"Hey, is it dark again?" A listless voice muttered in the darkness. The voice was silent for a while, and suddenly said angrily: "The smog is really bad. It should be the 15th, but there is no moon."
"Is there anyone there? Is there anyone there? You, where are you?" A young girl's excited voice came from the darkness, with a crying tone in her voice, as if a traveler who was about to die of thirst was crying for joy in front of an oasis.
"So you're not on the bed in the dormitory. No wonder your waist feels so uncomfortable." The man's voice sounded again.
"Are you the classmate who just came to print?" the girl asked anxiously.
"Um... yes, I've already gotten up to print the paper. So I'm in the printing shop." The man seemed to be a little sober: "Little sister, did you turn off the lights to play hide-and-seek?"
"Yes, it was an earthquake."
"Hey, then why didn't I feel the vibration?"
"After you asked me to print the paper, you snored on the table. Then there was an earthquake, and the door collapsed. I called you desperately but you didn't respond. I thought you... you were buried." A faint light appeared in the darkness, and the girl turned on the flashlight on her mobile phone and shone it in the direction of the man. A figure sitting on the ground was faintly visible.
"Hehe, my sleep quality has always been pretty good, and so is my luck." The figure stood up from the ground, and the dust on his body fell to the ground with a rustling sound.
"Why aren't you in a hurry? We are trapped here and can't get out. If we are buried by the earthquake, people will die."
The man didn't say anything. The girl looked at him with the help of the light from his phone and saw that he seemed to be grinning. Then he took out his phone from his pocket and took photos of the roof, walls and the pile of rocks blocking the door of the small space. Then he said in a comforting voice, "It's okay, it's okay, no one will die, we will be rescued. You are not hurt, are you?"
"No, can he really be saved?" The girl cheered up.
"Really? This shop was converted from an air-raid shelter under the dormitory building. It was originally very solid. I just checked and there are no major cracks on the ceiling and walls, so I guess the dormitory building above should not have collapsed. Maybe it was only the extra part of the shop that collapsed. Tsk, illegal buildings are killing people." The man took pictures with his mobile phone and analyzed to himself, "Although we can't get out for the time being, it shouldn't take long for the rescuers to dig here."
"But we have nothing to eat. I wonder how long we have to wait?"
"Isn't there a water dispenser over there? With this little bit of water, we can last for a long time. Usually when an earthquake occurs, schools are the focus of disaster relief, and the dormitory area is of course the top priority. So if I'm right, someone will be here soon."
"Great." The girl breathed a sigh of relief, "So what should we do now?"
"Well, it's dark, and we're alone... What do you think?"
"Huh? Huh? What do you want to do?!"
"Hey, in that case..." The tall and thin man came over and sat down opposite the girl before she could react, "...why not introduce yourself? My name is Xiao Chen."
In the dim light of the phone screen, the girl saw a thin but well-defined face. Xiao Chen had long eyes, a straight nose, a very energetic short hair, and a reassuring smile. He didn't look like a bad guy at first glance.
"Oh, my name is Zhou He." The girl said as she blocked the other person's cell phone light with her hand, not daring to let the other person see her feverish cheeks.
Xiao Chen was very good at dealing with people. After a few minutes, Zhou He put down her guard. But she was still worried about the rescue. Her innocent face was tense all the time, and she would ask every now and then: "Why haven't they come yet?"
Xiao Chen soon became annoyed by the timid girl's questions and was about to tell a few jokes to distract her when he heard a low groan coming from not far away.
"There's someone else!" Xiao Chen turned on the flashlight on his phone and moved towards the place where the sound came from. It was a partition wall between the printing shop and the next store. Because it was blocked by the cabinet, the two of them didn't notice that the wall had collapsed into a big hole.
"Is anyone there?" he asked as he shone the light next door, and saw a woman in a white shirt and suit pants struggling to get up from the ground. The woman's head was broken, half of her face was covered in blood, and a small patch of red was stained on the collar of her clothes.
Xiao Chen quickly crawled through the hole, supported the woman from behind, let her lean on his arms, and checked the wound on her head.
"Is it an earthquake?" Although the woman was injured and had just woken up, her voice was very calm. She opened her eyes and looked into Xiao Chen's eyes. Xiao Chen found that her eyes were big and beautiful, with a sense of tenacity. Even with her blood-stained face, it still made his heart skip a beat.
"How's my head?" she asked again.
"It's okay, the bleeding isn't that bad, it's probably just a flesh wound." Xiao Chen looked around. This should be a small supermarket, with collapsed shelves and scattered goods everywhere. "I guess you were knocked unconscious by the overturned shelves. The wound isn't deep. Try to move your hands and feet to see if you're injured anywhere else?"
The woman tried to move her limbs and felt that there was nothing wrong, so she motioned Xiao Chen to help her sit up. Xiao Chen did not dare to move her forcefully, but just helped her turn slightly and let her lean against a pillar.
At this time, Zhou He also came over from the next door. Xiao Chen asked her to open a bottle of mineral water and wash the wound of the injured woman. He also found a towel from the shelf and bandaged the woman's forehead.
The woman's name was Luo Ling, and she was a new teacher at Huaxia University. After Xiao Chen finished bandaging her wound, she washed her face with water.
Xiao Chen found that the well-groomed Luo Ling had become more beautiful. She looked young and had a delicate appearance, with the softness that was unique to girls from the south of the Yangtze River.
Luo Ling thanked the two generously and asked about the current situation.
"The bad news is that we are all trapped underground. The good news is that it is ventilated here and there is no shortage of food and drink. We should be able to wait for rescue." Xiao Chen replied.
The three of them sat and rested for a while, slowly recovering. Although Luo Ling's head was bleeding, it was not seriously injured. After a while, she was able to stand up with Zhou He's help. She held on to the wall and began to walk around the room, trying to move her body. But after a few steps, she suddenly pointed to a corner on the right and said, "I walked here and felt the wind blowing in."
Xiao Chen moved a few boxes and found a crack on the ground that was more than one meter wide. He took a picture with his phone and found that the crack was big enough for a person to pass through. As he approached the hole, a stream of air rushed towards him. What was even more strange was that this was not the gloomy and damp underground air, but dry and fresh air.
Xiao Chen lay at the entrance of the cave, holding his phone down, and found a two-meter-wide passage below. The ground and walls were made of stone, and some parts had collapsed slightly. This passage didn't look like anything in school at all, but more like an ancient tomb chamber that he had visited before. Xiao Chen was less than two meters away from the ground of the passage. He estimated that he could jump down and then climb up by stepping on the stones.
"How is it?" Xiao Chen looked up and saw Zhou He also kneeling beside the cave, looking at him nervously.
“There’s a ghost!”
"Ah!!!" Zhou He screamed in fright.
"Don't scare the girl." Luo Ling said a little dissatisfied.
"I mean, there is a tunnel under the basement, but we never knew about it. There must be something fishy going on." Xiao Chen laughed, "I don't know if there are old ghosts, young ghosts, or female ghosts."
"Ah!" Zhou He screamed again. Under the light of the phone screen, Xiao Chen's face was pale, and his smile was a bit evil, just like a white ghost crawling out of the ground. Zhou He was so scared that she sat on the ground and even dropped her phone. The room suddenly darkened, and she immediately screamed loudly.
"Don't be afraid, don't be afraid!" Xiao Chen didn't expect that a small joke would cause such big trouble. He tried to comfort her in a hurry, but the touch in the dark immediately brought about Zhou He's counterattack. Xiao Chen was hit by several punches in a hurry. Fortunately, he was much taller than Zhou He, and after several efforts, he finally grabbed her hands. At this time, Luo Ling also hugged Zhou He from behind and talked in her ear for a long time before Zhou He slowly calmed down.
Xiao Chen let Zhou He go, rubbed his eye sockets gently with one hand, and said with a grin: "Ouch, that hurts! Miss Zhou, your boxing skills are really powerful. With your skills, there's no need to be afraid of ghosts."
"You deserve it!" the two women said in unison.
Although Xiao Chen couldn't see clearly, he knew that he had definitely received two pairs of cold stares.
But at this moment, a voice was heard in the tunnel, "Is there anyone up there?" The voice was a little distant, a little ethereal, and had an echo.
When Zhou He heard this, she exclaimed softly and hugged Luo Ling's arm tightly. Xiao Chen and Luo Ling looked at each other and noticed the other's nervousness.
"Who are you? Where is that place down there?" Xiao Chen shouted down there. But after he shouted several times, there was no response.
Luo Ling helped him shout, but the voice disappeared like a ghost. After the two shouted more than ten times, Xiao Chen said, "Wait here for a while, I'll go down to investigate. Look for that person and see if he can get out of this passage."
"No, no. It's so dark down there, it's too scary." Zhou He grabbed Xiao Chen.
"Don't worry, I'm not afraid of ghosts, so why should I be afraid of the dark?" Xiao Chen patted the other person's hand.
"I think we'd better go together. In this environment, it's important to take care of each other." Luo Ling joined in, "And we should get some food from the supermarket."
"Yes, let's go together if we want to go. How can you leave two girls like us in a dark room like this?"
Xiao Chen agreed. Although he was quite timid, it was better to have someone accompany him on the adventure than to go alone. At least he would feel more at ease.
The three of them collected some mineral water, biscuits and sausages, put them in their school bags and handbags, and climbed down the cave one by one.
After entering the stone path, Xiao Chen used the flashlight on his cell phone to illuminate the area around the cave entrance. "The road on the left is a dead end. It will end in four or five steps. The road on the right is very long and deep. We have no choice but to go this way."
So, Xiao Chen took the lead, Luo Ling followed behind, and the timid Zhou He walked in the middle, and the three of them slowly walked towards the depths of the stone path.