Chapter 130: The Terrifying Stumbling Block

The first floor of this nursing home for educated youth consists only of eastern and western corridors, with staircases leading to the upper floors at the end of each.

Directly opposite the main entrance is a lobby, which is where the two men had just entered. The lobby is empty, with sewage constantly seeping through cracks in the ceiling. The chandelier that once hung there is gone, leaving only a dark, gaping hole filled with a tangled mess of blackened, corroded, and rusted wires. Faded, mottled patterns still cling to the ceiling; though blurred by time, one can faintly discern the artistic style of the fifties and sixties, interspersed with some oil paintings featuring the distinct cultural motifs of the Kang tribe.

The prairie is dry and arid, yet the interior of this abandoned building is remarkably damp. Stagnant water covers the floor of the empty corridor, which features rooms only on one side. There are five compartments in total, their doors marked with illegible, weathered seals. These doors are bound by heavy iron chains, tangled into a chaotic mess and secured with padlocks that have mostly fused into solid, rust-covered lumps.

Li Tianque fumbled until he found a padlock and struck it hard a few times. Red flakes of rust showered down from the heavy lock, producing a dull, thudding sound.

"Why are you knocking on this door? There’s no nuclear organism nearby, and it’s not like it could walk through walls to get in," Fatso Bi asked, looking surprised.

Li Tianque did not answer, continuing to scan and observe. His intuition told him that these locked rooms held some important clue. The five rooms were not far apart, and Li Tianque finished checking them quickly. Just as he was about to turn back to check the rooms in the other corridor, he clearly heard a strange sound.

Listening closely, he realized a soft, whimpering sound was coming from the first locked room he had passed. Li Tianque’s heart skipped a beat; in such a silent environment, the sudden sound was quite chilling.

"...training in auditory localization, that sound definitely came from this room. It’s so quiet here, I couldn't have heard it wrong."

"Forget it. Regardless of whether it’s the person who was abducted, let’s go in and see for ourselves!"

With that, Li Tianque unhooked a hammer from his gear and began to strike the door with force. He had assumed the lock would be brittle from the rust and would shatter after a few blows. To his surprise, the rust was only a surface layer, and the core of the lock remained intact. He hammered away repeatedly, but only managed to knock off a thick layer of rust; the loop inside remained stubborn and strong.

The main issue was that the small, makeshift hammer he carried lacked the necessary force. Li Tianque struck harder, his wrists numbing from the impact, but the only response was a hollow, buzzing echo in the corridor—the iron lock refused to break.

"Huff... this damn lock is tough. I guess the craftsmanship from that era really is beyond reproach," Li Tianque panted, shaking his aching wrists.

"Tsk, you little sparrow, you’re not up to the task. You’ve got to leave it to an old hawk like me!" Fatso Bi said, pulling out his own hammer and walking to the door.

He didn't strike immediately. Instead, he carefully inspected the lock and picked up an iron bar from the floor. It was blackened with rust, but one could faintly tell it had once been some sort of medical instrument. Rather than using brute force like Li Tianque, he slowly wedged the iron bar into the mounting ring where the chain met the door panel.

Once the bar was inserted into the deepest part of the joint, Fatso Bi swung his hammer with a sharp, focused strike. With a crisp snap, the already corroded ring broke, and the chain clattered to the floor.

"Haha, leave it to the professionals," Li Tianque said, feeling a bit embarrassed that he hadn't thought of such a simple method.

"What professional? You just lack life experience," Fatso Bi said with a grin.

"This has nothing to do with life experience, Brother Bi. Are you so handy at this because you're always picking the locks of widows' doors..."

"Pfft, if I were going to pick a lock, I’d pick..."

Before Fatso Bi could finish, he suddenly froze, his features stiffening as if he had seen a ghost. He pointed a trembling finger toward the space behind Li Tianque.

"What the hell... what kind of monster is that!" Fatso Bi shrieked.

Startled, Li Tianque spun around. All he saw was a black shadow flickering past, followed by a clattering sound from the staircase at the end of the hall, as if something was fleeing. The noise was heavy and powerful, like a rampaging bull crashing through the building.

Seeing this, Li Tianque gave chase without hesitation, reporting into his walkie-talkie to Ling Chi: "Discovery on the first floor of the main building. It’s very likely the target nuclear organism!"

"No, that’s not a nuclear organism."

As he spoke, Fatso Bi ran frantically after Li Tianque toward the stairwell, splashing through the stagnant water in the corridor. The two were moving in such a hurry that Li Tianque’s foot slipped, and he tumbled hard onto the floor.

Li Tianque’s face was splashed with muddy water, and he struggled to get up. As he pushed off the ground, he felt something slippery, like small pebbles, beneath his hands, and he nearly slipped again. He picked up his flashlight and shone it at the floor, only to realize that what he had touched were not pebbles at all.