173: Thunder in the Mountains

The smell of disinfectant in the nursing home mixed with the peculiar scent of the elderly, making one frown from the pungency.

Wang Dalong followed behind Lin Feng, feeling as if he were walking into a tomb of time; every step on the decaying wooden floorboards elicited a creaking groan.

In a corner by the window, a caregiver pointed to a lounge chair.

"That's him, Hans."

Wang Dalong peeked over, and his heart skipped a beat.

That was hardly a person; it was practically a skeleton draped in human skin. The old man curled in the chair, covered by a thick blanket, his face so gaunt it was unrecognizable. Sunlight filtered through the glass window onto his wrinkled and spotted face, which was terrifyingly pale.

"Mr. Hans, these two are historians who want to ask you about the town during World War II." The caregiver leaned down, close to the old man's ear, and shouted at the top of her lungs in German.

The old man's eyelids flickered as he struggled to open them a crack.

What kind of eyes were those... cloudy and gray, as if covered by a thick layer of dust, devoid of any light.

He slowly scanned Lin Feng and then Wang Dalong, his shriveled lips moving as a few words squeezed out of his throat, soft and hoarse.

"The war... it's all over..."

Wang Dalong's heart sank—it was over, a wasted trip. This old man was practically in the grave; what could they possibly get out of him?

Lin Feng didn't move; instead, he suddenly crouched down so his gaze was level with the old man in the lounge chair. This action took everyone by surprise.

In a very steady and slow pace, he asked clearly in German:

"Sir, we want to know what exactly happened inside that snowy mountain during the war?"

He extended a finger, pointing to the highest peak outside the window, which shimmered silver in the sunlight.

"Snowy mountain..."

These two words were like a key being thrust into a rusty lock!

The old man's breathing suddenly became erratic, turning short and rapid! A hint of fear emerged in his cloudy eyes!

"Devils... there are devils living in the mountains..."

His voice was no longer faint as before; it was filled with trembling and hoarseness, as if something were clutching his throat.

"They... many people came... wearing black clothes... on their hats... there were skulls..."

Schutzstaffel!

Lin Feng and Wang Dalong exchanged a look, their hearts sinking!

They had found the right person!

"They were building something in the mountains... something big... very big..." The old man seemed as if possessed, lost in memories from over half a century ago, his gaze fixed. "The men in town... were all taken away... my brother... my brother was also taken by them... and never came back..."

There was a sob in his voice, and his gaunt body began to shake uncontrollably.

"And then?" Lin Feng's voice was very low, as if guiding a sleepwalker. "What happened after that?"

"Later..." The old man's eyes became vacant again, and he muttered repeatedly, "When the war was about to end... one night... the mountain... the mountain sounded..."

He seemed to be desperately searching his mind for a word—a word that could describe the horrific scene of that night.

Suddenly!

"Yes! The mountain swallowed the thunder!"

The old man suddenly became agitated, his skeletal hand grabbing Lin Feng's arm, his nails almost sinking into the flesh.

"A massive bang! The whole town was shaking! We all thought American planes had come to drop bombs! But... but there was nothing in the sky! The sound... the sound came from inside the mountain's belly!"

It wasn't an Allied bombing!

It was self-destruction!

This information struck Lin Feng's mind like a bolt of lightning, perfectly aligning with his previous deductions!

Enduring the pain in his arm, he continued to press, "After that, did the people in the mountain never appear again?"

"No... not a single one..."

After saying this, the old man seemed to lose his last bit of strength; his head tilted, and he slumped back into the lounge chair, closing his eyes and falling into a deep sleep.

Yet his lips continued to twitch unconsciously, murmuring a faint German word.

Lin Feng leaned his ear closer, listening intently.

"Geisterstraße..."

"ghost road?"

Lin Feng straightened up, his brow furrowed deeply.

Coming out of the nursing home, the sunlight outside was blinding. Wang Dalong was still in shock from earlier, his mind filled with the old man's words: "The mountain swallowed the thunder."

"Brother Feng, what this old man said is one hundred percent about that 'Valkyries Slumber' base! My god, it actually self-destructed! Then... how are we supposed to get in? It must have been blown to bits, right?"

"If there's a road, we can get in."

Lin Feng's answer was as simple as ever, but every word carried immense weight.

Back at the hotel, Lin Feng didn't even change his clothes before calling Shi Tou and several of his core technical team members to his room.

A large military map was spread out on the table with a rustle.

"'ghost road'."

Lin Feng picked up a marker and drew a large circle on the map, enclosing all possible areas leading from the town to the snowy mountain.

"This is the term the old man mentioned. I deduce that when the Nazi were building and transporting such a large base, they couldn't have used the road through town; they must have established a top-secret transport route. This road wouldn't be found on any publicly released map."

His gaze turned to a team member who was carrying a heavy tactical backpack and looked like a technician.

"Does your drone have LiDAR scanning capabilities?"

"Yes, sir," the team member replied immediately, a hint of pride in his voice. "The LiDAR module is of the highest military grade; it can penetrate vegetation and scan the ground surface directly."

"Very good."

Lin Feng's eyes were sharp as he looked at the team member.

"Take off immediately! Centering on the coordinates we previously determined, conduct a carpet scan of this circled mountainous area!"

His voice wasn't loud, yet it carried the tone of a command.

"I want you to find all non-naturally occurring surface traces! Especially those covered by forests and shrubs that show straight or regular curved linear structures! No matter how inconspicuous they are, mark them all for me!"

"Yes, Sir!"

Shi Tou and his team members responded in unison, and without a word of nonsense, they turned to carry out the order.

Night fell quickly.

The town fell into a dead silence, with only the moonlight reflecting off the distant snowy mountains, plating this fairytale-like place with a cold silver edge.

On the hotel roof, an all-black drone with a sci-fi design had its four rotors begin to spin silently.

Emitting no excess noise, it ascended vertically like a night owl poised for action, then turned into a black speck, blending perfectly into the deep night as it flew toward the snowy mountain that had been slumbering for over seventy years.

Does that secret passage known as the "ghost road" really still exist?"}],