American homeless people, surviving in the city

Chapter 131 The Secret in the House

There was no response from inside the room. Lynch and Sylvia looked at each other, but they couldn't come up with a reasonable explanation.

But in this critical moment, Lynch couldn't dwell on such matters for too long. He quickly came up with an answer that convinced himself: "Perhaps this family doesn't usually live here—no, the fireplace is still burning. Maybe they were disturbed by the gunshots and just left?"

"Hmm... that's the only explanation."

He quickly planned his next move: "There's no time to think about it now. Since that's the case, we don't have time to ask the homeowner for permission either. We must find something here that can help us as soon as possible."

"I noticed an SUV parked outside. If we can borrow the keys to that SUV here, we can drive away!"

Hearing this, Sylvia nodded without objection: "If the resident here is home, I believe he would be willing to help us... If he's not willing, I can promise him money! A lot of money!"

She seemed to be muttering to herself, trying to convince herself to take things from a stranger's house, but in a life-or-death situation, neither of them would care too much about such things.

"But in any case, something is still off here... Sylvia, we all need to be on our guard."

After giving a final word of advice, Lin Qi began searching the cabin for anything that might be useful for his escape.

"Perhaps I also need a weapon for self-defense?"

Sylvia quickly took a liking to the logging axe hanging on the wall. She walked to the wall, extended her uninjured right hand, gripped the handle, and pulled hard—

"Heave-ho—ah, no!"

She quickly realized that, being already frail, she would not be able to lift the wood-chopping axe with her only healthy right hand after losing an arm, so she had to give up.

In the end, she could only pout and shake her head in frustration.

"Let's look for it some more."

Lin Qi sighed helplessly.

There was a corridor on one side of the living room leading into the depths of the wooden house. The two walked through the living room and into the corridor.

After leaving the living room, the cabin became even darker and more gloomy without the fire in the fireplace as a light source. Moreover, the stench, which seemed to come from nowhere, grew stronger, making Lynch and Sylvia clearly feel that the deeper they went into the cabin, the more oppressive the surrounding environment became.

The corridor was short, only a few steps long, with a door on each side, and at the end of the corridor were two staircases, one leading to the second floor and the other to the basement.

The two doors on either side of the corridor were tightly closed, and there were no room signs on them, so it was impossible to tell what kind of room was behind them. However, a pungent stench wafted out from behind the door on the left.

"Is this the source of the stench...?"

Lin Qi muttered to himself, having absolutely no desire to push open the door that reeked of a strong stench.

Sylvia thought so too: "Perhaps it's the toilet. It's very difficult to deal with excrement in these small houses that are isolated from society."

She shoved Lynch in the back: "Let's go check through the other door first. I don't think car keys would be left in such a smelly place."

Lynch also felt that Sylvia's words made some sense, so he first pushed open the door on the right side of the corridor. With another ear-piercing "creak" from the door, it was slowly pushed open, and the beam of the flashlight pierced through the darkness of the room, allowing the two of them to see the scene inside.

This appears to be a bedroom.

The room was small, but unusually messy. The bed was covered with filthy sheets, and the pillow was a disgusting brownish-yellow. Beside the pillow lay an open newspaper, its pages covered with a thin layer of dust, making its contents illegible from a distance.

There was a wardrobe against one wall, and several yellowed photos hung on the bedroom wall. Judging from the texture of the photos, they were quite old. The people in the photos were wearing old-fashioned peasant clothes, but their faces had been cropped out, leaving only long, dark holes.

A lamp sat on the bedside table, its shade covered in dust.

The scene before them, while possessing a certain everyday quality, felt strangely eerie within the gloomy wooden hut. However, at least nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

But the two had no time to overthink things. Lin Qi quickly went into the bedroom and began rummaging through the bedside table and wardrobe, trying to find the car keys that might be there.

However, after searching thoroughly, Lin Qi couldn't find anything useful.

While searching, he unexpectedly caught a glimpse of an article in the newspaper: "...The Ocean Ring Cities Sustainable Development Summit will be held in Seattle..."

...What is this? It seems to be some kind of meeting; the name is a bit unclear. It seems the people living here are quite politically conscious?

Lin Qi glanced at it briefly, feeling it wouldn't be of much help to their current situation, and didn't look at it any further.

After searching the bedroom, Lin Qi found nothing and could only shake his head before leaving the bedroom.

Then, even though he was still somewhat reluctant, he pushed open the door opposite the bedroom.

Behind the door was not the toilet as one might expect, but a kitchen.

The kitchen was a complete mess.

The stovetop was piled high with dirty pots and pans, and the oven door was open, filled with blackened food scraps.

The ground was covered with dirty black liquid, beer cans, empty cans, snack wrappers and empty plastic bags, and some broken bones with dark red marks were scattered among them.

What caught their attention even more in the kitchen were the several large iron buckets placed in the corner.

The large iron barrels were about half a person's height, their surfaces rusted and covered in yellowish-brown grease. The barrels were open, filled with a murky liquid that emitted a strong, sour smell, looking like pig swill. Some unidentified debris floated in the liquid, whether food scraps or garbage, it was unclear.

Before Sylvia even got close to the metal barrels, she was overwhelmed by the strong stench and could hardly breathe.

When she saw what was inside the bucket, she couldn't help but gag.

After struggling to suppress the churning in her stomach, she spoke weakly and with disgust: "What...what is this stuff? Who would keep several buckets of this disgusting stuff in their house?"

Although Lin Qi was better able to accept it than her, he was still turned pale by the smoke. However, he quickly realized that there was more to it than met the eye.

"...So that's where the stench was coming from."

"...But no, this is definitely not something a normal household should have."

"The residents of this wooden house are acting very strangely; we need to be extra careful!"

The ominous premonition in Lin Qi's heart grew stronger. Could the cult have had a deeper purpose in choosing to stage a car accident on the cliff next to this valley?