2 The Apartment!!!

With the moon in the sky, a hushed night wind was blowing, and crickets were chirping. A serene atmosphere encompassed the city of Tianjin, but even the quietest towns had a place that never slumbered.

Inside the apartment, two people sat on a couch watching football arguing. One person waved a coke in his hand, and the other held a bucket of popcorn.

"I'm telling you, Team A is going to win," declared the long-haired man with handsome features.

His friend stuffed some popcorn into his mouth, huffing. He spoke without chewing his food first.

"You're wrong! Anyone can see Team B is going to win this easily! If you are so confident, pull out your wallet. I could use some spending money," he jeered at his opponent.

Best friends enrolled in the University of Tianjin, Morinu and Chen Feng were the biggest idols of their respective clubs.Handsome features, muscular bodies and morally-upright characters—they were the desire of all women, and the envy of all men…

Majoring in IT, Morinu was certainly into computers and programs, while Chen Feng, who was a social freak, majored in Law. Both of them kept bantering and betting, suddenly creaking sounds were heard from above the ceiling of the apartment.

Chen Feng looked at the ceiling and muttered slowly, "Wow! What is that sound dude?"

"Nothing, the man living upstairs always moves his furniture and makes strange noises. I have knocked on the door of his apartment many times to scold him but he never opens the door.",

A helpless anger simmered inside Morinu's heart when he talked about it.

This apartment was rented to Morinu no questions asked, which was why he moved in recently and Chen Feng sometimes came to accompany him and played games together with him and watched some stuff on TV, and since the University was also pretty close to the apartment so Morinu invited Chen Feng to live together with him yesterday.

Chen Feng was pretty confident on solving this problem and suggested, "Let's go to his apartment dude, the exams are coming up, if this keeps going on, we're screwed."

Morinu kept shaking his head, "Chen, let's just forget about it, I don't feel good".

"No, we need to solve this problem." Chen Feng said with undisguised bravado.

Both of them stood up and went to the stairs, climbing it slowly while hearing the sounds coming from the apartment upstairs.

Finally they stood in front of the apartment and what appeared before them was an ancient door with strange patterns, which looked like turtles and snakes fused together while struggling to survive.Chen Feng had never seen a door like this and a sudden uncontrollable outburst of feeling overwhelmed him.

Chen Feng added, "Umm! Are you ready Morinu?". Morinu who was just standing there, gave no answer, even though his legs trembled every time he came in front of this door. But this time a queer, uncomfortable perplexity began to invade his mind.

"Chen, Let's just go back please!" Muttered Morinu while staring at the door, a new trouble was dawning on his thickening mental horizon.

Chen Feng gave a side-eye to Morinu and encouraged him, "Don't worry Morinu, you know we got each other's back.", a wild vivacity was in his face and manner when his spoke these words.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

They rang the bell and waited.

...

The door slowly creaked open, making both of them nervous while the situation looked more like a horror movie drama.

What appeared before them was nothing but white light, blinding them while questions crept on their faces, "What is this?!". This little independent thread of inquiry ran through the texture of both of their mind and died away with their consciousness.

A place which was surrounded by nothing but darkness and silence suddenly became alive because of a voice filled with pain and confusion that rang out through the place.

Ugh!

Morinu opened his eyes slowly feeling aches and pain behind his neck, which made him shudder and cry out in fear, he looked around and found himself inside a very small room and tied tightly with a rope on a chair, "Ughh!, what is this place?"

Aghast at his own helplessness, Morinu looked around finding no one around him and yelled, "Chen! Chen! Where are you?"

"Ah! Don't yell I'm here" Answered Chen Feng from his right side, same as him, he was also tied to a chair exactly like him.

The room was very creepy filled with strange metallic objects which looked like experiment equipment and some injections and knifes which were placed on the table between them.

Both of them were in Johnny Gowns[1], and looked like actors doing film drama, because of their handsome features, no one would believe in what ordeal they were in at this moment looking at their dressing.

"Chen, what is this place it's so eerie, are we going to get slaughtered like pigs and experimented on." Said Morinu clearly frightened.

"D-Don't spout nonsense, let's just try to find something useful to untie ourselves from these fu*king chairs.." Said Chen Feng nervously.

After searching nothing useful nearby his chair, Chen Feng struggled for some time and finally loosened up the ropes and untied himself, he hurriedly picked up a small Scalpel knife and untied Morinu and searched the whole room and found a single door closed from outside with no lock on their side.

"Ah! Morinu come here fast I found a key" Said Chen Feng excitedly.

Morinu came to Chen Feng's side and saw the key and took it in his hands while observing the key, which looked quite ancient and beautiful, it was a bronze key used to unlock certain caskets and boxes.

Morinu asked Chen Feng while still holding the bronze key, "What are we going to do with this stupid key?"

Chen Feng was also thinking about what to do with the key, when he saw a box hidden beneath a table at the far east corner of the room.

"There! That box let's see if the key can open it" Said Chen Feng excitedly.

Chen Feng went and picked up the box which was quite ancient and dusty but still looked unique and mysterious and used the key to open it.

Inside the box, they found a small bread which was still fresh, a bottle of water and a hammer, both of them were quite happy to find something to eat and drink but they preserved the food because they did not know how long they would be stuck inside the room.

After spending 4 days in the room not knowing when this nightmare would end for them, both of them were agitated with violent and contending emotions.

Sleeping on the floor, looking at the ceiling of the room with his dim eyes, muttered Morinu very slowly, "Chen, will we die here… I don't even have a girlfriend yet I don't want to die.", All hope of discreet reticence was ripped to shreds from his face and he no longer held back his emotions.

Chen Feng looked at his best friend who was very pale at the moment and 'sighed' clearly upset at their dilemma, on the 3rd day the water in the bottle was spent and they lacked water since yesterday and both of them were dehydrated.

The situation looked very grave for both of them but still maintaining his composure Chen Feng answered, "Don't worry I'll think of something."

Morinu was smart but quite sensitive, he got upset at little things too early and had anger issues, so he largely depended on his best friend because they were both orphans and like brothers, Chen Feng was 2 months older than Morinu and both of them were 20 years old.

Chen Feng kept observing the wall in front of him while, everytime he looked at this part of the wall, A faintly quizzical look came into his incisive eyes while gazing at it.

2 days ago he noticed that the wall on the right side of the room was a little different than the other sides, he kept thinking about what to do since then and finally made up his mind to smash the wall with the hammer that they picked up from the box.

Since young Chen Feng was a man of imperious will and when he decided on something he always did it, while standing up slowly a calmness settled on his spirit and Chen Feng picked up the hammer walking towards the wall and smashed the hammer on it with full strength.

Morinu was looking at him strangely and bewildered at what Chen Chen was doing while thinking "Did Chen Feng lose his mind after being here for 4 days."

Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting!

Crash!

Ah!

Morinu looked at him smashing the wall wide-eyes and a half-breathless murmur of amazement and incredulity was uttered by him...

...

Chen Feng kept smashing on the wall until finally he broke a piece of stone on the wall but he was breathless after doing that.

Breathing heavily Chen Feng threw the hammer at Morinu's feet and said, "Morinu, take this hammer and smash that wall, it's our only chance at getting out of this place."