Winter Returns

Chapter 145 "Inviting the Parents" (Bonus Chapter 2, Requesting Monthly Tickets)
He knocked on the empty space again, and judging from the echo, the door was made of a wooden board.

However, the door lock could not be found.

Or perhaps it's as if it wasn't locked at all.

He pressed the edge of the door panel, and sure enough, it wobbled slightly.

"Step back a little." Lu Qinglian also kept her eyes fixed on the door.

Zhang Shutong did as he was told. He held his breath and took a step back. The next moment, Lu Qinglian suddenly exerted her strength. She twisted her waist, kicked back with one leg, and then with a bang, a sharp side kick sent the door crashing to the ground.

In an instant, more dust rose up, and the two quickly turned to the side. When the dust settled, a dark room appeared.

Zhang Shutong turned on his phone's flashlight, held it up to the light, and what appeared in his field of vision was—

It was a narrow staircase.

"There really was something hidden..."

Zhang Shutong murmured.

However, this staircase does not extend upwards, meaning it is not an entrance to the rooftop.

Instead, it leads underground.

basement?
But this is clearly on the second floor.

Building a passage from the second floor to the underground is completely illogical. At this moment, Lu Qinglian reached out her hand, and Zhang Shutong understood her meaning, placing his phone in her hand:

"Don't go in yet, it's best to wait a while. The air doesn't circulate for a long time in places like this, and something could easily happen."

Lu Qinglian nodded. They waited for about two minutes before bending down and entering the dark room one after the other.

Lu Qinglian led the way.

Zhang Shutong followed behind her, looking around at the passageway.

A faint musty smell permeated the air.

It is very narrow, only allowing one person to pass through at a time, and the depth of this hidden space is only two meters. Therefore, the staircase does not go down in a straight line and turns after a few steps.

Zhang Shutong's heart pounded. He reminded Lu Qinglian to be careful as she turned the corner, but when he saw the scene before him, he was completely stunned.

At the end of the stairs was another door.

This time, however, the door wasn't made of wood; it was a heavy iron door with a round valve wrench in the middle.

He saw the keyhole below the valve. Zhang Shutong subconsciously glanced at the key to the dormitory door. The keyhole of the iron door was much larger than the key, so it was impossible for them to match.

Zhang Shutong walked past Lu Qinglian and, unwilling to give up, turned the wrench. Perhaps the lock cylinder was a little rusty; the disc creaked once and then remained motionless.

Lu Qinglian also stepped forward to try, but still couldn't find a solution.

This kind of iron gate cannot be turned by brute force alone.

But where is the key?

Where does this door lead?

Why go to such lengths to hide a basement in a dilapidated dormitory?

He looked back and calculated the length of the stairs, estimating that they were now underground.

For a time, people were at a loss.

The air below was so stuffy that breathing made one cough uncontrollably. Zhang Shutong was about to call Lu Qinglian up to discuss a solution when a cheerful tune rang out in the cramped space.

—The phone suddenly rang.

Lu Qinglian returned the phone to him. Zhang Shutong glanced at it and saw that it belonged to Lao Song. At that moment, his heart began to beat faster uncontrollably.

What is the connection between this dark room and Old Song?
What secrets are they hiding?
He turned back, went up the stairs, took a deep breath, and pressed the call button.

"Hey Shutong, you called me? I took a nap at noon and just woke up..." came the voice of a man yawning from the other end.

Zhang Shutong asked him if he had seen the text message he sent.

"A text message?" Old Song asked instinctively. "I hadn't had a chance to check it yet. I was worried something might have happened to you, so I called back as soon as I saw the missed call."

Zhang Shutong then recounted the story of the shadowy figure to him, asking if he had any clues. Old Song asked doubtfully:
"No, I haven't seen anyone come around here, and I haven't heard of any crazy people. But the westernmost room on the first floor used to be occupied by a cleaning lady from the school, but she quit a long time ago."

After saying that, he habitually offered his advice:
"You haven't even been out of the hospital for a day yet, so rest up and don't run around..."

"I'm in my dorm right now."

"Oh, you went to get your notes, right?" Old Song said, then fell silent.

Zhang Shutong looked around the room:

"I haven't been here long, and I can see that the conditions are quite poor; there isn't even a window on the wall."

"That's true, it's a bit cramped, but you get used to it after living here for a while."

"Do you need help putting the clothes away?"

"Just hang it there," Old Song said nonchalantly. "Anyway, I won't be wearing it for a while."

"I drank a can of your Red Bull, I forgot to mention."

Old Song couldn't help but laugh:

"Drink up, drink up. I still have lollipops in my desk at school. Don't forget to share them when you get back."

"By the way, the poster by the bed looks torn."

Zhang Shutong said it on purpose.

Old Song was taken aback:
"What poster? Oh, the one with Andy Lau, right? I didn't put that up. The teacher likes Chow Yun-fat," Old Song still had the mood to joke. "It's broken, so what? If I hadn't thought the room was too empty and wanted to use it as decoration, I would have torn it down."

"That poster isn't yours?"

"Yes, it'll be here once we move in," Old Song said in a casual, conversational tone.

indeed.

Zhang Shutong then realized that he had fallen into a misconception. This tenement building was built in the last century, and Lao Song had only moved in for a little over three years. In terms of the building's existence, this was only a very short period.

Besides, the other party was an outsider who moved to the island alone; how could he have the resources to build a basement?

In other words, the man himself did not discover the existence of this hidden room.

Zhang Shutong hurriedly pressed for an answer:
"Who was the previous homeowner, a teacher?"

“I don’t know either,” Old Song recalled. “When I moved in, apart from the cleaning lady I just mentioned, the whole building was basically empty. This room used to be a storage room. Do you remember I told you before that I came to the island in winter and thought it was freezing here? I cleaned up this room because the southeast corner had the best lighting.”

Zhang Shutong then asked:
"So... is there a basement or something like that around here?"

“You don’t find anything like this in old houses; the clutter is all piled up in the hallway.” Old Song smiled, subconsciously interpreting “basement” as “storage room.”

"Has anyone come looking for you all these years? I mean, a complete stranger?"

"Besides my parents, who would come looking for me in a place like this?" The man seemed to have secretly gone somewhere to light a cigarette. He took a deep drag and said earnestly, "Shutong, stop investigating that person who jumped off the building. It was one thing to care about Qiu Mian's case, but this time you don't even know them. If you're really worried, just call the police. Learn from your teacher. Look at me now..."

His voice lowered:
"I don't bother with all that anymore."

There was another moment of silence.

"How about we talk about it when I get back?" After a while, Old Song's voice returned to normal. "I think I'll be discharged the day after tomorrow. I'll come to the island to find you all. Before I leave, I want to see the kids in the class. I'll treat you to a meal, so you ungrateful bastards won't forget about your teacher..."

Zhang Shutong listened to him ramble on for a few minutes, then told him to take care of his health before hanging up the phone.

"How is it?" Lu Qinglian also came up the stairs.

“It has nothing to do with Teacher Song.” Zhang Shutong exhaled a breath of stale air. “But having something to do with it would be troublesome.”

It's hard for him to say how he feels; maybe he's just overthinking things?

Is this "hidden space" actually a basement that was attached to the building when it was originally constructed?

From the outside, there are no signs of any subsequent additions to the building.

Now Zhang Shutong just wants to figure out one thing: are there similar hidden doors in the other rooms?
He called out to Lu Qinglian as they left the dormitory. Zhang Shutong went to the next room, pushed the door, and of course it was locked. He tried to get it working, but it was no use.

“I can kick it away.” Lu Qinglian relinquished control to herself. Zhang Shutong thought for a moment, then sighed.
"Forget it."

He didn't want to make too much noise. After Lao Song left, the school would definitely send someone to clean the room and make a mess of it, which would cause a lot of trouble.

He wasn't sure what was hidden behind the door yet, and wasn't in a hurry to tell others about its existence.

Zhang Shutong looked out the window, but there was nothing he could do even by looking through the glass.

The windows of the rooms here are covered with frosted plastic film. Although no one lives here now, the fact that it exists here suggests that it must have been full of people in the past.

Zhang Shutong tried to push the window, but it wouldn't budge.

He didn't give up and tried another room, but the further west he went, the more clutter he found.

There were some study materials, stacks of A4 paper, discarded exercise books, old flower pots and mops, and even a pair of cloth shoes that had been abandoned for who knows how long...

Zhang Shutong passed through them one by one until he arrived at the westernmost room. He had almost given up hope, but this time he didn't even need to push it, as there was already a crack in the window.

The window frame was covered in dust. He paused for a moment, then peered into the room through the crack.

There was no furniture at all.

In a square room, Zhang Shutong looked at the opposite wall, which was also blank.

At this moment, Lu Qinglian bent down slightly and leaned closer to look. Zhang Shutong glanced at her and noticed that she wasn't looking inside the room, but rather at the window frame.

"Have you noticed something?" she asked thoughtfully, "the purpose of that figure?"

Zhang Shutong was still checking the wall for similar seams when he subconsciously replied:

Do you know why he disappeared?

“No.” Lu Qinglian lowered her eyes. “But we can deduce some things. Please step aside.”

Zhang Shutong had no choice but to step aside, and Lu Qinglian took his place. She pushed open the window, and amidst the teeth-grinding creaking sound, her clear voice rang out:
Before I explain, let me tell you something: you're getting a bit stuck on the details.

"What do you mean?"

"You take everything in this building too seriously because Teacher Song's notes are here, and there are clues about the clay figure in the notes, so you subconsciously feel that any abnormality points to the clay figure."

Zhang Shutong nodded subconsciously.

Lu Qinglian calmly said again:
"But if we set aside Professor Song's influence, these anomalies may not actually be related to the clay figurines."

Lu Qinglian struck the window firmly with one hand, causing the glass to vibrate slightly. Her slender hand stopped amidst the scattering dust.

"Look here. Although this window is open, don't just focus on the furnishings in the room. Haven't you noticed that this room shouldn't be this clean?"

Zhang Shutong shifted his gaze, and indeed it was so.

If no one lives in the house for a long time, a thin layer of dust will definitely accumulate inside, but that little bit of dust is nothing compared to the dust piled up outside the window frame.

Zhang Shutong instantly understood what Lu Qinglian meant.

—The window was open, but not for long.

He had almost guessed the whole story, and then he heard Lu Qinglian continue:

"When you first went to Teacher Song's room, there was a crack in the window. You thought the window frame was rusty, but did you ever think about...?"

She said slowly:

"That figure once did the same thing as us now."

"He wasn't looking for the notes, but rather..."

"Looking for the entrance to the basement?"

Zhang Shutong picked up on the second half of the sentence, and even though he had guessed this possibility, he was still shocked.

“That’s right.” Lu Qinglian nodded. “He didn’t want to take anything with him, so just opening a crack in the window and being able to see the situation in the room was enough.”

"Wait, so that's why they went up to the roof?"

Zhang Shutong suddenly had a whimsical idea:

"That person either knew about the basement or noticed that the wall thickness was wrong. He opened all the windows he could, but Old Song's room happened to have a poster on it, so he mistakenly thought the entrance wasn't in the room and decided to try his luck on the roof?"

Zhang Shutong's thoughts became clearer:

"After all, this building is a tiled house, not a concrete bungalow. Since it's a tiled house, maybe we can find a hidden space by lifting the tiles?"

Lu Qinglian nodded:

"This at least explains his purpose for coming, and why the two windows were opened."

"But how did he fall down?" Zhang Shutong couldn't help but ask.

“It seems you didn’t listen to what I said earlier at all,” Lu Qinglian said coldly as she turned around. “Don’t get stuck on things. Sometimes you don’t need to understand everything.”

Zhang Shutong felt somewhat helpless upon hearing this. This woman's curiosity was really lacking. If curiosity killed the cat, then Lu Qinglian must be the longest-living aloof little cat:

Don't you think there must be something very important hidden behind that door?

“But there are too many important things in this world, aren’t there?” Lu Qinglian said casually. “Or do you have the key?”

Zhang Shutong was speechless.

He suddenly missed his three best friends. If they were here, they would turn the dorm upside down.

But Lu Qinglian was right. The dormitory was "important" because of Lao Song and the notes, but Lao Song hadn't discovered the secret room at all, and the other party wasn't looking for the notes.

If you really want to get to the bottom of this, you should ask the school, but that dormitory has been vacant for a long time, and Lao Song lived there for more than three years. All in all, who knows how many years have passed? It's hard to say that anyone would clearly remember "which room someone lived in back then".

Moreover, it's uncertain whether the other person is still at school.

With that thought in mind, Zhang Shutong stopped touching the window.

Since we have no clue what to do, we might as well keep things as they are for now.

He and Lu Qinglian returned to Old Song's room. Just in case, they didn't leave immediately, but instead shoved the wooden door back into place.

Zhang Shutong looked around. He was lucky today; he found another glue stick in the pen holder. As expected of a teacher, he never lacked stationery.

He applied glue to the back of the poster and then stuck it back on the wall exactly as it was.

The poster paper was already brittle, and the glue stick was wet. Despite our best efforts, it still ended up looking wrinkled and crumpled.

Even Andy Lau's face was distorted.

Zhang Shutong also tilted his head and looked around. It wasn't exactly the same as before, but if someone were looking through the window again, they wouldn't notice anything unusual.

He stretched his neck and thought carefully back to the time when he discovered the falling figure on the rooftop, called an ambulance, searched the dormitory building, found the secret room, and deduced the figure's intentions. Now, the matter had finally come to an end.

He let out a breath, finished doing all this, and the two locked the doors and windows.

Just as I stepped out of the dormitory building, a muffled clap of thunder sounded overhead.

The dark clouds hung low, the wind grew stronger, and the grass rustled incessantly.

Zhang Shutong tightened his coat, just then his phone rang again.

He thought Old Song had remembered some clue, and was about to answer the call, but his finger stopped at the top of the screen.

Zhang Shutong was stunned for a moment.

Because the caller was from an unknown number.

His phone number and QQ number are the same, and he rarely adds strangers. He doesn't have any food delivery or courier service numbers yet, so he shouldn't be getting calls from unknown numbers.

Zhang Shutong glanced at the roof of the dormitory building subconsciously, hesitated for a moment, and finally pressed the call button.

"Zhang Shutong, where did you and Lu Qinglian go?"

However, a middle-aged woman's stern and angry voice came from the phone, startling Zhang Shutong into pulling the phone away from her ear:

"You two dared to skip class together on the very first day of school? You think you're so tough? If you don't give me a straight answer today, I'm calling your parents here!"

(End of this chapter)