Chapter 105

Chapter 105

What now?

Everyone’s eyes turned instinctively to Qin Ying.

“Close the door first.”

As she spoke, Qin Ying took her phone and began searching the break room.

By all rights, a break room built on the fourth underground level ought to have a floor plan and ventilation ducts.

The floor plan would help Qin Ying confirm an escape route.

The direction of the ventilation ducts could serve as a backup escape path.

There were no windows in the break room, only a single sheet-metal door.

It did not look especially reliable, so Zhang Lang, Lin Yicheng, and Yin Minmin all went over to brace it.

Qin Ying’s tank top had ridden up, revealing a slim, pale waist, while the charred puppy was tucked against her chest.

Stepping over the three bodies lying sprawled on the floor in gruesome death, she searched the room.

In the end, she found several folders on the desk.

She flipped through them casually. They were records of dogs coming in and going out.

Unlike the prized breeds on the floor above, the dogs on the fourth underground level were mostly used for experiments and as cannon fodder.

Most were strays that had been captured, along with pet dogs stolen off the streets of the nearby ancient town.

When she turned to one page, Qin Ying’s eyes lit up-it was the floor plan of the fourth underground level.

The blueprint clearly had not been valued much. It had been stuffed haphazardly into a folder, its edges blackened and curled from secondhand smoke.

Qin Ying had to work hard to make it out.

Their current location was in the southwest corner of the fourth underground level. Right beside them was the Incinerator.

The Incinerator was used to dispose of dogs that died after losing fights, from illness, and other causes.

The passage Qin Ying had sneaked in through as a child was due south.

On the floor plan, it was marked as an air-raid passage.

Once they left the break room, a short walk would bring them to a sealed iron door.

It looked like they had a pretty good chance of escaping.

Huang Zezhong was sprawled on the sofa, Qin Ying’s jacket pressed against his neck.

Although he had lost too much blood, he could still survive if he was sent to the hospital in time.

But dragging along a person covered in blood would, without question, be like leaving a trail marker for the dogs.

Should she abandon him? Qin Ying considered it for a split second.

The creak of something slamming into the door continued. The iron cages jammed behind the door had temporarily blocked the things outside from getting in.

They still had a tiny bit of time to deal with the problem.

Qin Ying walked over to a cabinet on one side of the break room.

The place was full of Fierce Hound creatures, so staff members inevitably got hurt when something went wrong. There were some first-aid supplies in the cabinet.

Qin Ying quickly found a large handful of cotton, poured a bottle of Yunnan Baiyao over it, then pressed it against Huang Zezhong’s wound.

“Let’s go!”

They could bring him for this short distance first. If things got dangerous, they could throw him down as bait.

Huang Zezhong had no idea what utterly ruthless plan Qin Ying was calculating behind her expressionless face. His eyes were filled with gratitude.

Unable to speak, he forced himself to nod his thanks to Qin Ying.

Yin Minmin and Lin Yicheng supported him from either side and helped him up.

Zhang Lang carefully opened the break room door.

The door was rusty from the damp underground air. When he pushed it open, it gave a shrill, piercing creak.

In the distance, the sound of something ramming the door abruptly stopped.

Whatever had been hitting the door had heard the noise here too.

Outside, barking rose and fell from every direction.

A chill ran through Qin Ying and the others, and they quickened their pace.

Even in the dark, Qin Ying still had a good sense of direction. Before long, she led everyone to an iron door that looked extremely solid.

Behind the door was an air-raid passage built using a natural karst cave.

In peaceful times, these air-raid facilities had been converted into underground parks and dance halls.

When Qin Ying was little, her grandmother had even brought her here to see an ugly lantern exhibition.

It was precisely because of that experience that Qin Ying, back when she was still a little brat, had managed to find the archive’s route map and sneak in to explore.
The door to the emergency passage had a round hinged wheel lock.

It was covered in rust. It hadn’t been opened in more than ten years.

Qin Ying wedged the fire axe in her hand into the round wheel and tried to twist it. Flakes of rust fell away, but the wheel didn’t budge.

With her current strength, forcing it open was still a little too much.

Fortunately, they had Zhang Lang with them. Otherwise, they would have been completely helpless.

Qin Ying took the mother dog from Zhang Lang’s arms, still bundled in his trench coat. He stepped forward, gripped the fire axe with both hands, and heaved with all his might.

Amid a teeth-grating screech, the dogs on the fourth basement level began barking madly again. They were calling their own kind.

Zhang Lang clenched his teeth hard. Just as the round plate on the door loosened, a tremendous crash rang out in the distance.

The iron cage blocking the door had been sent flying. The iron door slammed into the wall with a bang, then rebounded.

Low growls. The patter of claws and nails racing across the floor.

The pack of dogs was charging straight toward them with a clear target.

Zhang Lang, in the middle of his Monstrous Beast transformation, was drenched in sweat, soaking the gray fur on his back.

He abandoned the fire axe and used both hands together to twist the wheel.

Qin Ying tied his trench coat in a knot across her chest, cradling the two dogs inside it. Then she picked up the fire axe from the ground and faced the various sounds rushing at them from the darkness.

At that moment, the escape door they had all been praying for finally opened.

“Go!”

Zhang Lang, no longer the useless coward he had been before, barked the order.

With one sweep of his arm, he sent Lin Yicheng, Yin Minmin, and Huang Zezhong, whom they were supporting, flying through the doorway like bowling pins.

Qin Ying didn’t even have time to react before his now enormous mutated hand grabbed her by the shoulder and flung her behind the door.

Zhang Lang darted in as well, grabbed the hinge wheel with both hands, and struggled to pull the door shut.

The instant the door closed, there came a heavy thud.

Something had slammed into it.

The impact numbed Zhang Lang’s hands. On the thick door, a sharp, horn-shaped dent had actually bulged inward.

Just looking at it, anyone could imagine what would happen if that single horn struck a person. It would punch straight through.

Zhang Lang’s heart was racing. In the hollow, damp air-raid shelter, only his heavy breathing could be heard.

The people he had swept through the door had all fallen to the ground.

Qin Ying protected the pair of puppies hanging against her chest.

When she had been thrown to the floor just now, the pointed edge of the fire axe in her hand had scraped her. A deep cut ran from her palm to her wrist, blood pouring from it.

Inside the little pouch hanging at her chest, Fuzhu and Han Lie stirred at the same time.

Han Lie anxiously forced open the drawstring pouch and poked out his tiny head.

Qin Ying had no time to pay attention to that. After all, at their current size, even if they came out, they wouldn’t be of any help.

They wouldn’t even be enough to get stuck between that one-horned vicious dog’s teeth.

Qin Ying scrambled up in a sorry state and helped Zhang Lang hold the door shut.

At the same time, she shouted, “Minmin, call Old Miao! Tell them to notify the military police to set up defenses at the exit!”

Not a single one of these Fierce Hound creatures that hated humans could be allowed to escape.

Otherwise, someone was bound to suffer for it.

Yin Minmin didn’t answer. A harsh beam of light shone from behind them.

Qin Ying heard someone chuckle. “I didn’t expect so many of you to make it out.”

Qin Ying’s hands froze.

She slowly turned around and was first blinded white by the glare of a high-powered flashlight.

Someone gave her a frivolous whistle.

When the person across from her finally moved the flashlight away, Qin Ying took a moment to recover. Only then did she see six people in black camouflage blocking their retreat completely, each of them holding a gun.

The man in the lead looked extremely familiar. It was the host from before, the one who had been wearing that gaudy suit.

Seeing Qin Ying look over, the man smiled and said, “Since meeting is fate, allow me to treat you all to a good show.”