Gu Cheng and Hu Bayi immediately left the room.
Gu Cheng asked curiously, "Hu, what exactly is this place?"
Hu Bayi stared at the room for a long moment before saying, "An incinerator!"
"An incinerator?!"
"That's right, an incinerator. That stuff on the floor isn't dust. It's cremated ashes."
"And that passage isn't a ventilation duct. It's a chimney!"
"As for the grease you touched, that's corpse oil!"
At those words, Gu Cheng suddenly felt sick all over.
Granted, he hardly looked clean himself at the moment. He was practically a walking mass of blood.
But that blood all came from the Black Flood Dragon and was incredibly nourishing.
It didn't disgust him.
But corpse oil rendered from burning dead bodies...
He frantically rubbed his hands against the wall, trying to wipe off the grease.
"That strange smell inside is toxic. If we stay too long, we'll definitely be poisoned."
Hu Bayi felt a little nauseated too.
He stamped his feet, trying to shake off the cremated ashes.
The three of them took a moment to regroup, then continued searching for traces of Yingzi.
They walked for more than half an hour.
Then they came to a stone wall.
To their surprise, half an iron door was exposed in the wall. It was covered in rust, as though it hadn't been opened in hundreds of years.
Hu Bayi looked wary. "This should be a secret chamber belonging to the Sakura People. They're generally used to store dangerous things like biological weapons."
Gu Cheng scraped the rust off the iron door with the Little Divine Edge.
Four characters in the Sakura People's script emerged.
No Entry!
Gu Cheng thought, This should be the place.
I wonder if Yingzi is inside.
He said, "Hu, we've searched for so long without seeing Yingzi. We can't skip this secret chamber."
Hu Bayi examined the large iron door.
Suddenly, he noticed a row of holes in it.
He jolted. "Those are exhaust vents!"
"This is an airtight door!"
"Once an airtight door closes, the exhaust vents automatically draw the air out of the room, creating a partial vacuum inside."
He shook his head. "Yingzi can't possibly be in there!"
Gu Cheng asked, "Yingzi was most likely lured here by the little ghost, and none of us knows what it's capable of. I think it's better to check the wrong place than miss the right one. Let's open it and look. What if Yingzi is inside? If we just walk away, wouldn't we be leaving her to die?"
Hu Bayi immediately hesitated.
Gu Cheng was right. If Yingzi was inside and he missed her, he would regret it for the rest of his life.
"All right!"
"Let's open it and take a look."
He began feeling around the door.
Generally, airtight doors like this had a wheel. Turning it counterclockwise would open the iron door.
But apart from a row of exhaust vents in the middle, this iron door had nothing on it that could be turned.
Gu Cheng scraped at one spot with the Little Divine Edge.
He uncovered a recess.
Inside was a threaded fitting with a hexagonal socket.
At the sight, Hu Bayi cursed, "The Sakura People took away the wheel that opens the door!"
"They didn't want anyone discovering the secrets inside!"
Fatty Wang said, "I'll go find a wrench!"
Gu Cheng shook his head. "We've searched all the way here without seeing a storeroom or anything like that. Where would you find a wrench?"
"Besides, this place is really strange. I think we'd better stay together so we don't get picked off one by one."
Hu Bayi asked, "Then what do we do?"
Gu Cheng thought for a moment and said, "Could a grenade blast it open?"
Hu Bayi shook his head. "These airtight doors are made of solid steel, at least ten centimeters thick. Even ordinary explosives might not blast one open, let alone the wooden-handled grenades we have."
Gu Cheng was at a loss too.
But then something unexpected happened.
At that very moment.
"Hiss..."
A sudden hiss of air came from the exhaust vents in the door.
Air was being let into the chamber behind the airtight door.
Then came a series of clicks and clacks, and the iron door actually opened on its own!
All three of them were stunned by the sight.
"I-it... it opened by itself?"
Fatty Wang's face turned pale as he spoke.
Hu Bayi braced himself as though facing a formidable enemy. "Could there really be a ghost?"
Gu Cheng sneered. "Hmph. Looks like the little ghost wants us to go in too. We can't disappoint it, can we?"
Holding the Little Divine Edge in his left hand, he aimed the flashlight in his right into the secret chamber.
Yet everything inside was silent and still.
Stranger still, the interior was pitch-black, so dark they wouldn't have been able to see a hand in front of their faces. It was like a black hole. Even the flashlight's beam was swallowed directly by the darkness inside.
The eerie sight made Fatty Wang's voice sound especially faint. "Young Master Gu, do you think Yingzi's really in there?"
Gu Cheng stared sharply into the room. "We'll find out once we go in and look."
After a pause, he added, "But someone has to guard the entrance. We absolutely can't let the little ghost shut the door, or we're dead."
Fatty Wang hurriedly raised his hand. "I'll guard the entrance!"
"All right. Be very careful. If the little ghost can close the door, it might be able to shove you too."
"I suspect it was the little ghost that tripped you earlier."
Gu Cheng gave him another warning.
Fatty Wang nodded solemnly.
Gu Cheng turned to Hu Bayi. "Hu, take the Mountain-Splitting Axe. I have a feeling an axe might be more useful than a gun in there."
Hu Bayi nodded.
The two took a deep breath, then stepped into the darkness.
It was deeply strange.
Fatty Wang watched the two of them enter with his own eyes, but once they stepped into the darkness, he could no longer see them. Even the sounds they made disappeared.
It was as though the inside and outside of the door were two separate spaces.
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