Skin - Chapter 42

Chapter 42 – A Possible Breakthrough

　　Although he was full of doubts about Lu Shichen’s motives and actions, it was not the time to dwell on them. Meng Zhao planned to find time to ask Lu Shichen after he got out. The most urgent thing was that he had to transfer the seven people here first.

　　Meng Zhao flashed the light at the iron door at the end. The door seemed thicker than the one from earlier. The two bullets Meng Zhao fired only left two grooves on the iron door and did not even penetrate it.

　　‘How meticulous must the person who built this basement be to design such a maze-like entrance and such a foolproof escape exit…?’

　　Meng Zhao was planning how to transfer the seven people when he heard footsteps outside.

　　Although the bullets in the gun were used up, Meng Zhao still subconsciously gripped the gun tightly and flashed it in front of Lu Shichen. As he walked over, he glanced at Lu Shichen. It seemed that after seeing the old woman, Lu Shichen seemed to be worried.

　　”Be careful.” He grabbed Lu Shichen’s wrist and pressed him against the wall, ready to guard against any approaching danger.

　　”Brother Zhao, it’s me.” After hearing Zhou Qiyang’s voice, Meng Zhao breathed a sigh of relief and let down his guard.

　　Zhou Qiyang ran over breathlessly: “I heard gunshots from up there, and I thought you guys were fighting with the people down there, so I came down quickly. Are you okay?”

　　Meng Zhao shook his head and said, “There was no fight. They were very cautious and chose to escape and transfer the hostages.”

　　”Escaped?! Hostage…” Zhou Qiyang saw the two beds in the corridor at this time, “That person… is it Xu Yingying? Who is that one?”

　　”There’s more in the room.” Meng Zhao turned his head towards the room.

　　Zhou Qiyang walked to the door of the room and took a breath of cold air: “This… is this the underground morgue?”

　　”Don’t talk nonsense,” Meng Zhao walked over and scolded, “Don’t you see that these people have tubes inserted into their bodies? No one is dead.”

　　Zhou Qiyang was so shocked by the scene before him that he was speechless.

　　”Don’t just stand there,” Meng Zhao urged, “Find a way to open that iron gate. The person may not have gone far. We must catch up with him as soon as possible.”

　　Zhou Qiyang walked to the iron gate and touched the dents made by bullets on it with his fingers: “Even bullets have a hard time penetrating it…”

　　He clenched his fist and hammered the iron door twice. He leaned against the door and listened to the movement on the other side. After a moment, he stood up and said, “It’s one of those old-fashioned big iron locks. It looks like we can only force our way in.” He leaned closer to look at the gap between the two iron doors. “Fortunately, there is a gap here. We should be able to do something with tools.”

　　”Did you bring the tools?” Meng Zhao asked.

　　”I have them in the trunk of my car. I took them out for something similar before, but I never put them away. I’ll go get them!” Zhou Qiyang said, and ran out of the underground passage.

　　While waiting for Zhou Qiyang to get the lock-picking tools, Meng Zhao took photos with his mobile phone to preserve the evidence and searched every room thoroughly.

　　Lu Shichen had been leaning against the door frame, looking at the old woman on the hospital bed from time to time, as if he was thinking about something.

　　Meng Zhao finished taking photographs and came over to ask Lu Shichen tentatively, “You said that the other girls all looked to be around 20 years old, so why is there an old woman hidden here?”

　　”I don’t know.” Lu Shichen looked at him and said briefly.

　　Meng Zhao didn’t ask any more questions. It seemed that Lu Shichen had given only so much information about the case.

　　Meng Zhao leaned his back against the wall, reviewing the process of entering this underground secret room that night.

　　It seemed that since he saw the surveillance footage of Xu Yingying coming out of the sanatorium, Lu Shichen had already determined that the problem lay with the sanatorium.

　　Later, Lu Shichen guessed that there was an underground space hidden in the sanatorium.

　　What’s even more strange is that after climbing over the wall and entering the sanatorium, Lu Shichen didn’t seem to hesitate at all when facing the garden with so many forks in the road. Now that he thought about it, from entering the garden to discovering the lawn leading to the secret room, Lu Shichen didn’t take any detours. He chose the nearest shortcut among all the forks in the road.

　　Meng Zhao himself had an excellent sense of direction, but the light in the garden was dim at the time and the paths were interconnected. For a moment, he had no idea which direction to take his first step.

　　Lu Shichen said before that he had come to visit his grandmother. ‘Could it be that he had accompanied his grandmother here before and accidentally discovered this underground space?’

　　’Not really.’ Meng Zhao glanced at Lu Shichen who was sitting diagonally opposite him. From his reaction just now, it seemed that he had another purpose in going down to this basement, and it was a clear purpose.

　　From the initial Zhou Yan case to the subsequent bullying case, and then to the current nursing home imprisonment case, the developments in between were unexpected even to Meng Zhao himself, and Lu Shichen’s relationship with this case is still ongoing.

　　‘What is the relationship between Lu Shichen and this case…?’

　　At this moment, footsteps were heard, and Zhou Qiyang ran over again breathlessly with the tools for forced unlocking: “Brother Zhao, I’m back!”

　　”There is a socket in the pharmacy. Give me the plug and try to see if the wire is long enough.” Meng Zhao took the plug from him, walked to the pharmacy and plugged it into the socket.

　　Zhou Qiyang tried it outside and said, “It works!”

　　Zhou Qiyang tried to insert the sharp tool head into the gap of the door, and a hissing noise was heard. A few minutes later, the iron lock behind the door was violently dismantled and fell to the ground with a “clang”.

　　The two iron doors slowly opened, revealing a long, narrow and dark passage.

　　Compared to the underground space just now, this underground passage was more crude. Meng Zhao turned on the flashlight and flashed it on the uneven stone walls around it.

　　Then he half-knelt down, supported his knees on the ground, and flashed the flashlight on the ground.

　　”Blood stains?” Zhou Qiyang also squatted down, “Why are there blood stains?”

　　”I fired a shot and hit a man in the leg,” Meng Zhao said. “I wanted to take him back for questioning, but he was rescued by another person. Let’s follow the blood trail.” He turned around and looked at Lu Shichen, “What about you? Are you coming with me?”

　　”I’ll just stay here.” Lu Shichen didn’t seem to have any intention of leaving.

　　‘Leaving Lu Shichen here alone? I always feel a little uneasy about it…’ However, since the entrance is locked, the exit should also be locked. I must take Zhou Qiyang with me, and this basement also cannot be left unattended.’ Thinking about it this way, letting Lu Shichen stay here is also a solution.

　　”Then you better be careful.” Meng Zhao reminded him.

　　Lu Shichen responded with a “hmm”.

　　”If there is danger, escape through the exit, don’t hesitate.” Meng Zhao said again, then left with Zhou Qiyang.

　　The two quickened their pace and chased after him along the passage. The passage was several hundred meters long, dark and narrow, and the sound of footsteps was amplified by the echo and could be heard clearly.

　　Sure enough, there was another staircase at the end of the passage. Stepping up the staircase, the outline of a square iron door appeared in front of Meng Zhao again – exactly the same as the square iron door at the entrance.

　　Fortunately, this time they were well prepared. Zhou Qiyang opened the lock and walked out first, and Meng Zhao followed closely behind.

　　It opened to a windowless space of less than 15 square meters, surrounded by simple gray concrete walls, the air seems to be damp.

　　Zhou Qiyang opened the door of this space again. Meng Zhao pushed the door and walked out. He stood in the aisle and looked at the place. Then he quickly realized that this was the basement of an old residential building.

　　The residential building was quiet late at night, filled with an atmosphere of sleep.

　　Meng Zhao shined the flashlight on the ground, and when he came out of the basement, the bloodstains disappeared…

　　”It seems that they should have treated their wounds urgently, or someone came to pick them up.” Meng Zhao speculated, and took out his mobile phone to call his colleague on duty in the bureau: “Immediately issue a joint investigation notice and ask all traffic checkpoints to pay attention to whether there is a person with a bullet wound in the right leg hiding in the car.”

　　After hanging up the phone, he instructed Zhou Qiyang: “Find someone to apply for a search warrant and search all the surrounding residential areas and commercial buildings. Also, after daybreak, find out who this basement belongs to and who it was rented to. Find out everything at once.”

　　”Okay.” Zhou Qiyang responded, and his phone rang at this time.

　　After talking on the phone for a few words, Zhou Qiyang looked up at Meng Zhao and said, “Brother Zhao, all the brothers in the bureau are here.”

　　”Let’s go and meet them and move out everyone in the basement.” After Meng Zhao finished speaking, he and Zhou Qiyang returned to the basement along the original route.

　　When they returned, Lu Shichen was still leaning against the door frame, just like when they had left. He seemed to be slightly absent-minded.

　　There were hurried and chaotic footsteps in the corridor, and more than a dozen colleagues from the bureau rushed over.

　　Meng Zhao directed these people to push the bed out of the room and move away from the underground passage.

　　Outside the nursing home, the sirens of police cars and ambulances rang out. The people in the seven beds were laid flat on stretchers and sent to ambulances by medical workers.

　　Meng Zhao and Lu Shichen also walked out of the basement.

　　When his feet touched the ground and he breathed the outside air, Meng Zhao felt that he had returned to the world again, and the scenes he had just witnessed in the basement seemed like an absurd nightmare.

　　The colleagues and paramedics behind him sent all the people from the basement to the ambulance. They were finishing up the work. Meng Zhao gathered the people from the Municipal Bureau together and arranged the next tasks: “I will go with the ambulance. Xiao Zhou and Brother Bin will stay. Three tasks: first, immediately control Wu Weihan; second, seal off the sanatorium and summon all the people in charge and the staff of the sanatorium to the Municipal Bureau for interrogation overnight; third, search the residential buildings around the basement. The sooner the better.”

　　After he finished speaking, he looked at Lu Shichen again. Lu Shichen still looked thoughtful, and it was hard to guess what he was thinking at the moment, but Meng Zhao was sure that Lu Shichen’s trip to the basement must have had different results from what he expected. Otherwise he would not have been so abnormal despite always being calm.

　　Noticing Meng Zhao’s observation, Lu Shichen also looked at him: “Then I’ll leave.”

　　”How about I find someone to take you back?” Meng Zhao asked. He always felt a little uneasy about driving on the road in Lu Shichen’s current state.

　　”No need.” Lu Shichen refused briefly, then turned and walked out of the sanatorium.

　　Seeing Lu Shichen walking away, Meng Zhao also got in the ambulance. The door closed and the ambulance drove to the entrance of the sanatorium. When passing the entrance, Lu Shichen had just walked out of the sanatorium. Meng Zhao looked at him through the car window.

　　At eleven o’clock in the evening, the traffic on the road had cleared, the road was clear, and an ambulance rushed past.

　　Meng Zhao sat by the window in the ambulance, looking at the seven unconscious women lying side by side in the car. His eyes fell on the elderly woman, who looked to be in her seventies or eighties, and looked out of place compared to the other six girls in their twenties.

　　‘It seems that Lu Shichen is concerned about this old woman. Who is this woman? Why is she locked up with these girls? What is Lu Shichen looking for?’

　　Meng Zhao turned his head and looked through the car window again. Lu Shichen’s Panamera was driving in another lane, slightly behind the ambulance.

　　Meng Zhao fell into deep thought. After a moment, he let out a breath.

　　‘Let’s put aside the mystery of Lu Shichen for now. No matter what, Xu Yingying and Xu Yulin were found tonight, which is a big progress. The sanatorium, Xu Yingying, the exit of the underground passage… may all become breakthroughs in the next investigation.’

　　The tense mood of the past few hours made Meng Zhao feel a little tired. He leaned back in his chair and was about to relax himself. He glanced out of the car window inadvertently, and then his pupils suddenly shrank.

　　At this time, the ambulance was passing through the intersection, and on the road on the other side, less than fifty meters away, a truck several meters high came straight towards them from the intersection next to them, with no sign of braking!