Chapter 213: Snake Swamp Ghost City Part (Middle): Plan

The flame from the lighter was very weak; it was already good enough to illuminate a couple of meters ahead. Under that light, suddenly catching sight of a coffin really startled me.

After I recovered, I felt extremely strange. This was something I'd never heard of before. How the hell could there be a coffin here, and an ancient one at that?

A sanatorium built in the 1960s or 1970s, with hidden underground facilities—that was already a bit unbelievable. Now, in this place, there was also a coffin. It was too incredible. Who was inside? Could it be someone who died here back then?

I looked behind me; the stairway entrance I came from was right there, so I wouldn't get lost. I moved closer to look at the coffin.

From a distance, I could tell it wasn't a modern coffin. It was pure black, lying across the center of the basement like a giant long stone block. A coffin of this size and shape should be an outer coffin; after the Republic era, coffins no longer had outer layers. Judging by the style, this outer coffin was quite old—at least five or six hundred years—and from its size, it probably wasn't for an ordinary family, at least a scholar-official.

I stepped forward and touched it. There were fine patterns on the surface, icy cold to the touch. It seemed to be a stone coffin, but I couldn't identify the stone. As I touched it, the thick dust on the stone coffin left a few streaks, revealing some delicate patterns.

I brought the lighter closer to examine it carefully. On the lid of the outer coffin, there were traces of chisel damage, and signs that a crowbar had been inserted into the gaps between the lid and the body. Clearly, I wasn't the first to discover this huge outer coffin—someone had tried to pry it open. I had experience with such things, so I was especially sensitive to it.

An ancient coffin couldn't just appear out of nowhere in the basement of a modern building. Someone must have moved it here, for reasons unknown.

The temperature in the basement was very low. I caught my breath and gradually calmed down, forcing my heartbeat to slow. The entire way down, I had been under extreme tension. Even though I had suppressed my fear, I still felt quite uneasy. As I took deep breaths, I started to think.

Someone had sent me a videotape, an address, and a key, luring me to this dilapidated sanatorium. They guided me to discover this hidden door, and through the stairway behind it, I found this basement. And in this basement, there was a stone coffin.

This had gone far beyond any prank. Was the other party trying to tell me about some incredible things that had happened in this sanatorium?

It seemed that behind this sealed-off floor, the basement, and the stone coffin, there must be a very complicated story.

I pushed on the lid of the stone coffin, but not with much force—just to test whether it could be opened. Fortunately, as I guessed, the lid didn't budge at all. Clearly, I couldn't open it without tools.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Opening a coffin in this setting, and all alone—I had never experienced that. Since it wouldn't open, I didn't have to force myself to do it.

I examined the details of the stone coffin again, found nothing noteworthy, then went around it and continued forward until I reached the end of the basement. There, I saw a small iron door, very low. I pushed the door open, and behind it was a corridor.

I only took a few steps before I realized the layout was the same as upstairs: a corridor with rooms on both sides. But this corridor stretched on without an end, seemingly leading somewhere else. The rooms on both sides had no doors and were very bare. I took out my lighter and entered the first room. Shining the light around, I saw two desks against the wall, several filing cabinets around the room, and the walls covered with things. Papers were scattered all over the floor and desks.

This seemed to be an office. I grew even more puzzled. Why would an office be set up underground? That was too strange. In the basement, one side had a coffin, the other side an office. Could the Golmud Funeral Affairs Office have been located here back then?

Puzzled, I walked over to the desk to see if there were any clues on it.

As I got closer, I suddenly froze. For some reason, seeing the way the desk was arranged gave me an odd feeling, as if I had seen this room somewhere before.

I raised the lighter and thought back, then sucked in a cold breath. I immediately recognized it—this room was exactly the one shown in Huo Ling's videotape.

The arrangement of the desk, the feel of the floor and walls—it was exactly the same. I walked up to the desk and even saw the mirror she used to comb her hair, still in the same place as in the videotape.

My heart started pounding wildly. I took a deep breath to calm myself, but my sense of eeriness had already reached its peak.

When I watched Huo Ling's videotape, I thought she was in some ordinary house. I never imagined it would be in the basement of this kind of sanatorium, and that I would actually find this place. Clearly, it was all real—the content recorded on the videotape was real.

Back then, Huo Ling was right here, filming herself with a video camera, combing her hair over and over. And "I" might really have crawled across the lobby overhead.

For a moment, I even saw her phantom in my eyes. It was as if our worlds had merged. The scene from the videotape flashed before me.

But what the hell was going on? A woman in the hidden basement of a sanatorium, endlessly combing her hair, while someone resembling me crawled like a cripple across the lobby of the sanatorium. These things had really happened and been recorded. What was the purpose? What had happened in this sanatorium beyond the camera frame? My mind felt numb, and I grew dizzy. Obviously, the person who sent me the videotape wanted me to see this room. But after seeing it, I only became more confused, as if I were trying to piece together a blank puzzle with no starting point.

I took another few deep breaths to steady myself, then picked up the lighter and began to look around. I had to inspect this place for any clues.