Chapter 135: Catch Them All
"People outside, didn't we agree to keep out of each other's way? What do you mean by this?" Clark bravely shouted outside the church.
"Mind your own business? You foreigner, you know quite a few Chinese words!" Du Yunzhang sneered. "No matter what, this is our Chinese territory. You can't just sit there and do nothing! Come out and listen to your orders, or we'll march in and leave no one alive!"
Clark suppressed his anger and argued with Du Yunzhang for a few more sentences, but it seemed like they were talking at cross purposes and could not reach an agreement at all.
"Hey! Everyone, be alert and defend the church tightly. Don't let them get in easily! Do you hear me?" Clark ordered the church members.
All the believers agreed in unison, their voices so loud that they could be heard clearly outside.
Yin Chuan and Linlang exchanged a smile; it seemed their plan had worked. Looking at their watches, it was already past eleven at night. Du Yunzhang had divided over twenty Cao Gang members into several teams, who took turns harassing and shouting at the church entrance, leaving the congregants restless. Meanwhile, Luo Mei and five agile Cao Gang members were stationed at the entrance to the secret passage beneath the confessional, ready to apprehend anyone who showed their face.
Jiandujie said that after a night had passed and the next day, just as the light was beginning to rise, news came from the secret passage that Luo Mei and several brothers had recently captured seven or eight believers who had slipped out of the secret door, including their leader Clark.
"Okay, it's time to close the net." Linlang said with a smile.
Du Yunzhang understood and whistled to all the brothers of the Cao Gang. They had been holding back for a whole night, and now when they heard the order from their leader, they immediately broke open the church door like a tiger descending from the mountain and rushed in.
What they didn't expect was that there was no resistance at all from inside. The dozen or so remaining believers were either dozing against the wall or simply lying on the benches and snoring. No one noticed that the other party had broken in.
"Haha, Linlang's strategy of tiring the enemy and then waiting for them to tire out is really brilliant. Tie them all up!" Du Yunzhang gave the order with a big laugh.
Soon, Linlang also brought several captured people to reunite with the others. Yin Chuan smiled and said, "I know why you were apprehensive about Linlang's plan. You must have been worried that Clark and his men would be desperate enough to storm out of the church, causing losses to the Cao Gang, right? Actually, you don't have to worry. Clark and his men are always keeping an eye on the outside. Ever since their last failed attempt to force their way through the secret passage, while they were lucky enough to let the gang escape, they've realized that forcing their way in like this is a dead end and will only result in the loss of their own people. So, even if they hold out, they won't rush out again. And these believers are all the same; they simply don't have the courage to risk it."
"Clark is over there, shall we go and interrogate him?" Luo Mei pointed behind him.
"You guys go and ask, I want to go inside the church and take a look." Yin Chuan didn't seem to have much interest in interrogating Clark.
Linlang immediately guessed what he was thinking, "You want to see how the secret room in the confessional was made, right?"
"That's right." Yin Chuan nodded.
"Then I'll go with you."
"That's fine. After all, you were the one who first discovered the secret room and the severed limbs inside. I imagine it's no longer the same as it was back then, so I'm sure you'll need to help me point out any changes."
The two of them walked together into the church. The confessional was in the north corner, a wooden room only about three or four square meters, separated by a wooden wall. Above it were diamond-shaped latticed windows, the latticework so fine that it was difficult to see inside without looking closely. The door in front of the confessional was open, and behind it were steps leading to a secret passage below.
"Is this the place?" Yin Chuan pointed forward.
"Yes, it's here. There are usually rooms like this in Western churches. It's where believers can make personal spiritual confessions to the priest or confide some private matters." Linlang explained.
Yin Chuan nodded and walked into the room, which was the confessor's side.
"You were right here when you saw a severed limb inside?"
"The severed limb was right there!" Linlang pointed inside through the barred window.
Yin Chuan walked around to the back of the confessional, where the entrance to the priest's quarters was located. A curtain hung over it, and the door was adjacent to the entrance to the secret passage below. He suddenly noticed a sunken sink beneath the entrance to the confessional's back door. It was damp, but no water was flowing. The sink was small, entering through a palm-sized hole in the secret passage below, leading directly into the confessional. Yin Chuan opened the wooden door, and the sink extended to a drain hole under the partition.
"What is this sink used for? Are there such things in confessionals in foreign churches?" Yin Chuan asked Linlang.
Linlang leaned over to take a look, frowning and saying, "I've never seen a sink like this in a foreign church. Could it be that the believers here deliberately built a sewer?"
"This sink has a very strange design. One end of it comes from a secret passage below, and the other end leads to the drain hole. With both ends pointing downward, how can the water flow?"
"Yeah, it's a bit strange indeed." Linlang also noticed the oddity.
"Eh? Wait..." Yin Chuan seemed to remember something. "Remember when you and I first explored the secret passage from the storage room in the hospital basement to the church, we heard the sound of running water overhead. I think it must be the water from the canals around the garden that irrigates the flower beds. Maybe the water in this trough also comes from the canals in the flower beds."
"That's not right!" Linlang was a little confused. "Isn't the canal right next to the flowerbed across the wall? It comes from the secret door below. You can't tell me that water will flow from the bottom up, right?"
Yin Chuan smiled and said, "Of course water won't flow from the bottom up, and I didn't say the water came from the secret door."
"Where did that come from?"
Yin Chuan didn't answer directly. Instead, he walked to the wall behind the confessional, where a colorful glass window faced the corner of the flower garden canal. Yin Chuan casually touched the windowsill and found a bamboo tube over two meters long and half a finger wide. The middle of the bamboo tube had been opened up, like a pipe.
"Look, I guessed there is such a thing in nine out of ten cases, and sure enough!" Yin Chuan said, connecting one end of the bamboo tube to the position before the sink goes down, and the other end to a hole in the wall of the church at an angle of fifteen degrees. The length was just right, and it was enough to firmly clamp the two ends, and it could not be moved at all without exerting force.
"So that's how it is! I understand how this secret room was created!" Yin Chuan suddenly realized.
"Oh? You figured it out so quickly? What's going on?"
Yin Chuan shook his hand. "Let's put the technique aside for now. Linlang, go ask Du Yunzhang to bring Clark here. I need to ask him a few questions. And I'll need you to translate for me."
"No problem, leave it to me. And I have something to ask him too!"
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