"Creak! Creak! Creak!" A loud noise could be heard in the master bedroom, startling Xia Yue and Su Mei. The ground they were standing on began to tremble as the king size bed started to move upwards, revealing a long stairway of the same width.
Jiang Yan returned panting, not even bothering to wipe her sweat, and quickly walked down the stairs. "Sister Yue, let's change places first. After you rest, then you can change with Sister Mei. This hallway is quite long," she said.
"You mean the basement isn't below your house?" Xia Yue asked.
"No, my brother set it up near the mountain. It's considered still part of our land, and my brother was afraid of trouble when he said he wanted to build a basement. The place my brother chose was a deserted part of the mountain where human activities were minimal," Jiang Yan replied.
"How did your brother manage to hide this from your neighbors?" Su Mei asked.
Upon hearing this question, the girl was embarrassed and her face flushed with a tinge of red. She didn't try to look at Xia Yue but still answered Su Mei's question. "Truth be told, the entire mountain district is ours."
"What?!" Xia Yue and Su Mei were both shocked by her words.
How big was the Yellow Mountain District? If it were developed in an urban style, it would fit at least a row of houses that could house around forty thousand people. Even when they thought about excluding those condominiums and flats, they were still frightened. How much courage would it take to buy barren land that couldn't be used to build an urbanized district, and strictly speaking, how much would it cost?
Where did the Jiang family get all that money from? Given the characteristics of Jiang Yan and her parents, it would be impossible for them to have produced such a large amount of money.
Then it occurred to Xia Yue.
Jiang Chen!
A name came to her mind, and she couldn't help but look at the serene face of the young man who had saved her from the verge of death. Although she was the successor and CEO of the renowned Xia Jewelry Group, she still couldn't easily spend and squander the funds of the group. But what about Jiang Chen?
Xia Yue's impression of Jiang Chen was that he was honest, silent, and quite friendly if you managed to get on his good side. She naively thought that she already fully understood him all this time. But now, with this shocking revelation, the mystery surrounding Jiang Chen's past only grew deeper.
Although she couldn't fully understand him, this didn't prevent her from exploring her feelings for him. Some women love to be conquered, while others love adventure. Xia Yue was part of the latter.
As Helen Keller said, "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."
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Su Mei, on the other hand, was not shocked by how much the land cost, but rather by the method Jiang Chen used to obtain the resources to buy and build it.
"By the ability of Jiang Chen's biological parents, it would be impossible to gather all these resources. But I know for a fact that Jiang Chen and his parents are like lines that intersected once and became parallel to each other after Jiang Chen left his home. So, what method did he use in the end?" Su Mei asked.
As the two were occupied with their respective thoughts, their expressions varied, and Jiang Yan became worried, especially for Xia Yue.
"Sister Yue, I can explain it to you. It's not that I want to hide it from you..." Jiang Yan said, but Xia Yue interrupted her.
"Yanyan, you don't have to feel sorry for me. Everyone has their secrets. I have a lot of secrets too, but you didn't blame me when I told you some of them. Same goes for your brother. I was just amazed by his ability," Xia Yue said, quickly holding Jiang Yan's hands as she tried to explain more.
"Truth be told, Sister Yue and Mei, even I don't know where my brother got all the money he spent all this time. But my brother told me that all the money he uses was earned by him in a legal way," Jiang Yan explained anyway.
The three walked for about 30 minutes before they reached a tightly closed metal door.
The door was solid metal, and nothing was going to budge it. The surface was flat and shiny, like the outside of a stainless-steel refrigerator. There was no lock or hinges, only a handle where you could grip it with one hand while the other was an empty slot. The top and bottom, even the sides, lay so utterly flush with the frame that there was no hope of trying it to open, even if they had had a crowbar, but they had nothing of the sort.
"How can we open this?" Su Mei was worried because the door was tightly closed and just looking at it made her think that two grown men with full muscles were needed to barely open it.
"Sister Mei, you don't have to worry. I have this." Jiang Yan comforted Su Mei while taking out a small box and opening it.
"That's it." Xia Yue was astounded by the pendant that was hanging on the gold-plated chain.
"L'Incomparable."
"My brother did mention this name back then, but I just ignored it because I was captivated by its amazing look. Now that you mention it, Sister Yue, I remember it now and it was really called L'Incomparable."
"Is it beautiful, two older sisters?" She put the necklace on her neck while holding her dress with both hands and made a sudden 360-degree turn.
"Wow! It suits you well, Yanyan." Su Mei smiled while her eyes contained some envy.
"Impossible! This is absolutely impossible!" When the idea popped up in Xia Yue's mind, she quickly denied it. But when she heard the words of Jiang Yan, she was shocked and amazed.
"Sister Yue?"
"But, Yanyan, why did you suddenly show us this necklace?"
"Because this was one of the ways and keys to open this metal door." As she finished talking, she walked in front of the metal door and took off the necklace from her neck, then put it in the empty slot. After putting the necklace in the empty slot, she walked to the sideline and leaned her head towards the screen.
A robotic sound came out of nowhere and said to them, "Iris identified! Match."
"Welcome back, Little Princess."
Creak...
The heavy metal door slowly opened, and the lights followed soon after.
"Sister Mei and Yue, come inside, and let's put my brother in his room." Jiang Yan urged them while not forgetting to take back the necklace to its designated box.
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