The Trembling World

“There are small, fragmented pieces of tissue here…” Jiang JinYuan found the source of the problem as he examined the eyeball. Carefully, he rolled up a thick piece of paper to remove the particle before adjusting the angle of the eyeball for the iris scanner again.

This time the scanning was successful, and the electronic lock opened with a “Beep!” while echoes reverberated throughout the ground. Apart from the sound of the door, there were several tongue-like deadbolts that retracted from the lock. At the same time, the heavy-duty metal door revealed a small crack. Clearly this door didn’t swing inwards; it was the type that slid open by pulling.

“Alright, now just use your brute strength to pull it open. My PDA can generate electricity for the door lock, but it won’t be enough to make the door swing wide open.” Jiang JinYuan said as he put the eyeball back into the incubator bottle and capped it.

Liu Gan dug his fingers into the slim crack of the metal door frame and tried to pull it open, but the opening was simply too narrow. He couldn’t get a grip on the edge.

After thinking of a possible solution, Liu Gan forced the sharp edge of the fire axe into the crack before using it as a lever to widen up the doorway. With that method, his fingers would at least manage to get a better grip. Gathering his strength and with Jiang JinYuan’s help, the both of them were able to move the heavy-duty metal door open ten centimeters, which was just enough for them to slip in.

After slipping through the metal door, Liu Gan peeked inside to make sure the coast was clear. Afterwards, he proceeded to close the metal door until only a two centimeter gap remained. His reasoning behind this was that by the time they returned, they wouldn’t want hidden zombies to wander around and ambush them as they leave.

After closing the heavy-duty metal door, Liu Gan took his flashlight and waved it around. The inside room was a large underground warehouse with a height of six meters, and the ceiling was lined with complex pipelines. Storage shelves, which held a wide variety of instruments that Liu Gan didn’t recognize, were on the ground. There were also boxes that contained junk information.

The warehouse wasn’t particularly large, but the junk placed inside amounted to a lot. As Liu Gan walked into the room, he immediately tried to find any high-technological gear, stat-improving drugs, canned goods, or any food related objects.

After searching the room, Liu Gan decided that this warehouse didn’t contain any canned goods. Everything within the room was either facility equipment or documents. It was as if there weren’t any useful items to be found with the exception of a crowbar located near the wall.

“You said I would be able to find treasures in this location?” Liu Gan asked disappointedly as he saw Jiang JinYuan walking back to him empty-handed as well.

“These are all worn out instruments and not high-technological gear.” Jiang JinYuan was clearly embarrassed. His ulterior motive in coming to this laboratory was to take advantage of Liu Gan’s suspicion, but since they couldn’t find anything good, he felt uncertain.

At this moment, unsure of whether if it was from underground or another place, a subtle rumbling sound could be heard. Normal people wouldn’t be able to hear it, but only Liu Gan who had all of his stats improved, especially his hearing, could.

“Can you hear that rumbling sound?” Liu Gan asked Jiang JinYuan.

“No, I don’t hear anything.” Jiang JinYuan shook his head.

“It’s probably from the thunder outside,” Liu Gan guessed.

This place severely disappointed Liu Gan because of all the work he had done to get in. Just as he was prepared to call Jiang JinYuan to leave and resume their search for the backup power source, he suddenly thought of the PDA probing device. He told Jiang JinYuan to start it up and scan this underground warehouse.

After scanning the location, Liu Gan saw an anomaly on the PDA. It was a bright yellow dot. Although it was very dim, if he hadn’t looked closely, he would have easily missed it.

According to what Jiang JinYuan had said before, green meant non-infected lifeforms, red represented infected lifeforms, blue represented local survivors, but what did yellow represent?

Next to the yellow dot was a -5 symbol. This represented that the yellow dot was at least ten meters below the warehouse.

“A yellow dot on the PDA shows that the master system has classified the organism as an unknown category. This shouldn’t be an infected zombie or colossal zombie. If it were, then it would be a red color or deep red color,” Jiang JinYuan explained to Liu Gan.

Liu Gan followed the direction of the PDA to an area indicated right above the yellow dot. They found that this location had several storage shelves that were lined up and obstructing something. Previously, when the both of them were searching this location, they didn’t pay much attention to it. They only felt that the junk inside was not very important. No one would’ve thought that this would be the hidden entrance to a secret space.

The yellow dot represented an unknown organism, so there was a secret location here.

Could it be a guardian boss that guarded a legendary weapon? Liu Gan couldn’t stop thinking of all the possibilities.

Without the guidance of the PDA, Liu Gan would never have seen the abnormality within these storage shelves. Come to think of it, this underground warehouse had a safety check and on top of that, it required high security clearance before being allowed to enter. With this much security for an underground warehouse, this wasn’t your normal secret hideout. So after getting this far, it must be searched thoroughly.

Liu Gan relocated the products on the shelf to another spot, and then with his strength, he proceeded to pull away the shelves. A square shaped entrance that led to an empty space was located behind the shelves. Only a single center column adorned with decorative patterns at least one meter in diameter was inside this space.

“What does this mean?” Liu Gan walked as he entered the square shaped entrance into the cavern and then circled the column twice.

Liu Gan carved his axe into the decorative pillar a few times before he stopped. The core was made of reinforced concrete, and it seemed like a sturdy pillar. Perhaps there was nothing behind this storage shelf, and the shelves were only placed around the pillar for decorative purposes.

This disappointed Liu Gan, and as he retreated a few steps, something beneath his feet didn’t feel right. So he walked around the whole area, stomping his feet as he walked.

As he stomped on the floor, “boom boom” sounds were generated. Liu Gan was analyzing the sounds every single time to distinguish any discrepancy. Ultimately, he stood by a tile that he confirmed had a slight difference in sound coming from the neighboring tiles.

Liu Gan felt the edges of the floor tile, but he didn’t feel anything abnormal. After thinking for a little bit, he smashed the tile with the sledgehammer and as much strength as he could muster. The floor tile and the cement beneath it crumbled into pieces. After shifting away these shattered fragments of tile and cement, a circular metal door appeared beneath the rubble.

---

xDh20: Only a few days left for the sweepstakes!