SFTD -Chapter 397 White Spots Reappear (Part 38)

Zhou Hai nodded and reached over to yank away the cloth coverings draped over several other cylindrical objects beside the glass bottle.

Dust instantly billowed into the air. Hu Nan raised her flashlight, and the moment she saw what was inside, she gasped in shock and instinctively stepped backward toward Zhou Hai. Her foot caught on something, and she fell straight toward him.

Zhou Hai’s attention had been entirely focused on the bottles. Hu Nan’s sudden movement startled him for only a split second before he also stepped back, lifting an elbow to brace against her back and steady her upright.

Xu Biao kept shaking his head as he watched.

A hug wouldn’t kill you, would it?

What a perfect opportunity wasted!

After regaining her balance, Hu Nan smiled awkwardly at Zhou Hai and lowered her gaze. Beneath the shelf, something resembling a dried branch protruded outward. Just as she bent down to inspect it, Zhou Hai stopped her.

“Don’t move. That looks like a mummified arm.”

His words made her shudder.

Today had truly opened her eyes.

First there was the underground tunnel, then the secret chamber, followed by skeletal remains.

And now this place resembled some kind of anatomical museum. Large and small jars contained human organs or severed limbs. Even the things discarded on the floor were dried human arms. One jar even contained a shriveled human head.

What kind of place was this?

Zhou Hai carefully examined the bottles. Though none had been opened, he could still make certain judgments based on the hairstyles and hair color of the preserved heads.

These were Chinese people.

The dried heads had queues or hair buns. The tops of the queues still retained short hair growth, clearly not a modern hairstyle.

The liquid inside the jars farther back had become somewhat cloudy, but beneath each bottle was a paper label. Zhou Hai quickly shone his flashlight over one of them. It appeared to show a date: 18-06-1989. The other jars bore dates ranging from near to far apart.

Hu Nan noticed where Zhou Hai was looking and leaned closer.

“These bottles aren’t very old.”

Zhou Hai nodded.

“Looks like someone used the things here for research. Most of these organ specimens have lesions or pathological changes.”

Hu Nan looked puzzled. Zhou Hai had only glanced briefly, so she moved closer and shined the flashlight into the jars herself. Sure enough, abnormalities could be seen on several of the organs.

“Could someone really be conducting research here?”

“Perhaps. This room is filled with specimens and equipment from different eras. Let’s check the other areas.”

Xu Biao seemed to feel slightly relieved upon hearing that. This time he had learned his lesson and no longer insisted on leading the way. Instead, he followed behind Zhou Hai and Hu Nan as the group exited the specimen room and headed south.

After passing through a relatively wide corridor, they reached the end and turned westward again. Recalling the layout of the buildings aboveground, Zhou Hai realized that heading south like this placed them directly beneath the main compound building.

At this point, two iron doors appeared side by side.

These doors were obviously much sturdier than the one to the specimen room. They were painted dark green, and although the paint had peeled in places, the heavy solidity of the doors remained obvious.

Old Wang stepped forward and looked toward Zhou Hai.

“Deputy Director Zhou, which door should we open first?”

From behind, Xu Biao stuck his head out and shouted recklessly: “How about we draw lots?”

Zhou Hai grabbed Xu Biao’s chubby paw and shoved him forward.

“You pick one.”

Xu Biao looked aggrieved.

“That’s too much! You’re seriously using me as a human mine detector?”

Seeing that Zhou Hai had no intention of discussing it further, Xu Biao caved. He glanced ahead and pointed at the door on the left.

“Men left, women right. Let’s go with this one.”

Old Wang grabbed the handle on the left door and pulled hard outward. The entire door shook violently but refused to open.

Hu Nan stepped forward, retrieved a long slender probe from the pouch at her waist, and slipped it through the crack in the door as far as it would go. Slowly, she moved it from top to bottom.

Before long, at about 1.2 meters above the ground, the probe met resistance. She fiddled with it briefly, but whatever blocked it was firmly fixed in place. Squatting down again, she checked from bottom to top and found the same obstruction at the exact same height.

“A door bar. There’s a bar on the other side!”

Hu Nan declared confidently.

In an underground tunnel like this, there were no padlocks or locking clasps on the doors, suggesting the passage had always remained accessible.

So why was there a crossbar here?

And why had it been fastened from the opposite side?

Did that mean there was another entrance leading into this room?

Zhou Hai gestured for Old Wang to try opening the door on the right first.

Hu Nan stopped him and used the probe on the second door as well. This time she checked upward from the bottom. Again, resistance appeared at a certain height, but after nudging it slightly, it seemed capable of moving a little.

Watching her actions, Old Wang grabbed the handle and searched around it. At the very top of the handle, tucked tightly against the horizontal bar, he found a tiny metal rod. He squeezed it like pulling a brake lever.

Click.

A crisp sound rang out from inside the door.

At the same time, with only slight force from his arm, the entire heavy door slowly swung open.

The door itself was incredibly thick, nearly the width of Zhou Hai’s palm. As it opened, all four of them unconsciously held their breath.

Bang!

The door slammed against the wall and stopped.

Two powerful flashlight beams swept into the room. Even from the entrance they could feel damp air rushing toward them, accompanied by what seemed to be a faint breeze.

Zhou Hai narrowed his eyes.

Could there be ventilation shafts or even windows in here?

The flashlights illuminated an enormous room. Several long tables stood in the center, cluttered with bottles, jars, and uneven tubing systems. Shelves seemed to occupy the corners as well.

Zhou Hai stepped inside and descended four steps.

Xu Biao followed behind him, though he wasn’t carrying a flashlight. His eyes simply tracked the beam from Zhou Hai’s light as he observed the room.

Distracted, he failed to notice the threshold beneath his feet.

He tripped instantly.

Throwing out a hand to steady himself against the wall, he accidentally pressed against a protruding object.

Click.

A switch was depressed.

In an instant, four or five incandescent lamps flickered to life, flooding the entire room with light.

The sudden brightness forced Zhou Hai and the others to raise their hands to shield their eyes. All three turned simultaneously to stare at Xu Biao.

“There are lights?”

Hu Nan clutched her stomach and burst out laughing.

“Xu Biao, you’re incredible. You can even find a light switch by falling down.”

Xu Biao grinned awkwardly.

Old Wang walked over beside him and looked upward. There was a hole in the wall through which a bundle of electrical wires had been fed from the opposite side. White tubing protected the wires as they circled around the room, though the tubing itself looked extremely old.

“These wires were installed later. The conduits are pretty old and already deteriorating.”

Zhou Hai understood immediately. Old Wang meant the electrical system had been added only in recent years.

He nodded, put away his high-powered flashlight, and surveyed the room.

This was unmistakably a laboratory.

Rows of tables in the center were densely packed with beakers, rectifier tubes, and other experimental apparatuses. Shelves along the walls held countless bottles and jars. Nearby stood skeletal specimens and prosthetic devices. Against one wall was a cement sink.

There was even drainage here.

With a setup like this, the drainage system had to connect somewhere.

At the easternmost side of the sink area, a folding screen partitioned off a section containing a folding bed and several shelves.

Clearly, this was a living or resting area.

Meanwhile, Hu Nan had walked to one of the lab benches. Papers were scattered everywhere across the tabletop. Picking up a few at random, she saw they contained experimental records.

After casually flipping through several pages, she realized the handwriting didn’t closely resemble the writing from the photographs Zhou Hai had previously taken. This handwriting was smoother and far sloppier.

Judging from the experiment results and notes, these records documented the purification of potassium cyanide.

The remaining records involved deliberately introducing impurities into substances.

There were also many incomprehensible entries that seemed related to drug research of some kind.

The densely packed experiment logs filled more than a dozen notebooks.

As Hu Nan set the notebooks down, two pencils slipped out and rolled across the tabletop toward the edge.

She reached out and caught them.

Just as she was about to put them back down, her eyes suddenly widened. She lifted one pencil close to her face.

Clear bite marks could be seen on the end of it.

The moment Zhou Hai saw her reaction, he knew she had found something and quickly walked over.

“Hu Nan, what did you find?”

By the time he reached her side, he had already taken the pencil from her hand.

The bite marks slanted diagonally across the end of the pencil.

Studying the marks carefully, Zhou Hai narrowed his eyes.

“Judging from the incisor marks, this seems to be a habit formed while thinking during right-handed writing.”