"So, it's not a bad idea to be cautious while searching," Liang En said seriously to Pierce over an hour later, in a restaurant several hundred meters away from the courtyard they were just in.
After the police officer had finished questioning Liang En, they were inspected from head to toe by a person in a hazmat suit before being allowed to leave. They were informed that they could return after 3 PM.
From their subsequent conversation with the police officer, Liang En learned that the iron box contained mustard gas used for training soldiers during World War II. If it were to accidentally leak, it could cause significant harm.
This was also why the police took some time to arrive after receiving Liang En's photo. They needed to coordinate with specialists from the Bolton-Tang Laboratory who dealt with such biochemical weapons before coming over together.
"You're right. And we've been fortunate. At least those canisters didn't leak," Pierce remarked after swallowing a bite of his steak. "So, what's our plan now? Do we wait until after 3 PM to go back in for exploration?"
"That's for sure. After all, the police mentioned that this gas is meant for training, and the quantity inside the canisters isn't significant. Even if it did leak, if we smell it and run, we'd at most get injured," Liang En pondered for a moment and replied.
"More importantly, these gas canisters wouldn't be distributed in large quantities at the training site. So, the ten canisters in that box are probably all the gas they had here."
"True, let's go back in the afternoon then," Pierce nodded. "By the way, I noticed you were staring at that rundown building earlier. Is there something inside the dilapidated building?"
"I suspect there might be some valuable things hidden inside that building that haven't been taken away," Liang En looked around at the other diners who weren't paying attention to their conversation, then lowered his voice. "I noticed multiple signs of renovations on that house."
"What's unusual about that?" Pierce's face showed confusion. "Since it was abandoned, it was used once during World War I, then operated as a headquarters until the 1930s. It was used again during World War II."
"Before each use, this building underwent comprehensive repairs. Even the two-story structure at the side was built before World War II. Otherwise, where do you think the electrical wires for the light bulbs in an old building came from?"
"But generally, during renovations, people wouldn't dig into load-bearing columns, right?" Liang En took out his phone and showed some pictures he had taken earlier to Pierce.
"That does seem odd," Pierce frowned as he looked at the clearly different patch of cement on the load-bearing column. It was evident that this spot had been dug up in the past and then refilled with cement.
"What do you think could be hidden here? It better not be more damn gas bombs," after studying the picture for a while, Pierce suddenly remarked. "If there's another gas bomb, we're in real trouble."
"It's unlikely. Those previous gas bombs were clearly discarded haphazardly. You know, during wartime, management in secondary areas like this might not have been as strict as in the frontlines. That's probably why hazardous materials were carelessly disposed of."
"But if they wanted to discard something, they could just dig a hole in the courtyard and bury it," Liang En pointed at the marks on the column in the photo. "There's really no need to dig holes in solid columns."
"Good point." Pierce enlarged the photo while speaking, but unfortunately, when Liang En took the picture, he was in a hurry, so the details on the top were barely visible.
"While we can't discern what's inside at the moment, this suspicion is enough to make the two of us thoroughly search that place," Pierce sighed and set down his phone in resignation.
Around 3 PM, the police officer who had previously called Liang En and the others rang again, informing them that the yard had been cleared and they could return now.
Upon receiving the call, Liang En and the other person in the bar, who was sipping a non-alcoholic drink, finished their beverages, then headed back to the militia training camp in their car.
Unexpectedly, the person who had been in charge at the construction site along with a middle-aged man in a suit were waiting at the entrance of the training camp. When they saw Liang En and the others arrive, they came forward to greet them.
The middle-aged man turned out to be the supervisor of the construction site. He had come specifically to express his gratitude to Liang En and the others for helping eliminate this hazard. Apart from verbal thanks, he returned the £150 they had been paid earlier and gave them an additional £500 as a token of gratitude.
"It seems our luck has been quite good. At least we managed to exchange that useless thing for some money," Liang En said, splitting the £650 and handing half of it to Pierce after bidding farewell to the construction site personnel.
"I don't want another stroke of luck like this," Pierce shook his head after taking the money. "If we had used a bigger shovel and exerted more force, we'd probably have spent these days in a hospital."
Upon entering the main building, the two of them began tapping and knocking suspicious walls and pillars with their tools. After more than an hour, they discovered three hidden compartments within walls or pillars in one of the rooms.
All these compartments had been carved out of the original building structure and sealed with red bricks and cement, followed by a coat of paint.
Honestly, these concealed spots built within the building itself were indeed hard to find. If not for the different colors of cement that had appeared due to decades of weathering and damage to the entire structure, nobody might have discovered these places even after a few more decades.
The first one they managed to open was a secret chamber in the basement. Judging from its size, this chamber appeared to be the largest. Regrettably, after laboriously breaking through the bricks, all they saw inside was a long green wooden box.
"Ha—We've found a weapons crate," Liang En said after the two of them managed to haul the crate out. He rapped his fingers on the wooden box. "Guess what kind of guns are inside?"
"It's probably a heap of wooden guns. You know, during the Dunkirk evacuation, even regular soldiers didn't have many real guns left, let alone many of the militia who were probably left with just wooden guns during training," Pierce guessed while shaking the box, producing a clinking sound from within.
"Training with wooden guns? Are you kidding me?" Liang En found it a bit hard to believe. After all, his homeland was an agricultural country at the time, which meant they had to face formidable enemies with rudimentary weapons. But the United Kingdom was a well-established industrial nation.
"Regular soldiers still had guns, albeit barely, but this is the headquarters of the Home Guard," Pierce explained somewhat helplessly. "At that time, only half of the Home Guard members were armed, and most of them had civilian firearms."
"These civilian firearms were brought by the Home Guard members themselves, so it's highly unlikely they would have left them here. Later, when the supplies became sufficient, they were issued professionally numbered weapons, which the higher-ups would definitely reclaim."
"So, you think this thing contains wooden guns? But I thought I heard the sound of metal clashing when we were moving it just now," Liang En said, taking out a pry bar to open the wooden crate. "I'll bet you a pound that there are real guns inside."
"I'll take that bet. I'm sure there are training guns made of wood inside," seeing Liang En prying open the crate, Pierce took out a pound coin from his pocket and stated.
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