Chapter 229: Mysterious Content

Chapter 229

"Good afternoon, sir," the security guard said, his voice respectful yet firm as his eyes took in the pristine condition of the Maybach. "This is private property belonging to the Marcus family estate. The estate is currently restricted and closed to visitors. May I ask who you are and what business you have here today?"

Maintaining a completely calm and nonchalant expression on his handsome face, Alex looked the guard straight in the eye and replied smoothly,

"I am Alex Walker, the new owner of this property. I’m just stopping by today to inspect my estate and check on a few personal things inside."

Hearing his confident declaration, the security guard blinked in surprise, and his rigid posture seemed to even relax ever so slightly. He looked down at the sleek, black Maybach worth a huge fortune, and couldn’t also help taking note of the air of authority, and casual power radiating from the handsome young man sitting behind the wheel.

The guard couldn’t help but think to himself that a young man driving such an expensive vehicle might actually be telling the truth about acquiring the property. Besides he had heard from some of his colleagues that before his former boss, Marcus died, he had transferred his entire property to someone.

So that means there was actually a very high chance that the young man in front of him was that person.

As the burly guard leaned slightly closer to try and verify Alex’s claim, his eyes naturally drifted past his figure toward the passenger side of the vehicle. Through there his eyes locked onto Celine’s breathtaking side profile.

The guard’s eyes instantly widened the second he recognized who it was. As someone who had worked security for Boss Marcus for several years, he was able to immediately recognize her as one of the most dangerous, and secret figures who used to walk by Marcus’s side like a shadow.

If a formidable woman like her was willingly sitting in the passenger seat of this young man’s car, then there was no longer any shadow of a doubt left in his mind.

The guard hastily took a step back, straightened his back, and bowed deeply toward the car, with his voice now filled with sincere apology and utmost respect.

"My deepest apologies, sir! I didn’t recognize you immediately. Please forgive my disrespect. Welcome to your estate!"

Without wasting another second, the security guard turned around and rushed back into his booth, and hurriedly pressed the master control button. With a weird machine hum, the grand gates swung wide open, and cleared a path into the vast estate.

After seeing the man’s sensible behavior, Alex gave the guard a nod before pressing his foot down on the gas pedal. The Maybach drove smoothly through the entrance, then moved past the expansive, manicured lawns and marble fountains until it came to a halt right in front of the grand main entrance of the sprawling mansion.

The two of them stepped out of the vehicle and left the car parked near the main stairs, as they began walking up to the heavy wooden front doors and pushed them open.

Celine immediately took the lead, since she was technically the only one among the two of them who knew the exact room where the safe containing the ticket was. All Alex could do was to follow closely behind her, while trying his best to keep his notoriously naughty eyes fixed straight ahead, but it was proving to be a difficult task.

You couldn’t possibly blame him because the thing was, with every step Celine took, her slender waist swayed gracefully, and made her outfit accentuate her perfectly rounded backside in a way that could test the resolve of any saint.

Alex had to mentally chant a few calming thoughts just to keep his focus on the actual mission at hand.

After navigating through several grand hallways and ascending a wide staircase that felt like forever, Celine finally stopped in front of a pair of heavy, double-crowned mahogany doors.

She then pushed them wide open, revealing a vast, dimly lit room lined with very high ceilings, some grand leather chairs, and massive bookshelves overflowing with hundreds of not thousands of old books that kind of reminded him of a library meant for old rich people. It was clearly the master study where Marcus used to conduct his private business.

Alex stepped into the room, and scanned around every single corner, wall, and desk of the room. Yet, despite searching so thoroughly, there was no sign of any safe box anywhere in sight.

Turning to Celine, he couldn’t help raising an eyebrow in a bit of doubt.

"Are you sure this is the right place? There’s no safe in sight here at all.... It seems like maybe that sly old fox must have hidden it somewhere extremely clever. Now how on earth are we going to find where it is?"

Instead of answering him right away, Celine raised a finger to her soft lips, making a silent shushhhh gesture toward him, before turning around to face the massive wall of bookshelves.

She then walked slowly along the wooden shelving, with her fingers lightly tracing the spines of various thick leather-bound books. All of a sudden, she paused at a specific section near the far corner of the room, and narrowed her eyes as she studied the arrangement.

Finally, she reached out and firmly pulled on a thick, dark-green book tucked away on the third shelf.

CLICK!

A clicking sound echoed through the quiet study. And a second later, a large section of the bookshelf began to shift, slowly sliding outward before pivoting silently to reveal a hidden passageway built right into the thick wall!

Alex’s eyes widened slightly as the concealed door opened, revealing a hidden walk-in secret room. Inside the room were neat tables stacked high with piles upon piles of crisp, green mint banknotes, rare antique art pieces, and expensive jewelry that looked like it cost a fortune.

Sitting right in the very center of the room, and resting directly atop a small reinforced table, was a dark-grey steel safe box.

Alex stared at the hidden mechanism and the secret room with a look of pure amusement, while shaking his head.

"I kinda thought this type of cliché hiding method only existed in spy movies. But I never knew a man as paranoid as Marcus would actually build a secret room behind a bookshelf in real life."

Celine let out a cold chuckle as she stepped into the secret room.

"You’d be surprised by how unoriginal paranoid people can be. I only knew this secret room existed because I once caught a brief glimpse of him coming out of here when he was hiding a very important blackmail documents against a powerful government official. But I didn’t exactly know which exact book was the trigger mechanism, so I just had to guess based on where his hand was lingering back then."

Alex nodded thoughtfully as he followed her inside. They both walked up to the small steel safe. The safe was this kind of thick, reinforced with heavy titanium alloy piece of baby, with an advanced digital keypad that didn’t exactly fit with the whole 2009 vibes.

Alex stared down at the metal box for a moment before looking up at Celine.

"So... by any chance, do you happen to know the access code or key for this thing?"

Celine shrugged her shoulders indifferently, giving him a flat look. "No. He never shared his passcodes with anyone, not even with his most trusted subordinate."

"Sigh. Well then, I guess I’m just going to have to open it the old-fashioned way."

After saying that he got to action right away. Alex reached forward with both hands, dug his fingers into the edges of the safe box as if they were made out of clay and easily tore the safe in half without breaking a sweat.

He then let the mangled piece to drop to the floor, causing the contents hidden inside the safe to spill out like water.

Alex leaned forward to inspect the items. The first thing that caught his eye was a crisp, elegant dark-gold envelope containing an official auction invitation pass. Alex picked it up and opened it, noting that the ticket explicitly allowed the holder to bring a plus-one guest to the exclusive underground event.

However, alongside the ticket were two extremely peculiar items that didn’t quite seem to belong with normal currency or documents.

One was an ancient, rolled-up leather map covered in strange, faded symbols and lines. The other item was a smooth, fist-sized crystal that was pure, pitch black. It looked so intensely dark that it almost felt as if it was actively absorbing the light around it.

Alex picked up the dark gold ticket and slipped it smoothly into his jacket pocket. He then picked up the ancient rolled-up map and turned his head toward Celine, giving her an inquiring look as if asking whether she knew anything about these strange items or what they were meant for.

Celine stepped closer, and stared at the black crystal and the old leather map, before shaking her head slowly.

"Don’t look at me like that, I have no idea what those are. But now that I think about it... I do recall Marcus taking a secret private trip to Egypt a few months ago. When he came back, he seemed unusually obsessed with keeping certain personal items locked away. He must have acquired that map and crystal during that trip."

Alex studied the mysterious black crystal for another moment. Realizing it wasn’t something he could easily decipher right now, he casually waved his hand. With a subtle flick of his spatial storage ability, both the ancient map and the strange black crystal instantly vanished into thin air, stored safely within his system’s spatial storage space.

"Alright, that takes care of everything we came here for," Alex said smoothly, turning around toward the exit. "Let me take you back home."

Celine nodded in agreement, and the two of them exited the hidden room, walked out of the grand mansion, and got back into the Maybach.

The drive back toward Alex’s luxury residential complex was smooth and quiet. The late afternoon sun was already beginning to dip below the horizon, painting the sky in deep shades of orange and purple as the city lights started to flicker one by one.

A couple of long minutes later, Alex guided the Maybach into the familiar driveway leading to his parking garage.

However, just as the car began to slow down like how any other normal car would, Celine’s body completely tensed, and her void black twin eyes sharpened into dangerous points as her head snapped toward the entrance of the penthouse.