Chapter Two: Someone Below

This sudden beam of white light pierced the night, cutting through not only the darkness but also the hidden dread that had long lurked in everyone’s hearts.

Wasn’t this supposed to be a deserted island?

How could there be light here?

And light coming from underground, at that…

A nervous gulp sounded—soft, but clear enough to snap everyone out of their stunned shock.

“What the hell!” Li Chungang shouted, rushing forward.

The others quickly followed, crowding around.

Xu Zhe was no exception; he and Lin Keyi, along with the others, stepped forward as well.

They’d come to this spot many times before—it was nothing more than an ordinary, empty stretch of rocky ground, with never a hint of anything unusual.

But now, in the middle of the bare stone, there was a round glass panel, and the beam of light shone up from beneath it.

“My God, what on earth is going on here?”

“Seriously, someone explain to me—how can there be lights on a deserted island? This isn’t a deserted island at all!”

“There are other people on the island.”

“I think we’re saved! Hah!”

Someone burst out laughing in excitement.

To many, the light meant the arrival of modern civilization—perhaps even hope of contacting the outside world. The surge of white light shattered the fear that had gripped them for so many days.

“Wang Jianguo, well done! I salute you—salute!” Li Chungang cried out, giving a hearty slap to the shoulder of a bespectacled young man.

Xu Zhe looked at Wang Jianguo in surprise. “Jianguo, was this your doing?”

Jianguo was also one of his university roommates; the three of them—Xu Zhe, Li Chungang, and Wang Jianguo—were particularly close.

Wang Jianguo nodded slightly, adjusting his glasses with a calm air. “That’s right. I’ve suspected something was off about this place for a while now. After ten days of searching, I finally found it.”

“Bullshit!” Li Chungang laughed and cursed, “You’re so full of yourself! You just can’t keep your hands to yourself and started pulling out weeds!”

He then recounted what had just happened: he and Wang Jianguo had been sitting around chatting when Jianguo, unable to resist, tried to pull up a blade of grass at his feet. Instead of the grass coming loose, his action had somehow pressed out a glass panel from the rocky ground.

“So the grass was a switch?” someone asked in astonishment.

“Looks like it. The grass was clearly fake—very realistic, but the texture was all wrong, felt just like plastic!” Wang Jianguo said, nudging another tuft of grass with his foot.

Everyone glanced over, but only for a moment before their attention returned to the glass panel glowing with white light.

Plastic grass and mysterious switches no longer mattered.

The real question was: what lay beneath? Why was there light down there?

Could someone else be underground?

Was Wang Xinran’s disappearance connected to whatever was below?

Countless questions rose in their hearts along with the appearance of the glass panel and the mysterious light.

“Hey, wait—Xu Zhe, come look! I think there’s someone at the very bottom,” Lin Keyi called, pointing at the glass.

Someone?

Xu Zhe’s heart skipped a beat. He crouched down, narrowing his eyes to peer through the glass.

Beneath the glass was a deep shaft, its walls shining white in the bright light, descending untold meters into the earth.

And at the very bottom, sure enough, a vague human figure could be seen lying horizontally.

Under the white glow, the figure lay motionless, so still it sent a chill up their spines—a strange, eerie feeling.

“There really is someone down there, but I can’t make them out—it’s too deep,” Li Chungang muttered, pressing his face to the edge of the glass, squinting hard.

The others nearby strained their eyes as well, pupils adjusting, but the distance was simply too great—they couldn’t make out who it was.

“It’s Wang Xinran!” Xu Zhe announced in a low, steady voice, holding up his Huawei Mate40 so the others could see its screen.

The phone’s zoom lens revealed what the naked eye could not—the features of the figure below came into focus on the display, as clear as an advertisement.

Everyone stared, startled.

What a phone… No, wait—how could Wang Xinran be down there?

Had someone taken her?

Did that mean there really were other people on the island?

“Something’s wrong. Whoever’s down there must have known we were here for some time, yet they’ve stayed hidden and even taken Wang Xinran. Their intentions can’t be good,” Xu Zhe said, frowning. The situation was getting stranger by the moment.

“But why would they take her?” Li Chungang exclaimed.

“This is starting to sound like those foreign TV shows—what if it’s some scientific organization planning sinister human experiments?”

“No way! I’m still just a kid!”

“Wait, look closely at the photo—Wang Xinran seems to be lying in a sealed chamber, like some sort of sleep pod,” Wang Jianguo shouted, staring at the phone.

Everyone crowded around again. Sure enough, Wang Xinran appeared to be inside some kind of device—a single-person sleeping pod.

“Forget the sleep pod, we need to save her!” Li Chungang suddenly exclaimed. He glanced around, quickly picking up a handy rock.

Before anyone could react, he hurled it down onto the glass.

Bang! With a heavy thud, the rock bounced off, shattering into two pieces that clattered to the ground.

Only a smear of dust remained on the glass—the panel itself was utterly unscathed.

“Damn, it’s that tough? All right, if the world hadn’t produced Li Chungang, the sword would be lost to darkness… Who’s got a Nokia? Lend it to me, let me try smashing it,” Li Chungang said, refusing to give up.

“Don’t bother, it’s useless,” Xu Zhe said, shaking his head as he wiped away the rock dust. “This is metallic glass, also known as amorphous alloy. It’s stronger than steel, harder than high-grade tool steel, and has incredible toughness and rigidity. It’s called the King of Glass because it can’t be shattered. It’s mostly used in aerospace. With what we’ve got here, there’s no way we’re breaking through.”

“But Xu Zhe, aren’t we finance majors? How do you even know this glass stuff?” Wang Jianguo stared.

“I study a bit on the side,” Xu Zhe replied seriously. “From what I know, this kind of metallic glass is expensive and usually found only in aerospace technology. There’s no way we can smash through it with anything we have. And even if we did, the hole would be far too small for anyone to fit through.”

“A certain flight attendant named Li could probably fit—her waist is tiny,” Wang Jianguo quipped.

“I don’t think so. Her waist may be slim, but her chest and hips are… Ah, damn, what’s wrong with me? Why am I talking like this in public? This isn’t the real me,” Li Chungang stammered, suddenly embarrassed.

Hopeless pervert, always making puns—shameless!

Everyone gave him a blank look.

Ignoring Li Chungang, Xu Zhe scanned their surroundings. “There’s likely a research facility or secret base down there. There must be an entrance. We need to search for it.”

“Xu Zhe…”

At that moment, someone behind them raised a hand. “Maybe we don’t need to look—could this be the entrance?”

Everyone turned, and then froze in disbelief.

The once rugged rock face now had a gaping cave where there had been nothing but stone before.

“What the hell?”

“Wasn’t this just a slope of rock? When did a cave appear?”

“When we gathered here, there was no cave at all.”

They all exclaimed in shock, unable to believe their eyes.

The boy who’d discovered it gave a wry smile. “I was startled myself—turned around and suddenly, there it was.”

“How strange,” Li Chungang muttered, suspicious.

“Maybe when I pulled the grass, it triggered both the glass panel and this cave entrance,” Wang Jianguo suggested.

Xu Zhe frowned. It was all a bit too coincidental.

Mention looking for Wang Xinran and she appears; mention searching for an entrance and it’s delivered right to them?

It was baffling.

“Xu Zhe, let’s go have a look,” Lin Keyi whispered, slipping her arm through his.

“Yeah,” Xu Zhe nodded. Mystery or not, the priority now was to see what was inside.

They squeezed past the others to the rock slope.

Bathed in the white light, the rock’s surface looked rough, with a huge rectangular opening cut into its side—edges perfectly straight, clearly the work of modern machinery.

“Xu Zhe, is this the entrance?” someone asked.

“Do you really need to ask? Of course it is!” Wang Jianguo was already impatient, rushing forward and poking his head into the cave. “But it’s pitch black inside—could there be traps?”

“If there’s danger, we’ll know soon enough,” said Xu Zhe, picking up a rock about the size of his palm and tossing it bowling-style into the opening.

A series of dull thuds echoed as the stone rolled deeper into the passage.

In the next instant, strips of white light sprang to life along the floor, one after another, flooding the entire space with brightness that spilled out through the entrance.

A gasp went up from the crowd.

Inside was a vast, square chamber. The walls and ceiling were entirely encased in metallic glass.

Only the floor seemed to be a double layer of the same material, with rows of square light strips sandwiched between—these were the source of the dazzling illumination.

From the entrance, it looked like a gigantic glass container embedded in the rock.

And this container was immense—by rough estimate, as large as a soccer field, at least seven or eight thousand square meters.

Such an enormous, awe-inspiring structure left everyone present shaken and full of dread.

Just what was this island, really?