch of the Zhang family was right in front of him. He violently cut the lock and pushed open the door.

Apart from some necessary furniture and items, the back room was completely empty.

The furniture and other items had long since rotted into clumps of fluff. The light from the diving lamp illuminated the back room, and in a corner, a human-shaped shadow suddenly appeared!
"That"

Wu Xie and Fatty swam in behind Hu Ming and immediately saw the shadow. Their hearts tightened.

"Don't be impatient."

Hu Ming shook his head and gestured to the two of them not to be nervous.

At the same time, adjust the focus of the diving light to illuminate the shadowed areas.

Upon closer inspection, it was a screen standing in the corner of the back hall.

It's unclear what material the screen was made of, but it showed no signs of decay and remained perfectly intact.

From a distance, that shadow looked like a painting on a screen.
But upon closer inspection, Wu Xie felt a chill run down his spine.

The screen was clearly blank; where was the painting?
That figure was clearly a reflection of something behind the screen!
Subconsciously, Wu Xie took a few steps back, remaining expressionless despite the strange looks from Hu Ming and the other two.

The powerful light from the diving lamp pierced through the shadows, making the figures behind them quite clear.

What's truly chilling is the figure's unusually bizarre posture.

The figure stood there stiffly in the back, its shoulders sunken in!
Immediately, Wu Xie suddenly remembered the ghostly figure he had seen in the wooden building at A Gui's house on his first night in the Yao village!
If they weren't in the water, Wu Xie would probably have instinctively gasped.

Wu Xie saw this slumped-shoulder shadow once and was deeply impressed; he could never forget it.

Upon closer inspection.
"Gurgle, gurgle, cough cough"

Wu Xie felt a chill run down his spine and instinctively wanted to vent his shock by swearing, but as soon as he opened his mouth, lake water mixed with countless unidentified floating objects rushed into his mouth.

Wu Xie couldn't care less about any of that at the moment. He swallowed a mouthful of lake water with difficulty, adjusted his breathing, and stared wide-eyed.

This screen, this ghostly figure, this environment
It's clearly the image from the photo that Brother Chu gave to Wu Xie before!
That's not some Geermu Sanatorium at all! That photo was clearly taken here!!!
In particular, Wu Xie felt, whether it was his imagination or not, that the shadow seemed to be floating around in place, as if it were alive.

What exactly is this thing? Is it the humanoid monster we encountered before?
No, that thing's shoulders aren't sunken.

Could it be a water ghost? But...
Seeing Hu Ming's pursed lips, Wu Xie was somewhat confused.

Having spent so much time together, Wu Xie has come to understand the meaning behind some of Hu Ming's subtle actions.

A smirk means, "This thing isn't a threat at all?"
Hu Ming used his flippers to paddle across, grabbed the screen, and swam away.

"...glug glug, cough cough..."

Wu Xie's face turned green instantly not because he had drunk a bellyful of dirty water due to two consecutive emotional breakdowns, but because he felt that his feelings had been deceived.