Chapter 18 Chapter 17: The Gate of the Secret Path

Four or five o'clock in the morning is the time when sleepiness is the most intense, sleepiness has long been entangled with Ye Wan, but her heavy eyelids just can't relax completely, that cup of coffee does hinder sleep, plus the feeling of hunger in the stomach and fear and anxiety, As well as being confused about the necklace, Ye Wan couldn't fall asleep well.While tossing and turning, she heard one or two cries, and the hasty cries soon became silent.This time the cry was very close, on the second floor, and it was also a woman's cry, not in the way of whimpering, but just whimpering a few times.The women on the second floor, only she and Zhang Ma, were crying from Zhang Ma's room.

Ye Wan turned on the bedside lamp and looked at the small clock on the table. The time was 5:40 in the morning, which was not yet the time for Zhang Bo and Zhang Ma to guard the living room.The hasty crying still disturbed Ye Wan, she ignored the pain in her muscles, supported herself to get out of bed, opened the door gently, there was a faint voice of someone talking in the dark and silent corridor, it was the couple. Ye Wan quietly walked to the door of Mama Zhang's room, and listened closely, there was a very soft voice inside, it was Uncle Zhang comforting Mama Zhang, and there was some anger in his comforting tone.The voice is getting softer.All of a sudden, Mama Zhang let out an "ah". After that, the voice in the room became softer, almost nothing could be heard, and then it became silent.

Walking back to her room, Ye Wan had a new understanding of Uncle Zhang. A housekeeper who had guarded Shen Huawen's house for ten years must know a lot about Shen Huawen and the Rose Garden in the Ruins.I didn't hear their conversation clearly, I don't know what their arrangements are, maybe they will act while guarding the house, Ye Wan doesn't want to close her eyes anymore, she wants to monitor the couple. Time passed little by little, and finally it was seven o'clock in the morning.There was the sound of the door opening on the second floor, and then people took turns entering the bathroom, and a few minutes later, Gao Pingying and He Zhan said goodbye to each other and entered the room. It seemed that they had changed shifts with Zhang Bo and Zhang Ma.Ye Wan opened the curtains, it was already bright outside, and the sound of the rampant rain had also weakened, it was no longer a downpour, it was just an ordinary heavy rain.

Ten minutes later, there was no sound in the corridor on the second floor, and those who went downstairs to guard the room and those who went upstairs to rest seemed to have taken their places.Ye Wan opened the door and took a look at Gao Pingying's room, feeling that there was no basis and no situation, so it's better not to disturb him yet.She used the excuse of waking up to guard the room with the couple, so there shouldn't be any problem. The couple was not seen on the sofa in the living room, Ye Wan walked down the stairs and found that the downstairs was empty and no one was there.She wanted to go to the kitchen to have a look, but when she walked to the empty door, she was immediately blindfolded.The empty door was actually blocked, and it was tightly blocked by a very thick wooden board, which cut off the way from the living room to the kitchen.

Ye Wan stretched out her hand and pushed the wooden board, but remained motionless.Before she could figure out what was going on, the wooden board in front of her suddenly fell down and disappeared into the floor, and the empty door existed again, but the floor was the same as before, without any trace.In an instant, Ye Wan understood that this is the door of the secret path. The floor of the empty door is actually an underground entrance like an elevator. What fell down just now was not a wooden board, but a square wooden board space. There were no figures of Zhang Bo and Zhang Ma in the kitchen, storage room or laundry room. To confirm, Ye Wan went to the third and fourth floors to check. They were indeed not there, and they seemed to have disappeared.Uncle Zhang, this unremarkable housekeeper, actually knows the secret passage here, and he doesn't show his face at all, so he must be a very important person in this house.

Ye Wan hesitated whether to tell others about the discovery of the secret door.There are important people hiding in the secret passage, and letting other people know is equivalent to letting the twelfth person know. After these people enter the secret passage, bloody murders may happen again.Although she knew the location of the secret door, she still didn't know where the mechanism to open it was.The empty door is just an empty door, the door frame has no decorations, and the walls on both sides of the empty door aisle are clean, not even a decorative painting.The only decoration is the small chandelier in the ceiling above the empty door aisle.How can the door of the secret path rise above the ground? Ye Wan wandered around in the aisle of the empty door, but she didn't find anything like a mechanism.

"What are you doing?" Wu Meilan appeared in front of the empty door and asked Ye Wan looking around. Ye Wan hurriedly said nothing, walked out the empty door and sat on the single sofa next to the cabinet in the living room, and found that Wu Meilan was still looking at her suspiciously, so she added some explanations, she was a little hungry just now, so she went to the kitchen to see After a while, I didn't find any food to satisfy my hunger, so I came out. Hearing these words, Wu Meilan sighed heavily, instead of going into the empty door, she turned around and walked towards the sofa.It seemed that she also wanted to go to the kitchen to find food, but now she lost motivation after hearing Ye Wan's words.Wu Meilan sat down on the couch by the side of the mural, looked impetuously at the lifeless fish tank next to the house door, and asked Ye Wan where all the fish went, did they get eaten?

"I'm not so hungry yet. Those fish were frozen to death because the water temperature was too low." Ye Wan gave Wu Meilan a white look. Wu Meilan sighed heavily again, it sounded like she was mourning the fish, but she was actually worried about her situation.If she didn't find the door of the secret path, Ye Wan's heart would be heavy. Now she is a little more relaxed. As long as she finds the mechanism, she can go into the secret path to find her aunt and find a chance to escape. "Where's Uncle Zhang and Mama Zhang? It should be time for them to guard the house." Wu Meilan finally felt something was wrong.

"I've checked downstairs, but they're not downstairs." Ye Wan said calmly, and suddenly thought of an oversight of her own, she hadn't checked the room of Uncle Zhang and his wife, "Maybe, they are still in the room." Didn't come down." Impatient Wu Meilan stood up and walked upstairs to the second floor to find Uncle Zhang and Mama Zhang.Soon, there was movement upstairs, someone running up and down the stairs, and then there was crying, careless crying, with nagging, it was easy for people to know who was crying—it was Mama Zhang .Listening to the nagging in the crying is because of Zhang Bo's disappearance.

Ye Wan went upstairs, and saw Mama Zhang sitting on the stairs on the second floor, leaning on the iron railing at the corner of the stairs, crying and complaining with tears and snot, complaining that Uncle Zhang was heartless, calling her But how to live.He also blamed himself for his bad luck, for marrying twice but not marrying a good man.Although she is not his original partner, she has been with him for more than ten years and even has a daughter, so she can't just throw it away. In the early hours of the morning, Uncle Zhang and Mama Zhang talked in the room. I don’t know what they said. It may be that Mama Zhang was crying because she was afraid of death. Uncle Zhang comforted her and told her about the secret passage.But now with the appearance of Zhang's mother, people don't understand the behavior of their husband and wife. Did Zhang Bo deliberately leave Zhang's mother to understand the situation, or did he secretly abandon his wife and leave?I can't tell whether Zhang Ma is acting or is really abandoned. Her sadness is confusing, and it is impossible to tell the truth from the fake.

The crying also alarmed Gao Pingying and He Yi who had just rested. Everyone felt cheated by Zhang Bo's disappearance. This man knew the door of the secret way, but kept silent, and now he sneaked away alone. , is really hateful.Gao Pingying looked at Zhang Ma who was crying, and asked her to tell what happened. "When I got up in the morning, I was a little dizzy. The old man asked me to lie down again. He went downstairs to watch. Just now when Ms. Wu came to knock on the door, I realized that Uncle Zhang was not downstairs. I didn't go upstairs to check. He actually left me Let's go." Zhang Ma sobbed again when she said this. The people on the corridor looked at Zhang Ma indifferently, thinking about the direction of the development of the matter. If Zhang Bo and Shen Huaqi were in the same group, it would not be so simple if they hid in the secret passage.For her own safety, Ye Wan did not stand up to testify against what she heard in the early morning. Zhang Mama's "ah", obviously heard something surprising. It must be a secret, but not necessarily a secret of the secret way. If Uncle Zhang I told Mama Zhang about the secret way, why is she still sitting here crying and scolding Uncle Zhang, even if she is acting, there is no need to be so devoted.Maybe that secret belonged to Zhang Bo, maybe Shen Huawen, maybe it was the secret of the Ruins Rose Garden. Zhang Bo's behavior was irritating, but the anger was of no avail. Gao Pingying gave Zhang Ma one last look with his red eyes from staying up all night. He turned and went back to his room without asking any more questions. He was tired and needed to rest.No one comforted Zhang Ma, her misfortune lacked authenticity, and she could not gain the trust of several people, let alone Ye Wan. Zhang Ma lied to her from the first night.After Wu Meilan made a few ugly complaints, she left the second floor and went to the third floor indignantly.Only the peaceful He Yi comforted Mama Zhang when she went back to her room to sleep, telling her not to worry about it. Perhaps, Uncle Zhang would come back to save her, so let's go back to the room to rest now.Zhang Ma accepted his comfort and walked into her room unhappily. The second floor was quiet again, and Ye Wan was standing on the corridor doing an ideological struggle, do you want to tell Gao Pingying the door to the secret path?It was difficult for her to make a choice. If she didn't tell him, would it be dangerous to act alone?Tell him that there is aunt in the secret passage, and neither the murderer nor the police will let aunt go.For that perfect ending, Ye Wan decided to take the risk alone, as long as she entered the secret passage and reunited with her aunt, the murderer and the police would fend for themselves in the residential building, and the perfect ending would be realized. Thinking of this, Ye Wan's hands and feet trembled a little, maybe because of nervousness or hunger and cold.Ye Wan first went to the room to find a warm coat to put on, then went downstairs to the kitchen to find food that could increase energy without hurting her stomach.Fortunately, there is a bag of instant milk tea under the sundries in the cabinet, which may have been forgotten.It won't hurt your stomach too much, and it can replenish energy. It's a treasure, Ye Wan drank it right away. There was really nothing to look for on the wall, Ye Wan began to focus on the ground, whether the mechanism was hidden under a certain wooden board.She knelt down and ran her fingers along the edge of each plank, hoping that one could be lifted.The wooden floors are spotless, every plank is firmly fixed, nothing can be lifted. Ye Wan sat on the floor dejectedly. It is impossible to install the hiding place of the mechanism in the kitchen or the storage room. It is too unreasonable to open the secret door of the empty door from the inside.I always thought that the door of the secret path was open, but I didn't expect it to be lifted. Because of narrow thinking, everyone couldn't find the door of the secret path.Ye Wan felt that her way of thinking was too narrow when it came to finding the mechanism. The person who installed the mechanism may have guessed people's normal thinking and always thought that the mechanism was hidden, but deliberately used superficial mechanism buttons. The mechanism is not necessarily hidden on the wooden board. Next, maybe the board itself is the mechanism. These planks are about 25 centimeters long and 10 centimeters wide, about the size of wall bricks, connected by straight and horizontal lines.Empty doors have no frame and are integrated with the width of the aisle.The length of the three planks together is about 75 centimeters, while the width of the empty door and the aisle is about 80 centimeters. The remaining insufficient width is made up with cut planks. No matter what, it will not affect the existence of a square and create a square. The door of the secret path that goes up and down can be said to be seamless, and no trace can be seen.Such a smart person must make clever use of wooden boards when making mechanism buttons.The long planks would be too long for the mechanism, and the small planks would fit in fairly well, and the small planks would not be noticeable, and no one would think of their function. The small wooden boards are located in the corner of the wall on the kitchen side. Ye Wan tried her best to press those short small wooden boards, and finally at a distance of about one meter from the empty door, a small wooden board was pushed down by her, with a depth of an inch.With the sinking of the small wooden planks, the empty door rises to a square space of wooden planks that is as high and wide as the empty door, and about 70 centimeters thick.About 30 centimeters above the cube space is a solid cement wall, so people don't feel that there is a hidden door below.The interior of the cube space is similar to the ordinary elevator space, and there are handrails on the left and right sides. Without time to think about it, Ye Wan stood up and walked in. The height of about 1.7 meters is just right for her.I took a look at the inner space of the wooden cube. There is a green key on the left and a red key on the right. There are up and down arrow marks on the key surface. Green means up and red means down.Ye Wan pressed the red button, and the cubic space descended very quickly, reaching the ground in a few seconds.