PD -Chapter 149 The Hidden Door Underground

By the time Brother Zhou and Xiao Xu had shouted for them to stop and driven their three-wheeled patrol vehicle over to the swaying section of wire fence, the kids had already climbed through.

Watching the youngsters casually shine their flashlights around as they swaggered into one of the abandoned buildings of the psychiatric hospital, Brother Zhou couldn’t help feeling uneasy.

“Brother Zhou, where’s the key? Hurry up and open the gate so we can drag those little brats out!” Xiao Xu urged.

Seeing Brother Zhou staring through the fence in the direction the kids had run, seemingly lost in thought and ignoring him, Xiao Xu simply began searching around Brother Zhou’s waist for the keys himself.

Only then did Brother Zhou snap back to reality and remove the keys from his belt.

As Xiao Xu unlocked the chain wrapped around the wire gate, Brother Zhou hesitated and said,

“You’re not from around here. You don’t know how strange this hospital is…”

“What’s so strange about it?” Xiao Xu scoffed. “If you don’t want to go in, Brother Zhou, then stay here. I’ll catch those little troublemakers myself!”

Xiao Xu was younger than Brother Zhou and naturally more hot-blooded. He paid no attention to the local ghost stories.

Right now, all he cared about was catching the kids who had trespassed and doing his job properly.

Although Brother Zhou was timid, he was sensible enough to understand that, unpleasant as the situation might be, they had no choice but to go inside.

If he really let Xiao Xu go in alone, then whether an accident happened or not, he’d never be able to hold his head high afterward.

With that thought, Brother Zhou sighed and followed Xiao Xu into the abandoned hospital building.

The interior was pitch-black.

The half-collapsed entrance resembled a giant beast with a gaping, dark maw, waiting for prey to walk straight into its mouth.

Even Xiao Xu, full of youthful courage, felt a chill run down his spine the moment he entered. He instinctively slowed his pace, raising his flashlight and sweeping it through the darkness while advancing more cautiously.

“This is private property! You’re not allowed in here! Come out immediately!”

Perhaps to bolster his own courage, Xiao Xu shouted several times into the darkness, but no one answered.

This had once clearly been the hospital lobby. Now it was nothing but decay.

Rotting desks and chairs were scattered everywhere. Dead branches, fallen leaves, and thick dust covered the floor.

Broken glass crunched beneath their feet with sharp crackling sounds.

After searching around, they eventually found footprints near the entrance leading to the basement, along with a severed chain lock.

The chain had originally secured the metal door leading downstairs.

Now it lay discarded to one side, the fresh cut marks proving it had been clipped only recently—obviously by those kids.

“They even brought hydraulic bolt cutters?” Brother Zhou was genuinely annoyed now. He had assumed the youngsters were merely curious and intended to take a quick look around. He hadn’t expected them to go this far.

“Brother Zhou, stay here and guard the entrance. Don’t let those brats get away. When we catch them, they deserve a proper lesson!”

With that, Xiao Xu switched on his flashlight and headed into the basement alone.

Still worried, Brother Zhou called after him to be careful.

Xiao Xu merely waved his flashlight behind him in response.

Soon, his figure disappeared into the darkness.

Brother Zhou remained at the doorway.

Minute after minute passed.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong and began wondering whether he should go in himself.

Just then, he suddenly heard a series of rustling footsteps coming from a corridor on the first floor.

“Who’s there?”

His flashlight immediately swung toward the sound.

The footsteps stopped at once.

After a moment’s thought, Brother Zhou gripped his flashlight in one hand and pulled out the old-fashioned baton hanging from his waist with the other, cautiously moving toward the source of the noise.

“Come with me right now! This isn’t a place you should be!”

Only when he saw that it was the same group of youngsters who had climbed in earlier did he finally relax.

He stepped forward, grabbed one boy by the collar, and hauled him aside.

Having been caught red-handed, the kids no longer tried to run.

Instead, they obediently followed behind Brother Zhou.

Perhaps the eerie atmosphere inside the hospital had genuinely frightened them. They had even stopped livestreaming and become much more compliant.

Brother Zhou returned to the metal door leading to the basement and shouted inside several times, telling Xiao Xu to come back up.

But after calling for quite a while, the only response was the echo of his own voice reverberating through the basement.

There wasn’t the slightest sign of Xiao Xu.

Brother Zhou frowned.

Something felt wrong.

After some thought, he warned the boys once more to stay where they were and not run around. Then he switched on his flashlight and cautiously entered the basement.

The center of the basement turned out to be a boiler room.

He circled it several times, calling out repeatedly, but still couldn’t find Xiao Xu anywhere.

Now truly anxious, Brother Zhou was trying to figure out what had happened when he suddenly saw a section of wall beside him swing open.

There was a hidden door there.

At that moment, Xiao Xu stepped out from behind it.

“Are… are you alright?” Brother Zhou asked with concern.

Xiao Xu nodded and explained that he had discovered the hidden door in the wall and gone inside to see whether the kids were hiding there.

“We’ve already found those little troublemakers. Let’s get out of here.”

Seeing that Xiao Xu appeared completely unharmed and didn’t seem to have encountered any problems, Brother Zhou didn’t think much of it.

The two men left the basement, escorted the kids out of the hospital, scolded them thoroughly on the roadside, and then drove them home.

“Looking back now…” Brother Zhou sighed after recounting the events of that night. “When Xiao Xu came out of that hidden door, something about him felt off. But I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was.”

“And when he left the psychiatric hospital with me, I think he was having a nosebleed. I asked if he was okay, and he just said he was probably overheated lately, plus the air in the hospital wasn’t very good. I didn’t think much of it at the time…”

A trace of guilt appeared on Brother Zhou’s face.

I sighed and quickly tried to comfort him.

“You can’t blame yourself. There was no way you could’ve known that a perfectly normal person would later do something like that.”

“What a pity…” Brother Zhou lamented. “Such a good young man.”

Then he looked at us and lowered his voice.

“That place is really strange. I know people from big cities don’t believe in this sort of thing, but… anyway, since you’ve taken on this case, be careful no matter what you do.”

“We understand. Thanks for the warning, Brother Zhou,” Li Zi replied immediately, smiling as he placed more food into Brother Zhou’s bowl.

The meal didn’t last much longer.

Soon, we escorted Brother Zhou home.

Afterward, we decided to head directly to the psychiatric hospital ourselves and take a look.

I was eager to resolve Old Que’s problem as quickly as possible and find his former lover so that he could finally forge the weapon we needed.