Along the way, Jiang Baimian noticed that the open rooms were empty, devoid of anything.
If it weren't for the occasional broken bed or chair, she wouldn't have been sure that people lived here.
"They've moved out really clean..." she couldn't help but sigh.
"Leaving no opportunities for the ruin hunters." Shang Jianyao lamented.
Du Heng reached out and touched the handle of the door next to him, saying with a smile:
"It's not that bad.
"This handle, these floor tiles, this ceiling, these lights, they all still have some value, not to mention the steel bars that might be in the walls..."
Clang, clang, clang, Shang Jianyao's applause interrupted Du Heng.
He praised:
"Teacher Du Heng, you have a lot of life experience."
Du Heng laughed heartily:
"No matter what, I'm still a veteran ruin hunter."
*He's only been an 'official hunter' for a few years...* Jiang Baimian silently added in her heart.
Arriving at the elevator area, she checked and said:
"There's still power."
"There's still power!" Shang Jianyao was shocked. "The ruin hunters are in luck."
"Maybe the Eighth Research Institute didn't have time to dismantle the power station, and their transfer shouldn't have been that long ago, so the power station is still running automatically," Jiang Baimian speculated.
Judging from the mountain terrain and ice field characteristics, there's no way to build hydroelectric or thermal power plants here, nor is it suitable for solar power generation. Wind power is also limited by the seasons, making it impossible to maintain the stable operation of the entire research institute.
Therefore, Jiang Baimian suspected that there was a small nuclear power plant somewhere in this mountain.
"That's a good thing, no need to climb stairs." Du Heng pressed the button without caring.
One of the elevators immediately opened its doors.
Jiang Baimian suddenly frowned.
This was blocked by the mask of the military exoskeleton, and no one noticed.
Seeing Du Heng and Shang Jianyao heading towards the elevator, Jiang Baimian quickly said:
"There's a problem."
"What is it?" Shang Jianyao asked.
Jiang Baimian pointed to the elevators and said:
"Look, at least one-third of the elevators are stopped on the fifth floor."
"What's the problem with that?" The honest Shang Jianyao expressed his confusion with justification.
Seeing Du Heng also looking over, Jiang Baimian explained:
"Normally, the transfer must be to gather and leave on this entrance and exit floor.
"Those elevators should all be stopped on the ground floor."
"Maybe the last batch of people down didn't use all of the elevators." The honest Shang Jianyao retorted.
"The problem is, as many people who go up, that is the same number of people that come down." Jiang Baimian had analyzed the corresponding situation early on.
If the same group of people used seven or eight elevators to go up, they wouldn't only use three or four to come down.
"Squeezing is normal." As Shang Jianyao spoke, his voice suddenly lowered, and he began to tell a ghost story, "Maybe some people went up and never came down..."
This was exactly what Jiang Baimian wanted to say:
"Then where did they go?"
"I don't know." Shang Jianyao shook his head. "Anyway, I didn't sense their human consciousness."
Speaking of this, he looked terrified:
"Could there be a trap up there?"
"We'll know by going up to take a look." Du Heng was still casual, not caring much.
*Easy for you to say...* Jiang Baimian thought for a moment, didn't object, and just used the military exoskeleton's embedded communication system to remind Shang Jianyao:
"Keep a little distance from Teacher Du Heng later, drag behind him."
Shang Jianyao raised his right hand and made an okay gesture.
This time, neither he nor Jiang Baimian carried assault rifles again; anyway, the military exoskeleton had corresponding weapon modules.
The three of them took the elevator and quickly arrived at the fifth floor.
There was little natural light here, relying entirely on the streetlights on the ceiling.
Fortunately, there was still power.
Otherwise, it would greatly reduce the search efficiency of Jiang Baimian and others.
According to Professor Qin's memory, the fifth floor was divided into three parts.
Coming out of the elevator, the first area was where the "Professors' Joint Council" usually held meetings and the various departments that provided services for it.
In that conference room, not to mention documents, not even a scrap of paper was left behind.
Probably because the black conference table was too big to move, it was still placed in the center of the room, but around it, there wasn't a single chair.
"Too thorough, too thorough..." Shang Jianyao shook his head and sighed.
The nearby rooms belonging to different departments were in a similar state, leaving only the most cumbersome items behind. Paper documents could occasionally be seen, but they were either someone's punishment decisions or allocation schemes for certain materials, belonging to documents that were already outdated and wouldn't affect anything if they weren't taken away.
Passing through this area and through a pair of dark metal doors, Jiang Baimian, Shang Jianyao, and Du Heng entered the place where "Vice President," "Professor Li," and other "New World" powerhouses lived.
Not only were their sleeping rooms here, but also the original president's office was kept.
For some reason, the moment Jiang Baimian stepped into this area, she felt a heavy feeling in her heart.
It was very close to the stuffiness and oppression before a rainstorm.
"Do you feel anything wrong?" She used the military exoskeleton's communication system to ask Shang Jianyao.
Shang Jianyao replied:
"Nothing wrong."
"No darkened mood, stuffy feeling in the chest?" Jiang Baimian pressed.
"No." Shang Jianyao generally didn't joke at times like this.
Jiang Baimian turned her head, made a sound, and asked Du Heng.
Du Heng also shook his head:
"Very normal."
"Then maybe it's my own problem..." Jiang Baimian was almost speechless.
She analyzed it and found the most likely reason:
She was the weakest of the three.
In the Awakened domain.
Although she had passed the psychological shadow that had delayed her for a long time, she had no idea how far she was from the Mind Corridor, while Shang Jianyao and Du Heng were one an Awakened who had explored the depths of the Mind Corridor, and one with a mysterious background whose strength was only stronger than Shang Jianyao.
In the rooms of those "New World" powerhouses, not only were the instruments that maintained their physical vitality all gone, but even the pushable sleeping beds they lay on were not left behind.
"Locusts passing through, locusts passing through!" Shang Jianyao was heartbroken. "If the flushing toilet wasn't inconvenient to dismantle, they probably would have taken it with them."
"It's understandable." Du Heng comforted with a smile. "Resources are scarce on the graylands. Although the Eighth Research Institute controls some military bases and corresponding farmland and factories, they don't lack for anything, and this is also to prevent us from finding useful information through clues."
Shang Jianyao glanced at the toilet in the bathroom and said indignantly:
"If they really push us, we'll draw out the feces!
"This can analyze the corresponding 'New World' powerhouse's physical condition. I don't believe they even took the feces away!"
*He has watched too many entertainment materials from the Old World...* Jiang Baimian breathed a sigh of relief and said:
"In the septic tank, so many are mixed together, how do you know who belongs to whom?"
Moreover, "New World" powerhouses usually rely on infusions to maintain their vital signs.
Shang Jianyao was stunned for a moment:
"I didn't consider it thoroughly enough."
After leaving the rooms of those "New World" powerhouses, they continued deeper into this area.
Under the corridor, wind from an unknown source gusted past, bringing a chill that pierced into the bones.
——It's not quite the summer of the ice fields yet, and the mountain belly is particularly cold.
Shang Jianyao looked up at the ceiling and said:
"Why don't these lights move?
"If they swayed back and forth, flickering on and off, it would feel more atmospheric."
His tone was full of regret.
"There's no point, Little Red isn't here." Jiang Baimian casually replied.
"Yes..." Shang Jianyao sighed.
Before long, they arrived at the office that originally belonged to the president in Professor Qin's memory.
This room was tightly closed, securely locked, as if there were some kind of flood or beast inside.
"Want to go in?" Jiang Baimian deliberately asked.
Before Du Heng could answer, Shang Jianyao had already said:
"Professor Qin has never sensed human consciousness inside."
"Let's take a look, maybe we can discover something." Du Heng said in a tone of *since we're here*, "If there's really anything, the Eighth Research Institute should have transferred it away long ago."
Jiang Baimian did not express dissent.
The key to that door was lost somewhere, but this was not difficult for Shang Jianyao.
He raised his right foot covered with metal bones and kicked forward with force.
With a bang, the door directly crumbled.
There was no light in the room. Jiang Baimian used the streetlights to see the flying wood chips and the dust that was visible to the naked eye.
Snap, Shang Jianyao turned on the lights inside.
Under the illumination of the lights, the full view of the room was reflected in the eyes of the three.
It wasn't big here. A desk was placed on the innermost side, with a few documents scattered on it, without a computer or books.
Near the entrance, there was a row of bookshelves, and on the other side corresponding to it was a sofa area.
With the help of the military exoskeleton, Jiang Baimian could see the details of the books on the bookshelf from the doorway.
There weren't many of them left, not even filling one-fifth of the bookshelf. Most of them were philosophical, some about the ancient classics of the graylanders, and some from the large volumes of the Red River people.
There was also a part that was management-related.
In short, there was nothing worth reading.
Jiang Baimian turned her head and said to Du Heng and Shang Jianyao:
"Let's search separately to see if there are any clues here."
"Okay." Du Heng did not object.
He walked directly to the bookshelf, seemingly very interested in those books.
Jiang Baimian and Shang Jianyao searched while approaching the desk.
Along the way, Shang Jianyao sighed:
"No one has cleaned here for a long time."
"For the Eighth Research Institute, the president is a taboo topic. It's normal for employees not to be allowed to enter the office he used." Jiang Baimian "hmm"-ed.
Soon, they arrived at the desk, each picking up a scattered document and flipping through it.
Some were construction and repair plans for the Eighth Research Institute, some were budget plans for a certain year, and some were requests for leave.
Some of them were written in Graylandic, and some were all in Red River language, which seemed very chaotic.
The only two common points were that they were both very old and did not contain valuable information.
"There's another one here." Shang Jianyao pulled open three drawers in a row and took out an equally old document.
Jiang Baimian leaned over and found that this was an application to renovate the Second Research Area, using Graylandic.
Swish, swish, swish, Shang Jianyao quickly flipped to the last page of the document.
Here, someone wrote two large characters in a flamboyant script:
"Agreed."
Below these two large characters was a signature. Jiang Baimian stared intently and recognized it.
It wrote:
"Du Heng"
Du Heng! As Jiang Baimian's pupils dilated, she suddenly heard a rustling sound behind her.
In the bone-chilling wind, Du Heng's voice floated over:
"What are you looking at?"