Chapter Twelve: Spiral Staircase

  "Director, is there really such a place in our museum? It's truly strange."

  "Stop talking and come help, this hand is rusty."

  Qin Zhong and Da Ya joined forces to push the handle, and all that could be heard was a loud rumbling sound. Just as the two of them were slowly opening the dark green iron gate, there was a sudden cracking sound, and the rusty iron handle was broken off by the two people.

  "I told you this wouldn't work, it's all rusty, what are you pushing for?" Mark grumbled.

  Qin Zhong ignored him, and he didn't like this fake foreign devil anyway. As a history student, in his mind, the modern history part he learned about was all about Chinese people suffering humiliation at the hands of foreigners.

  He gaped his mouth, his body was thin and weak, seeing the green iron gate exposed a gap, he had tried to drill in from the gap several times, but after many attempts, he still lacked a little bit.

  Qin Zhong pushed away Da Ya with his hand: "Don't try anymore, I'll go to the construction site to borrow a crowbar. It seems that our place is still lively."

  Qin Zhong said, and then went out the door. Meng Na saw Qin Zhong leave and also hastily followed him out. The first floor of the archives building was left with only Da Ya and Mark. Da Ya stood by stupidly, while Mark wandered around the entrance, seemingly searching for something. As he looked around, he muttered to himself.

  Qin Zhong walked out of the archives, his heart racing with excitement and surprise, a possible genetic trait inherited from the Qin family. In his mind, regarding Grandpa's notes, the strange events in Manchuria Archives, and what he saw now, his blood was boiling instantly. Of course, he knew that if he really devoted himself to adventure wholeheartedly, then what happened earlier would be quite natural.

  Qin Zhong casually asked himself, "Hey, are you scared?" He answered himself, "Not afraid!" Such self-questioning and self-answering was followed by a self-mocking smile.

  Just as he was hurrying forward, a voice came from behind: "I'm not afraid either, wherever you go, I'll follow you!"

  Qin Zhong turned his head and smiled: "Good, then let's do it together!" He didn't know what kind of feeling he had towards Meng Na, but overall, he didn't dislike this girl.

  Soon, Qin Zhong and Meng Na dug out a few large steel bars from the debris pile on the construction site, and then rushed back to the archives. When they arrived at the archives, Da Ya and Ma Ke were still trying to push the door open with their hands, but the door seemed to have been fixed in place and was stuck there, no matter how hard they pushed, it couldn't be moved an inch.

  Qin Zhong brought back the steel bar and inserted it directly into the gap of the open door. He gently applied force, pulling the steel bar in the opposite direction, but the iron gate still didn't react at all.

  This time, however, Qin Zhong felt that what he had done was not quite right, and this door might be a bit suspicious, because he remembered that his grandfather's notes had mentioned some places with many strange phenomena, which were not much different from the door he saw now.

  Just as Qin Zhong was about to pull out the steel bar, he suddenly felt that the door seemed to have been pried open and opened very smoothly. Looking inside again, it was dark and hollow, with a strong airflow swirling out from the door with a strange smell.

  "What's here?" Mona asked in surprise.

  Qin Zhong quietly stayed there, he saw that the cave seemed to have some strange things. Under normal circumstances, in an archive room, there would be such a place, and as the director, he had to go and investigate it. Moreover, with the ghostly events that just happened, he wanted to take a closer look.

  Qin Zhong first reached in and felt around, it was quite cool, he then told Da Ya to go prepare the flashlight.

  Big Tooth immediately went into the dispatch room and picked up a flashlight: "Director, isn't this another cave, haha!"

  "Hmm, I think this should be some kind of warehouse. But earlier, I heard you guys say that those iron chains all went into the hole. If that's true, then there must be good stuff here. I think it's enough for us to have some fun." Mark is indeed a carefree and uninhibited person, from his words, one can feel that he doesn't take those terrifying things seriously at all.

  Mona rolled her eyes at Mark: "Little beauty is always little beauty, forever so fake and delicate, geez, I really can't stand you like this."

  "What's wrong with me being like this?"

  "Alright, stop talking about it, let's just go inside and take a look. I'll go first, you guys follow me."

  Qin Zhong said, shining the flashlight into the cave. At this moment, Da Ya went to lock the door of the archives room, and then followed Mark, who was tall and large, he seemed to be very timid to go to such a dark and lightless place.

  Qin Zhong stepped into the cave, his first foot landing on the wooden stairs, creaking loudly in the quiet environment. He quickly shone his flashlight downwards and saw that these wooden stairs were still relatively well-preserved.

  "The ones behind follow up, here are all wooden stairs, it seems that the cave will be quite deep." After Qin Zhong finished speaking, the four of them suddenly fell silent, after all, there was only one flashlight, and when going down the stairs, they had to concentrate a bit.

  Several people walked for over twenty minutes, and although the speed of going down the stairs was a bit slow, after more than twenty minutes, it's just unknown how deep this staircase is.

  Meng Na let out a long sigh: "I'm exhausted, this broken staircase, how much longer?"

  Qin Zhong turned his head to look at Meng Na, shining the flashlight upwards towards the rotating staircase, as if the beam of light couldn't reach where they started descending: "Looks like this staircase is long enough." He shone it downwards again, but still couldn't see the bottom: "Damn, can't see the bottom either. How deep does this little Japanese guy want to build his cave, building a staircase so high?"

  "Who knows, but I think we'll be lucky if we make it in another half hour." Mark seemed to be talking nonsense again.

  Meng Na suddenly turned around: "You talk too much, can't you just follow me if you're curious?"

  Big Tooth nodded and hummed, not daring to say much more. After all, he had long had the urge to return in his heart. However, when he turned back, he couldn't see the road, and besides, he also wanted to save some face. How could he retreat at this critical moment? He gritted his teeth and persevered.

  Qin Zhong snorted, "Less talk, the further down we go, the thicker the atmosphere gets. Let's be careful, who knows if that step is rotten or not. Speed up and follow me closely."

  Qin Zhong was a sports ace in school, and physically, these people were probably no match for him. He quickened his pace, flying down the mountain at incredible speed.

  It really made Mark say that a few people walked for another half an hour, Qin Zhong finally stopped and when he turned back to look, except for Mona and Mark being relatively close, the big tooth was chattering non-stop: "Wait for me for a while, I can't even see your shadows."

  "It's almost at the bottom, and it seems like there's water below, so it should be very humid. Why don't you guys slow down a bit, I'll go take a look around." Qin Zhong said as he turned to head in another direction.

  Because they had been in this dark environment for a long time, their eyes had adapted to the surroundings here. A little bit of flashlight beam was enough to see reflective objects clearly. Mona then said: "You go ahead, we just need a little light."

  "Hmm, don't worry, junior sister, I'm protecting you from behind!" Mark and Mona deliberately showed their good intentions.

  But Mona didn't even acknowledge his intention and continued walking with her butt swaying.

  Qin Zhong borrowed the light of his flashlight, and it seemed that he saw the bottom of the cave. He really didn't know how deep this place was. He then shone his flashlight upwards, and apart from seeing those grinding and gnashing big teeth in extreme pain, there were spiral stairs going up.

  Qin Zhong cautiously descended the last step of the stairs, and his foot seemed to touch a stream, but upon looking down, the water was not very deep, just barely covering the soles of his shoes. "Ah, come on down, this should be a flat area, a very spacious place," he said as he shone his flashlight in all directions, observing everything. Indeed, it was a large flat area, and it was impossible to tell how big it was, but one thing was certain - there was enough space to store quite a few things.