Chapter 11: The Secret Basement

Chapter 11: Chapter 11: The Secret Basement

Chapter 11: The Secret Basement

As she spoke, Mom gave me a coquettish look and said, "Of course you don’t need to do the cleaning. Mom will hire a cleaning company or a full-time housekeeper to take care of us."

After saying that, Mom swayed her slender waist and full hips as she walked into the villa. I followed closely behind her, watching her back. Mom had undergone a long period of dance training when she was young, so she always paid attention to her posture when she walked. She would often unconsciously move with an elegant, cat-like gait. Watching her two long, beautiful legs move in a confident and rhythmic stride, creating a series of charming leg waves, I felt a tickle in my heart.

Upon entering the villa, the first floor had a large living room and kitchen, with three other rooms serving as guest rooms and a study. The second floor had a corridor with two bedrooms on each side. The innermost bedroom was my mother’s master bedroom, and the slightly smaller secondary bedroom on the outside was mine. Between my mother’s bedroom and mine was a walk-in closet and a living area. The other rooms were currently vacant. There were also several rooms and a storage room on the third floor.

"Madam, please stay here. I’ll head back to my place now. Feel free to contact me if you need anything."

I heard Ah Hong’s voice downstairs. I peeked out from the second-floor railing and saw him talking to my mother in the living room after he had helped us put our luggage away.

After a moment’s thought, Mom said, "Are you still planning to go back over there? Why don’t you just stay and help me?"

Ah Hong bowed respectfully to my mother and said in a low voice, "I can’t leave there for the time being, and it’s not convenient for me, a man, to be here while you and the young master are living together. Your car will be airlifted over in a few days. Contact me if you need anything."

My mother sighed. I rarely saw her show even a slight look of disappointment. She stared at Ah Hong for a while and said, "Take your time investigating that matter. There’s no rush. Be careful and don’t let anything happen."

Ah Hong remained expressionless, simply saying "Yes," then bowed to my mother again before turning and leaving.

Their conversation was very low, and I couldn’t hear everything clearly. When I saw Ah Hong leave, I quickly went downstairs and said to my mother, "Mom! Uncle Ah Hong is gone?"

When Mom saw me running down, she smiled and said, "Well, he still has work to do and can’t waste his time here."

I said with a grin, "Then Mom, doesn’t that mean we can have some alone time now?"

My mother gave me a playful, annoyed glare. I was just about to snuggle up to her again when suddenly, with a clatter, a package fell out of my pocket.

I looked down and saw the oilcloth bag that my father had entrusted to me. I had almost forgotten about it. Inside was a very old-fashioned mirror-like object and an iron key, which were now lying on the ground.

"What is this?" Mom asked in surprise and came over to pick it up.

My heart skipped a beat. I thought, *Oh no, how did it accidentally fall out?* I had no choice but to bite the bullet and lean against my mother as we opened the oilcloth bag together.

The key inside wasn’t anything special. Although it wasn’t new, it didn’t have much rust either, so it shouldn’t be very old. I figured it was the key to open the basement of this villa. The other item, a bronze mirror, looked very old. My mother and I examined it closely. This "treasure" that my father had mentioned had dragon and phoenix carvings around its edge, but it was already mottled and covered in greenish patina. Although we could vaguely see our reflections in it, the mirror itself was very blurry, making it look even more incomplete. There was a Tai Chi symbol on the top of the bronze mirror, but around the symbol was a circle of dragons and phoenixes flying one after the other. I had never seen this symbol anywhere else; it looked very unique.

"Xiaobin, what is this? Where did it come from?" Mom asked me, looking at me in the mirror with a surprised expression.

I remembered my father’s solemn warning and stammered, "This... this, I found it by chance in a corner of the school!"

"Found it?" My mother looked at my expression with suspicion. I looked insecure, probably not even believing what I was saying myself.

"Yes, yes. It originally looked like a piece of scrap metal or an antique, but I happened to see it in the woods and just took it with me."

My mother looked at me with a mixture of disbelief and skepticism. She then examined the mirror closely, turning it over and over several times. The old mirror was nothing special; it was covered in dust and rust. On the back, there seemed to be a groove where you could put your finger. My mother put her pale pink finger in there, getting it covered in dust.

She looked at the key again. The iron key looked relatively new, unlike something from the same era as the bronze mirror.

"It’s nothing. I think since I found it, this thing might be destined for me..." I said softly.

My mother then wrapped the bronze mirror back in the oilcloth bag, including the key, and handed it to me, saying, "Alright then, you must keep it safe."

I quickly took the package back. My mother looked at me with a meaningful expression, which made me feel guilty.

In the evening, my mother cooked for me, preparing several of my favorite dishes. We had a wonderful time together. I told her about my experiences at school over the years, and she listened with a smile, occasionally asking about interesting details. The living room light shone on her beautiful face, making her look exceptionally radiant and charming.

On my first night at the villa, I had trouble sleeping in a new bed and tossed and turned. The house felt too big, and since it was just my mother and me living there, I felt a little uneasy.

I checked the time; it was already past 2 a.m. I still couldn’t fall asleep, so I sat up, turned on the light, got dressed, and decided to open the package again to see what was going on with the bronze mirror.

I looked for my backpack in my room but couldn’t find it. Then I remembered that I had left it in the living room and hadn’t brought it in.

I put on my pajamas and tiptoed out of the bedroom. It was pitch black outside, and my mother’s room was also dark. I looked around, tiptoed down the stairs, and came to the living room. I shone my phone’s light around the room and sure enough, my backpack was on the sofa.

"What an idiot I am! How could I forget this?" I cursed myself. I walked over, opened my backpack, took out the package, and used my phone’s flashlight to take out the bronze mirror and the key. I stared at the mirror. Under the bright light of my phone, my blurry face in the mirror was slightly distorted, looking nothing like myself. It showed a strange smile, and I was so scared that I almost dropped the mirror.

I quickly thought to myself, *Why does this thing look so old and strange? What kind of "treasure" is it? Could it be that Dad is getting old and has suffered a series of blows, and he’s developed some kind of delusions? Maybe he bought something at the antique market and thinks it’s a family treasure.*

But then I remembered how desperately he had been shouting, and he didn’t seem to have a mental problem; his sentences had been very clear.

I put the mirror in my pocket, grabbed the key, and thought that there wouldn’t be a chance during the day, so I had to avoid my mother and go to the basement now to see what was going on.

The thought of the villa’s basement, which my dad said had two underground levels, made me a little uneasy. What if it was haunted in the middle of the night?

After much deliberation, I couldn’t resist my curiosity. I checked that my phone still had plenty of battery, so I went down to the basement. I had already been inside during the day; it contained previously renovated entertainment rooms, a home theater, a billiards room, and other similar spaces. It was quite spacious, and my mother and I had explored the area.

I went down to the basement, closed the door, and turned on the lights in every room. The bright light made me feel much more confident; at least I no longer had to explore the eerie underground space in complete darkness.

I remembered my dad saying it was in the northeast corner, which was a storage room. There was nothing in it. I went in and turned on the light. There used to be food and daily necessities stored there, and there were still some traces of them. Now it had all been moved out, making the room seem quite large.

I arrived at the northeast corner, where there seemed to have been some wooden barrels before, and there were some round barrel-shaped marks on the ground.

I carefully touched the wall and sure enough, there was a tiny tile that was completely different from the surrounding pattern and color. Because the wall was covered with tiles of random colors and patterns, you might not notice it if you didn’t look closely.

I pressed the tile hard and heard a click as it sank in. Then, a large, neat tile next to it made the sound of a spring turning. Soon, the tile retracted into the wall, revealing a keyhole.

There really was such a mechanism inside the villa! Only then did I believe that Dad hadn’t gone crazy. It seemed that our Zhou family really did have a "secret."

I quickly took out the iron key and inserted it into the lock. I thought that even if the key was correct, it would be difficult to insert since it hadn’t been used for a long time. Unexpectedly, the key went into the lock smoothly and easily. I turned it to the right and heard the sound of a spring turning inside.

Then came a series of rumbling sounds, and a section that looked like a wall next to us started to spin!

It had become a revolving door with a central axis. The door’s pattern was hidden within the tile pattern, and the buckles on the edge were completely consistent with the design. The mechanism was truly ingenious.

The door opened quite loudly, but my mother was sleeping on the second floor, two levels above us, so it shouldn’t have disturbed her. I shone my phone light behind the revolving door and saw a downward staircase.

The stairs were made of bare cement slabs, without any decoration, which looked completely out of place with the luxuriously decorated basement. It was pitch black inside, making it particularly eerie.

Although I was also very scared, I thought to myself that since I had already come this far, how could I back down and not dare to go down? Besides, I was the head of the Zhou family, and I had to know the secrets of my own family. So I gritted my teeth, turned on the flashlight of my phone, and went inside.

I was initially worried that the revolving door would close as soon as I went in, but thankfully I stayed at the door for a while and it didn’t move, so it didn’t seem like that would happen. But then again, it wasn’t a trap meant to hold people.

I walked down the stairs, and after a few floors it turned into a spiral staircase leading downwards. The surrounding walls were all exposed cement. I held onto the wall as I walked down. The wall probably hadn’t been in contact with the outside for many years, so there wasn’t much dust.

Soon I reached the bottom. I shone my phone’s light around and saw a small room with exposed concrete walls. In the center was a table with a stone statue behind it.

I was almost startled, thinking there was someone else here. Luckily, the stone statue was crudely carved, just a rough human shape without facial features, so it wasn’t too scary. Even so, the surrounding darkness was still frightening.

I mustered my courage and walked up to it. Upon closer inspection, the stone statue appeared to be dressed in some kind of clothing resembling that of a Chinese Taoist priest, but it seemed to be made rather simply and casually, making it look somewhat comical.

On the table sat a wooden box about the size of a book, with intricate and ornate carvings around it. The wood was quite old, and the carvings were no longer clearly visible.

This box must contain the "secret" and "mission" of my Zhou family. I took a deep breath, looked at the stone statue that looked like a Taoist priest, and subconsciously bowed to it with great piety before opening the box.

There was absolutely nothing inside!

The box was empty right now. Was Dad being so mysterious, trying to fool people with an empty box?

I picked up the box. It was quite old. The box looked like it was made of good quality wood and was quite sturdy. There was a groove on the back of the box.

This part seemed to be similar to the groove on the back of the bronze mirror I had seen before. I took the mirror out, and sure enough, the grooves on both things were the same size.

I instinctively stuck my thumb into the groove of the wooden box, but to my surprise, as soon as I put it in, a hidden compartment popped out of the box, and a piece of silk cloth fell out and landed on the ground.

It was truly full of traps and mechanisms. By this time, beads of sweat had appeared on my forehead. I put the box on the table and picked up the silk cloth on the ground. The silk cloth was tattered and looked much older than the box, seemingly from the same era as the bronze mirror. There were many patterns on the silk cloth, but I couldn’t see them clearly at first.

I carefully examined it and quickly realized that the silk cloth was painted with a map. The painting was excellent, and the pattern of a coastline next to it was exactly the same as the current coastline of Jingzhou City. There must not have been any photos when it was painted, so the painter had strived to completely restore the terrain.

In many other places, the silk cloth was illegible, but in one spot not far from the sea, it was smeared with bright red paint and a blue-black mark was drawn on it. The mark looked like scribbles and its meaning was incomprehensible.

I didn’t understand the purpose of the silk cloth for a moment. I wondered if it was a treasure map, so I put the silk cloth in my pocket. I saw that the bronze mirror was still on the table, so I picked up the mirror and put my thumb into the groove on the back.

The mirror didn’t respond at all. I was feeling a bit stuffy in the basement, and the surrounding environment made me very uneasy. So I quickly put these things away, closed the box again and put it on the table. I looked at the Taoist statue and for some reason felt a sense of familiarity. I bowed to it respectfully and then hurried upstairs.

I closed the secret door and turned off all the lights as I returned to my bedroom. Luckily, I didn’t disturb my mother. I stuffed the silk cloth and mirror into my bedside table and locked it with the key. Only then did I feel a little sleepy. Although the thought of this strange basement in the villa made me feel uneasy, I didn’t care and just fell asleep.