Himmlisches Buch Die große Leere

Kapitel 19

Hu Xiaoli pointed to the reading room and said, "I think there are people in there. What about you?"

I nodded. "Yes, I saw it too, that's why I followed."

Wang Siyue patted her chest. "I left after I finished cleaning, and I ran into Hu Xiaoli not far away. She said there was light coming from the window, so she dragged me here. I didn't expect to see you here too, you scared me to death!"

"Let's not talk about this anymore, what should we do?" Hu Xiaoli said.

Wang Siyue shook her head. "Don't ask me, I don't know anything. Just do what you say."

Hu Xiaoli turned to look at me. I glanced at the door of the reading room and said, "Listen to what's going on inside first, don't go in rashly."

So, led by me, the three of us quietly walked to the door of the reading room and pressed our ears against it.

Silence, a terrifying silence.

"Hu Xiaoli, are you sure you're not mistaken? There's no sound coming from inside," Wang Siyue said softly.

"Shh--" I made a shushing gesture.

Just then, I heard the tables and chairs in the reading room being overturned. Then, the beam of light began to shake violently, and a series of hurried footsteps came towards the door.

PART 6.

With a loud thud, the sound of tables and chairs being overturned came from inside, and the footsteps stopped abruptly, as if the person had fallen. What could have caused her to suddenly panic like this?

The flashlight beam shone on the glass door again, and Wang Siyue next to me covered her mouth in horror and slowly backed away.

A dark shadow was reflected on the frosted glass. The shadow of a woman!

That figure was so familiar; I felt like I'd seen her somewhere before. Suddenly, I remembered that nightmare again! Yes, it was her, the woman who had appeared in my dreams several times!

Before I could even react, the glass door to the reading room shattered with a crash, a flashlight flew out, and then I heard the sound of tables and chairs being overturned. After that, everything returned to silence.

The sudden turn of events left the three of us standing there, frozen in place for quite some time.

"Lin Yuan, do you want to go in and take a look?" Hu Xiaoli asked softly.

I nodded, then took the flashlight from Wang Siyue and shone it through the hole in the glass door.

The reading room was a mess, with many tables and chairs overturned, and Lin Duyu lying in the middle.

The Fourth Campus: The Secret Passage of the Clock Tower (4)

"Lin Duyu!" I called his name, stepping through the broken glass. "Duyu, are you alright? Wang Siyue, turn on the light, turn on the light!"

A few seconds later, all the lights in the reading room were turned on.

Lin Duyu lay on the ground, staring blankly at the ceiling, muttering to himself, "That was close, that was close, but I finally found it, found it..."

"Du Yu, are you alright? What are you doing here?" I helped him sit up.

Lin Duyu turned around and glanced at me, then shook her head. "It's okay, I'm fine."

"Ah!" Wang Siyue screamed again, "Blood!"

Sure enough, there was blood on the floor, flowing from the doorway to the bookshelf against the wall. My first instinct was to check if Lin Duyu was injured.

"Lin Yuan, I'm fine, I'm not hurt." Lin Duyu slowly stood up. "Let's talk about any problems back home; it's not convenient here."

"What do you mean? If you don't want to say, then don't. Who cares to know? You came here in the middle of the night and made a mess of the place. I haven't even questioned you yet!" Wang Siyue snapped.

Hu Xiaoli gently tugged at her hand. "Siyue, don't say anymore. Let's go first. We can clean up here tomorrow."

I helped Lin Duyu walk towards the door. As we passed Wang Siyue, he suddenly stopped. "I'll pay for the broken glass. I'll have someone come and fix it first thing tomorrow morning. Don't tell anyone about tonight, or else..."

"Or what?" Wang Siyue said coldly.

"I don't need to say anything more. You must have seen that woman's shadow. If you hadn't screamed outside the door, she wouldn't have come out."

"By the way, there should be two people inside. Where's the woman?" Hu Xiaoli asked.

"Don't ask any more questions. Just don't let anyone know what happened tonight, or you'll end up like Lingmin and Old Man Sun, lying in the hospital morgue." Lin Duyu glared at Wang Siyue and continued in a threatening tone, "You don't want to become a corpse, do you?"

Wang Siyue was clearly frightened by Lin Duyu and hid behind Hu Xiaoli.

"Du Yu, don't scare her. Hu Xiaoli, let's go."

PART 7.

After leaving the "clock tower", I helped Lin Duyu and parted ways with Hu Xiaoli and Wang Siyue, and we each walked towards our own dormitories.

"Du Yu, why are you there? Did you discover some secret?" I asked immediately after seeing that the other girl had already walked away.

Lin Duyu said, "Yes, I've discovered a secret. Remember that nightmare of yours, the one where you broke Xu Zhifei's head?"

I nodded. "Of course I remember. I'll never forget it."

Lin Duyu said, "Not long ago, I saw the woman in your dream, the woman in white with long hair."

"What? You saw the person from my dream?"

"Yes, a few weeks ago, I came home very late and saw a woman walking into the 'clock tower.' I was curious who would be in the 'clock tower' so late. I checked my watch; it was exactly midnight. I quietly followed her."

"Then what?"

"I noticed she went into the reading room."

"She went into the reading room? She has a key?"

Lin Duyu shook her head and laughed, "You don't need a key to get into the reading room. Otherwise, how did I get in today? The outer lock wasn't broken."

"Could there be a secret passage?"

Lin Duyu nodded. "Yes, there's a secret door that leads directly in."

"What was that woman doing in the reading room so late at night?"

"I don't know. I waited outside for almost an hour, but she didn't come out, so I went inside with her, but there was no one inside."

"Nobody here? Is there another passage?"

"Yes. I've been looking for it all this time."

"Is that woman inside today the same one you saw the other day?"

"I don't know, it's too dark to see clearly, her hair is covering her face. But her build is very similar."

"It seems there's some hidden secret in the reading room. We should find that passage."

Lin Duyu suddenly remembered something, grabbed my clothes, and said, "Let's go back!"

"Where to? Back to the reading room?"

"Good, let's go back! Maybe this time we can find that passage!"

PART 8.

At the entrance to the reading room, Lin Duyu picked up the flashlight and discovered that it was still usable.

"Are you sure you can find it this time?" I asked.

"Yes, I'm confident this time." He shone his flashlight on the ground, seemingly looking for something.

"Could the passage be on the ground?" I asked.

"No, I don't know either."

"Then what are you looking for?"

"Bloodstains. Bloodstains left by that woman."

I didn't say anything; I already understood why he was looking for bloodstains.

We quickly found the bloodstains, which stretched from the reading room door all the way to the philosophy section.

It appeared next to a bookshelf, and then disappeared.

Lin Duyu shone a flashlight on the bookshelf for a long time but found no trace.

"Perhaps the key isn't on the bookshelf," I said. "Look at those books; maybe it's inside."

"Seriously? Aren't you afraid of being discovered in a book?"

"These bookshelves are full of the complete works of Marx and Lenin. Who in our medical school reads these books?"

Lin Duyu adjusted his glasses. "Hmm, that makes sense."

We took the books out one by one. Suddenly, Lin Duyu called to me:

"Lin Yuan, come quick, this book is acting strange."

I discovered that the book couldn't be moved.

"It's mounted on the bookshelf! There's definitely something wrong with it!" Lin Duyu said.

I nodded. "Well, since we can't pull it out, let's try pushing it in."

With a whoosh, the books moved, and the bookshelf shifted about two feet to the left.

Lin Duyu shone his flashlight and saw that behind the bookshelf was a bare wall.

The Fourth Campus: The Secret Passage of the Clock Tower (5)

"Look at the ground again," I said.

The flashlight beam moved to the ground, and sure enough, where the bookshelf had been moved, there was a hole, just big enough for one person to pass through, and a row of wooden stairs extended downwards.

"Found it!" Lin Duyu exclaimed excitedly.

"What are you going to do next?" I stared at the dark opening, feeling a little scared.

"Of course we should go downstairs. Don't you want to figure it out?" Lin Duyu began to examine the stairs.

"Should we bring more people tomorrow?"

Lin Duyu crouched down and shone his flashlight into the cave. "That woman must have gone in from here. If we chase after her now, we might find her. I'm going to teach that charlatan a lesson!"

"Well, that's fine too. It might be too late if we come tomorrow."

Lin Duyu waved to me, "Come and take a look."

I took the flashlight and shone it into the cave. Lin Duyu said, "This staircase is very narrow and winds its way down. The secret passage must be in the mezzanine of the 'clock tower,' possibly leading underground."

Just as Lin Duyu had guessed, the staircase extended downwards in an S-shape, its bottom invisible. I asked, "Why is the secret passage leading underground located on the roof? Isn't that a bit redundant?"

"It's precisely this illogical design that keeps everyone guessing and prevents anyone from ever suspecting anything or discovering the building's secret. Never mind all that, let's go downstairs." He snatched the flashlight from my hand and went down the stairs.

PART 9.