Forgotten Photo Studio

Chapter 40 Hidden Traces in a Decaying Cabinet
The radio in Ah Zhe's hand suddenly became noisier, as if the frequency was being repeatedly manipulated by an invisible hand, emitting a piercing beeping sound that seemed to be crying through radio waves.

The compass needle in Chen Zhiwei's hand stopped swaying and began to tremble violently, as if it were forced to swing wildly to some unseen "rhythm".

The moment that sigh rang out, Xu Yan's right arm suddenly became hot, and a faint glow appeared on the dark blue lines beneath his skin.

A trace of that cold, suppressive aura spontaneously spread out, not as a form of suppression, but rather as if it subconsciously... echoed that sigh.

“Something’s not right…” Xu Yan frowned sharply, staring at the now-still water glass and the deathly silent room. “This isn’t a simple case of lingering memories… It’s like she’s been tripped up by something and can’t move on.”

His words seemed to make the already chilly room feel even colder.

As if to confirm his words, that old, tearful sigh rose again.

This time, there seemed to be an added layer of anxiety and pain, intermittent yet lingering:
"Cold...so cold...the key...my key...I can't find it...I can't go back...home..."

The voice gradually weakened, as if it had run out of strength.

Just before the sound completely disappeared, in the deepest shadow in the corner of the bedroom.

A small, dark, damp stain silently spread across the wall, its outline vaguely resembling a curled-up human figure, but in an instant it was reduced to a slightly darker wall color than the surrounding area, as if it were just an illusion.

The sound eventually faded into a suffocating silence, leaving only a chilling room and the group of people with expressions of astonishment.

"A key?" A-Zhe murmured, trying to find logic in the jumbled "signals" he had just captured. "Was she really just talking about a key to a drawer in the house? Or..."

Xu Yan did not answer. He just stared at the faint dampness and felt the lingering, cold pain in his right arm that strangely resonated with his sorrowful obsession.

Low-energy reaction? The center's "not accepted" decision now seems so ridiculous and arrogant.

Behind this seemingly weak obsession may lie a bizarre truth that is far more complex and closer to some kind of essence than the raging vengeful spirit.

Xu Yan's heart suddenly tightened.

The word "key" made his heart sink for no reason, as if it had touched upon some deeper unease.

The deathly silence in the bedroom seemed to have gained weight, making one's chest feel suffocated.

The lingering sigh and the fleeting dampness in the corner clung to everyone's skin like a cold spiderweb, impossible to shake off.

"The key...the key?" Zhou Wenbin's voice broke the suffocating silence, choked with sobs. "My mother...she usually kept the keys to some important drawers in the house, but...but after the funeral, we checked everything, and nothing was missing..."

He looked even more bewildered and lost.

Ah Zhe squatted on the ground, the radio emitting crackling static. He irritably slapped the casing:
"This frequency is jumping wildly, intermittently, like someone is sending Morse code on an old pager... Damn, if this radio hadn't been modified to have strong anti-interference capabilities, I would have thought it was just static on the neighbor's TV screen." He frowned. "But the source of the interference seems to be more concentrated... right there!"

He looked up at the old-fashioned five-drawer chest.

The compass needle in Chen Zhiwei's hand stubbornly pointed towards the cabinet.

She stepped forward. The cabinet was old, with peeling red paint. On the first drawer hung an old but intact brass lock.

"Mr. Zhou, this drawer?"

“My mother locked this lock before she passed away,” Zhou Wenbin quickly explained. “There were just some old things inside. We opened it later and saw that it was indeed just some old clothes, diaries…” He tried hard to recall, “There really wasn’t anything special inside.”

"Could you open it one more time?"

Xu Yan spoke, his voice low and deep. As his right arm approached the cabinet, the cold resonance became sharp, as if the Soul-Suppressing Iron buried under his skin was being pulled by invisible threads, trying to break free from his flesh and blood and rush towards some source.

This feeling stirred a strange, indescribable sense of unease within him.

Could it be that the thing behind the wall has a blood-related connection with his modified arm?
Perhaps... he himself is part of that missing "key"?

Although Zhou Wenbin was puzzled, he still found the key and opened the lock.

The drawer was slowly pulled open.

An old, worn smell emanated from the room. Inside were neatly folded old clothes, a few notebooks, and a wooden box.

Everything seemed ordinary and unremarkable.

A Zhe scanned it with the detector: "The residual energy is weak... it doesn't seem to be any critical item."

Chen Zhiwei carefully picked up the wooden box and opened it; inside were old photos, medals, and other items.

Her gaze swept over the objects bearing the marks of time, but her brows furrowed more and more deeply.

The Zhou family was an ordinary family, so why would they...? She subconsciously touched the outline of her grandfather's notebook in her pocket, and a chill crept up her spine.

The technique of using this hidden compartment is clearly the "concealing secret" method mentioned in my grandfather's notes, a technique that has long been lost and could not possibly be known by anyone who is not a family with a long tradition.

Grandpa...and Grandma Zhou?

How can this be?

For the first time, she felt a great sense of unease and doubt about the "ordinary" things recorded in her grandfather's notebook.

Xu Yan's gaze fell on the deepest part of the drawer.

He reached out his left hand and lifted the velvet cloth.

Below, a hidden baseboard, neither wood nor metal, was revealed, with extremely fine and twisted patterns engraved on it.

It bears a striking resemblance to some of the curse marks on Xu Yan's right arm.

In the center of the hidden compartment was a small indentation covered with runes. But it was empty.

"This is... a kind of 'hidden secret'?" Chen Zhiwei's voice trembled slightly, without her even realizing it. "It requires a specific 'key' to open, and forcibly destroying it will trigger self-destruction or a curse... but this is clearly an ordinary household..."

Zhou Wenbin stared in disbelief: "I...I never knew this existed..."

at this time!

Ah Zhe's radio noise suddenly spiked to a sharp peak.

"Wait! The signal has changed! A small, stable frequency has been extracted from that static... It's not pointing to the drawer, it's pointing to the back! The wall behind the cabinet!" he shouted.

Almost simultaneously, Xu Yan felt a tearing pain in his right arm.

The patterns on the hidden compartment seemed to come alive, emitting a faint light that resonated wildly with the Soul-Suppressing Iron in his arm.

After the compass needle in Chen Zhiwei's hand spun wildly a few times, it became firmly fixed to the wall next to the dresser.

"It's not in the drawer..." Xu Yan endured the excruciating pain that felt like his bones were being sucked out, squeezing out the words through gritted teeth, "The 'key'... or something else... is hidden in the wall! Right behind here!"

The color drained completely from Zhou Wenbin's face. He stared at the white wall as if a man-eating demon was lurking behind it.

"Mom..." he murmured, overwhelmed by immense fear, "What...what are you hiding..."

Just as everyone was staring at the wall, captivated by this astonishing discovery.

Deep within the wall, a faint "snap..." could be heard, like a very light and slow fingernail weakly scraping across the rough lime interior.

The sound was so faint that it was almost a hallucination.

But it caused the air in the room, which had already dropped to freezing point, to freeze completely.

Is there something inside?

Or rather, the mother-in-law's unyielding obsession and the secret she guarded until her death were not simply about "hiding" something.

(End of this chapter)