After climbing down from the barbed-wire net, Fu Qian didn't rush to open the door. Instead, he went over to the only wooden table in the room.
He'd noticed something earlier.
"There's something here," Fu Qian muttered to himself, looking down at the tabletop.
The table was very low and tucked into a corner of the room. On it sat a silver-white miniature recorder, no bigger than half a palm.
Fu Qian picked it up. A cassette was already inside.
Calling it a recorder wasn't quite accurate. It was more like an old-fashioned interview tape recorder.
It was compact, but also sturdy and durable.
And since it had been left in such an obvious place, it was undoubtedly a message for him.
He didn't play it right away. Instead, he kept examining the table, since it seemed to be the only thing in the room worth investigating.
Of course, there were a few fluorescent tubes overhead for lighting. But if Fu Qian could somehow climb over eight meters to look for clues up there, why not just go back the way he came?
Unfortunately, the table was clearly an example of the minimalist style. It was nothing more than a few boards joined at right angles, with nowhere to put anything besides the tabletop.
The legs were firmly fixed to the floor, too. Without tools, even turning the table over would be difficult.
Fu Qian crouched and bent low, examining the underside of the table from the limited angle available to him.
Soon, he noticed an unusual bump and reached out to feel around it.
It was a hard object, stuck to the underside of the table inside a bag.
With a slight tug, Fu Qian pulled it free.
It was a shoddily made figurine resembling a superhero.
This didn't