Section 19
"What is this place?" Ling Zhijie asked.
"An air-raid shelter, someone is inside," Wang Fei replied.
Ling Zhijie shoved him inside and shouted sharply, "Lead the way! Hurry!"
I glanced at the time; there were still ten minutes before Wang Fei's mentioned moment. Suddenly, a feeling of tension began to rise because at that instant, I was no longer so sure whether it was truly Xin Jie inside. From the moment we entered this tunnel, I sensed that the surrounding air carried a familiar atmosphere, almost identical to the night Xin Jie disappeared...
To be more precise, this atmosphere could be described as—eerie.
I had never heard of such an air-raid shelter underground in Songlinchang. Looking at Ling Zhijie, he didn't seem very clear either. The tunnel we entered now was clearly not the real entrance of the shelter but a passage dug directly from outside by some people.
The tunnel was small, only wide enough for two people to walk side by side, and it sloped sharply downwards. I felt that we had walked about twenty meters when Wang Fei suddenly stopped and then pointed to the ground at his feet. He said to Ling Zhijie, "Going down from here leads to the interior of the air-raid shelter. What do you think? Should I go down first?"
I stepped forward to check. The dug tunnel ended here, and beyond lay a relatively larger space. Looking around slightly to the left and right, I could see that the walls were obviously different from the tunnel we came in; they were made of poured concrete. It seemed that this was the actual main part of the air-raid shelter. A few meters below us was the shelter's floor, with a shallow trench running through the middle, where water slowly flowed.
Ling Zhijie checked his watch and said, "Six minutes left. Quickly, which direction should we go once we're down?"
Wang Fei raised both hands and gestured to the right. Ling Zhijie instantly jumped to the left, did a roll, squatted down, and quickly looked around. After making sure it was safe, he signaled for the three of us to jump down too.
The height wasn't too high or too low. When I jumped, my knee hit slightly, but it was nothing serious.Wang Fei was wearing handcuffs and shackles. When he jumped down, he probably didn't land properly, and his whole body hit the ground. He groaned a few times, and after Xiao Song helped him up, he began walking unsteadily, seemingly spraining his foot. However, he didn't complain. Under Ling Zhijie's urging, he continued to lead us deeper into the air-raid shelter.
Since it was underground, the temperature here was much higher than outside. I was wearing a cotton coat, and in no time, I felt my back drenched in sweat. That eerie atmosphere grew increasingly intense. I didn't know why, but I had a subtle feeling that what awaited us ahead was not a simple trap, but something far more terrifying.
Date: 2010-05-19 10:39:00
In the darkness, no one spoke anymore. After a while, I heard Xiao Song mutter softly, “Team Leader Ling, I feel something is very wrong here…”
I wondered if the others felt the same. I then asked, “Zhijie, do you feel it too?”
Unexpectedly, Ling Zhijie, without turning his head, asked sharply, “What's wrong?! What could possibly be wrong?! Don't start doubting things here, Wang Fei, how much further is it?”
“Just ahead, almost there,” Wang Fei said, bowing his head and shuffling forward with difficulty.
“Two more minutes!” Ling Zhijie emphasized.
Just as he finished speaking, after taking a few steps, we found the path ahead blocked, as if we had reached the end of the shelter.
Using flashlights, we saw a huge iron door. The door was covered in rust. I didn't understand why such a massive iron door would be here, or what area lay behind it. Yet the eerie and horrifying atmosphere began to intensify immensely. I could even see this aura, like black gas, continuously emanating from behind the iron door…
I didn't know if others felt the same, but I noticed even Ling Zhijie didn't immediately step forward to check the door. Instead, he cautiously stood two or three meters away, observing it.
At that moment, Wang Fei suddenly rushed towards the iron door. Before I could even see what was happening, he instantly disappeared!
Date: 2010-05-19 15:51:00
This sudden event left the remaining three of us stunned at the same time. We glanced at each other and realized: Damn, he got away!Without a word, the three of us charged toward the iron gate at the same time. This all happened within a second or two. Unexpectedly, before we even reached the gate, we suddenly saw a dark head poking out from it, asking three words: 'What's wrong?' I looked closer and realized it was Wang Fei. Then, looking back at the gate, I immediately understood that the scene we saw earlier wasn't some mysterious disappearance; it was an illusion caused by the angle and the lighting. The iron gate had originally a small gap, just wide enough for one person to pass through. Combined with the dim light, from where we stood it looked like the gate was completely closed. When Wang Fei rushed forward, he slipped straight through the gap, which made us think he had vanished into a closed gate. Ling Zhijie swore, then followed him through the gap. After that, it was my turn. Just as Xiao Song was about to go in, Ling Zhijie suddenly stopped him and told him to wait outside and handle any situation at his own discretion. Inside the gate, it was just the three of us. Using the flashlight, we got a brief look around and noticed that the space behind the gate was quite different from the outside. The most obvious feature was the ground near our feet, which had several pits. Each pit was about a meter in diameter, irregular in shape, with clear signs that the original concrete floor had been forcibly broken and dug further down. I walked to one of the pits and shone the flashlight inside, seeing that the pit was filled with water, and some even spilled over. Looking at the shallow ditch beside it carrying water, I immediately realized that the water was being diverted from the ditch into these smaller channels to fill the pits. Following the shallow ditch further inside, all I saw were such pits. The flashlight couldn't reach far, but from the tail lights we could vaguely see that more pits were lined up, going deeper into the interior of this air-raid shelter, too many to count. 'Sixty more seconds!' Ling Zhijie shouted at Wang Fei. 'No need to count down, it's just ahead. From here, the thirteenth one—there's a person in the pit.' Wang Fei pointed forward calmly.Date: 2010-5-19 16:50:00 I had previously been unable to understand why Wang Fei would bring up the concept of a countdown, and moreover, in his view, this countdown seemed accurate. I thought he might have set up a timed bomb, but on second thought, getting such a bomb would be extremely difficult, and generally speaking, the chances of obtaining one are very slim. So, there is a high probability that he mentioned this countdown concept merely to get us to depart overnight. I guess Ling Zhijie and I thought the same thing. Although he kept emphasizing the time, one could tell from his tone that he didn't really care about this countdown. But now, seeing the structure of these pits, along with the words Wang Fei just said, I instantly understood. Wang Fei's countdown was like this—he trapped people in the pits using some method, then directed water into the pits and measured the flow rate, which allowed him to calculate when the water would fill the entire pit. When the pit was full, that's when the person inside would drown, and the time he calculated for this was today at 6:15 a.m.! This concept flashed through my mind quickly, and I, along with Ling Zhijie, rushed toward the thirteenth pit. However, when we reached it, we found that this pit was different from the others. The top was covered by a large iron grate. Looking down through the grate, we could see that the water in the pit was almost full, less than ten centimeters from the surface, and above the water, we could clearly see some long hair floating there. Seeing this hair, my legs went weak, and at the same time, a voice suddenly flashed in my mind, almost making me cry out. That voice was from the deceased Luo Xianmei. She said, 'Forgot to tell you, the ones who used to live in that room were also a young couple, one went insane, the other disappeared.' I had previously believed there was a 90% chance that Xin Jie was not here because I felt that Wang Fei, this murderous maniac, had very little connection to her strange disappearance, like two gears far apart, they simply couldn't reach each other.And now, this sentence from Luoxianmei that suddenly popped up from my memory was like a previously invisible gear, suddenly appearing between those two distant gears, clicking into place and starting to turn…
That's right, Wang Fei is the one Luoxianmei mentioned, the one who once lived in our house, part of the young couple where one went insane and the other disappeared!
He has an extremely inevitable connection with our bizarre disappearance and Xin Jie's!
And beneath this heavy iron grate in front of me, soaking in the water, is Xin Jie!