Chapter 7: Ten-meter-long corridor

  We searched the whole house again because we were afraid of losing it again, just the two of us together, but there was no discovery at all. The room was empty and the yard was empty too.

  "Alright, now it's just like what's written in the book. I don't know where the mechanism is or where the person who lost it is. Next, shouldn't we discover something? Otherwise, the story can't continue." I said to myself, trying to ease my tense mood, but Pengpeng seemed to have gotten some inspiration from it.

  "There's an underground cellar, and we have underfloor heating here."

  What they called underfloor heating was to dig a pit directly below the house, burn some fire in it during winter, and then seal the exit to keep the hot air inside, so that the ground we stepped on would warm up, which is the same principle as modern underfloor heating.

  We rushed to the main house and found a square iron door on the ground. We opened it, shining our flashlight downwards because the house had never been inhabited before, so it was still very clean and shouldn't be too deep.

  "I'm coming," said Pengpeng and was about to jump down. I immediately stopped him, thinking of going down myself first.

  "Alright, brother-in-law, I still have my sister, and I'm alone, it's nothing." After finishing speaking, he jumped down.

  I saw that he had already stepped on the ground and followed him down. The two of us were basically 180 pounds in weight, and it was very crowded in such a narrow place. I seemed to have touched a lock head in front of me, and I knew things weren't simple anymore. This was a fire pit, and there shouldn't be a door because no one would come in. Now there's this lock, which proves that this leads to another place. I took out the screwdriver and opened the lock, pushed the door open with my hand, and shone the flashlight inside to reveal a corridor, neatly repaired. The two of us quickly squeezed out of this small space.

  The passageway was still quite spacious, and the wall felt a bit dry when I touched it, with some dirt crumbling down. As I was feeling my way forward, I suddenly saw a white light flashing ahead. I quickly pushed Pengpeng to the ground and turned off the flashlight. In this kind of environment, only animal eyes can emit light, as often written in books. At this moment, the guardian beast would come out for a fierce battle. I had already pulled out the Japanese sword from my bag, preparing for my first fight. The white light was getting closer and closer, the footsteps were getting louder and louder, and my breathing was getting heavier and heavier.

  At this time, Peng jumped up and turned on the flashlight. When two beams of light faced each other, a loud and clear laugh was heard. It turned out that the coffin had walked over from the opposite side. Although it had disappeared for several minutes, we looked like we hadn't seen each other in a year.

  "You little scamp, how did you suddenly disappear and now arrive here even faster than us?" I asked.

  "Never mind, I was standing next to you wanting to smoke a cigarette, originally wanted to lean against the wall to light it up, but just took a step back and my whole body fell down, then fainted. When I woke up, I was already here, just thinking of turning around, that's when I saw you guys."

  According to him, he should have stepped on some mechanism and fallen directly down. But I and Pengpeng carefully checked, there was no gap at all. We came to the place where he fell, passed through a long corridor and arrived at a circular space, which seemed like a skylight, more spacious than where we came from. After searching around, we didn't find any other mechanism, so it's back to the beginning again - one corridor, two entrances, one inside the house and one in the courtyard. Could it be just a chimney for burning fire? If that's the case, we can give up now. Everything is just self-deception.

  "It seems this should be a chimney, otherwise if we light a fire in the house, where would the smoke go?" I said my own opinion.

  The three of them all let out a sigh, thinking that they were really ridiculous. Pengpeng plopped down onto the ground with a thud, feeling somewhat disappointed.

  "Alright, let's go. It seems this is just an ordinary home." I pulled him up, Pengpeng stood up and subconsciously patted the dirt off his butt. Suddenly, a strange idea occurred to me, it was a feeling that I had since entering here but couldn't quite put my finger on what it was. Seeing his action made me realize, I took his hand and examined it carefully, very clean, not at all like someone who sat in a place with no spider webs for over a decade. I started searching the floor again, according to the situation earlier when the coffin fell, there should be another mechanism to go down here.

  "A thud" came from the heating vent, followed by a loud "Ah!" Someone had entered, and we three immediately hid on both sides of the passageway entrance, ready to see who it was. This corridor is only ten meters long, and even if someone walked slowly, they should have reached the end in five minutes, but so far, no one has come out from here.