Chapter 5: The Room
Behind the door was only darkness.
Behind him, the wreckage of the car was still burning in raging flames.
Borrowing the light from the flames, Jason could roughly see the layout of the room.
Generally similar to its dilapidated exterior, there was no excess furniture in the room. A major part of the flooring was shattered into broken pieces, especially the corridor area near the door. The remnants of the flooring were further dismantled by people, to give way to a two-meter-long, three-meter-deep pitfall.
Obviously, anyone who pushed the door open and walked straight in would plunge right down, without the chance to stay alert.
A straight, hanging ladder was fastened to the side near the door.
"Just now, that 'temporary employer' merely opened the door as wide as a small gap. This not only allowed him to protect himself, but it was also because he had to get up on the ladder to talk to me."
This revelation arose within Jason, which made him check the ladder with extra prudence.
Since the other party had been so cautious, it was highly possible that this was not something as simple as laying out a trap.
Soon, Jason made a discovery.
The fourth rung of the ladder, which seemed to be made of solid metal, was, in fact, pieced together.
This was prepared for those who managed to evade the first trap.
And both sources were at the bottom of the ladder.
Many iron nails, that were as long as fingers, were pointing upwards.
The iron nails were densely distributed, with a clear pathway right in the middle. Without a doubt, this was the place that the temporary employer had earlier walked on.
Half-leaning against the ladder, with his right hand grabbing ahold of the ladder, Jason expanded the pathway on the ground with the withered branch that he held in his left. Then, he used the branch to poke around the ground to confirm that there were no longer any more traps before he stepped off the ladder.
With this branch, Jason explored the road ahead as he ventured along this pathway. After taking seven to eight steps forward, he found himself leaving the area laden with iron nails. He took a turn into another corridor, where he found a thick, heavy curtain in front of him.
The top end of the curtain hung from overhead, while the other end fell all the way to the ground, thus blocking out everything ahead without leaving as much as a single crevice.
"If it were me, I would have set up a shotgun behind the curtain and connected the trigger to the two edges of the curtain with a fishing line. This way, no matter which side of the curtain was tugged, it would still pull the trigger of the shotgun."
With this idea in mind, Jason subconsciously took two steps backward and retreated into the corner of that corridor. Then, he practically plastered himself to the wall as he positioned himself on the ground on all fours. He stuck out the branch in his hand, and, very carefully, extended it to reach the other side from below the curtain. Then, after retracting his head, he applied strength lightly on his fingertips to lift an edge of the curtain.
Light!
The bright light ray shone over from the lifted edge of the curtain, like a knife that sliced the darkness into two, and shone right into Jason's eyes. He took a deep breath and stuck his head out.
The solid earth ground was no different from the ground beneath him. With the many table legs around, and because of the angle of his position, he could only see half of the entire place.
Fortunately, there were no shotguns or other traps within his line of vision.
But still, Jason carefully used the branch to give the curtain a thorough once-over before he got up, walked over, and lifted the thick, heavy cloth.
A light ray, even more piercing than before, caused Jason to squint both of his eyes involuntarily.
Before him, there was a room of about 50 square meters, and it was filled with tables.
On every one of these tables, there were more than 20 monitors that were brightly lit. They were showing the situation of the entire Tur Street.
"No wonder he could grasp hold of the timing so accurately!"
Jason secretly thought to himself as his eyes followed the power cords of the monitors all the way to the power sockets embedded in the wall.
Electricity, other than the limited supply of water, was a relatively perfect public facility that would never exist within the 26th District!
In fact, after entering the 20th District, electricity would become a facility of very limited supply.
As for being able to empower the entire 26th District, which was previously void of electricity, plus these sets of monitoring facilities…
"Seems like this temporary employer is far more important to the VIP than I thought he would be!"
Likewise, the VIP's plan was far bigger than Jason had imagined.
After all, in the 26th District that had no electricity, such a grandiose layout was not a simple affair, even for the VIP himself.
For Jason, this piece of news was both good and bad.
The good news was, he need not worry that the unlucky guy that just died was a target of the VIP.
He had more than enough time to stay here.
The bad news was, he would be facing an even worse situation. Not only would the VIP seek revenge after learning that the unlucky guy had died, all the enemies that the VIP had to face would also become his.
The other party was definitely not someone insignificant.
Otherwise, the VIP would not have gone to great lengths.
Once again, he scanned through the monitors before him. Jason seemed to see countless enemies, baring their teeth and brandishing their claws as they approached, wanting to devour his flesh and blood.
He could not help himself. Jason took several deep breaths.
And forced himself to calm down.
Panicking would be completely useless to him right now.
It was only going to make things worse.
Then, his eyes started to sweep the surroundings.
He needed to find more useful and valuable items to help himself tide over this difficult time.
And this was the other important purpose for him to enter this room.
Soon, Jason made a discovery.
In the corner of the room, there were two rectangular wooden boxes, placed side by side. On top of the wooden box on the left, he saw the "parcel by post" that he had just delivered.
Though he walked over to it very quickly, Jason did not open the box immediately. Instead, he first checked the two wooden boxes and the parcel to confirm that there were no booby traps or things of that nature. Then, he opened the wooden boxes and the parcel.
The box on the left contained a UZ submachine gun, two sets of 50-round magazines that were fully loaded with bullets, and three K2 defensive grenades.
The wooden box on the right was filled with neat rows of canned food, bottled water, and a micro-medical kit that was filled with supplies like alcohol, gauzes, bandages, needles, thread, as well as anti-inflammatories.
The content inside the package was much simpler. It was just a dark brown notebook.
Jason, who was extremely lacking in the sense of security, immediately picked up the UZ submachine gun and verified that the accompanying magazine of the gun was fully loaded. Then, he put the two magazines and the three K2 defensive grenades into the hidden pockets of his pants and jacket, respectively. He finally felt a little more relieved.
In addition to the previous two MF92 pistols, Jason's body could be said to be full to the brim, especially at his waist, where the hard weapons pressed against him so much that he hurt. But in return, the sense of security was unprecedented.
After he was done with equipping himself well, Jason finally took the alcohol gauze to bandage his wound.
The wound was much smaller than Jason thought, and the bullet was not left inside his body.
No removal of bullets or stitches was required.
This allowed Jason to handle the wound at a speed that was several times faster.
In order not to waste the alcohol, Jason did not pour it over the wound directly. First, he soaked some gauze in the alcohol and used these gauzes to clean the wound. Then, he went on to do the bandages.
After cleaning his wound, Jason threw the blood-stained gauze onto the wooden box that was right next to the notebook.
Very naturally, Jason picked up the notebook.
From the outside, the dark-brown notebook seemed to be just an ordinary notebook with age. Other than having a dark-brown cover that should be made of cow leather, there was nothing much to take notice of.
But as a package that was entrusted by the VIP himself, there would be no hint of negligence on Jason's part at all.
And the next moment, Jason proved that he was right.