"It smells like roasted meat." Yuan Xiaotian's voice was low.
The sudden smell of roasted meat in a place like this was enough to make anyone uneasy.
The group followed the scent, slowly making their way down the passage. Strange rooms lined both sides. Some doors were shut, others stood open. The rooms varied in size, but they were all rather dilapidated, like an old warehouse.
Soon, they stopped in front of a door.
It was a wooden door, not fully closed, but left ajar. The smell of roasted meat drifted in waves through the pitch-black gap.
But at that moment, everyone's attention was fixed on the door.
More precisely, on the wall right beside it.
It was covered in scratches.
Su Xiaoxiao reached out and measured the scratches on the wall with her hand. Then she withdrew it, her voice dropping unnaturally low. "These people were dragged inside."
From the chaotic scratches, Jiang Cheng could fully imagine the despair and helplessness those people had felt.
The door beside it was already open. When they drew closer, a musty odor reached them. By the firelight, they could see a layer of blackish-yellow material spread across the floor of the room next door.
"It's straw," Yuan Xiaotian said after a careful look. "The place is so damp that it's gone moldy."
Xia Qiang gently pushed the neighboring door, making it scrape. He drew a breath, rested his hand on the door, then turned to Jiang Cheng and the others. "An ordinary warehouse wouldn't need a door this thick."
"This isn't a warehouse." Xia Qiang paused. "It's a prison cell."
The pieces fell into place, and many things that had seemed unreasonable now made sense. They had all woken up in separate rooms, each in a terrible state: straw on the floor,