Volume 7 Chapter 8 306

I got out of the car, paid the fare, and looked at the address on the note, which was already illegible. I felt a little scared. I thought to myself, isn’t this the kind of abandoned building that we used to explore as kids? How could anyone have sent me to a place like this? Is there anyone living inside?

The driver was still counting the change I gave him, so I turned to him and asked, “Who lives here?”

The driver shook his head and said he didn’t know either. He only knew that the sanatorium was built in the 1960s. Golmud was a military city with many military officers. Many national leaders often came to inspect. This sanatorium was for the leaders at the time. In the mid-1980s, the sanatorium was removed and the place was converted into a theater, so he had also been here. At that time, there were only a few places like this in the city, and I was lucky to have met him. If I had met one of those tricycle drivers from the north, I would have never found this place.

After the rickshaw driver left, I was left alone on the street. I looked around, and it was pitch black. There was only a dim streetlight in front of this building. I was a little scared, but I thought to myself that I had even gone down to the ancient tomb in the middle of the night, so what was there to be afraid of in this old house? I immediately pushed the door.

There was a wall outside the building, and the door was an arched redwood panel door without a knocker. I pushed it a few times and found that there was a chain lock behind the door, and the door wouldn’t open. I looked around and came to the street lamp post. I climbed up in a few moves and climbed over the wall. This was the skill of being a naughty kid when I was young, and it seems that I haven’t lost it.

The courtyard inside was full of weeds. I jumped down and could see the green tiles underneath, but the gaps were full of grass. There was also a tree in the courtyard, which was dead and leaning against the side of the wall.

I walked up to the small building and used my lighter to shine a light on it, so I could see how dilapidated it was. It had carved windows and doors, but they were all sagging down. There were spider webs everywhere, and the main door was locked with an iron chain and a seal.

I pulled open a window and carefully climbed in. Inside was a floor of gray bricks, with a thick layer of dust. Behind the door was a large hall, but there was nothing in it. It seemed empty. I held up my lighter and carefully turned it around. I found it a bit familiar, and then I thought about it and cold sweat came down my back.

This hall was the place where “I” crawled on the ground in the video tape of Aning.

I had come to the right place, I said to myself. I stood in the same position as in the video, looking at the angle of the video camera. The angle of the blue bricks and the carved windows was exactly the same, and I was more and more certain of my idea. A feeling of fear and excitement arose at the same time.

Continuing to walk further, I saw a spiral wooden staircase on the left side of the lobby. It was very simple, but it was at least a spiral staircase leading to the second floor. I crept over and looked up at the stairs. I saw that it was completely dark at the top of the stairs, with no light.

I took out the key in my pocket. 306, that should be the third floor.

It was a bit strange. I looked down at the stair treads and saw that they were covered in thick dust, but in the dust I could see some footprints, so it was clear that someone had been here.

I put my foot on the tread and stepped lightly, making a squeaking sound, but it should be able to bear my weight. I bit my teeth and carefully walked up.

It was dark upstairs, and the sound of the wood creaking made me feel a little panicky, but after all, this was not a tomb, and my nerves could still hold up.

I went all the way up to the second floor, and found that the doorway to the second floor was sealed with cement. There was no door, and it was completely sealed off. According to the space downstairs, there should be several more rooms behind the cement wall, which seemed to be isolated.

I touched the wall and felt a little strange. Could it be that there was a problem with the structure of the house and it had been reinforced?

But it was no use wondering. I didn’t have the energy to think about these things at the moment. I continued up to the third floor. What I saw was a dark corridor with rooms on either side. But there was no light coming from under any of the doors. It seemed that no one was there, and the air had a very unpleasant musty smell.

I took a deep breath and carefully walked into the corridor, bypassing the cobwebs. I saw the dust-covered paint numbers on the doors of the rooms. I read them all the way down, feeling a bit like the protagonist in those European and American suspense films. Soon, I was at the door of the penultimate room in the corridor. I held up my hot lighter and shone it on the door. I could see a very faint number on the lintel: 306.

For a moment, I thought about knocking on the door, but then I thought it was funny, so I hesitated at the door and took out the key. I inserted the key into the keyhole and turned it. With a “click,” the door was pushed in easily with a sharp friction sound from the door hinge.

The room was not large, and it was dark inside. The smell of mildew was stronger when I went in. First, I peeked in through the crack in the door and found that there might be a window on one side of the room. The light from the street lamp outside shone in, revealing the general outline of the room. There seemed to be a lot of furniture against the wall in the room, but it was hard to see clearly in the shadows cast by the streetlights outside. However, it was clear that no one was there.

I took a deep breath and walked in carefully. Holding my already hot lighter, I saw everything clearly in the faint light.

It was a bedroom. I saw a small bed in the corner. The smell of mildew came from the bed. When I got closer, I found that the quilt on the bed had rotted into black and the smell was extremely unpleasant. The quilt was bulging and at first glance I thought it was a dead person inside, but a closer look revealed that it was just the shape of the quilt.

On the side of the bed, there is a desk, an old wooden desk similar to the ones in elementary school. On it are some trash, cloth, a few pieces of paper, and some white lime blocks that have fallen from the ceiling, all covered with thick dust.

Next to the desk is a large cabinet, three or four meters wide and taller than me. The wood on the top has probably expanded due to moisture, and the door panels are all cracked. Looking up, you can see that there are a large number of coal stains and water stains at the junction of the roof and the wall above the cabinet, and it is obvious that there will be water leakage on rainy days.

This place seems to have been abandoned for a long time. The dilapidation here is so bad that it must have been like this for more than five years. But although the house is old, it is just ordinary old. What did the person who sent the video tape want me to come here for? What information did he want me to get from this house?

At this time, my uneasy feelings gradually subsided as I adapted to the environment. I put the lighter on the table and first began to look for the drawer of the wooden desk. I pulled out the drawers one by one, but they were mostly empty. There were two drawers with old newspapers, both of which were moldy, and I didn’t dare to touch them.

If there is nothing in the drawer, is it on the bed? I walked to the edge of the bed and looked under it first. It was all cobwebs and there was nothing there. Then I went to the edge and took out a drawer to use as a tool. I pushed the quilt, which was stuck together, away from the mattress to see if there was anything wrapped inside. However, after pushing it a few times, black sticky water came out of the quilt, and there were even bugs inside. The smell of mildew was overpowering, and I almost felt sick to my stomach.

After finally getting the quilt off the bed, I didn’t find anything. In fact, I realized after a few pushes that there wouldn’t be anything in there. Who would hide something in such a disgusting place?

There was nothing in these two places, so there was only the large cabinet left. However, this cabinet had a lock. Although the cabinet door was cracked, it still took a bit of strength to open the cabinet, and it was impossible without tools.

I didn’t have anything on hand, so I had to look for it on the spot. Finally, I found something on the windowsill. It was the latch of an old window, and it could be pulled out. Although it was rusted, the old latch was solid and very strong. I pulled out one and used it as a crowbar, inserting it into the gap between the cracked cabinet door panels, widening the gap so that I could insert my fingers, then holding one foot against one side and inserting my hand into the gap, and then pulling hard. The door panel made a horrible grinding sound, bent under my pull, and then made a cracking sound as it broke. The whole panel snapped off, and the dust on the door splattered up, blinding me.

The building was quite quiet, and my movements sounded especially frightening. The moment the door panel broke, the shrill sound scared me so much that I broke out in a cold sweat. It took a long time to recover, and then I picked up a lighter and shone it into the cabinet.

I had no idea what was in the cabinet, and I thought it was most likely empty, so I wasn’t too prepared for what I saw.

The cabinet was indeed empty, but the bottom panel on the wall side had disappeared, revealing the concrete wall that the cabinet was hiding. On the concrete wall, there was a dark, half-height door opening, with a concrete staircase leading down, leading to who knows where.