章 13: Shocking Wealth
Joseph led the group into a vast underground palace. The entrance of it located deep in the palace, and it was guarded by ten elite soldiers armed with a rifle. According to Joseph, this underground palace was built in 1937 to act as an air-raid shelter.
After WW2 was over, the underground palace changed its purpose and acted as the vault for the entire Kingdom and Royal Family wealth. This underground palace located deep on Earth, 78 m to be precise. Although it was built a long time ago, James could see the underground palace was quite modern. He knew it must be Zhang Kui who renovated this place.
Not long after, they arrived at a huge vault door. The door appearance was the same as the usual bank vault, only it a little bigger.
"Your grandfather built this vault in 1988 with the help of the UK. Although our Kingdom was pretty backward, but we are rich! As you can see, Your Majesty, this vault was built according to the highest standard of the whole world. If you want me to exaggerate, this vault can even resist a nuclear bomb. And if Your Majesty wants to know, this vault has the same specification as the US Fort Knox vault." Joseph said as he joked.
James laughed a little to ease his nervousness. Soon, he would see the wealth of his Kingdom and the wealth that his grandfather left for him.
"Only three people know the password of this vault and open it, which is me, old man Zhou and your grandfather. Now it's also three people only with Your Majesty replaced your grandfather." Joseph explained as he inputted the electronic password and scanned his palm print and iris.
"We will scan your palm print and iris later, Your Majesty, as I can see you already impatient now." Joseph said as he vaults door slowly opened.
A gold light suddenly shined from within the vault, almost blinded James's eyes. Of course, that was only an exaggeration, but he only had one thing to say, Gold! A rack upon rack lined up in an orderly manner, and they had everything in common. Every one of them had a gold bar stacked on top of it!
James took a deep breath to calmed himself, but it was just a futile attempt. His heart rate speed up as his eyes slowly radiated gold light.
"All of the gold here already exist since your great-grandfather era. According to our estimation, all the gold here totaled for at least 2,000 ton. We don't know the exact figure as we never officially count it, but we know the rough estimation." Joseph slowly explained.
"Oh My God! How can we get this much gold? According to your say, then isn't our gold reserve ranked top 5 amongst all the country in the world ?" James exclaimed. Even though the Kingdom was wealthy, but this was just too unbelievable for him. Not only James, Yang Feng who never came here also exclaimed.
"I don't know, and even your grandfather doesn't know how can we get this much gold. But I already have a guess, all of the gold here must come from the Forbidden Island." When Joseph said the Forbidden Island, his tone was much heavier.
"Forbidden Island ?" James asked. He sure among all 97 listed island on, there was none of them named Forbidden.
"The Moon Island, Your Majesty. We will talk about that later as now isn't the time." Joseph evidently didn't want to talk about it now, so James didn't force him. Moon Island was the third biggest island of the Kingdom, and it was very fertile. The problem there was not even a single inhabitant on it, so he knew there must be some sort of gold mine or secret there. Anyway, he would know about it later.
The group slowly strolled the vault and admired the gold within it. Since ancient times, gold was always the magical thing that attracted people. It was also the same now, so the group took the time to appreciate it. The vault was quite big as only 1/4 of it was used.
"For your knowledge, Your Majesty, this isn't your grandfather legacy. All of this gold was the property of the Kingdom albeit it technically still yours anyway." Joseph suddenly said.
"What ?!" James exclaimed. This wasn't his grandfather legacy?
"Let me show the way, Your Majesty." Joseph said. Then he led James into a door not far from where the gold stored, it still inside the vault.
"If there were anywhere your grandfather left his legacy, this must be the place." Joseph pointed the door. The door was made of metal, and there was a keyhole on it. James quickly took the key that his grandfather gave to him from his necklace. He always carried the key as his necklace as it was the safest place on his heart.
James slowly inserted the key and rotated it. The door immediately sounded a click. He hesitantly opened the door and greeted by a staircase. He quickly entered it with the group. They didn't go down for long before they arrived at a quite huge hall, of course it was small compared to the vault above.
There was no gold in James imagination, but something much more 'attractive'. Antique! All he could see was antique, and its number was quite huge. Even though he only had limited appreciation ability, but he could see all of this antique was not ordinary as this was his grandfather legacy.
As no one in the group ever entered this hall, all of them was exclaimed loudly.
"Isn't this Picasso work ?" Joseph exclaimed. As he was from the aristocrat circle, he had a certain appreciation ability.
"Pollock, Cezanne, Gauguin, OMG! I never know your grandfather hold this much collection." Joseph was almost driven insane. Any person who loved art would also be driven crazy if they saw all the art in this room.
Almost all kind of art were presented in this hall, almost like a museum. And none of it was ordinary, at least it has valuable collection value to even stored in this private vault. All of it was also preserved in the right way
James eyes almost popped out from his socket when he saw a box upon box placed on the corner. All of them was filled to the brim with 'colorful stone.' But he knew all of it must be a gemstone. He could see Ruby, Emerald and the most 'common' Diamond!
All of the 'stone' was of the various size, from the smallest size of the pinky nail to even an exaggerated basketball size. James grabbed a fist-size pink diamond and caressed it carefully. After a moment, he could confirm all of this 'stone' must be a real deal. The problem was from where all of this came from?
James guessed 9/10 all of this gemstone must come from the 'Forbidden Island' from Joseph's mouth. Now he was more curious about what was going on on that island. But that was a later thing as his plan could finally be realized with all of this antique and gemstone!!!
Even someone who knew only Martial Art and Military like Yang Feng couldn't help but appreciate all the art in this hall. Much less Zhou Huang and the fanatic Joseph. All of them spent at least 2 hours in this hall before they went out for lunch.
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