No matter how used Mingqiao was, it was still hard for him to bear such a shocking scene. He turned his face away and took two deep breaths of fresh air to suppress his nausea.
"Where do these three pipes come from?" Shi Xin looked at it for a while, but he couldn't find the source of the pipes, or even the power source. He really couldn't figure out the working principle of this meat grinder. It was like a perpetual motion machine that could keep working without power output. He could only look at Ming Qiao eagerly, waiting for him to give a slightly reasonable explanation.
"How about we dig it up and have a look?" Ming Qiao suppressed his discomfort and put the screwdriver into Shi Xin's hand: "You do the physical work."
Shi Xin weighed the screwdriver in his hand twice: "Determine the direction, backward or downward?"
"The back is the corridor we just came in from." Mingqiao thought for a moment and said, "Let's go down and see where this mixture will be transported to in the end."
Shi Xin did not refuse and started digging down along the pipe without saying a word.
In fact, this cabinet is only wrapped with iron sheets on the four sides, with no obstructions at the back and bottom. Pipes extend from the walls and the ground, connecting to form the entire circuit of the meat grinder.
The pipe extending to the ground was wrapped with cement, but it was not strong. Shi Xin put all his strength into it and hit it hard a few times. A small piece of cement broke off, revealing the loose and wide loess underground.
Mingqiao picked up a piece of cement and looked at it for a few seconds.
Unlike the old house, the surface of this cement block is still clean grayish white, as if it was newly built here not long ago, and it is slightly damp. The inner layer is darker than the surface and has some water vapor.
"It's newly rebuilt." Mingqiao said.
"What?" Shi Xin stopped what he was doing and turned to look at Ming Qiao beside him.
"The things in this cabinet are newly built." Mingqiao raised the cement block in his hand in front of Shi Xin: "The cement hasn't dried completely yet."
Shi Xin's brain couldn't keep up with Ming Qiao. This building must have been newly built after the unusual incident, otherwise why would a normal school have a meat grinder hidden in the basement?
"The room temperature is around 20 degrees, and the cement will dry in no more than 8 hours. It's summer now, and the temperature in this basement can be as low as 20 degrees. But now the cement is at most half-dry, which means that the cement has been here for no more than three or four hours." Mingqiao became more and more excited as he spoke: "Three or four hours ago, Zhang Wanqiao and the others should have arrived at the edge of the playground. If they found anyone suspicious entering or leaving the basement, they would definitely find out and tell us."
"But they didn't say anything, which means no one came in or out." Shi Xin instantly understood what Ming Qiao meant: "No one went out, which means people are still here, but we didn't find them."
"That's right." Mingqiao nodded.
"So should we continue digging the pipeline or find someone?" Shi Xin asked.
"You dig, I find."
Mingqiao turned his back to Shi Xin and observed the room carefully.
He originally thought that there was nothing to study here. It was only about 10 square meters, the furniture was simple, and there was no place for people to hide. But since Mingqiao had doubts in his heart, he had to take it seriously again and forced himself to be extremely careful and look for clues.
Mingqiao listened to the rhythmic and regular jingling sounds coming from Shi Xin's end, and his mentality gradually calmed down.
Fortunately, Qin Xue went back, otherwise as a child he would not be able to do any physical work, and the two of them would have to take care of him while doing these things.
Mingqiao looked around and knocked on the wall, but he didn't find the secret door he had imagined. He was a little discouraged and leaned against the wall, staring at the two fist-sized windows in a daze.
He looked at it suspiciously again, then suddenly rushed over and punched the glass of the right window.
He didn't know what he was doing or what result he wanted to achieve, but his intuition told him that if these two windows were not useful, they would not be built here.
The loud noise of fist hitting glass startled Shi Xin. He crawled out from the bottom of the closet and looked at Ming Qiao worriedly: "What's wrong?"
"It's okay, just do your thing." Mingqiao shook his numb wrists and forearms, and threw another punch with force.
This time, the small glass couldn't bear the weight and shattered. The darkness outside seemed to be trying to get into the room like a ghost, bringing in some shivering cold air.
"It's bleeding." Shi Xin looked at Mingqiao's bleeding hand and his heart skipped a beat.
Ming Qiao glanced down at the wound. It wasn't very deep and would heal on its own after a while of bleeding. "It's just a minor wound. It won't be a problem."
He cleaned up the few remaining broken glass pieces by the window and reached out a hand to dig out a few pieces.
Nothing at all.
Could it be that he was wrong?
Mingqiao remained calm for a few seconds, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the phone still charging in the corner.
"Give me that phone."
Shi Xin ran two steps, unplugged the phone from the charger, and ran back to hand it to Ming Qiao.
Mingqiao couldn't wait to try to turn it on. Fortunately, after a long wait, a startup logo lit up on the small screen, and at the same time, the familiar startup ringtone rang throughout the house. After waiting for about a minute, the phone finally turned on.
Even if you don't know the password, you can use the built-in flashlight on your phone without unlocking it.
Mingqiao pressed and held the button, and a blindingly bright light quickly shot out from the flashlight on the top of the phone. This light was enough to illuminate the entire room, even dimming the light bulbs on the ceiling.
"It's worthy of being a phone for the elderly." Shi Xin silently gave a thumbs up.
"It's worthy of being a phone for the elderly." Mingqiao agreed.
He turned on the flashlight, letting the light pass through the small window on the right, while he looked out through the glass of the left window. The originally dark environment was illuminated by the light, and Mingqiao could see the scene clearly.
This is an enclosed place similar to a storage room, with concrete walls on all four sides. It is only one square meter in size and doesn't seem to be anything special.
But just as Mingqiao was struggling to turn the phone in a direction so that it could illuminate more areas, a pale face suddenly appeared on the small window in front of him. But when Mingqiao wanted to see it more clearly, the face disappeared again.
Ming Qiao was so frightened that he broke out in a cold sweat. He quickly took a few steps back until his back was against the wall.
Shi Xin had been worried about Ming Qiao's situation. Seeing that his lips were turning purple with fright, he hurried over to ask about the situation.
"Are you okay?"
"There's someone there." Ming Qiao pointed at the window, still in shock: "The face is so pale, it doesn't look like a living person."
"I'll go and take a look."
Just as Shi Xin was about to turn around, Ming Qiao pulled him back: "I'll go with you."
The two of them moved over carefully, and the "person" seemed to have heard it and stuck to the window again in an instant.
Mingqiao was sweating again as he held Shi Xin's hand.
"Don't be afraid." Shi Xin patted the back of Mingqiao's hand soothingly and pulled him over.
The "person" did not make any move and waited until the two people came over.
When Shi Xin saw this face, he held his breath unconsciously.
Indeed, just as Mingqiao said, this person does not look like a living person. The only thing that can be distinguished is that this person is a man.
"He" had short hair sticking to his scalp, his skin was as pale as paper, his pupils were deeply sunken without a trace of white, and the part below his nose looked like it had been cut off by a knife, with blackened flesh barely hanging on the exposed white bones, which made people feel creepy.
"Teacher Ming, don't be afraid." Shi Xin said, "He's stuck inside and can't get out."
"Are you sure?" Mingqiao hid back again.
"Sure." Shi Xin turned back and took a wrench from the table. He stretched out his arm and poked "him" twice. "He" shook slightly twice with this action.
"He's not dead." Shi Xin became a little bolder. He withdrew his hand from Mingqiao, walked over alone, and hit "him" on the head with a wrench.
As a result, half of "his" body, along with the support underneath, was knocked to the ground by Shi Xin.
"It's a mechanism." Shi Xin turned and said to Ming Qiao, but found that behind them, a door was slowly opening.
Mingqiao followed Shi Xin's gaze and also saw the door.
"Did 'he' connect this mechanism? I didn't find it when I was looking for it just now." Ming Qiao said, "It's hidden too well, and it fits the wall almost perfectly."
"Go and take a look? Or should I continue digging my tunnel?"
Mingqiao was frightened just now, and his hands and feet are still cold. "Let's dig a tunnel. If we still can't find any clues, we can go and look together."
"Okay," Shi Xin picked up the screwdriver he had thrown on the ground and continued digging his tunnel.
Mingqiao didn't want to act rashly anymore, so he simply sat at the end of the bed, just one step away from Shi Xin.
Shi Xin said as he worked: "Teacher Ming, I have discovered your weakness again."
"What?"
"You're afraid of ghosts."
"I'm not afraid of ghosts." Ming Qiao argued, "It's just that 'he' came up to me suddenly and I didn't have time to react, so I got scared. Ghost movies all use this routine. And there are no ghosts in the world. I'm a staunch materialist."
"Okay." Shi Xin felt that Mingqiao was more and more interesting.
"How long have we been here?" Mingqiao asked.
"I don't know, maybe two or three hours?"
"It should be dark outside then."
"Yeah." Shi Xin wiped the sweat off his face: "It's seven or eight o'clock. It's getting dark."
Mingqiao couldn't help but worry about Zhang Wanqiao and the others.
The playground is not like the cafeteria. At least the cafeteria can shelter from wind and rain, but the playground is bare and there is not even a shelter from the wind. Although it is summer, the weather at night is inevitably getting cooler. Even if Zhang Wanqiao can bear it, the three students can't.
"We have to hurry up a bit," Mingqiao urged.
"It's already very fast." Shi Xin exerted force with his hands, and the soil next to him collapsed suddenly.
He originally thought that he had dug through the hole, but the next second, thick red liquid spurted out from the hole. Fortunately, Shi Xin dodged quickly and was not splashed.
"Dug through?" Mingqiao looked at it in surprise.
"This seems to be acid water." Shi Xin watched the screwdriver he dropped on the ground being swallowed up bit by bit, emitting pungent white smoke, and immediately pulled Ming Qiao up: "Let's go."
Ming Qiao looked at the tightening wooden door and gritted his teeth: "Now we can only run into that trap door."
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