Chapter 313: File

He startled us; his face was pale, as if he was extremely nervous.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

He frowned, looking at the box, and finally said after a long time, "Don't open it... I have a very bad feeling."

"Did you remember something? Did you remember you can't open this box?"

Poker-face nodded, "I don't know, but I have a very bad feeling. Opening this box will definitely bring trouble."

Seeing his expression, I noticed cold sweat on his forehead, and I couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat myself. If even he was this nervous, what could be inside this box? Was it a bomb? I immediately told Fatty to pull his hand back from the lock.

Fatty said, "Damn, little buddy, don't scare me. What exactly did you remember?"

Poker-face pinched his forehead, somewhat pained, "I can't describe this feeling."

Fatty clicked his tongue, "Could it be that this box doesn't open the ordinary way? Is there a mechanism inside? If we open it like this, poison darts might shoot out, or poison liquid might flow out?"

I thought it was very possible. Poker-face had a deep understanding of mechanisms. This iron box was his, and it seemed to contain something very important. It was very likely that a mechanism was set up, and opening it without knowing the trick would be extremely dangerous.

This put us in a real bind. I was itching with curiosity, but in this situation, I couldn't grit my teeth and say I'd risk death to open it and see. At that moment, I thought: if Fatty had been quicker earlier, there wouldn't be this trouble. But then again, if Fatty had been quicker, maybe we wouldn't have any more troubles in this life.

I asked Fatty to carefully help move the iron box onto the table and closely examine its lock. This old-fashioned twist lock wasn't really a lock; it was just a common hasp that could be opened with a gentle flick. With our level of expertise, no matter how we looked, we couldn't see if there was anything wrong behind the twist lock.

"What do we do then?" Fatty asked, also frustrated.

"It seems we'll have to take this back first, have some experts look at it, and then search other places here for anything noteworthy," I said. Looking around, this was the only option for now.

Fatty knocked on the iron. "Damn, how long will it take to open this? Maybe half a year. Either we get straight to it, go find Agui for a knife, and pry it open from the iron sheet."

Before I could shake my head, Poker-face was already shaking his. "No, it shouldn't be a mechanism issue," he said. Then he pressed his unusually long finger on the twist lock and gently flicked it. "No feel of a trigger. The lock is fine."

"If it's not a mechanism, then why can't we open it?"

Poker-face shook his head. I pondered, "Could it be that there's something wrong with the contents of the box?"

"What could it be? A venomous snake? After all these years, it would've dried up into jerky." Fatty was getting impatient. "How about this: all of you step back, let me, your lord Fatty, handle it. My life is tough; I don't believe a single box can take me out."

"Absolutely not. Even if it's not a living thing, there could be something highly toxic inside. If you open it, you'll not only implicate us, but the whole village could be affected," I said.

Fatty cursed and plopped down on the bed. "This won't do, that won't do. Then let's send it to the steel mill to be melted down, and we'll all pretend this never happened." I felt the atmosphere was both funny and eerie. We had traveled all the way here, found Poker-face's house, and found an important clue, but because of a vague feeling from Poker-face, we didn't even dare to open the box containing the clue. That was truly frustrating. But taking risks at this stage was indeed not worth it.

I patted Fatty to calm him down and suggested we knock on the floor again to see if there was another hidden compartment. Judging by how Poker-face had broken the floorboards, this compartment was made with whole planks nailed down, meaning he hadn't planned to remove the box anytime soon. This kind of hidden compartment required a lot of work, so there might be more than one.

So we started knocking around here and there. But since the house was elevated, no matter where we knocked, we felt there was something under the wooden floor.

The floor of the stilted wooden building wasn't professionally laid; it was just long planks simply placed together with big gaps between them. Fatty lay down on the floor and peered through the cracks. Beneath was usually where chickens were kept, and we could see the dirt ground.

Fatty really wasn't afraid of getting dirty. He examined bit by bit, ending up covered in mud, but with no results. It seemed there was only that one hidden compartment.

We searched repeatedly three times, checking every spot inside and out. Confirmed. Fatty patted his clothes and said, "Alright. What we should find, we can't find; what we should open, we can't open. Let's pack up and get out of here before Agui and the others get suspicious. You can't take photos of a crappy house for this long."

I thought that made sense and went to move the box, but Fatty stopped me. "This thing can't be seen in the light. If we carry it out now, and Agui sees us coming out empty-handed but bringing back something this big, it'll be hard to explain. If word gets out, it might reach Chenpi A'si's ears. I think we should put the box back in its original place and take it out one night before we leave."

Fatty was thoughtful. I nodded, so Fatty crawled under the bed, pushed the box back into the hole, then roughly covered it with the boards and concealed the hole.

Then I gathered up the photos and documents and put them in my bag, planning to examine them properly back home. As I was packing, I suddenly heard the sound of knocking on the floor again.

I said to Fatty, "Stop knocking. Didn't you say we should leave?"

Fatty was smoking on the side and raised both hands to show he wasn't knocking. Then I looked at Poker-face; he was tidying up the boxes and books one by one, and he had clearly also heard the knocking sound and was looking at us.

"Huh?" I was stunned. Who was knocking on the floor? We held our breath and listened carefully, and found that the sound came from under the bed—"thump, thump, thump"—very faint but urgent.

Fatty and I exchanged a look. He put out his cigarette butt and carefully bent down to look under the bed. I also crouched down.

There was definitely no one under the bed, that goes without saying. We got close to the floor and found that we couldn't feel any vibration. The sound wasn't from knocking on the floor, and it sounded a bit distant, making it hard to tell exactly which corner under the bed it came from.

Fatty made a gesture, meaning: Under the floorboards!

I nodded, thinking: Could a rat or chicken have gone under this stilted wooden building? Suddenly, I saw that the broken boards covering the iron box had actually moved.

"Huh, this is damn strange," I was dumbfounded. Could it be that the iron box was moving?