Chapter 49: The Basement

After carefully observing the structure of the first-floor bathroom once more, Lü Yang returned to the second floor.

The sink counter in the second-floor bathroom was noticeably wider. After comparing the layout of the first-floor bathroom with the second-floor one, Lü Yang crouched down to inspect the glass cabinet beneath the second-floor bathroom sink. The cabinet door was made of dark glass, but it didn’t look like glass because he couldn’t see inside. Instead, it reflected Lü Yang’s face, similar to a mirror.

The glass cabinet door was fastened with a snap lock. Lü Yang pried it open and felt around inside. There seemed to be some mechanism that could open a hidden door, but after studying it for a long time, Lü Yang couldn’t figure out where the mechanism was. He didn’t dare spend too much time on it, so he simply used a hammer and pliers to forcefully break one of the connections. Finally, he managed to open the first hidden door.

After lifting this thick glass panel, which was similar to the cabinet door, Lü Yang also raised a stone slab that looked no different from the surrounding floor. The passage to the basement was finally revealed before his eyes.

He had inspected this area earlier but never imagined there would be a hidden door here. It had to be said that Chen Yonggui’s basement design was extremely well-concealed—the entrance wasn’t on the first floor but on the second. If Lü Yang hadn’t been unusually sensitive to the structure and piping of the house, he might not have noticed the peculiarity.

It was already late, and Chen Yonggui and his family could return at any moment. Lü Yang didn’t dare waste any time. After opening the hidden door, he immediately crawled in backward.

When Lü Yang closed the snap lock on the outer glass cabinet door, he was surprised to discover that the thick glass door, which looked like a mirror, was actually made of one-way glass. From outside the cabinet, you couldn’t see in, but from inside, you could clearly see everything outside!

Once inside the passage, Lü Yang found a mechanism switch. It seemed to be used for closing the two hidden doors after someone entered. However, since the mechanism for the entrance had been broken by Lü Yang, it would be difficult to use this switch to close the two hidden doors again.

Lü Yang felt a headache coming on. After going down, he wouldn’t be able to fully restore the hidden door. If anyone returned and opened the glass cabinet door during that time, they would immediately discover the intrusion.

He had to hurry. He needed to find the safe, retrieve the loan note and mobile phone recording, and leave before the Chen family returned. Otherwise, if he got trapped inside, he would have to waste Eerie Points to exchange for an Invisibility Card to escape.

The passage below was only wide enough for one person but relatively spacious. The walls were tiled, and a stainless steel ladder led straight down to the bottom, making it quite tidy. It seemed this hidden room had been planned during the construction of the house.

Soon, Lü Yang descended through the entire passage and reached the underground secret room. The room was very dark. Lü Yang felt along the wall and quickly found a switch. After turning it on, the room lit up.

The secret room was about twenty square meters. It had a bed, a toilet, and a sink, making it suitable for someone to hide there long-term. It was unclear why Chen Yonggui built such a basement, but no one was living there at the moment.

Lü Yang looked around. Two walls of the room were lined with wooden cabinets. What excited him was that the color and style of these cabinets matched exactly those in the last video where the safe was hidden. It seemed he hadn’t come to the wrong place!

However, since two entire walls were covered with cabinets of this style, it would take some effort to locate the safe hidden behind one of them.

After opening the wooden cabinets, he found they were filled with expensive cigarettes, alcohol, calligraphy, paintings, pottery, jade, and similar items. Lü Yang didn’t know much about these things, but judging by the brands of the cigarettes and alcohol and the craftsmanship of the items, he guessed they were all quite valuable.

Lü Yang tapped on each cabinet panel and felt around carefully. After more than ten minutes, he finally identified a specific panel. Carefully removing it revealed the door of the safe inside.

Was everything going too smoothly?

If he overlooked the kidnapping incident he was unexpectedly involved in yesterday, this Supernatural Task—helping Sister Mei seek justice and earning five Eerie Points—didn’t seem too difficult.

Suppressing his excitement, Lü Yang entered the code he had seen in the video, one digit at a time. After inputting over ten digits and pressing the confirm button, the safe emitted a crisp “ding!” sound, and the thick iron door popped open automatically.

The iron box that Li Fuqiang had handed to the woman was clearly inside. It had to be said that without the videos provided by the Mysterious Domain, it would have been very hard for anyone to find this place.

Besides the iron box, the safe contained more than ten gold bars, several stacks of U.S. dollars, and several stacks of Hong Kong dollars. The total value seemed to be at least around one million RMB.

Lü Yang took the iron box, opened the lid, and looked inside. A loan note and a mobile phone lay quietly inside. The phone’s battery had been removed but was also placed in the iron box. At this point, the Supernatural Task was almost complete, but the Eerie Computer hadn’t announced the reward yet. It seemed he still needed to safely take this evidence out of Chen Yonggui’s house and hand it over to the authorities.

After taking the iron box, Lü Yang stared at the gold bars and stacks of U.S. and Hong Kong dollars for a long time, considering whether to take them. His original purpose in taking the iron box was to seek justice for Sister Mei. If he now coveted the wealth and took other items from the safe, it wouldn’t be right.

However…

If the loan note and mobile phone recording were handed over to the police, and they solved the case, bringing Li Weimin and Li Fuqiang to justice, but these people had already transferred their assets, wouldn’t Sister Mei be unable to recover her twenty million?

After all, twenty million wasn’t a small amount, and the possibility of not getting it back was very high. If Lü Yang took these gold bars and dollars, even if Li Weimin and the others transferred their assets later, these items could partially compensate for Sister Mei’s losses.

Since Chen Yonggui was helping Li Fuqiang hide evidence of a crime, he probably wasn’t a good person either. These gold bars were likely ill-gotten gains hidden here. Taking them for Sister Mei couldn’t be wrong.

In that case, he would keep them for Sister Mei for now.

Lü Yang packed the iron box, gold bars, U.S. dollars, and Hong Kong dollars into his tool bag. After restoring everything to its original state and wiping away any possible traces, he shouldered his bag, turned off the light, returned to the secret passage, and climbed back up the stainless steel ladder.

Just as Lü Yang emerged from the cabinet under the sink and was about to replace the two layers of panels in the glass cabinet to leave, he heard laughter and voices from outside. Startled, he held his breath, quickly retreated back into the cabinet under the sink to hide temporarily, and pressed his ear against the cabinet door to listen.

Oh no! There wasn’t just one person speaking outside—there were at least seven or eight people!

Hiding in the cabinet under the sink and looking out from inside made Lü Yang feel like he was in a glass cabinet, which made him very uneasy. But now, the panel below was already covered, and he was squatting on the cabinet board himself, so it was impossible to lift the board and go back down to the basement.

It was just Lü Yang’s bad luck that he had come at the worst possible time. Chen Yonggui held a position in the Lutou Town government, with considerable power. Today happened to be his daughter Chen Xingyu’s fourteenth birthday. Relatives, friends, colleagues, and several of Chen Xingyu’s close classmates had all come to celebrate her birthday.