So, a few days later, when Li Cu and his friends were playing, they had another chance to pass by that warehouse. He remembered what his father had said a few days ago, and his curiosity made it impossible for him to control himself.

He secretly found a tree to climb up and then crawled along the branches to the top of the warehouse. At that time, the roof of the warehouse was covered with asbestos tiles. He lifted a few tiles and, seeing that there was no one below, he stealthily climbed inside, sliding down the beams and columns to the ground.

However, when he reached the ground, he discovered that everything had been cleared out. The entire warehouse only contained some moisture-proof tarps that had been draped over the items at the time.

He rummaged around in the empty, dim warehouse, naively hoping to find a few items that might have been left behind to see what they were. But he found nothing except for a delivery note in a corner that had been trampled on, which recorded countless transaction details.

On that note, he saw a symbol for the first time, and it wasn’t until he was in high school that he understood what that symbol meant.

The meaning was: Biochemical contamination hazard.

Later, he checked a lot of information and inadvertently saw a strange container in a book that he had seen at that time; it was a device for sealing biochemical materials. Moreover, this device was a special piece of equipment, as the number of rivets on the outside represented the degree of sealing and also indicated the danger level of the contents inside.

In the picture he saw in the book, the container had four rivets on four sides. But the one he saw in the warehouse had nearly ten rivets.

After learning about that item, he immediately understood why his father had such a nervous reaction, because this kind of thing was very dangerous. At that time, at least five thousand people lived in that factory area. If there were any hazardous materials stored in the warehouse without proper management and the doors were left wide open, it would indeed be very irresponsible towards those five thousand people.

Therefore, this strange container left a deep impression on him. Now, seeing it again, he instinctively felt a sense of fear towards it.

10. Two Hypotheses and Three Possibilities

Regarding Li Cu’s thought that “this thing contains very dangerous materials,” others remained noncommittal.

For them, the sudden appearance of this item was merely a twist of fate; if they hadn’t been resting by the lake, their equipment wouldn’t have been thrown into the water, and this incident wouldn’t have happened.

From the perspective of those involved in the project investigation, the most urgent matter at hand was to see if this equipment could still be used, in order to determine whether this exploration should continue—whether the project could proceed represented many things: money, honor, and opportunities for promotion.

Thus, Wu Xie didn’t pay too much attention to these people, only expressing agreement with Li Cu’s thoughts. After the others dispersed, the few of them gathered by the lake and started a fire to continue discussing this strange matter.

Wu Xie, the first to speak, said: “Last night, these pieces of equipment were definitely thrown into the water on purpose. The purpose of throwing them into the water can only be one of two things: the first is to stop us from moving forward, bringing this investigation to an end; the second is to lure us to discover this thing at the bottom of the water.”

“From a common sense perspective, the first possibility seems more likely. However, upon closer examination, there are very subtle contradictions. First of all, how did the perpetrator know that these instruments would be rendered unusable once thrown into the water? Generally, more advanced exploration instruments are waterproof, dustproof, and shockproof, yet most of those she threw into the water happened to be non-waterproof. This indicates that the perpetrator is very familiar with the condition of our various instruments.” Wu Xie exhaled a puff of smoke, glanced at the endless sand dunes in the distance, and continued, “If this assumption holds, then the perpetrator might be among our team, and it should be one or more of those from the archaeology department, because it is unlikely that the rest of us would be so familiar with those obscure instruments.”