Great Strength Creates Miracles

Coming out of the kitchen and continuing farther in, they found two rooms.

One seemed to be a conference room. It had an oval table surrounded by chairs, but no one was there.

A blackboard hung on the far wall, with markers resting in the groove beneath it.

When the Mechanical Dog's eyes shone on it, they could see a line and a half of numbers written there, from 1 to 37 in ascending order.

"Guess what this is?"

Lu Xi'an asked.

Yao Wei shook her head to show she had no idea.

Lu Xi'an guessed, "There's no one else in the shelter, so the two people who died must have written these.

"These numbers seem to be a way of keeping track of the days they were trapped down here. Pretty tragic, too."

In his previous life, he'd only seen scenes like this in stories about people trapped in prisons. Most of them had marked the days with vertical and horizontal lines; this was the first time he'd seen someone use numbers.

But whether they used lines or numbers, Lu Xi'an could see the deep despair in them.

He wondered whether the two had held on for 37 days before killing themselves, or if they'd reached day 37, fallen into such a state of despair that they couldn't be bothered to keep counting, and never touched the blackboard again.

His thoughts wandered as he went to look at the other room with Yao Wei.

The other room seemed to be an office. It was fairly spacious, with two desks that could accommodate several people working at once.

It had computers, printers, and notebooks—everything one might need.

But all the notebooks were empty, scattered carelessly across the floor.

The computers and printers had also been knocked to the ground and seemed to have been smashed in a fit of rage. Their cases were broken, parts lay scattered everywhere, and the screens were cracked like spiderwebs.

Had those two people smashed them?

Lu Xi'an could understand why they might have.

If he'd had to hold out in here for so long, with no food left and no way out—and maybe the water and electricity had failed too—he might have snapped as well.

The notebooks scattered across the desks and floor were all blank. Yao Wei picked one up, dusted it off, then put it in the backpack on her back.

Lu Xi'an did the same and stuffed one into his backpack.

He didn't take any more.

One notebook wasn't much, but several could get pretty heavy. He was strong enough these days, but he didn't want to add weight for no reason.

He also found about a dozen pens on the floor. He picked up a notebook and tried each one on it. Most were new, and they all worked perfectly.

So he put all the pens in his bag and asked Yao Wei, "Do you want any?"

Yao Wei took one, but no more. She seemed a little puzzled about why Lu Xi'an wanted so many.

"They could come in handy as projectiles at a critical moment," Lu Xi'an said with a grin. "Anyway, it's not like I'm going to write a diary."

Writing a diary was useless and wasted ink and paper. He wasn't going to write one ever again in this life.

"Everything's a projectile with you..."

Yao Wei muttered.

He still had two gold bars in his car, and she honestly couldn't figure out what use they were.

Lu Xi'an said, "We're strong. Great Strength Creates Miracles. Anything can be a projectile."

Yao Wei didn't reply. She was seriously considering whether Lu Xi'an had a point, then took a few more pens and put them in her bag.

There were also two small adjoining rooms in the office, one on either side. Neither had a metal door, but both were locked.

The doors seemed well-made. Lu Xi'an and Yao Wei saw chairs beside both of them, and marks where the doors had been hit, but they were still intact, protecting the rooms inside.

Both had ordinary locks, so the Mechanical Dog couldn't help with them.

There were no keys in the keyholes, and judging by the marks left by the two trapped people trying to break the doors down, they hadn't found the keys outside either. It looked like using a key wasn't an option.

"Think we can use Great Strength Creates Miracles on this door too?"

Lu Xi'an was eager to try.

But before he'd even finished speaking, Yao Wei had already made her move.

She lifted her foot. Her normally loose pants pulled taut along her thigh, outlining a perfect, slender curve. Then she kicked, her movement as graceful as a dance step.

But the force behind it was tremendous.

Bang!

The door crashed inward and slammed onto the floor. The connecting points to the frame twisted out of shape, and the lock hole in the frame was completely wrecked.

Lu Xi'an stared in amazement. "Impressive."

"Mm."

Yao Wei nodded, openly accepting the praise, then went in with Lu Xi'an.

It seemed to be an office for the person in charge. It wasn't very large, but it had a desk, chairs, a computer, and notebooks.

The setup was about the same as in the main office. Nothing was damaged, but there didn't seem to be anything of interest.

The room must have been built and furnished, then left untouched. The person in charge of directing and leading the shelter residents hadn't had a chance to move in before being cut off outside the shelter.

Lu Xi'an tried to get the Mechanical Dog to open the outlet behind them and connect the computer and monitor to the power. The computer turned on, but it was brand-new, and as expected, there was nothing on it.

"Ah, what a shame..."

He sighed and unplugged it.

The computer was useful, but there wasn't much point in carrying it around, so he had to leave it behind.

"Let's go to the other room."

He said.

So the two of them and the dog left the room and headed for the other one across the way.

Lu Xi'an stepped aside and said to Yao Wei, "You go ahead."

He thought Yao Wei's movements were crisp and graceful, with a nice rhythm to them.

Yao Wei didn't hold back. She kicked the door open again.

But this adjoining room wasn't an office. The light in the Mechanical Dog's eyes swept over it, and Lu Xi'an determined that it was a monitoring room, power room, and storage room all in one.

The dog only needed to glance around for Lu Xi'an to spot a toolbox and a jumble of other things in the corner.

There was an electrical panel on the wall. It was closed, but a key was still in the lock of the shut toolbox.

On the opposite wall was a huge screen. A cable ran down from it and plugged into a rectangular device on the desk. It looked like the main monitoring unit.

Lu Xi'an thought for a moment, picked up the Mechanical Dog, and opened the electrical panel. "Let's see if we can get the power back on."

Black wires extended from both sides of the dog and connected to the panel.

Bzzzt—

A moment later, a faint light filtered into the office outside.

Lu Xi'an went out to look. The light was coming from the corridor.

The lights in the office hadn't turned on.

Still, it proved that the underground shelter's electrical system was intact.

Using the dim light, he found the switch on the wall and pressed it. The monitoring room lit up at once.

He then felt around the main monitoring unit, found the button on its back, and pressed it. The unit powered on.

The screen on the wall had already been switched on. When the power came on, a red light glowed in its lower-right corner. As soon as the main unit started up, the light began flashing. He wasn't sure whether the screen would show anything.

Yao Wei glanced at Lu Xi'an, looking puzzled.

She'd wanted to ask how he knew how to operate all this.

But when Lu Xi'an saw her expression, he answered, "I'm curious what those two did in here, and whether they left any footage behind."

The second chapter was coming at noon.

Anyone there? Please show your support in any way you can!