Sun Han and Du Jun locked the guard in a freezer. The freezer was powered off when empty, but it was automatically powered on after the body was put in, and the temperature inside the freezer dropped significantly.
Before this, Du Jun had checked and found that the style of the box was no different from that of the morgue's freezer, and there was no trace of any hidden door.
Cheng Shuang and Han Meimei also found nothing. The room where the guard was staying was very simple, with only a desk, a single bed and a chair. There were quite a few personal belongings, odds and ends, which filled the table and bedside. Because the basement was not well ventilated, there was a strange smell in the room.
The two women, one big and one small, held their breath, their faces flushed. They wanted to leave the room immediately after finding no clues, but Han Meimei was unwilling to give up. In the end, she reached into the drawer under the desk.
There were two drawers on each side of the desk. Perhaps because it was used by a man, the handles were a bit dirty. When the girl saw Han Meimei pinching the handles with two fingers and looking disgusted, she stopped her in time, gave her a pair of gloves, and put on a pair for herself. She then started rummaging through the two drawers on the other side.
The first drawer contained a set of keys, a roll of toilet paper, some odds and ends, and a ballpoint pen.
Cheng Shuang took out the bunch of keys and examined them closely. Each key had a label on its handle with numbers that resembled room numbers.
The young girl carefully recalled the scene she observed when she entered the building complex. There were no door numbers on the outer walls of the office area; instead, the buildings were named after research projects, such as the Silver-backed Bird and the Walnut Tree.
Unless the silver-backed bird represents some kind of number, this bunch of keys is definitely not a spare key for the standalone office building above.
Could it be a residential area?
But why would the morgue guards have keys to the residential area?
Cheng Shuang didn't understand, so she put the key away first. When she was about to open the second drawer, she noticed something was wrong.
The second drawer looks ordinary, but when you pull it, a projected image immediately appears. The red virtual image is attached to the entire drawer handle and is a row of numbers. Below it, there is a prompt to enter a password or fingerprint to unlock.
The young girl dared not guess the password, for fear of triggering any alarms if she guessed wrong. So the two men who had just stuffed the guard into the freezer went to great lengths to carry him out, but by then the guard's body temperature had dropped to a certain level, and the fingerprint lock couldn't detect him for a while.
The little girl took out a hand warmer and stuck it on his finger. Two minutes later, she tried again and the lock opened.
The locked drawer didn't contain much: a duty roster, two weapons, and a stainless steel lunchbox.
Du Jun picked up the duty roster, Sun Han studied the weapon that was the size and shape of a revolver, and Cheng Shuang took out her lunchbox.
Han Meimei glanced at the three of them from time to time. The drawer she was looking at was full of useless personal items. In order to prevent the guards from waking up early without them noticing, the task of supervising the guards temporarily fell on her shoulders.
Du Jun flipped through the duty roster a few times and found that the guards at the gate were also in groups of four, taking turns to guard the two basement gates.
The reason it is described as two basements is because one is marked as an underground morgue and the other as an underground sanatorium.
Perhaps they came to the wrong place from the start.
Who would have thought that the basement of the office area was simply used to house corpses, while a so-called sanatorium was hidden in the basement of the residential area?
If they had gone to a sanatorium in a residential area first, and seen the logo hanging on the basement door, they would probably have subconsciously assumed that it was a place for staff and their families of the Academy of Sciences to receive medical treatment or even relax.
At this moment, Cheng Shuang also opened the lunchbox. Inside were leaves that emitted the scent of sandalwood. The leaves were of ordinary shape, but the group recognized them. They were the leaves from the row of sparsely leafed shrubs that separated the garden from the bushes.
The little girl asked, "Do you think the smell in this room is a bit mixed? The smell of these leaves is even more unpleasant than this."
Han Meimei turned around, saw the green leaves in the lunchbox, raised her eyebrows and explained, "At first we thought it was because men didn't pay attention to hygiene, which led to the unavoidable dirt and mess at the workplace. Now it seems that prejudice is harmful."
Du Jun and Sun Han exchanged a glance, and Sun Han retorted with amusement, "Do you two have some kind of misunderstanding about men?"
Han Meimei shrugged, not intending to delve into this unfriendly topic.
Du Jun remembered the shift change time, put the duty roster back, picked up a green leaf, smelled it, and then lifted the lid of four different water cups on the desk. Each cup contained a yellowed leaf, and the strange smell in the room came from them.
The flavor was stronger now.
The combination of fragrant and foul smells in the cramped space was truly unbearable.
"It seems the leaves really do have some kind of effect, otherwise how could anyone drink something so awful!" Cheng Shuang puffed out her cheeks and then said, "No wonder the guards in the garden didn't carry leaves with them; they only work if you drink them!"
The group divided the leaves among themselves. They didn't have time to soak them in water to drink; if it were a critical moment, they would swallow them raw if possible, and who cared about the formalities?
Han Meimei recalled the two guards who had been thrown into the bushes and couldn't help but worry. If the guards above had also drunk the leaf-infused water, and then made a ruckus after waking up, they wouldn't attract those unknown 'little animals'; instead, they would attract rescue efforts and expose themselves.
The little girl waved her hand, telling her to relax, "Luo An is on his way. If they wake up, he'll just gag them."
"They're lucky!" Han Meimei muttered angrily.
The four of them discussed it and decided not to put the unconscious guard back into the freezer, since he wouldn't stay in the morgue for long anyway. They put him on a chair, placed the ball at his feet, and then returned everything to its original state.
When the person wakes up, they don't care whether they have a nightmare or something else.
To avoid alerting the enemy, Cheng Shuang returned the bunch of keys. Of course, beforehand, she carefully observed them and showed her findings to everyone: "The key with the house number 123 is the most worn. Do you think that building 123 might be the entrance to the basement?"
"We'll only know if we try." Sun Han patted the little girl's head, glanced at the time, and said, "It's already 10:30. The restaurant opens for business and closes at 12:30. We don't have much time left."
“The garden guards change shifts at 1 a.m.,” Du Jun added.
So they need to find Li Lei before 1 o'clock.
By then, even if the Academy of Sciences investigates and turns against them, they won't necessarily have to stay here any longer. On the contrary, they can take the opportunity to find out the Academy's bottom line regarding whether they stay or leave.
As usual, it was Sang Sang who went to scout ahead. The four of them avoided the guards wandering around the residential area and arrived at Building 123.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
