Chapter 100: Secrets Of The Tunnel
After a misunderstanding was resolved, Drake did not leave immediately, but instead detected something unusual from the clues stated by the law enforcement officers.
There are no surveillance cameras installed nearby the tunnel, but this is not because they were unwilling to install them; rather, for some unknown reason, every surveillance camera aimed at the tunnel would malfunction and break down shortly after due to inexplicable reasons.
At first, everyone thought it was some ill-intentioned fool doing it on purpose, so they specially sent people to stake out, but strangely, even after the stakeout observers watched for a whole day, they did not see anyone destroying the surveillance cameras, yet the cameras still broke down inexplicably.
After repeated incidents with too great losses, they simply stopped specially installing surveillance equipment nearby the tunnel, but increased the patrol intensity on this street.
“Have you investigated the specific reason why the tunnel cannot be used?” Drake curiously inquired of the two law enforcement officers responsible for the boy’s disappearance case.
The middle-aged law enforcement officer shook his head: “No definite answer.”
The young law enforcement officer weakly raised his hand, “But there are a few theories about this tunnel.”
“What theories?” Drake asked curiously.
The middle-aged law enforcement officer frowned and glanced at the young law enforcement officer, seeming dissatisfied with the young law enforcement officer’s impending unrigorous remarks, but seeing that Drake seemed very curious about it, he did not stop him.
The young law enforcement officer said: “This tunnel used to be an air-raid shelter, with a branch road leading underground, but later the world was at peace, the original air-raid shelter was no longer needed, so it was filled and rebuilt into the current tunnel.”
“I’ve heard of this.” Drake still remembered that the boy had roughly mentioned it to him yesterday.
The young law enforcement officer suddenly put on a solemn and mysterious expression and said in a low voice: “But there’s more you don’t know: before it was an air-raid shelter, this place was actually a mass grave.”
Drake’s brow twitched, signaling the young law enforcement officer to continue.
“It is said that a long time ago, a very serious spreading epidemic occurred nearby, and many people died from it. At that time, there were no means to cure the epidemic, so to handle the corpses and those infected people, the government and the uninfected residents living here at the time buried those infected people and corpses together alive in this mass grave.
Through such means, the epidemic was indeed effectively controlled, but this did not mean all was well.
After the mass grave was buried, for some unknown reason, people passing nearby the mass grave could hear bursts of miserable wails, like the wailing of myriad ghosts, very eerie, and later some even saw illusions of the vengeful spirits of those buried alive underground here that year.
This kind of thing continued until some day later, when it suddenly disappeared.” The young law enforcement officer told the story with ups and downs, not at all like the serious and solemn impression his profession should give; he was more suited to be a storyteller.
Drake sighed: “The story hasn’t ended yet, right?”
The young law enforcement officer saw Drake’s trace of impatience and realized his habit of talking too much had flared up again, awkwardly smiled, and continued: “Yes. Then it came to the near-modern era of numerous nations and warring factions, the time of the World War, and this mass grave that had been peaceful for hundreds of years was dug up again, because they needed to dig an air-raid shelter for the people to evade the flames of war.
But who knew whether their actions destroyed some kind of seal or angered those pacified departed souls again; the events of that year returned with a vengeance, and even serious death incidents occurred.
The workers who dug up the mass grave full of tens of thousands of corpses were scared out of their wits by those skeletons with gruesome deaths; some were too timid and accidentally fell from the opening of the dug hollow layer into the corpse pit, pierced through their bodies by the twisted and sharp skeletons inside, some died on the spot, others later died from wound infections of unknown reason that were difficult to cure, without exception, all died.
But the deaths of a few workers would not stop the government at the time from completing the project; they persisted in digging the air-raid shelter, transported all the corpses from the mass grave out one by one, dumped them into the sea, hoping the terror and strangeness would drift away with the waves and sink into the vast sea, then continued construction.
After several twists and turns, the air-raid shelter was built, but when it was truly put into use, the mysterious power haunting the air-raid shelter had not departed.
When war broke out and enemy forces air-raided this city, all the people who hid in this air-raid shelter were, without exception, driven mad or killed by the mysterious power in the air-raid shelter. After people at the time learned of this horrifying rumor, no one ever went down into this air-raid shelter again.
And just like before, the air-raid shelter also stopped its hauntings one day, and people took the opportunity to seal the air-raid shelter and modify it into the current tunnel, using it as an ordinary road.”
After hearing the young law enforcement officer’s bizarre story, Drake did not rush to criticize or deny the authenticity of the story, but asked: “Didn’t they think to completely seal this air-raid shelter?”
Why leave a tunnel?
The young law enforcement officer spread his hands and said: “I don’t know about that either; it seems some expert advised that just as one cannot cut off someone’s path completely, one should leave a line in doing things, so they also left a breath for the ‘good brothers’ underground and opened this tunnel.”
Drake fell silent; he was not disbelieving of feng shui and geomancy theories, but what the young law enforcement officer said sounded too metaphysical for him to accept easily.
“Alright, stop misleading Mr. Drake’s thinking.” The middle-aged law enforcement officer could not listen anymore and could not help patting the young law enforcement officer on the back, then looked at Drake with slight apology.
But upon hearing this, Drake smiled and said: “No, don’t say that; actually, this has helped broaden my thinking.”
This statement was not false; although the bizarre story told by the young law enforcement officer might have much distortion from the process of information spread, this did not mean its content had no significance.
The mass grave incident might be true; at least the horrific malignant spreading epidemic in the local area mentioned in the story immediately made him associate it with his own mermaid disease.
If it was mermaid disease, then it was indeed helpless for the people back then, after all, this was a “condition” that even modern technology and medicine could not detect or cure.
Drake did not know whether mermaid disease was truly a “condition,” or a special “evolution” of humans, or an atavistic “devolution.”
But in any case, mermaid disease would make him deviate from the scope of normal people; he did not want to become that kind of monster that lost humanity and reason.
It was also because he thought of the mass grave possibly related to mermaid disease that Drake could not help re-examining this tunnel.
Beneath this tunnel, perhaps secrets related to those mermen and big fish were hidden.
Just one update today; forced to work overtime again, I’ll make it up to everyone later（ Sigh）
