Translator: Reina Editor: Killian
“No, no need. Go and take that out instead.” Sun Zheng pointed to the other side of the glass.
Lu Xia pointed the light there and saw a booklet hanging on the back of the joint between the two panels. He lowered his body and passed his hand through the gap in the glass panel. After struggling for a while, he finally managed to take out the booklet.
“Ugh! My hand hurts.” Lu Xia shook his hand, and took a closer look at the booklet: Laboratory cleaning duty list.
Without further ado, he flipped it open.
He looked through, from the first page all the way to the last page. Then, he raised his head and looked at Sun Zheng with a solemn expression. “It’s bad, there is no Liu Qin here.”
“In other words, Liu Qin is no longer working here?” Sun Zheng was a little overwhelmed.
The two of them stared at each other in silence for a long time, almost mourning for their luck which was so terrible that they were hitting walls everywhere.
“It’s okay!” Lu Xia patted Sun Zheng on the shoulder with the roster, and cheerily said, “Her desk might be gone if she is no longer working in this hospital, but that spot must still be here, that spot where Xiaotian…”
He stopped suddenly, a chill running down his spine at a sudden thought.
“What’s wrong? “Sun Zheng took the booklet.
The last moment when Xiaotian entered the chasm…
“That Xiaotian must still be here looking at that position without moving…” Lu Xia stammered.
Sun Zheng stopped flipping through the roster, and glared darkly at Lu Xia. “You still have the energy to scare people!”
Lu Xia murmured that he wasn’t trying to scare anyone, when another thought flashed through his mind, but before he was able to make heads or tails of it, the thought had already dissipated in his mind.
“I have a question, Lu Xia.” Sun Zheng held up the roster in front of Lu Xia. “Why did the cleaning staff decrease from three to two after September last year?”
Lu Xia frowned: “Why do you care about this?” Though he said so, he still took a closer look.
Before September last year, the number of cleaning personnel in the laboratory was three, but after September, the number dropped to two.
This is, of course, an insignificant detail. What would a change in the number of their staff have to do with their situation now… Although Lu Xia did really think so, he still casted a glance around involuntarily.
Last September was the time when Tonghua Hospital changed owners and started renovation.
Indeed, the doors in the lab are all new and the chairs in the hall appeared new too.
A thought flashed through his mind again.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Sun Zheng immediately raised his gaze and looked around after hearing this.
“That was why the number of staff changed from three to two, and the Chlorophytum was moved outside!” Lu Xia felt inspired, as if his head was refilled with engine oil and its gears were turning faster and faster.
Sun Zheng’s head also reacted quicker. “Because they reduced the area of the laboratory and enlarged the outer hall!”
“That’s right! So the location of Aunt Liu’s desk was moved from its original area, from inside the laboratory to the hall outside of the laboratory, and the pot of Chlorophytum was also moved out into the hall. Of course, this all happened after Aunt Liu left her job.”
The glint of suspicion in their eyes shifted from the inside of the laboratory to the hall where they are now.
Sun Zheng suddenly walked towards the wall.
Crack.
He stopped, turned around and shone his flashlight directly on Lu Xia, the beam of light so blinding that Lu Xia could barely open his eyes.
“Lu Xia, was this… the place where you felt someone watching you from behind?”
The thought that had dissipated in Lu Xia’s mind earlier resurfaced.
Xiao Tian was motionless, looking over with bright eyes…
“Zheng, get away from there, don’t get close to that place!” Lu Xia snapped anxiously while stalking over.
The two of them stood a little distance away from that spot.
“Because I remember that you walked to a spot where the floor tile broke, and you suddenly said that sentence.” Sun Zheng said.
“Yes. Do you remember what I told you about electromagnetic waves? Someone looking at you from behind, someone suddenly patting you on the street, but there wasn’t anyone behind you when you turned around. Perhaps all those aren’t an illusion, but just that the frequency of your waves just happened to be in sync with something else at a certain moment.” Lu Xia stared at that spot.
“However… At that time there was a wall behind me.” His face darkened. “If my gut feeling is correct, then everything would fall into place now. The position of Aunt Liu’s desk is right here, in the newly added wall in front of us.””
After searching around but being unable to find the key, I stood up, and found Xiao Tian standing by the aunt’s desk. She seemed a little strange, so I went over to the table. She was standing opposite the table at that time, motionless, looking over with bright eyes, and seemed to be smiling.
“There, It’s the kitty!”
Xiao Tian, who entered the chasm; Xiao Tian, who was standing motionless in front of the desk, she was forever… sealed inside this wall, looking with bright eyes…looking over…
The two men felt goosebumps rising at the same time.
“W-Where is that spot?” Sun Zheng asked hesitantly. He turned to Lu Xia, only to find that Lu Xia had already tiptoed towards the wall.
If it’s not the plant that had issues, but the place next to it, then…
“Miss Xiao Tian, you mustn’t come out of this wall…” Lu Xia whispered while digging his fingers into the ground, searching for something.
“As long as that spot isn’t also inside the wall,” Sun Zheng lamented helplessly as he walked over.
Lu Xia seemed to have made a new discovery and excitedly waved him over. “Look, this tile is new!”
Sun Zheng glanced over at the tile he’d broken earlier. Sure enough, the colour was slightly different.
“Why would this tile, which was just replaced, break? What do you think it means?” Lu Xia smiled, revealing two dimples.
“It means that the tile in this area spoils easily and is frequently replaced.”
“And why would it spoil easily?” Lu Xia’s tone was not one of interrogation, but of joy. Unbridled joy as though he’d just discovered a treasure. “Because the area under this tile is empty. There is a seam in it and it is always damp. As for why no one realised it, it’s because it isn’t a place where people would usually walk over, because it was always hidden under a certain desk. During the remodelling, they probably realised a problem with this tile. That’s why although all other floor tiles were re-paved, only this one had to be replaced, but it still broke so easily…”
Lu Xia broke the tile apart, exposing the cement underneath.
“So what?” Sun Zheng glanced at the tile curiously. “This is the spot? But there’s cement underneath.”
“Small matter. Grab a hammer for me to break this open.” Lu Xia pressed his hand to the cement, praying silently in his heart for his conjecture to be right, for there to be an empty space underneath…
After several minutes, Sun Zheng returned and handed over a small hammer. “Got it from the fire station over there.”
Lu Xia took the hammer and started smashing the cement.
Here we go again, Sun Zheng sighed inwardly while watching Lu Xia trying to destroy the cement using the hammer which was ill-suited for the task.
Boom!
Pieces of rubble flew up.
“Hahahaha!!!” Lu Xia threw the hammer down and laughed triumphantly. “I knew it! I knew it! This piece of cement was really put on by them. Fortunately it’s very thin. Come and see! ”
Sun Zheng was so surprised that he couldn’t close his mouth. He lowered his head and saw that a thin layer of cement had been smashed away, revealing a small hole underneath, and something could be vaguely seen in the hole.
Lu Xia stretched two fingers in and pinched it out.
“Dundundun!” He narrowed his eyes into a line with joy, “I found the tape!”
This, this is simply impossible!
How did Lu Xia’s brother think of putting the tape here? And how did they coincidentally find the problem with that tile?
Even if it was not discovered because it had been under the desk previously, there was still that renovation five months ago… But all of this was an incredible coincidence…
Sun Zheng didn’t believe in such things as good luck, he never did, and never will. The way Lu Xia often acted wildly as though he was trying is luck, was something Sun Zheng would probably never come to terms with.
Perhaps it was because he never tried taking the initiative to step forward to try…
“Thank God, Lady Luck is on my side!” Lu Xia kissed the tape twice. “I hope you haven’t been damaged by the moisture!”
He turned around, wanting to give Sun Zheng a tight hug in the heat of the moment. He spread his arms halfway, then withdrew them numbly.
Sun Zheng was still in shock and didn’t notice Lu Xia’s movements at all. Finally, Lu Xia calmed down enough to continue analysing. “My brother probably didn’t think there would be such a complication. After all, he didn’t think that it would take us this long to find him. So, he must have hidden these tapes when Aunt Liu’s table was still here, so if we followed the clue in the previous tape here, we would be able to find the tape easily…… But why would there be such a space under Aunt Liu’s desk? What has this spot got to do with the cat?”
“Your brother should have found the answer and the explanation should be in the tape,” Sun Zheng answered evenly, taking out the tape recorder.
“There are two tapes here, which should we listen to first?”
“Let’s listen to them in order. I don’t want to miss anything: we have to get out quickly.” Sun Zheng stuffed the tape into the recorder at once.
At this time, it was as if they’d just remembered what was behind the wall. A shiver ran down their spines. They hurried to the window, put down the device, and listened carefully.
It started the same way, with a long section of English.
After a period of familiar noise, there was a sudden silence in the tape.
Lu Xia and Sun Zheng eyed each other. Why wasn’t the doctor speaking?
(The footsteps in the tape were very light, and the two in the tape seemed to be walking very slowly.
When the impatient Sun Zheng was about to hit the fast forward button, he heard Dr. Yan speaking in a timid tone.
“I shouldn’t have dragged you with me along to the concert. Qunfang-jie shouldn’t have lied to us either…but it’s already been two months. You can’t leave it like this…”
He swallowed.)
It was frighteningly quiet again in the tape again. It was impossible to tell where the two people were walking just from the sound of their footsteps.
(“The responsibility lies with me. I was the one who promised that I’ll go with you.” Lu Xiaoyun rarely responded to Yan Yang aloud. The atmosphere between the two sounded stiff. “It is also my responsibility that I cannot find the exit to the chasm. I do not take unnecessary risks. If I cannot locate the exit, then we will not go in to save them.”
“But it’s been two months and I haven’t found any problems with that Aunt Liu!”
“Is that so?” Lu Xiaoyun returned the question. Lu Xia could almost imagine his brother’s expressionless but confident face.)
If he wasn’t sure, he wouldn’t have asked Yan Yang to start recording this tape two months later. It seems that their hope of getting out of here is rekindled again!
Thank god I wasn’t going to sleep yet, the part where Xiao Tian is hiding in the wall would’ve spooked me so bad!