"Gu Zheng! Those rooms we just passed through formed a one-way passage! You could only come out, not go in!"
Gu Zheng looked at the passage ahead, completely blocked by earth. After a moment's thought, he said:
"Under normal circumstances, this passage should lead to the laboratory. After finishing their experiments, they would return from the other end to the break room... the first room we entered.
"They would wash up and rest there, then pass through the other rooms in sequence when they needed to work. Finally, they would put on lab coats, caps, and shoe covers, and enter the laboratory through this passage again! To be precise, it's a loop."
Song Ning shone her flashlight at the tightly blocked exit ahead once more.
"But now this passage is completely blocked! Judging by what we've seen, these people were conducting some experiment in the laboratory. Perhaps something went wrong, and the experiment failed, triggering a massive explosion. Not only did it bury their colleagues inside, it also caused a widespread collapse that buried quite a few of the Dong Stilt Houses on the outskirts.
"That's why the bodies they dug out also smelled of chemical agents!"
Gu Zheng nodded and continued, "That's probably the gist of it! But not all their people were in the laboratory. Otherwise, we couldn't explain the scattered clothes and documents in those rooms!
"The explosion in the laboratory caused a collapse, and the people on this side fled in panic..."
Then he pointed his flashlight at the iron weights beside the passage.
"This place is too close to Dong Village. Even as they fled, they remembered to bring these iron weights out, to prevent anyone who stumbled in here from discovering more secrets."
Growing excited, Song Ning said, "Right! That means the collapse had