Having managed to get there, a wild speculation emerged. Qiuzhen guessed that the person he followed had also entered the room. He searched the room for the least dust. Qiuzhen's reasoning was that it tended to be cleaner because the area was touched by people. Qiuzhen's attention was then drawn to a dressing table in one corner of the room.
The dressing table was made of excellent quality wood. Still strong, even though it looked old. In front of the dressing table was a clean-looking stool. Even though it looked clean, Qiuzhen still tried to wipe the bench before sitting down. He looked at the mirror in front of him. The light from his flashlight swirled around the mirror's surface. He also shone a flashlight on other parts of the dresser.
There were three drawers on the dresser. Qiuzhen opened one by one the drawers that were there. The first drawer was empty. Qiuzhen put his hand into the drawer. He fumbled inside the drawer to check for hidden compartments. Sensing that there was nothing there, Qiuzhen turned to the second drawer. Just like the first drawer, this second drawer also did not contain a secret.
When he opened the third drawer, which was the bottom one, Qiuzhen felt it was a bit difficult to open. It was like there was something stuck in the drawer. With exertion, he could also open the drawer. Just like before, Qiuzhen immediately put his hand inside. The drawer was also empty. But, he felt the distance between the front of the drawer and the back was much shorter than the two drawers above it.
Qiuzhen wiped the entire surface of the back of the drawer. He felt something at the left end of the back of the drawer. Turned out there was a handle there. There was a hidden compartment behind the drawer. Qiuzhen pulled the handle. He could open it without any major difficulties.
This is truly an extraordinary thing!
It was a little challenging to shine a flashlight on that part, so Qiuzhen just relied on his fingers to check the hidden part. Inside, there was an object made of metal. It was shaped like a vertical cylinder. After groping more closely, Qiuzhen felt that the object's shape was similar to that of a candle. At the top of the cylinder, conical like the top of a candle. He rubbed the conical part. Nothing happened.
Qiuzhen's fingertips touched the part between the base of the small cone and the top of the cylinder. He felt there was a tiny gap there. The conical top turned out to be not a part that connected to the cylinder below. Qiuzhen tried to rotate the top of the cylinder, the conical part. He moved his fingers like turning a bottle cap when he was about to open a bottle.
At first, he rotated the part in a counterclockwise direction. The conical part didn't move at all. Then Qiuzhen rotated in the opposite direction, i.e., clockwise. This time, he moved the cone part. After turning the object roughly ninety degrees,, there was a "click." After that, Qiuzhen couldn't move it any further. He tried to turn in the opposite direction. That time, after turning the thing to its original position, it could still rotate even further. Qiuzhen couldn't explain it. Until finally, after turning about one hundred and eighty degrees from the position of the "click" he had heard earlier, he couldn't turn the object any further. However, Qiuzhen could hear another "click" sound. So there were two "clicks" that he heard.
Qiuzhen cheered with joy. Turned out the secret was to turn the conical part clockwise by ninety degrees. After that, people just had to turn the thing in the opposite direction by approximately one hundred and eighty degrees.
Whoever designed these things, that person must have a love for puzzles and mysterious things.
Qiuzhen thought back to Songfei. He really hoped that nothing terrible happened to the young man.
The designer of these tools must be very suitable for conversing with Songfei. They can spend hours talking just to discuss just one thing!
Suddenly, there was a rumbling sound. But the rumbling sound was in meager volume. It was like a rumbling sound from a distance. Surprisingly, the wall to the left of the dressing table was suddenly pushed inward. The wall pushed back created a niche in the wall. There was only an ordinary wall on the left side of the alcove. But, there was a hole in the wall on the right. It turned out that the exit from the room was in one corner of the room, right next to the dressing table made of high-quality wood. Wasting no time, Qiuzhen immediately entered the hole in the wall to the right of the alcove. It turned out to be the beginning of a passage.
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Just like before, before exploring the passage, Qiuzhen first checked the entrance. He must know how to open and close the entrance from the inside. He illuminated the entire surface of the wall that was there. A metal candle holder hung on the passage's wall. There were no candles there anymore, only the candleholder. The position of the candle holder was tilted. So it's like shifting about fifteen degrees to the left. Qiuzhen grabbed the candle holder and tried to straighten it again. There was a slow rumbling sound like before. The wall of the niche then moved forward, and the niche disappeared. Qiuzhen pulled the candleholder to the side again so that it was tilted like before. A slow rumbling sound followed by the wall going in and forming an alcove.
"Ah!" Qiuzhen commented curtly. Now he didn't have to worry anymore about continuing his exploration. Cautiously, Qiuzhen walked through the passage. The passage was quite wide, about two meters. The height was about three meters. So people could walk in it freely. People who were not tall could even jump up and down when they were happy. But Qiuzhen didn't try that. His body was quite tall, so there was a possibility that if he jumped high enough, his head could hit the ceiling of the hall. Banging head against the hallway ceiling wasn't such a good idea. Especially when he was alone like that.
Since coming out of the toilet, Qiuzhen had actually lost his way. The many twists and turns he went through had made him not know where he was now. Even Qiuzhen didn't know how far he was from the subway station, the place where he started his underground journey. Not only that. Qiuzhen didn't know how deep he was from the ground. The path along the passage was sometimes downhill, sometimes uphill. That fact made Qiuzhen even more unable to estimate the depth of the passage from ground level.
After over twenty minutes of walking, Qiuzhen arrived at a relatively large hall. The hall was in the shape of a hexagon. On each side was a door leading to another passage. Qiuzhen came from one of the six doors. It wasn't right to call it a door because it was just an empty space. No door separated the passages from the hall. Right in the center of the hall, there was a large circular stone about eighty or ninety centimeters in diameter. It was about half a meter high. The surface of the stone was flat. When Qiuzhen stepped forward to take a close look at the object, the rock looked very much like an enormous bench. Maybe it was a bench. Qiuzhen sat for a while on the bench to unwind. He was a bit regretful because he didn't bring a bottle of water with him. His throat felt so dry.
Five minutes of rest was more than enough. Qiuzhen got up and started walking again. He walked towards the door where he had entered. He took off his clothes. Removing poultice plasters that had been attached to his shoulder. Qiuzhen then crouched against the wall on the side of the door. He stuck the plaster on the bottom surface of the wall, about fifteen centimeters from the floor. All the doors in the room looked so similar, so he had to give a marker not to get lost when he intended to return to the inn. Of the five remaining doors, Qiuzhen must choose one for him to explore. He walked towards the door directly opposite the entrance he had come from. When he got there, he did the same thing. He was sticking another plaster on the wall near the door. However, the position was slightly higher this time, about thirty centimeters from the floor.
After putting his clothes and jacket back on, Qiuzhen immediately entered the hallway. The width and height of the passage were the same as the previous passage. About a hundred meters from the hall entrance, the path forked. The two branches of the passage were smaller than the passage he had passed. Qiuzhen hesitated for a moment, but he stepped into the passage to the right. The path was also winding, though not as much as the previous one. Qiuzhen suspected that the reason people built the winding passages was closely related to the condition of the rocks underground. The hard stones made it difficult for people to construct straight passages.
Qiuzhen arrived at a bend. The bend was so sharp that it didn't look like a bend at all. The aisle turned left. Hesitated, Qiuzhen paused for a moment. He shone on the walls of the hall for a better look. On the passage bend wall, there was a foreign inscription. Qiuzhen didn't know what the writing meant. He didn't even know what kind of script was used to write it. He tried to remember the form of the writing so he could tell his dahge or Zhengyi when he got home.
Qiuzhen turned to follow the turn of the passage. After passing the bend, Qiuzhen walked with great vigilance. He highlighted the walls to the right and left of the passage. When he pointed the flashlight forward, he saw a ray of light emanating from the other end. Not only that, he even heard a faint sound. It was like the sound of people having a conversation. A moment after that, Qiuzhen heard a scream. One of the few people there screamed. Maybe that person saw the light of the flashlight that Qiuzhen was carrying.
Some people were chatting there! It means I've reached the end of the underground passage! There must be another room or hall beyond this end of this passage.
Qiuzhen turned off his flashlight right away. He didn't know where he was now. Also, he didn't know who those people were. Perhaps things would be dangerous if he confronted them head-on. Qiuzhen didn't know how many people there were. He decided to turn around and walk briskly in the opposite direction. He walked on without stopping. Qiuzhen quickly came to the door that connected the passage to the hexagon hall he had just left. After arriving at the hall, Qiuzhen did not forget to remove the plaster that he had attached earlier.
Straight away, Qiuzhen headed for the door that led to the room where there was a dressing table. He also did not forget to remove the plaster attached below. Those people might just follow him. He didn't want to leave any clues for those people. Without wasting much time, he entered the passage to return to where he had come from.