Chapter Thirty-Six: The Dissection Room

  "Hmph, not even letting us in? Even if it's the underworld's palace, I'll still barge in." Oni no Yaiba gave a sidelong glance and with a single shot, cleanly blasted away the lock on the 'door'. The three of us burst through the door. If just four words "stop right there" could scare us off, then we might as well go home and drink milk instead.

  Inside the "gate" is a 100-square-meter hall, which splits into two deep corridors and several rooms of varying sizes. The signs on the doors have Chinese characters and katakana, and judging from their literal meaning, they seem to be research rooms for Little Japan.

  Against the wall stood a movable hospital bed, on which lay a large patch of bloodstain that had obviously not been washed clean, looking very dirty. In fact, the entire hall looked very shabby, with poor-quality green paint peeling off the walls due to dampness, and much of it had already fallen off. Dust was suspended in the air in a visible state, and we had to cover our mouths as much as possible while breathing.

  I took a few steps forward, and I couldn't help but shrink my neck, feeling a bit chilly. A gentle breeze blew from the soles of my feet. I looked down to check, and found that there were many air vents between the floorboards, continuously emitting cool air.

  "Is it cold?" I wondered, had I just turned on the air conditioning system when I opened the circuit breaker? The underground building was already damp and chilly, seemingly no need for air conditioning.

  As we continued to walk in, we came face to face with the nearest room. A row of glass windows stretched out before us, and without opening the "door", we could see everything inside. There were several old-fashioned small office desks, a sofa, chairs, and a bookshelf, but there were no books on the bookshelf, and not even a single piece of paper in the entire room - it seemed that everything had been taken away. In the corner of the "door", several yellowed white lab coats were hanging. Kuiyatai silently entered the "door" and picked up one of the lab coats, flipping open the pocket on the chest to examine it for a moment before shaking his head and coldly saying: "It seems that someone doesn't want us to know their numbers." I supported Xu Lai as we walked over to take a look, and saw that the chest area of the lab coat had been torn off with a long strip. In an instant, I understood what Kuiyatai meant - according to convention, research institutions usually like to embroider the name or number of the personnel stationed here on their clothes, and even small Japan likes to write their own names on it.

  After a simple search, no useful information was found. We had mentally prepared for this and shook our heads, not intending to waste any more time. Although we were full of curiosity about this place, the top priority was to find another exit if it existed.

  "Which way?" Xu Lai looked around and asked us. In front of us were two corridors in opposite directions, which could not be seen to the end at a glance. The deeper you went, the darker the light was. From a distance, it seemed like a dark beast was hiding inside, surrounded by deathly silence and coldness.

  At this time, I can only let the heavens decide. I took out a silver dollar and flipped it into the air with a loud clang. As soon as I caught it with my arm, I said "Left head, right character." Slowly moving my palm away revealed the side with Yuan Shikai's head.

  We headed down the corridor to the left. As we walked in, we noticed that there were many rooms open on both sides, and none of the doors were locked. As we walked, we pushed open the doors one by one, and our eyes naturally looked inside. We found that these rooms all had one or two electronic instruments, large and small, equipped with empty file cabinets. We didn't recognize any of these electronic devices, but when we pressed a few buttons at random, some of them seemed to still be working. There were also several larger rooms that served as sleeping quarters, each capable of accommodating twenty beds, from which it could be inferred how many people the Japanese had stationed here.

  Without continuing to stay, we quickly went deeper inside. Unconsciously, we had already walked out of a hundred meters, and the front was finally over, with the corridor extending to the left. The light above our heads had begun to darken, and some light tubes were flashing and might burst at any time.

  But we hadn't gone far when we started to feel that something was a bit off. "Huh, did I get it wrong? It seems like we're heading downhill?" Xu Lai said in surprise.

  "You're not mistaken, the floor under our feet is sloping downward. Ahead should be a gentle downhill slope." Oni said, feeling the ground with his hands. I inferred: "The underground we are in is inside a small island, and outside it's not a flat plain. When Little Japan dug here, they might have taken care of the terrain and couldn't make it straight."

  At first, we didn't think much and continued walking forward. It was strange that the rooms on both sides no longer appeared, and the walls were very rough, as if we had left the activity area of Little Japan and entered another space. I vaguely heard Oni no Yaiba muttering: "It's a bit like the tunnel of a tomb."

  I wonder where we are going, about 100 meters away, the corridor turns left again. We looked at each other and saw the uncertainty in each other's eyes, hesitated for a moment, and curiosity drove us to continue exploring inside.

  The ground under our feet was still sloping, and in our nervous state of mind, we actually made four consecutive left turns along the corridor, each turn requiring us to walk another hundred meters.

  At this time, even if we are stupid, we realize that there is a problem. All the way here, there is only a passage leading to the deeper part of the underground, but no slope leading up, which means that we unknowingly move further and further away from the ground surface. Moreover, at first, we didn't pay much attention, but as we went further back, it became more obvious that every time we changed direction, the angle of the downward tilt of the floor beneath our feet increased, and now it's almost thirty degrees.

  "Damn it, if we keep going like this, we'll end up in the underworld!" I cursed, and at this moment, saying a dirty word somehow helped me relax my tense nerves.

  "It's almost the same, I calculated it, we've already accumulated nearly a hundred meters of descent." Gu Ye Jia said in a low and mysterious tone. Xu Lai and I immediately stopped moving, our eyes wide with shock, and asked in unison: "Chi Na, you can't be wrong, when did we descend so much?"

  One hundred meters underground is no trivial matter, and a mine tunnel may not necessarily be that deep!

  Oni no Yaiba's mouth curved into a sneer as he jeered, "How could I possibly be wrong? Although the drop isn't that great, it can't withstand the length of the road! Turning left all along, from a macro perspective, we've been spiraling downwards since the very beginning." With that said, Oni no Yaiba strode forward with large steps, or rather, towards the ground.

  Xu Lai stopped and grabbed me, shouting: "Not leaving! Not leaving! I'm going out, whoever wants to leave this damned place can leave!"

  I suddenly thought of a possibility, didn't we choose the wrong corridor from the start? If we chose the one on the right, would it lead us further and further up to the surface? One path leads to hell, one path leads to heaven.

  "Shut up!" The oni, Koinosuke, suddenly stopped in his tracks and turned to us, shouting in a low voice. Xu Lai's temper flared up at the sound of this, and he loudly retorted: "You little red devil, you dare tell me to shut up? Wait till your pubic hair grows in before you speak to me like that!" Koinosuke swiftly turned around and covered Xu Lai's mouth with his hand. I saw anger rising up in his eyes, and he made no attempt to conceal the killing intent he had towards Xu Lai. Xu Lai was intimidated by Koinosuke's aura and swallowed his saliva. Just as I was about to speak up to mediate the situation, I faintly heard a series of rhythmic whooshing sounds coming from up ahead...

  The three of us immediately tensed up, holding our submachine guns at the ready. Xu Rai held a pistol and pressed his back tightly against the wall, inching forward step by step. Before long, the sound grew clearer, and I could tell it wasn't coming from a human - it was some kind of device. After more than ten steps, we reached the end of the corridor. We took a deep breath, and Gui Ye Jia made a hand signal before dashing out in a flash of lightning. The submachine gun pointed forward at first, but then hesitated for a moment. He furrowed his brow and whispered, "Come take a look."

  I supported Xu Lai and followed closely, just turning around to see that the corridor in front was blocked by a pair of 'frosted' glass doors. The hissing sound was coming from inside.

  What made me highly nervous was that a strange shadow was reflected through the frosted glass. It looked like a small tree with many weird and wonderful fruits hanging from it.

  Oniichan whispered in my ear, "You go push the 'door'."

  I immediately changed my face and said discontentedly: "Why is it me again!"

  "I'll give you cover, you're wearing a bulletproof vest, what are you afraid of." Oni no Tsuki shook the submachine gun and pointed at the 'hairy' glass door. I cursed inwardly, just like you didn't wear a bulletproof vest, wait till I'm in a strong position later, and let you taste the feeling of being cannon fodder too.

  I took a deep breath, let out a loud whoop, and with one swift motion, I kicked the glass door with all my might. It shattered with a loud crash. "Ahh, it hurts so much!"

  I hugged my leg and screamed loudly, what killed me was that this broken glass door didn't even budge.

  "Bulletproof glass!" I thought to myself, this time it's really embarrassing. Kiyotsugu looked at me with a disdainful gaze, then immediately stared intently at the movement inside the glass 'door', such a loud noise must have been heard by those inside.

  I sheepishly licked my tongue, spat out a mouthful of saliva, and quickly retrieved the inverted thorn from the Dragon Bone on the back of the Sword King's tortoise. I aimed at the keyhole of the glass door, felt around for its internal structure, concentrated my mind, and after a minute, all I heard was a click, and the lock opened. Hehe, I finally regained some face.

  I wiped the sweat from my forehead, grasped the submachine gun and kicked again. This time, the bulletproof glass 'door' opened.

  In an instant, the stench of rot and blood filled our faces. The three of us, who had long been accustomed to various bloody scenes, were shocked into speechlessness by what lay before us.

  All that can be seen is a wild man covered in hair lying on the operating table, with all his internal organs except for his head exposed. His intestines, heart, liver, spleen, lungs and kidneys have been pulled out of his body and are suspended in mid-air, held up by gauze. The organs are spaced far apart, connected to the man's body by a complex network of blood vessels, resembling a lush tree of human organs. The different colors of the organs - red, brown, green - create a macabre masterpiece that is perfectly presented before us, like a work of death art.

  The corpse of the savage had many thick tubes inserted into it, some of which were even inserted into organs, connected to a machine. The beeping sound was coming from that machine. On the display screen of the machine, a straight line was sliding, as well as some unrecognizable Japanese characters and numerical symbols.

  The air was thick with the smell of disinfectant.

  It wasn't until after a while that we came to our senses.

  Ugh! Xu Lai directly spat at my feet.

  "This is a human dissection room!" My lips trembled, and I got goosebumps all over my body. We had somehow ended up in a dissection room 100 meters underground.

  "This looks more like an autopsy, these machines are life support devices, it may be watching itself being dissected alive. " Oni no Yaiba's breathing became slightly heavier due to tension. We arrived in front of the Wild Man's corpse, its copper-like eyeballs staring widely, its tongue cut off, and the black 'hair' on its face shaved off around the facial features, looking extremely similar to a human being. If we hadn't had prior knowledge of the existence of Wild Men, we would have definitely thought this was a genuine human."

  "Could this underground base be for studying the wild men?" I ventured, but then thought again and it didn't quite add up, as if the cost was a bit too high, unless there were other unknown secrets on these wild men's bodies. I sighed and reached out to flip down the eyelid of the wild man: "Alas, poor wild brother, who did you provoke?"

  Just as I was sighing with emotion, the savage who had closed his eyes suddenly opened them again. I was startled and couldn't help but stare at him.

  But immediately afterwards, the wild man's mouth corners began to twitch irregularly, and it seemed as if he was smiling?

  "It's a ghost!" The oni, including Oniyasha, gasped in unison.

  Are all the wild men going to resurrect? This is deep in the ground, the 'yin' energy is even greater than the morgue. The three of us living people brought a lot of vitality when we came in, and the possibility of triggering a resurrection is extremely high. Even a dead mouse can probably be resurrected.

  We retreated a few steps back, and Xu Lai Xin was the most ruthless. He forced himself to calm down and said: "Damn it, let's take the initiative!"

  The pistol fired several shots at the savage's skull, and in an instant, yellowish-white brain matter splattered out. The savage's body had already lost most of its blood. Just then, from the savage's battered mouth, a two-finger-wide, dark red centipede crawled out.

  The giant centipede was greedily chewing the villager's brain, making a "za za" sound, and found that we didn't mean to escape.

  "What kind of centipede is this? Why does it look so eerie?" I really can't stand insects, snakes and the like, they make me feel disgusted and nauseous.

  Onimaru, who had seen much and knew a lot, also didn't know the origin of this thing. He shook his head: "I don't know, but looking at its shell's 'brilliance', it probably contains severe poison." As he said that, he aimed his gun at the centipede.

  Suddenly, the centipede stopped chewing and abruptly lifted its head towards us. Its long antennae trembled violently, emitting a low humming noise. I instantly felt something was off, but before I could react, the centipede let out a hissing sound and sprayed three streams of venom from its mouth, one of which shot straight at my face.