"Don't be reckless, Zhao Lin," Han Dong warned. "Let's just stay on this first floor. This place is enclosed enough to shelter us from the cold wind outside."
Chu Xinghe walked slowly around the round table in the center of the room. He observed the dusty teacups. Their positions suggested that people had once sat here, drank tea, and then left without ever returning to clear the table. Xinghe directed his gaze toward a corner of the pavilion near the entrance. There was something there that felt out of place.
"Huh? Is that a refrigerator?" Chu Xinghe muttered, turning his head toward Li Wei. "Wei, that looks like a cabinet from a home kitchen."
Li Wei narrowed his eyes, following Xinghe's gaze into the dark corner. He swallowed hard. The hunger in his stomach was beginning to slightly overpower his fear. Li Wei stepped forward with slow strides. Han Dong followed from behind, shining his phone's flashlight toward the object.
The object was made of dull white metal, shaped like a rectangular box reaching an adult's chest. There was a single door with a very distinctive aluminum handle. This item was completely mismatched with the black wooden walls and the bamboo scroll shelves surrounding it. It was a portable refrigerator, the kind often used in modern laboratories or research bases.
"This is modern," said Han Dong. He touched the metal surface. "This object is man-made from Earth. There's a factory logo here. Shanghai manufacturer, 2019."
That fact struck their consciousness. They were on a planet without a sun, trillions of kilometers from the solar system, and they had found a refrigerator made in Shanghai in 2019.
"Open it," Zhao Lin ordered. He was already standing beside Han Dong, staring at the refrigerator door greedily. "There must be food inside. Open it quickly."
Li Wei took a deep breath and pulled the aluminum handle. The door opened with the sound of a suction seal releasing. Cold air rushed out from within, carrying a sterile aroma. Han Dong's flashlight illuminated the contents of the refrigerator. The first shelf contained rows of vacuum-packed drinking water pouches made of silver foil. The second shelf was filled with small, tightly sealed metal boxes.
The bottom shelf contained several lumps of crystal stones the size of a fist. These stones emitted a faint, pulsing blue glow. Zhao Lin immediately reached out and grabbed two water pouches and one metal box. He tore the water packaging with his teeth and drank greedily.
"Take it easy, Zhao Lin. We don't know how long these supplies have to last," Xinghe warned. He stepped closer and took a metal box from the second shelf. Xinghe turned the box over. There was standard Mandarin text on its surface: High-Density Emergency Rations. He opened the lid and found solid food bars that looked much better than the military rations they had received on Earth.
"People from Earth came here before us," Lin Mei whispered. She took a water pouch and shared it with Fang Hua. "And they brought this refrigerator. How?"
"That furnace must have traveled to Earth before," Xinghe answered. He looked toward the partially open pavilion door, seeing the black dragons lying outside. "This thing might have a schedule. It comes, takes something or someone, and returns here."
Xin Yan stood beside Xinghe, observing the crystal stones on the bottom shelf of the fridge. "What kind of stones are those? Why did they store them in the fridge along with the food?"
Xinghe picked up one of the blue crystal lumps. As soon as his skin touched the stone's surface, Xinghe felt a warm sting traveling from his fingertips to his wrist. This warmth was a sharp contrast to the cold pavilion air. The crystal felt solid and heavy, its surface rough like a raw, unpolished mineral.
"It's warm," said Xinghe. He noticed the blue glow inside the stone. The radiance looked like a thick liquid trapped within a glass structure. "Maybe this is the energy source. The battery to keep this fridge running."
"A battery shaped like a stone?" Li Wei picked up another crystal. "Yes, it feels warm. It's nice to hold in a place this cold. But I don't see any wires connecting these stones to the fridge motor."
"Don't overthink it, Wei," Han Dong said, taking two ration boxes. "Just eat first. We need strength. If people from Earth left this, maybe they left clues on the upper floor as well."
They all sat in a circle on the wooden floor near the fridge, opening their portions of food and water. No one spoke for several minutes. They focused only on filling their empty stomachs and calming their nerves, which were frayed from the journey through the void. The solid food had a sweet and savory taste that immediately restored some of their energy.
Once finished, Xinghe stood up and brushed the dust from his pants. He looked toward the spiral staircase in the corner of the room. The stairs looked fragile, made of the same black wood as the pavilion walls. "I'm going up," said Xinghe.
"I'm coming too," Han Dong immediately stood up. His athletic physique made him feel a greater responsibility to stay on guard.
"All of you come along," Xinghe turned to the others. "We don't know what's out there. Staying together in one place is the most logical choice."
Zhao Lin snorted, but he still stood up and followed from behind. He didn't want to admit that he was too afraid to stay on the ground floor alone. Xinghe led the way up the steps. The wood beneath their feet creaked loudly. He stepped slowly, ensuring the wooden planks were strong enough to support their weight.
Han Dong shone his phone's flashlight over Xinghe's shoulder, illuminating the way up. The second floor of this pavilion had a layout very different from the ground floor. There were no bookshelves or tea tables. The room was empty in the center, leaving a very vast wooden floor area. At the end of the room stood a giant wooden vat reinforced with black iron rings.
The vat was large enough to hold three adults at once. The walls of the second floor were covered with human anatomy paintings. ini These paintings were drawn on worn silk cloth nailed to the wooden walls. Red and black ink dominated the images.
"What is this place?" Yun Hai took a step back, bumping into Lin Mei's back. Her eyes widened at the painting on the nearest wall. "This is terrifying."
Xinghe walked toward the left wall. Han Dong directed the flashlight beam to the first painting. The image showed a human figure without skin. The muscle tissue and blood vessels were drawn in very intricate detail. Bright red ink was used to thicken the lines of the blood vessels, and there were drawings of small bubbles around the neck veins and the heart.
"This is like an image from an ancient medical book," said Xinghe. He tried to read the characters written beneath the image. "Boiling Blood. Burning Mortal Impurities. This is a very strange procedure. They are depicting blood being heated until it boils inside the body."
"They boil people's blood?" Li Wei shuddered in horror. "This is a torture chamber. People in ancient times were truly insane."
"Look at this painting," Xin Yan called from the right wall.
Xinghe and Han Dong walked closer. The second painting showed the same human body, but this time the abdomen and chest were open, revealing the internal organs. The heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, and spleen were drawn in different colors, and each organ was surrounded by a thin layer of bright blue. The blue color was very similar to the glow from the crystal stones they had found downstairs.
"Coating the Organs," Xinghe read from the text beneath the painting. "Preparation to Withstand Pressure. This makes no sense biologically. Humans cannot coat their internal organs with blue energy and then live normally."
"And this is even crazier," Han Dong pointed to the third painting at the end of the wall. The third image showed a human head split open transparently. Inside the head cavity, exactly in the brain area, a vast empty room was drawn. Beneath the image was some slightly blurred writing.
"Opening the Sea of Mind. Essential Pain," Xinghe spelled the sentence slowly. He furrowed his brow. "Sea of Mind? Human brain anatomy only consists of nerve tissue and cerebrospinal fluid. There is no empty room there."
"This is clearly the record of some deviant sect," Zhao Lin crossed his arms over his chest. "Foolish people who believed they could live forever by torturing themselves. Our ancestors believed in a lot of nonsense. Maybe they drank mercury and bathed in blood."
Xinghe stared at the fourth painting, the last and largest one in the center of the back wall. The painting displayed a whole human figure in a cross-legged sitting position. Exactly in the lower abdomen, in the navel area, a very detailed lotus bud was drawn. Blue energy lines flowed from the head, past the internal organs, down into the blood, and gathered at that lotus.
"A lotus inside the stomach," Xinghe rubbed his chin. "I've often read ancient texts about anatomy and traditional medicine. But depicting an actual flower bud growing inside the intestines is something very different. This is literal, not free-form representation."
"It's just art, Xinghe," said Fang Hua, her voice sounding tired. "They draw shapes. Just like we draw a heart to symbolize love, even though the shape of a heart doesn't look like that."
Xinghe turned toward the large wooden vat at the end of the room. The vat was empty. Its edges were covered in dried dark stains. He approached the vat and wiped the stains.
"These are bloodstains," said Xinghe. "Very thick and dried long ago. This vat was used repeatedly."
Li Wei backed away from the vat. "Okay, we've seen it. This place is indeed a torture room. There are no answers here, just a dark history we don't need to know."
Xinghe turned his body, his eyes sweeping across the entire second floor. If modern Earth people had brought a fridge here, why were they in a room filled with images of ancient torture methods? Were they captives? Or were they researchers studying this place? Everything still felt confusing.
"Hey, look at this!" Yun Hai suddenly shrieked as she found a sheet of paper. "Xinghe, you love history the most. Here is a record of Hu Yan from the Ming Dynasty!"
Chu Xinghe stepped quickly toward Yun Hai, who was kneeling in the corner of the room. There, on a low wooden box covered in dust, lay a thick sheet of paper that had turned a deep yellow. The paper was not torn, as if its material had been preserved by the static cold inside this pavilion.
Han Dong aimed his phone flashlight directly at the sheet. Chu Xinghe narrowed his eyes, recognizing the sharp Kaishu script style, typical of the imperial bureaucracy of the past.
"Hu Yan," Chu Xinghe spelled slowly. His finger traced the lines of words written in deep black ink. "This is not just a note. This is a travel report."
Li Wei peered over too, even though he didn't know much about history. "Who is Hu Yan? And why is his name here?"
"He was a middle-ranking official during the reign of Emperor Yongle," Chu Xinghe answered without looking away. "Official history records that he was sent for twenty-one years to scour the entire land and sea to find Emperor Jianwen, who disappeared after his palace burned down. Official records say he failed and eventually died of illness, or disappeared at sea."
Chu Xinghe began to read the contents of the sheet in a low voice. His voice echoed on the silent second floor. "The eighth year of the Yongle reign. I, Hu Yan, was ordered to scour the southern coast. When our ship was caught in an irrational black whirlpool, the sea parted. Nine giant shadows emerged from the depths of the ocean, pulling a bronze cauldron whose size covered the sky. I did not drown. I flew. Those iron chains coiled around our ship, dragging wood and men into the belly of the cauldron."
"He flew?" interrupted Zhao Lin, his face showing a forced disbelief. "You mean he experienced the same thing as us?"
Xinghe continued his reading, ignoring Zhao Lin's interruption. "Darkness enveloped us for thousands of breaths. When the door opened, I no longer saw the land of China. I stepped onto blue stone whose cold pierced to the bone. There was no sun, no moon. Only eternal silence. Here, I found this pavilion. This building already existed before I arrived. Inside it, I saw these paintings of flayed human bodies. I realized this cauldron is not just a carriage."
Chu Xinghe's hand trembled slightly as he reached the end of the note. "Hu Yan wrote that he tried to practice what is in these paintings because he had no other choice to survive on this planet. He called it a way to 'cheat death.' But this record cuts off here. There is a large ink stain covering the bottom part."
"Wait, look at the back of that paper!" exclaimed Xin Yan.
Xinghe flipped the sheet over. On the back, there were much rougher scribbles, written with a different writing tool, perhaps a modern ballpoint pen. The writing was messy, indicating extreme panic.