The Secret of the Hidden Room

Lan Su and Sui Jiang made their way back to the main room, where they found the rest of their companions waiting anxiously. Lan Su noticed that Xue Fang's injury had been tended to, and the healer had left some herbs for her to take.

"We have to find a way to open that hidden door," Lan Su said, determined.

"I agree," Sui Jiang said. "But how do we do that?"

Lan Su looked around the room, scanning the walls and the ceiling. Then her gaze fell on the floor. She noticed a small groove that ran along the edge of the floorboards.

"Look," she said, pointing to the groove. "I think there's a mechanism under the floor that opens the door."

Sui Jiang nodded. "Let me take a closer look."

Sui Jiang knelt down and examined the groove. He ran his fingers over it, feeling for any irregularities. Then he stood up and walked over to a nearby cabinet. He opened the cabinet and took out a small tool kit.

"This should do the trick," he said, pulling out a thin metal rod with a hook on the end.

Sui Jiang knelt down again and inserted the rod into the groove. He felt around for a moment until he found a latch. Then he pulled the rod towards him, and the latch clicked open.

Suddenly, the floorboards beneath them began to move, sliding open to reveal a hidden room. The room was small, barely big enough to hold a person. But it was filled with ancient murim contraptions, each one more intricate than the last.

Lan Su and Sui Jiang looked around in amazement, marveling at the ingenuity of the designs.

"What is this place?" Xue Fang asked, peering over their shoulders.

"I think it's a secret workshop," Lan Su said, examining a device that looked like a miniature crossbow.

"But who would have built all of these things?" Sui Jiang wondered.

Lan Su shrugged. "It's hard to say. But I have a feeling that whoever it was, they were very skilled."

As they explored the workshop, Lan Su noticed something odd. There were no tools or materials in sight. The room was perfectly clean, as if it had just been swept.

"That's strange," she said, furrowing her brow.

"What is?" Xue Fang asked.

"There's no evidence of anyone having used this workshop recently," Lan Su said. "It's almost as if someone has been maintaining it all this time."

Sui Jiang looked at her, his expression serious. "That could mean only one thing. There's someone else here, someone who doesn't want to be found."

Lan Su nodded. "We need to be careful. We don't know what we're dealing with."

With that, the group made their way out of the hidden room, back into the main room of the abandoned mansion. But Lan Su couldn't shake the feeling that they were being watched, that someone was lurking in the shadows, waiting to strike.