NOVEL NEXT Ch. 30
Chapter 30: Secret Passage
Lu Feng felt as if his whole body had been smashed apart, with waves of pain coming from every part of him.
“Ugh……”
Yu Mo lay on top of Lu Feng, letting out a faint moan.
“How is it? You didn’t get hurt, right?”
When the two of them fell down the stairway, Lu Feng had done his best to protect Yu Mo.
Luckily, the section of stairs was not too long, otherwise they would surely have ended up with broken bones.
“Mm, I’m fine……”
Yu Mo pushed herself up and found that everything around was pitch black.
She could hardly see her own hand in front of her face.
Though she could feel Lu Feng’s breath close at hand, she could not even make out his face.
“So dark……”
The girl could not help but shrink back.
Just then, Lin You and the others’ anxious voices came from above,
“Lu Feng!! Are you two alright down there!?”
“We’re fine!”
Lu Feng called back loudly.
“That’s good! Hold on, we’ll open this trapdoor right away… Damn it, what the hell!”
A curse came from Lin You above.
“What is it?”
Lu Feng asked in confusion.
“This door… it won’t open! Just now it opened so easily, how come now…”
The few above once again pushed together, but the trapdoor bizarrely did not budge an inch.
Lu Feng stood up from the ground, felt his way to the trapdoor, and pushed hard upward.
He found that it was indeed as Lin You and the others had said—what had just opened easily now felt as heavy as a thousand pounds.
“Wait there, we’ll go get help now!”
“Wait!”
Lu Feng hurriedly stopped Lin You’s action,
“Lin You, we can’t let anyone else know about what we’ve found here… If Evil Spirit Followers were to learn about this place, who knows what would happen afterward!”
“Th-Then what do we do? You two can’t just stay trapped down there, can you!?”
Lin You’s words sounded muffled through the thick trapdoor.
Considering the situation, Lu Feng thought for a moment before saying,
“…How about this: you all keep trying to think of a way to open the door, while Yu Mo and I go down further to see what’s here.”
“How can that be! If you run into something… who will help you!? I’m going to find help right now!”
“Lin You, didn’t you just say I’m the leader? Then right now, listen to your leader, alright?”
“……”
A silence came from above, followed by a helpless sigh.
“…I got it… But you must be careful, we’ll think of a way to get you out right away.”
“Mm.”
Then Lu Feng suddenly remembered something and quickly added,
“Right, if you still can’t get the door open by midnight, you all must return to your rooms. Don’t stay here.”
“No way!”
This time, Lin You rejected firmly.
“We’ll never abandon the two of you here. Besides… isn’t staying in the room the same as staying here?”
“No, you must not stay here!”
Lu Feng rebuked sternly,
“We still don’t know how the Evil Spirit moves. If it appears randomly somewhere in the old mansion, that’s one thing, but if it always appears at a fixed place, then being outside the rooms will make the chance of being killed much higher!”
“So if the door is still shut at midnight, you must hurry back to your rooms, understood?”
Another silence came from above, then Liuli’s soft voice responded,
“…We understand.”
Hearing their agreement, Lu Feng finally felt relieved, and prepared to take Yu Mo deeper into the secret passage to see what it was hiding.
Although it was quite risky, time was precious, and Lu Feng did not want to waste this brief moment of safety.
In the pitch-black space where they could not see their hands, Lu Feng and Yu Mo could only tell where the other was by the sounds they made.
Like a blind man, Lu Feng felt his way back to Yu Mo’s side.
Then, unexpectedly, he touched something soft.
The perfect sensation made him freeze, and he subconsciously squeezed.
“Ahhh!!!”
A girl’s sharp cry rang out.
Only then did Lu Feng realize what he had just touched.
“S-Sorry!”
Lu Feng felt his face grow hot.
It was the first time he had touched a girl’s chest with his own hands.
“I-It’s fine……”
Yu Mo stammered in response.
For a moment, the darkness was wrapped in an ambiguous atmosphere.
But Lu Feng had no such thoughts now.
To harbor such desires in this situation would not just mean having guts, but being out of his mind.
“Um… I’m going to check deeper into the passage. Yu Mo, why don’t you… stay here?”
From the start, Lu Feng had not wanted Yu Mo to take risks with him, but things had turned out this way.
He could only ask her to remain behind.
“No… It’s too dark here, alone I… I can’t……”
Yu Mo’s trembling voice revealed her deep fear.
“Mm… Alright then.”
Lu Feng recalled that Yu Mo had always been especially afraid of the dark since childhood.
To leave her alone in such complete darkness would be too cruel.
But taking her deeper was equally uncertain…
He took out his phone, but as always, it did not work.
Every electronic device on him had stopped working the moment they entered Evil Spirit High School.
It seemed they had no choice but to go forward in total darkness…
Lu Feng groped around until he caught the girl’s soft, slightly cold hand,
“Don’t be afraid, I’m here.”
Yu Mo did not respond, but her delicate hand in his grasp seemed to grow a little warmer.
……
In the boundless darkness, only footsteps and faint breathing could be heard.
The two of them held hands, supporting each other, struggling onward through the dead silence.
They followed the stairway down, until they had stepped onto the 44th stair.
At last, the stairs ended, and faint light finally appeared before their eyes—
A kerosene lamp, giving off a dim glow, hung on the wall to the right.
The pale yellow light brought a rare brightness to the darkness.
Lu Feng took the kerosene lamp down from the wall and carried it in hand.
With this light, they could finally see the road ahead.
In front of them was a narrow, dark corridor about ten meters long.
At the corridor’s end was an iron door with a small window, its surface covered in crimson rust.
At the sight of that iron door, Lu Feng instinctively thought of a prison cell.
A lock hung on the door, but it had long since rusted through.
With a hard pull, Lu Feng broke it off completely.
Creak—clatter clatter clatter—
The iron door opened with a piercing shriek, as though opening it had awakened something.
Lu Feng lifted the kerosene lamp and stepped inside.
At that moment, a stench filled his nose, one both familiar and nauseating—
The smell of blood.
What a thick stench of blood—it was as if human blood was being boiled into soup.
Just the smell alone made Lu Feng dizzy and faint.
For a fleeting moment, he even hallucinated—
This house was not built from concrete and steel, but from countless severed limbs and twisted, crimson flesh.