Plague Doctor

Chapter 87: Red Door Ahead

“I am telling the truth.” Gu Jun’s brows folded together. It did not feel good having a gun pointed at him. “I do not know anything else about the rest.”

Xue Ba finally nodded as he came to a decision. “Xiaoning, put the gun down. I believe Ah Jun. It’s just a hunch I have, and you know I’ve always trusted my hunch.”

“Okay.” Lou Xiaoning instantly lowered the rifle and pulled the safety back on. But she kept an eye on Gu Jun’s micro-expressions. His first reaction was relief, followed by a suppressed calmness as he tried to decipher her motive. Finally, it culminated in annoyance, one that grew as time went by. That was a passable reaction. It did not look like it was rehearsed, nor were they telling signs of a sociopath. But she made a note to continue watching him.

“Actually, I quite admire you.” Lou Xiaoning voluntarily walked over and extended her hand as an olive branch. “That was just standard procedure. Please accept my apology.”

“You are one annoying individual,” Gu Jun grumbled as he took Lou Xiaoning’s handshake. “Why didn’t Captain Xue punish you for your transgression?”

“Cough…” Captain Xue, who was brought under the spotlight, coughed, and then he said seriously, “Ah Jun, we all know you were once a Spirit Child cultivated by Lai Sheng Company, and you have to remember the crisis that happened with the Action Department earlier. Like I said before, Xiaoning would have done the same if I have reacted the way you did.”

Xue Ba then turned to address the rest of the team. “But since we have chosen to put our trust in Gu Jun, push any suspicion out of your minds. Understood?”

Zhou Henan, Zhang Huohuo and the rest nodded. They all understood the importance of unity. The reality was, they did not have much suspicion to begin with. They just needed time to process the whole theory that Gu Jun had spouted about spells and the foreign language.

“Alright, alright, everything is fine.” Uncle Dan walked over to be the peacemaker. He said jokingly, “I have a good eye for people; I can see through them with a glance. Ah Jun, don’t be mad. Well, you have to understand this. Once you have thought about pointing your gun at others, it is only fair that you should give others the chance to point their gun back at you.”

With the salaciousness in his tone, everyone got what he was getting at. Light chuckles smoothed out the tension. Even Gu Jun could not help but let slip a laugh. Regardless, the atmosphere had shifted, and Gu Jun caught Lou Xiaoning staring more often at him.

“Ah Jun, do you think you can trigger that stone mechanism again to recover the tunnel?” Xue Ba asked.

“I sense that the mechanism can only be used once.” Gu Jun shook his head. “I attempted it again earlier, but it did not react to me in any way.”

“Then we shall take a quick break before continuing,” Xue Ba told his teammates. They had no other choice. “Since there was a wind blowing, there should be an exit at the end.”

The Demon Hunters put away the things that littered the ground while Yang Henan led a few of the others climb up a few of the steps to attempt to find back the supplies that had been blown away. However, even though they trekked all the way back to the entrance, they did not come across any of their supply. They believed that the supplies had been blown out onto the surface already.

Now, the Demon Hunters faced the problem of low supplies and serious depletion of stamina. Everyone was thirsty, so the already scarce water supply exhausted faster. To save stamina and increase travelling speed, when they resumed their journey, Xue Ba had the members leave behind any unimportant devices, and they only took three pieces of protective gear. After all, if there was some bacteria in the black wind, they were already all infected.

With the explanation provided by Gu Jun and with their personal experience with that mysterious power, the deeper they went, the more they agreed with Gu Jun. The stone tunnel was alive, and the dark red lines were the proof of its energy of life. It felt like they were travelling down the stomach of a giant beast.

After they had gone down for two hundred steps, nothing changed. It was still the same after five hundred steps. One thousand steps, and everything remained the same. Seven hours later, the thousandth step was just several meters away. Every step was one meter wide and half a meter tall, so in other words, they were almost ten thousand meters away from the entrance and five thousand meters away from the surface. Bizarrely, the oxygen density in the air remained the same. But Gu Jun was suddenly struck by a feeling; there was going to be light soon. He did not share that information lest the suspicion fell back on him. After the Demon Hunters moved for a while, everyone saw what he felt.

“There’s light!”

“I believe I see light ahead.”

“Be careful. Be ready for battle!” Xue Ba ordered. They slowed down. Their knees were numb and pained from all the stairs. The height of the stairs placed great pressure on their knees. Lou Xiaoning and the other marksmen aimed their guns forward as they pushed forward. Soon, they saw the stone wall at the end of the ten thousandth step. At the very bottom, there was a red door, and two strangely-shaped oil lamps hung by the door. The faded yellow light radiated from inside the lamps. They were soft and warm, as if welcoming them.

Gu Jun’s heart tightened. This intricate design, the arresting carving on the lamps… he had seen similar designs in the underground room illusion before.

Underground room? Well, wouldn’t there be an underground room behind this red door?

And this red door, its design and color evoked something in his mind. It was the same red door that he had walked through to enter his sealed memory during his hypnosis session.

Suddenly, Gu Jun was hit by pangs of nausea.

An excerpt from Raybundy’s dairy appeared in his mind.

‘Landon left behind a note. According to rumors, it did not contain much. It was merely a writing of his thoughts and the information that he had gathered from the ruin that was once the city of Riker. With regards to the reason behind his suicide, I was not told. My guess is because he could not suffer those monsters and the spread of hemoptysis anymore.’

The ruined city of Riker… The abnormal space on the surface surrounded by high walls…

Riker… The term ‘Riker’ also carried the meaning of stone in the foreign language, right?

“Ah Jun, Ah Jun?” When they were twenty steps from the end, Xue Ba had everyone halt. That was because he saw the strange expression that Gu Jun’s face took on. “What’s wrong? Did you feel anything?”

Some of the members turned to look at Gu Jun while others looked ahead. They could not tell what material the red door was made from, but they could confirm it was not made from the stone around them. It appeared to be some kind of wood. The redness did not appear to be from paint; it looked to be naturally red. The red door was even and clean. Other than a keyhole in the center that gave off some weak light, there was nothing else.

“It’s just a small headache…” When Gu Jun said that, he could not control the weakness in his voice. His heart was fluttering as the feeling of apprehension grew. The words of Wang Ke flashed across his mind. ‘The Abnormal Energy Investigation Group does not believe in coincidences.’

But if this was not a coincidence, what was it?

“Is the headache due to your sense of perception? Could you sense what is behind the red door?” Xue Ba asked. Uncle Dan, Lin Mo, and the rest looked at him with anticipation. Was there a trap behind it? Was there a mechanism? Could they open the door? What was behind it?

“I will try.” Gu Jun rubbed his temple and tried to calm himself down. He focused his perception…

But all he got was a bigger headache. He sighed helplessly. “I am sorry, but the red door has blocked all of my perceptive power.”

“Okay then.” Xue Ba nodded with some disappointment. The team did not have any remote-controlled robots with them, so someone had to go in person to explore the door. Xue Ba came to a standardized decision. Lou Xiaoning, Zhou Yi, Gao Mingpeng, and three other members were heading toward the red door with the intention of storming the room.

The rest watched as the assault unit move forward, tense. Gu Jun also watched closely, but the apprehension in his heart grew stronger and stronger…