Winter Returns

Chapter 151 "Air Defense" (Bonus Chapter, Please Vote!)

"Why do I feel like there's a step on the ground? Isn't this flat ground?"

Du Kang was stunned after he finished speaking.

Qingyi asked:

"Steps? I don't understand what you mean."

"Well, it's a very obvious difference in elevation. You're standing on flat ground right now, but a few steps further on there's a raised platform. That's what tripped me up."

"How tall is it?"

"It's not too high, it feels about the size of a brick. Actually, I thought it was a brick at first, but the more I touched it, the bigger the area became. I'm not exaggerating, buddy," Du Kang shivered, "but it feels like I'm squatting on this platform right now."

As he spoke, he shone his flashlight into the water, but the light couldn't penetrate the murky muddy water at all.

Du Kang had no choice but to continue touching her, asking as he did so:

"Besides, I clearly walked through the house just now, how come I didn't see it? That shouldn't be the case."

"You were just walking around the wall, weren't you? You didn't go to the middle at all," Qingyi reminded her.

"Oh, I see," Du Kang said, suddenly realizing. "But the question is, why build a platform inside the house? And why does this feel like iron? And it has sharp edges and corners?"

"Iron?"

Zhang Shutong caught this keyword, and he seemed to be thinking about it. He subconsciously wanted to put his hand into the water.

Ruoping, however, advised:
"Take a break. You're already injured. Let Du Kang and Qing Yi take a look first."

Actually, she didn't need to say anything; Qingyi had already rolled up his sleeves deftly, and he raised an eyebrow:
"Finally found something interesting."

Zhang Shutong watched as he bent down, dipped one hand into the water, and after a while, started walking around Du Kang.

"Hey buddy, what are you doing?" Du Kang was startled. "Why am I being treated like a sacrifice?"

"wrong."

Qingyi said in a low voice.

"what?"

"I mean you never understood it from the beginning."

Qingyi straightened up, shook the mud off his hands, and said softly:

"This is a door."

"Door?"

"Yes, it's an iron gate, a very neat rectangle, and it has a handle."

"Who would just leave an iron gate here for no reason?"

"To be precise, it's not that it's been discarded, but rather that this door has always existed." Qingyi pointed to a spot with the tip of his shoe. "This place feels like a hinge or something similar to a door. You all know about cellars, right? There are still some on the island now, used to store food during the winter."

“But those things should be from the surrounding villages, this is the city.” Zhang Shutong then thought of the basement in the dormitory, “Did you feel anything like a keyhole?”

"No, it should be a very smooth door."

"So, there's a possibility that it can be opened?"

"It should work."

Zhang Shutong walked to Qingyi's side. He finally became serious, squatted down, put his hand in the water, observed for a while, and then withdrew his hand:

"Look, although we can't see the iron gate, the water is flowing towards the gate, which means that the space below is not completely sealed, and the water is slowly seeping down."

He then touched the handle Qingyi had mentioned and tried pulling it:
"The handle is quite wide; one person might not be able to pull it."

"That's what I think too. Let's ask Du Kang to give it a try."

Qingyi called out, and Du Kang, forgetting about the dog, rushed forward to help. Zhang Shutong, however, took a step back; with his arm in a sling, crowding around would only get in his way.

"This is getting weirder and weirder..." Ruoping said softly, standing next to him.

“It’s strange from the start,” Zhang Shutong thought for a moment. “Think about it, this house doesn’t even have windows. It’s more like it wasn’t built for people to live in, but rather it was created for this iron gate on the ground.”

"What could be hidden in there? Could it really be food that people hid in there in the past?"

"I can't say for sure." Zhang Shutong made a simple assessment. The place where the clay figure was created was a restricted area, so at least opening the cellar wouldn't cause too much trouble. Since they could control it, they might as well give it a try first.

As they spoke, Qingyi and Dukang weighed it in their hands, then simultaneously grasped the handle and exchanged a glance:
"Three, two, one!"

The two exerted all their strength, and the veins on their foreheads bulged out:

"Hey--"

With a creak, like a long and drawn-out sigh, the iron gate was lifted a crack.

"Hey, it's moving!" Du Kang shouted. The two pulled back with all their might, and seeing the iron gate opening at an increasingly larger angle, almost forming a right angle, Zhang Shutong and Ruoping quickly stepped forward to support it, while reminding them:

"Watch your step, don't slip!"

The four men stood on either side, struggling to lift the iron gate. In an instant, the muddy water on the ground seemed to have finally found an outlet, and the water gushed down from the room like a waterfall. Zhang Shutong then had Du Kang and Qingyi carefully change positions, and then the four of them stood on the same side and pushed hard—

The iron gate crashed to the ground, splashing mud and water high into the air. Their faces looked as if they had been washed, and they were soaked from head to toe. But no one had time to care about the dirty water on their bodies. Instead, they were staring intently at the hole under the iron gate.

The entrance to the hole was also rectangular, with muddy water rushing in from all sides, making it difficult to see what was inside. The puppy scrambled to its feet in a panic, but Du Kang grabbed it by the scruff of its neck. No one knew what to say, so they could only wait. After about several tens of seconds, when the water had drained away, Zhang Shutong shone his flashlight and suddenly froze.

The cellar under the iron gate was not the one Qingyi had guessed. He had seen cellars in the countryside before. They were haphazardly constructed, simply a hole dug in the ground where vegetables that could be stored for a long time, such as cabbage, potatoes, and radishes, were kept. Often, a ladder was needed to get down into them.

But when he moved the flashlight toward the cave entrance, what appeared in his line of sight...

It's clearly a staircase!
The staircase, made of cement, extends straight down into the depths of the ground, long and narrow, its destination unknown.

What was hidden underground was much larger than he had imagined. Just as Zhang Shutong was about to take a few steps along the building, Qingyi suddenly said:

"I think I know what this is now, the entrance to an air-raid shelter."

"dugout?"

Seeing the expressions of sudden realization on the other two's faces, Zhang Shutong figured this was old news known only to the locals, so he had no choice but to listen to Qingyi's explanation:

"It should be an air-raid shelter, right? Shutong, you know there used to be guerrillas on our island, right?"

Zhang Shutong nodded. He knew this, or rather, it was a history that every child on the island knew.

In a sense, the island can also be considered a revolutionary base area. Thanks to its inherent geographical advantages, it once served as an important base during the War of Resistance Against Japan. Now, when you go to the city, you can still see a specially built martyrs' memorial hall, and the school used to organize activities there.

Qingyi also said:
"One theory is that it was built during the War of Resistance against Japan. Of course, another theory is that it was an air defense project in the 1970s, during the period when relations with the Soviet Union deteriorated. At that time, there was a famous slogan: 'Dig deep tunnels and store grain widely.' However, I haven't paid close attention to the specifics. In short, what is certain is that there are air-raid shelters on the island."

"Do you two still remember the air defense drills from before?"

These words were spoken to Du Kang and Ruoping, Qingyi recalled:

“When we were in elementary school, the school would organize air raid drills, and everyone would hide in the air raid shelter.”

"Wait, there's an air-raid shelter under the school?" Zhang Shutong had never heard of this before.

The primary and junior high schools on the island are next to each other. He studied on the island for three years and naturally participated in the annual air raid drills. But everyone just went to the playground to make a show of it, chatting and laughing all the way. They had never seen a real air raid shelter before.

“It used to be there, but it’s gone now,” Qingyi said. “It used to be right under the plastic playground at our school. Actually, when we were in elementary school, there were no plastic playgrounds at all; they were all paved with cinders.”

"and then?"

Qingyi spread his hands:
"But in the new century, many air-raid shelters became useless, and some were not well maintained, so they were backfilled or renovated. It's not just here; I've heard that some places have even turned air-raid shelters into tourist attractions and commercial streets."

Zhang Shutong wasn't interested in tourist attractions for the time being. He immediately thought that since Qingyi said the school's air-raid shelter was right under the synthetic track, and there wasn't a synthetic track before he transferred schools, didn't that mean...

“It’s just what you think.” Qingyi nodded. “When Gu Qiumian’s father donated that playground, he had to backfill the section of the air-raid shelter because he needed to rebuild the foundation.”

“So it’s a pity, Shutong,” Qingyi still had the mood to joke, “your childhood on the island wasn’t actually complete.”

Zhang Shutong didn't speak. He simply looked at the passage leading underground, and a guess instantly formed in his mind. He asked for confirmation:

"Let's make a deduction. Since this is behind the hospital, and the old hospital is a building from the last century, there's a high probability that there's an entrance to an air-raid shelter underneath. So, this building was actually an entrance for people to escape, which is why it's still here after all these years?"

"I guess so." Qingyi crossed his arms. "I just don't know if the new hospital will have a new entrance after it's built."

"Wait a minute, have we made a mess of things?" Du Kang was a little flustered. "If what you're saying is true, since this air-raid shelter might still be usable, wouldn't opening it just flood it?"

"How could that be?" Qingyi rolled her eyes at him. "If it flooded with this little rain, what kind of air-raid shelter would it be? But it's still better to go down and take a look. Since it's a proper fortification, at least we don't have to worry about safety."

Then all three boys looked at Ruoping at the same time.

"What do you think?" Zhang Shutong asked. "If you're scared, you don't necessarily have to choose today."

“I’m fine,” Ruoping hesitated for a moment. “I’m actually afraid of those supernatural and inexplicable things. If they can all be explained by science, then it doesn’t matter. Think about it, although these things seem very abnormal, the door is open because of the dog, and the old house exists because of the air-raid shelter. To put it bluntly, they are defense projects left over from the past. What’s there to be afraid of?”

Zhang Shutong didn't expect her to be so good at comforting her, but then Ruoping's tone changed:
"But I want to go back and change my shoes now."

She then hesitated and said:
“But if we go back like this, I probably won’t be able to sleep well tonight, and you guys will definitely keep nagging about it the whole way.”

"Then what do you suggest we do?" Du Kang asked instinctively.

“How would I know what to do?” she retorted.

"Sigh, I really... I really owe you three!"

Ruoping, with her never-give-up attitude, closed her eyes and then opened them again:

"Let's go, let's follow that ridiculous energy-saving theory, and hurry back!"

"It's energy conservation."

"Roll rough!"

(End of this chapter)