Chapter 44 Locked Iron Door (14/95)
Liu Zining looked around, but couldn’t find a place to access the air-raid shelter entrance.
There wasn’t even a foothold to climb on.
Unless she could scale walls, she really couldn’t get up there.
“Could it be that Jiang Ran went down from the mountain?”
As a local, Liu Zining knew that the air-raid shelter entrance was accessible via a small path from the mountain.
So, she took out a flashlight from her schoolbag and began to prepare to ascend the mountain.
However, this small mountain wasn’t frequented by people, and the places that were once paths were now completely covered by dense bushes and weeds.
Liu Zining couldn’t even find a place to step.
Moreover, she discovered that along the way, there were indeed footprints on the ground that someone had recently made.
Judging by the size of these footprints, they must have been left by Jiang Ran.
She looked at her mobile phone.
Then she asked Jiang Ran.
“Are you already inside the air-raid shelter?”
“Yes.”
The person on the other end of the phone sent a photo.
The photo showed the interior of the air-raid shelter.
Damp, dark, and suffocating.
“But it’s too dark in here, I don’t dare to go in.”
“Your feeling is correct.”
Just looking at the photo, Liu Zining could feel the strange and heavy atmosphere inside the air-raid shelter.
“Stay where you are, don’t move rashly.”
“Waiting for you, boss.”
Liu Zining put her phone back into her backpack and then quickened her pace.
She had a very bad feeling.
As a ghost exorcist with keen intuition, she knew that something bad was likely to happen.
This feeling was the same as when her colleague had an accident last time.
“Arrived.”
Liu Zining arrived at the entrance of the air-raid shelter.
Looking down from here, the side facing the road was covered with cement, turning into an almost vertical cliff.
The entrance was full of yellow mud from the mountain, and Jiang Ran’s footprints were still visible on the mud.
It’s just that these footprints were spaced far apart, as if he was running.
Why would Jiang Ran run?
Liu Zining looked up into the air-raid shelter. The interior was very dark, like a gaping maw that was ready to devour life.
“Signal lost.”
Liu Zining tried to contact Jiang Ran again, but when she took out her phone, she found that it now showed “no service.”
Looking down from the entrance of the air-raid shelter, there were no cars coming or going on the road.
It was eerily quiet.
But looking at Jiang Ran’s footprints on the ground, Liu Zining didn’t know if something had happened to him, but the last time, it was because she hesitated for a moment, and by the time she got there, her colleague was already a corpse.
Even though Liu Zining was a lone wolf, seeing someone she knew die in front of her felt… very bad.
This time, she couldn’t repeat the same mistake.
With that thought, Liu Zining turned on her flashlight and resolutely walked into the air-raid shelter.
“Squelch…”
Because there was a layer of shallow mud on the ground, Liu Zining’s shoes made a wet sound when she stepped on it.
The arched concrete walls on both sides of the air-raid shelter were almost completely covered with moss.
There were also rows of mottled paint slogans on the walls.
Liu Zining could vaguely see slogans like “Dig deep tunnels, store grain widely, be prepared for war and famine for the people.”
These fonts, full of the charm of the era, had become blurry and difficult to recognize after the baptism of time.
Soon, Liu Zining stopped.
A iron door appeared in front of her.
However, this was not a solid iron door, but a gate with large gaps, made of iron bars welded together.
And at this moment, the door was still closed, but… after Liu Zining approached, she found that there was a very fresh bloodstain remaining on this iron gate.
The entire bloodstain formed the outline of a human figure.
Liu Zining’s sense of unease grew stronger. She shone her flashlight inside, but couldn’t see anything further in.
There was also a faint smell of dusty mold coming from inside.
Liu Zining looked behind her. Jiang Ran’s footprints completely disappeared in front of this door.
But there were bloodstains on the door, yet there was nothing inside the air-raid shelter…
Not even footprints were seen.
“Hoo…”
Liu Zining held her breath. She suppressed her rapidly beating heart, forcing herself to calm down.
Her phone still displayed the photo of the air-raid shelter’s interior.
The place where this photo was taken was clearly not here, but deeper inside.
This meant that Jiang Ran had entered the air-raid shelter and taken a photo.
But the door was still locked, how did he get in?
Liu Zining held her breath and then took out a wrench from her backpack.
The rusty bars of the iron gate were also very rusty.
With just a slight push, the lock was pried open by the wrench.
After throwing the lock to the ground, Liu Zining walked inside.
As she opened the door, the gloomy atmosphere in the air became even thicker, making her shiver uncontrollably.
The dark interior of the air-raid shelter appeared even grimmer and more eerie.
On the walls, the same sentence was repeated everywhere.
“I really want to go home…”
“I really want to go home…”
The five words were everywhere, and the font was dark red, looking like the color of dried blood.
“Ding!”
At this moment, behind her, a crisp sound of iron hitting iron could be heard.
Liu Zining turned her head to look, and the iron gate that was previously open had been tightly closed for reasons unknown.
From here, she could still vaguely see the night sky outside, but that night sky looked so fake.
Liu Zining’s sense of unease intensified. Even though she had foreseen the danger ahead, she had no way back.
Now, there was only forward, no retreat.
Liu Zining gritted her teeth, held the lightning-attracting talisman, and, enduring the unease and the icy feeling all over her body, began to walk towards the deeper darkness.
Inside the air-raid shelter, many things were piled up, long and decaying wooden boxes one after another, seemingly used to store munitions or supplies.
However, Liu Zining paid no attention to what was inside these boxes.
She hurried forward.
The faster Liu Zining walked, the more she felt strange footsteps echoing around her, she didn’t know if they were her own…
Or something else.
But whenever she looked back, she saw no one.
When she stopped, she smelled the scent of blood in the air.
This smell came from above, and she could faintly hear the sound of dripping water.
What was that?
Liu Zining looked up. When her flashlight shone upwards, she froze completely.
Above her head, a spherical object was hanging silently.
Under the pale light of her flashlight, it was Jiang Ran’s head.
On his face, there was a strange and terrifying smile.
It seemed to be welcoming Liu Zining’s arrival…
