We startled him, and his face turned pale, seemingly very nervous.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He furrowed his brow and stared at the box for a long time before saying, “Don’t open it. I have a very bad feeling.”
“What do you remember? Did you recall something about not being able to open this box?”
The man in the oil bottle nodded. “I don’t know; I just have a very bad feeling. If we open this box, something is definitely going to happen.” Looking at his complexion, I noticed he was sweating profusely, and I couldn’t help but break out in a cold sweat myself. If he was this anxious, what on earth was inside that box? Could it be a bomb? I immediately had the fatty retract his hand from the lock.
The fatty said, “Damn, bro, don’t scare me like that. What exactly did you remember?”
The man in the oil bottle pinched his forehead, looking a bit pained. “I can’t describe this feeling.”
The fatty clicked his tongue. “Could it be that this box isn’t opened in a normal way and has some mechanism inside? If we open it, it might shoot out poison needles or release toxic liquid?”
I thought that was quite possible. The man in the oil bottle had a deep understanding of mechanisms, and this iron box seemed to contain something very important, likely set up with some kind of trap. If we didn’t know the trick to opening it, it could be very dangerous.
This was troublesome. I was itching to know what was inside, but in this situation, I couldn’t just grit my teeth and risk opening it. At that moment, I had a thought: if the fatty had been a bit quicker earlier, we might not have this troublesome situation. But then I realized that if the fatty had been quicker, we might have avoided trouble for the rest of our lives.
I had the fatty carefully help me place the iron box on the table to examine its lock. This old-fashioned twist lock wasn’t actually a lock but a simple clasp that could be opened with a gentle push. Given our level of expertise, we couldn’t tell if there was a problem behind the twist lock.
“What do we do now?” the fatty asked, feeling frustrated.
“It seems the only option is to take this thing back, find a few experts to take a look, and then search around here to see if there’s anything worth noting,” I said, looking around. That was the only plan we had.
The fatty knocked on the iron box. “Damn, how long will it take to open this thing? It might take half a year. Or we could just go straight to A Gui and ask him to bring a knife to pry it open.”
I hadn’t even shaken my head when the man in the oil bottle already did. He said, “No, it shouldn’t be a problem with a mechanism.” Saying that, he used his long fingers to press the twist lock and gave it a slight turn. It didn’t feel like there was a mechanism; the lock seemed fine.
If it’s not a mechanism, then why can’t we open it?
The man in the oil bottle shook his head. I pondered, “Could it be that there’s something wrong with what’s inside the box?”
“What could it be? Is there a poisonous snake inside? After being locked up for so many years, it must be a dried-up snake by now,” the fatty said, a bit impatient. “How about this: you all step back, and let me handle it. I have a strong constitution; I don’t believe I can be taken out by a box.”
“Absolutely not. Not to mention living creatures, there could be something highly toxic inside. If you open it, not only will we be in trouble, but the entire village could be affected because of you,” I replied.

The fat man cursed and sat down on the bed, saying, “This won’t do, that won’t do. Let’s just send it to the steel mill to be melted down. We’ll pretend this never happened.”

I found the atmosphere a bit comical yet strange. We had traveled a long way to get here and had indeed found the house of the Mysterious Oil Bottle, as well as some important clues. However, because of the vague feeling surrounding the Mysterious Oil Bottle, we didn’t even dare to open the box containing the clues, which was quite frustrating. But taking risks at this stage didn’t seem worth it.

I patted the fat man to calm him down and suggested we knock on the floor again to see if there was another hidden layer underneath. Given how the Mysterious Oil Bottle had broken the floor, it was clear that a whole wooden board had been nailed down to create that hidden layer, indicating that he didn’t plan to take the box out anytime soon. The construction of such a hidden layer was quite elaborate and likely involved more than one.

So we began to knock around, but since the house was elevated, we felt there was something beneath the wooden boards no matter how we knocked. The floor of the tall wooden house wasn’t industrially laid; it was simply assembled with long wooden strips, leaving large gaps between the boards. The fat man lay down on the floor to peek underneath. The lower half was a chicken-raising area, and we could see the muddy ground.

The fat man wasn’t afraid of getting dirty at all, and he crawled around, getting himself all muddy but finding nothing. It seemed there was only that one hidden compartment.

After searching three times and checking every inch inside and out, we were certain there was nothing else. The fat man clapped his hands and said, “Alright, we can’t find what we’re looking for, and we can’t open what we need to. Let’s pack our things and leave before A-Gu and the others get suspicious. We can’t be taking photos of a shabby house for this long.”

I thought he was right, so I went to move the box, but the fat man stopped me, saying, “This thing can’t be exposed to light. If we take it out now and A-Gu sees us coming out empty-handed but going back with something so big, it might be hard to explain. If this gets out, it could reach Chen Pi A-Si’s ears. I think we should put the box back in its place and come back to move it out at night.”

The fat man was thoughtful, and I nodded in agreement. So he crawled under the bed and pushed the box back into that hole, then carelessly covered it up with the wooden boards to conceal the hole.

Next, I packed the photo files into my bag, preparing to go back and review them properly. Just as I was tidying up, I suddenly heard a knocking sound on the floor again.

I said to the fat man, “Stop knocking; didn’t you say you wanted to leave?”

The fat man, who was smoking on the side, raised both hands to indicate he wasn’t the one knocking. I looked at the Mysterious Oil Bottle, who was neatly arranging the boxes and books, and he clearly heard the knocking sound too, looking over at us.

Huh? I was taken aback. Who was knocking on the floor?

We focused and listened carefully, and we discovered the sound was coming from beneath the bed—“thump thump thump”—very faint but urgent.

The fat man and I exchanged glances, extinguished our cigarette butts, and cautiously bent down to look under the bed. I crouched down as well.

There was definitely no one under the bed; that was obvious. As we got closer to the floor, we felt no vibrations from the boards. The sound wasn’t knocking on the floor; it seemed somewhat distant, and we couldn’t pinpoint exactly which corner under the bed it was coming from.

The fat man made a gesture, indicating: Below the floor!

I nodded, thinking to myself: Could there be a mouse or a chicken that ran under this high wooden platform? Suddenly, I saw the wooden planks covering the iron box move slightly. Hmm? This is strange, I was dumbfounded. Could it be that the iron box is moving?