Chapter 5 Predicament

  This place is full of military facilities, all the doors are triple-defense iron-clad doors with cement on the outside and iron sheets and cotton inside. Once this door is locked, it would be very difficult to open even with explosives, let alone we don't have any explosives. I also went up to push it, from the feel of my hand, I clearly knew that the door had been locked from the outside, there was no hope of opening it from the inside. It seems that when we were showing the film just now, someone secretly locked the door.

  A wave of unease surged up in my heart. In this vast dam, only that "enemy special agent" we intercepted earlier would do such a thing - could it be that he has been following us all along and we didn't even notice?

  Wang Sichuan was furious, using his powerful body to crash into the door like a bear. I also went up to help, but after a few crashes, I couldn't take it anymore. The feeling was just like crashing directly into a concrete wall.

  Wang Sichuan's anger suddenly erupted, his expression was very frightening, he crashed into it and still wasn't satisfied, then jumped up to kick with his feet. However, crashing didn't work, kicking even less so. After struggling for a while, he sat down panting, frowning dejectedly, and cursed at the door: "You damn bear-legged thing, stop always closing doors on others, if you have the guts, open the door and let me practice with you."

  There was no movement outside the door, and this was originally a projection room with good sound insulation measures. People outside the door could hardly hear the voices inside. This may also be the reason why Wang Si Chuan did not notice that the "enemy" had locked the door.

  I recall when we were in the warehouse, he used the same trick. After we successfully ambushed him, this guy simply walked back to us as if nothing had happened. I couldn't help but feel a surge of anger, but facing that door, no matter how angry I was, there was nothing I could do. I said to them, "He's followed us so quickly, it seems he must get his hands on that roll of film at all costs. We need to leave quickly, otherwise, I'm afraid he'll have another trick up his sleeve and we'll be trapped here in a very passive position."

  "Wait, no need to rush." Wang Sichuan stopped him, "Let's think about it, if we rush in, we'll fall into his trap. This door is blocking us here, he can't use the second move."

  The words had barely fallen when the lights in the room flickered and suddenly went out, plunging everything into darkness. Someone had cut off the power supply.

  Several people immediately turned on their flashlights, Wang Sichuan cursed loudly "Damn it!", and kicked the iron door with one foot. At the same time, we heard a strange noise coming from the walls around us.

  This sound was a faint resonance, I touched the wall and found that the wall was slightly shaking, as if some machine had been started.

  I immediately tensed up, although I didn't know what it was, but I knew it couldn't be anything good. This string of changes happened extremely quickly, he must have carried out his planned move.

  "Let's see if there's another way out," I said.

  The three of them immediately dispersed and started rummaging around everywhere. However, the projection room was not very big, and after circling around, they only found a ventilation opening behind the curtain.

  The air vent's opening is round, like a large foot basin. On the opening there is an exhaust fan that has stopped turning due to being clogged with dust. The outside is covered in iron mesh, much simpler than what we saw in the submersible chamber, probably because this is a living area and only needs to be sealed at the main valve to maintain airflow.

  I went up to feel it, and from the air vent, there was a stream of air blowing in fresh air, but the wind speed was very small. I could hear a lot of noise deep within the air vent, and the strange sound just now might be some machine starting up inside the ventilation duct.

  Wang Sichuan wanted to pull down the barbed wire, but found that it was firmly rooted in the cement, each one as thick as a small finger, and couldn't be shaken at all.

  "The stuff from Little Japan is really good." Wang Sichuan said, and then asked Ma Hai to take a look: "You are an engineer, what can you do?"

  The horse came to the sea and looked at it for half a day, then touched the cement wall on the side, shook his head: "This is reinforced with military industry, the edge of the iron wire mesh was poured with more than ten centimeters of cement, and only a stone chisel can be used to smash it open, otherwise you need to use oxyacetylene or explosives."

  He mentioned three things that we didn't have, Wang Sichuan suddenly thought of something and walked over to retrieve the iron bar, tapping it against the edge of the wire mesh a few times. I saw his tiger's mouth crack open, but only a small piece of cement debris fell off.

  So-called military fortress, although simple, but in terms of materials and workmanship, it is indeed extremely solid, no doubt about it.

  Wang Sichuan knocked again, then gave up and used an iron rod to pry into the mesh of the wire net. This time it was effective. The wire net was deformed, but the mesh was very large, and after deformation, the iron rod couldn't get a grip, and couldn't be pried further.

  I also knew that this road was impassable. Wang Sichuan threw down the iron rod and began to clasp his waist and sigh, looking ridiculously comical, but I couldn't laugh at all.

  I stood in the center of the room, shining my flashlight around the closed concrete walls, trying to see if there were any other openings. Just then, I suddenly caught a whiff of something strange in the air. Suddenly, I realized that something was off and turned around to find that the iron door had somehow opened a crack.

  I snapped my fingers to get their attention and then walked over, the smell getting stronger as I approached the door until I could tell it was cigarette smoke.

  I subconsciously pushed the iron gate, and with a sudden surge of force, it moved slightly, as if it could be opened. I was startled in my heart, and immediately used more force to push forward, opening up an even larger gap. Almost simultaneously, a thick smoke poured in, choking me so that my eyes were instantly filled with tears.

  As I wiped my eyes, I shouted loudly for Wang Sichuan to come and help. Wang Sichuan finally came to his senses and rushed over. The two of us used all our strength to push the door, but it seemed like something very solid was blocking it from behind. After a few collisions, the gap didn't get any wider, and instead, thick smoke poured in even more violently.

  I took a look and it didn't seem right, this was well-designed, they were going to smoke us to death. They yelled at them to pull the door shut, but when they pulled, the door wouldn't budge. After pulling with more force several times, I knew we were in trouble. Something must have been jamming the door, or maybe it was tied to a hook on the wall with rope. We couldn't pull it back, and we couldn't push it out either.

  Thick smoke kept pouring in, we were choked and couldn't open our mouths, noses or eyes. Wang Si Chuan was coughing while taking off his clothes. "Help! Help!" he shouted while coughing, "Block the gap!"

  We closed our eyes and rushed over, taking off all our clothes to stuff into the gaps, but the gaps were too big and the clothes were not enough. Later, Wang Si Chuan's clothes simply caught fire, forcing him to immediately pull them back, trample out the flames and put them on again.

  Wang Sichuan was thoroughly enraged, cursing loudly as he wielded his iron rod to pry open the gap, but no matter how fiercely he shouted, the rod bent and was completely useless. At this moment, I noticed that there were many pry marks on the iron door, it seemed that others had also tried to pry open this door before. I didn't know what was going on.

  Can't take care of these details, the whole room has rushed in a large amount of thick smoke, even if we retreat, we feel our throats tightening and can't breathe. If this continues, we may really be choked to death by smoke. Wang Si Chuan only scolded a few times before he couldn't scold anymore. We retreated back, tore down the movie screen covered with dust, wet it with water from the thermos and covered our mouths. In the chaos, I saw that ventilation window again, and thick smoke was also spraying out of it.

  I recall the sound of the machine starting up just now, that son of a bitch outside must have turned on the machine to pump air in here, probably diverting thick smoke from other vents towards this place.

  Wang Sichuan completely lost control, roaring loudly there, and I broke out in a cold sweat. There were only two exits here, but both were emitting smoke, and the other places were all concrete walls. We were basically doomed to death.

  At this time, there was no need to calm down and think, I exchanged a glance with Wang Sichuan, he told us to move aside, swung the iron rod and hit the iron wire mesh on the ventilation window. Compared to the iron door, this is the only possible way to survive.

  He struck the iron wire mesh with a few loud clangs, sparks flying everywhere, and the iron rod vibrated violently until he could no longer swing it, but I desperately saw that the iron wire mesh had almost no change.

  Ma Hai was also anxious, and at this time he didn't care about anything else, directly taking the iron rod from Wang Si Chuan's hand to smash. His strength seemed to be greater than Wang Si Chuan's, and his movements were more standard, probably practiced during military engineering and mountain opening. But even so, the barbed wire only dented a bit. In the end, Ma Hai smashed the iron rod out of his hands, and the barbed wire still didn't show any signs of being broken, while the thick smoke had choked us to the point where we couldn't breathe normally.

  I covered my mouth and watched as thick smoke poured in. My mind was a complete blank, and I thought sorrowfully that perhaps this was all we could do - wait for death.

  Just then, Wang Sichuan was suddenly attracted by something, his flashlight shone on a place under those wooden benches, we followed him to look over there, and suddenly found that the thick smoke on that side was a bit strange.

  Smoke and fog seemed to be sucked into somewhere.