Winter Returns

Chapter 154 The Gate of the Past (Part 2) (Bonus Chapter, Please Vote!)

But that's not right either.

If this were a prison, the guards would be stricter. Thinking of this, he returned to the door. They had forgotten to check the door earlier. Zhang Shutong glanced at it a few times and then dismissed his guess that this was a prison.

He knocked, and it seemed to be a regular household door. There was a regular lock on the inside, and even a handle on both the inside and outside. Du Kang probably accidentally pressed the handle, which is why the door suddenly opened.

He checked the door lock again, but apart from being rusty, he couldn't see anything wrong with it.

If it's a prison, and they specifically chose to keep the person underground, there's no reason why it would be so convenient to just put the door on.

He frowned. Not having a flashlight was too much of a hassle. The room wasn't big, but he had to run around to investigate anything. Logically, since they found candles, there shouldn't be any electric lights, and the room wasn't built that time. But just in case, he sent the three of them to find the switch while he returned to the wooden table.

The only clue might be this wooden table, with a chair underneath. A table means there's something to do, even if it's just to sit down and read a book... He looked at the table and was suddenly startled.

The tabletop was covered with scratches. These scratches, crisscrossing each other, were not marks left by time, but were clearly signs of human intervention, and a great deal of force was used. The deepest scratch was nearly a centimeter deep.

Record time?

wrong.

He examined the scratches carefully by himself; they were completely random and certainly not meant for recording anything.

Or was it simply venting anger?
This is the most likely one.

Zhang Shutong thought conflictedly, if it were a prison, then all of this would make sense—

A person locked in a basement, never seeing sunlight, and unable to even know the time in the outside world, would inevitably go insane over time. Perhaps he never left that room until his death.

The problem is that the door we just saw has already proven that it's unlikely this is a prison.

Let alone a dangerous prisoner, Zhang Shutong himself could probably break it with a little force.

A bed, a table, a flimsy door...

What exactly is it used for?

What kind of people are locked up here?

Wait, shut it down!

Zhang Shutong suddenly realized he had fallen into a serious mental trap. He immediately turned to look at the door. Since there was only a simple lock on it, and the lock was located inside the door, didn't that mean—

The other party is not "locked" here, but can come and go freely?

Almost all of the previous inferences have been overturned, because this means...

The other party is staying here voluntarily!
But why?
His gaze left the wooden table, a multitude of speculations churning within him.

Zhang Shutong raised his head and stared blankly at the wall in front of him.

I saw the face of a familiar woman with short hair.

"..."

"..."

"..."

Zhang Shutong opened his mouth silently.

A photo of a woman named "Yun".

He knew this woman all too well; her photos were practically plastered all over Old Song's dorm room. She had big eyes and dimples when she smiled. Zhang Shutong couldn't possibly forget what she looked like, but the problem was…

Why would her photo be in the basement...?

Clay figurines...

Zhang Shutong mechanically used his phone to illuminate the entire wall. It turned out that all the real clues were hidden on the wall, but he no longer had the energy to express his surprise.

Because countless photos of women with short hair were strung together and hung on this wall, forming a huge spider web.

Under each photo was a sticky note with simple numbers and Chinese characters written on it. Zhang Shutong recognized that these were the time and place of the photo. The records on the labels were even more detailed than those in Lao Song's notes.

And it is highly regular.

From left to right, the time progresses sequentially.

December 18, 2008, western lake shore...

January 27, 2009, southern suburbs...

February 15, 2009, at the foot of the eastern mountain...

February 16, 2009, central urban area...

His eyes widened as he followed each photograph. Zhang Shutong walked along this spiderweb, and he couldn't count how many photos there were, but there were definitely dozens. The photos here were far more detailed than those in Lao Song's notes, yet Lao Song had only taken a dozen or so photos while circling the island every day, and some of them were misidentified. How did the other party manage to do that?
Zhang Shutong quickly found the answer.

He saw the photo of the long-haired woman again.

Zhang Shutong was initially stunned by the photos, but then he was momentarily taken aback when he saw the face that looked so much like Gu Qiumian's. It turned out that the entire wall of photos was not only of Lao Song's girlfriend, but also of Gu Qiumian's mother!

And unlike Lao Song, who only managed to capture a blurry side profile, this was a frontal shot!

September 2008, 12…

September 2009, 2…

September 2009, 3…

He was suddenly struck by a tremendous sense of absurdity: a woman he thought he needed to search for was information that the person living in this room already knew.

What is the other party's stance?
He thought of the mural Lu Qinglian had mentioned. The two had discussed the creation of clay figures at noon, which required human remains, so they made a bold guess—

If a body needs to be moved into a restricted area, it likely means that the deceased's remains have already disappeared from the grave.

Someone dug up the body.

There's a culprit hidden behind all this.

But before they could prove this conjecture, Zhang Shutong may have already found the answer that same evening.

Now he subconsciously tries to guess Lu Qinglian's opinion. If she also saw these photos here, what would she think and what would she infer?

But soon you won't have to think about it anymore.

Zhang Shutong saw it, Lu Qinglian.

Precisely.

It's a photo of Lu Qinglian.

The entire photo wall is actually composed of three parts.

The woman named "Yun" is Gu Qiumian's mother.

They constitute almost the entirety of this network.

So it wasn't until Zhang Shutong reached the end of this web that things started to fall into place.

Then I saw a figure wearing a green robe with long hair.

The woman's figure was blurry, and she was raising one hand, as if she was about to strike.

The woman in the photo has a checkmark marked with a red marker.

"April 2009, 4."

That was the date the clay figurines disappeared.

Zhang Shutong stared blankly at the wall, remaining silent for a long time, his hands unconsciously clenching and unclenching.

All wrong.

This air-raid shelter was built in the 1970s, and forty years have passed since then, but that doesn't mean that person lived here forty years ago.

It was four years ago.

Or at least four years ago.

Just then, a clear, melodious voice came from behind. He said:

"Shutong, look here."

Not only Zhang Shutong, but Ruoping and Du Kang also went over upon hearing this. The four of them gathered together, and all four cell phones shone their lights on one spot. Du Kang said incredulously:
"It looks like another door?"

Ruoping sighed first:

"I'm really starting to have an allergic reaction to my neighbor's apartment today..."

"So, should we go in and take a look?" Du Kang asked again.

"Are you trying to get yourself killed?!" Ruoping whispered. "People are living here now. Who knows what's inside? What if there really is someone inside?"

"Probably not." Qingyi shook his head. "Look, the lock is on our side, it's covered in dust, and judging from that bed, no one has been here for a long time."

"What else can we do? We can just go in and take a look," Du Kang said to Ruoping. "Think about it, it's like we've reached the final level in a game and are about to beat it. Going back now would be like a sudden power outage."

"I still feel it's not quite right..."

"It's nothing, just one look. If it's not right, we'll leave immediately." Du Kang grinned, then rubbed the bump on his head. "We're going to check this out today, just for this. Come on, Qingyi, give me a hand, this lock is quite heavy..."

With a shout of "Three, two, one!", the back door was finally pushed open, and darkness once again appeared before our eyes.

"We'll go in first to scout ahead, you and Shutong wait a moment."

"Let's go together, let's not separate..."

Ruoping shook her head.

But as soon as she took a step, she turned back around in surprise.

"Shutong, what's wrong with you all of a sudden? You've been staring at that wall without saying a word since just now." Ruoping waved her hand in front of Zhang Shutong's eyes. "Are you going in or not?"

"Not going in."

"What do you mean?"

Zhang Shutong said in a low voice:

"But instead..."

"go out."

He suddenly shoved Du Kang aside and rushed up a flight of stairs amidst the shouts of the crowd. Then Zhang Shutong ran around a corner and sprinted to the end of the stairs until there was nowhere left to go before stopping, panting slightly.

His close friends followed from behind, and were taken aback when they saw what was happening:
"No, how did we suddenly get up here?"

"And this time it's a dead end, it really seems to be a dead end, there's not a ray of light in sight, Zhang Shutong, what are you going to do?"

Feng Ruoping instinctively reached out her hand, but it was too late. The figure in front of her suddenly raised its leg—

Zhang Shutong kicked hard.

The door panel in front of them crashed to the ground.

Accompanied by the sound of a poster tearing.

In the dim light of the cell phone, a simple dormitory room came into view.

The clear sound of rain began again.

"What the hell? How did we end up in someone else's house?"

"I just told you not to go, not to go, and now look what's happened!"

“Uh, it’s not too late to go back now,” Qingyi said, then paused, “Shutong, what happened to you…”

Zhang Shutong tore off the poster on the wall and went outside.

The sounds behind him seemed to fade into the distance in an instant; he simply stared blankly at the dormitory room.

This room...

The staff dormitory belongs to Song Nanshan.

Hidden spaces within the dormitory building.

A secret room connected from the back of the hospital.

That photo of Lu Qinglian with a checkmark drawn on it.

The other party may not be the mastermind behind the creation of the clay figures.

Rather, it was the answer Zhang Shutong had pondered for a long time: why did the clay figurines disappear?

The "mud figure" from four years ago.

same.

It was recycled by human intervention.

He suddenly felt a suffocation. Zhang Shutong bent over and gasped for breath. Ruoping ran over and patted his back. Zhang Shutong coughed a few times and finally caught his breath.

There were so many problems that my brain almost stopped working.

There were very few problems, as few as one.

Did Song Nanshan know about the existence of this basement?
If you know this, it means there are even deeper mysteries surrounding this man.

However, Zhang Shutong immediately denied this speculation.

No, they wouldn't know.

Putting aside the reaction on the phone, if the other party really knew about this secret room, they certainly wouldn't have placed the only notebook containing the clues on their bedside table.

All secrets should be sealed underground.

But what if the other party doesn't know about this basement?

A sudden, incomparable chill ran through Zhang Shutong's heart—

This means that...

During those four years, Lao Song drove his little car around the island searching for his girlfriend.

There is another person.

They've been silently observing him from his feet all along?!

……

They returned to the old house at nine o'clock.

It's still raining.

No one felt like eating anymore.

Each of the four children called their parents, and soon after, four cars arrived at the front gate of the hospital.

Inevitably, I got a scolding.

When he got home, he ate a quick meal, took a shower, and then lay down on the bed.

Zhang Shutong closed his eyes, only to be jolted awake by a strong feeling of suffocation.

He rolled over, panting heavily. This feeling was all too familiar, because it wasn't just in the dormitory a few hours earlier, but also when Zhang Shutong discovered that Gu Qiumian's interpersonal relationships had been altered; he had experienced difficulty breathing before.

He lay exhausted on the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.

Zhang Shutong understood what this meant.

This time, it's anxiety.

It seems to have been brought forward.

(End of this chapter)