Slender, powerful fingers slowly traced their way down her jade-white back. The soft yet powerful fingertips seemed to play a slow, rhythmic country blues, plucked at every muscle fiber along the way.
Tense, relax, tighten again, relax again. The friction between the fingertips and skin brought a slight burning sensation, amplified by the rose oil, sending nerves oscillating between tingling, numbness, and pleasure.
"Ah~~~" Hannah moaned, a tempting sound that only made Jiejie, who feigned learning, blush.
"From the trapezius muscle down, around the raised scapula spine, grasp the deltoid muscle, and use your knuckles to press against the infraspinatus fascia above the teres major, applying slight pressure."
Jack's voice was earnest, his voice smooth, as if his hands weren't a youthful, graceful body, but simply a tool to demonstrate his massage techniques.
There's no way around it. This is the state of a sage: emptiness is form, form is emptiness. Sometimes, even if the body isn't pushed to its limits, the mind needs a proper rest.
The governor, whose life was saved by the FBI, gratefully presented the most wanted criminal team with a generous gift: a week-long hot springs retreat. The hot spring bathhouse they were currently in, a replica of 18th- and 19th-century European style, itself dates back two or three hundred years.
As early as the late 19th century, the nation's wealthy and famous flocked to the resort, believing its mineral-rich waters to have miraculous cures for a variety of ailments.
Several presidents, including those of the time, considered it a haven for wellness and even funded research into its benefits.
However, the FBI only enjoyed three days of vacation before departing. After all, soaking in baths and massages tires of time. After a brief discussion, they found a better destination.
Hot springs are often associated with active geological activity, which also means rich mineral deposits. For example, less than an hour's drive from Hot Springs lies another renowned attraction: Crater of Diamonds State Park.
Whoever came up with this gimmicky idea, turning a diamond mine with no commercial value into a park, paid a mere $10 for a ticket and could dig in the mud all day. If they found a diamond, they could take it home.
Jack and his companions weren't targeting hard-to-find, worthless rocks; they had bigger, shinier targets: another renowned Arkansas mineral, natural white crystal.
Although Aubrey had long since retired from Wall Street, he still held a number of stocks, including one in a mining company called Avant.
This company owned several crystal mines in Jessieville County, Arkansas. While some of these mines were open to the public for a fee, others, with their high-quality production, were closed to the public.
As a minor director of the mining company, Aubrey enjoyed some privileges, such as being able to take everyone on a tour of a closed-door crystal mine.
Natural crystal is actually natural glass, also known as quartz. When silicon dioxide crystallizes perfectly under natural conditions, it's called crystal. When the gel is dehydrated, it's called agate, and when the hydrous gel solidifies, it's called opal.
Obsidian, used by the Aztecs of Central America in wooden sticks as weapons, is also a type of quartz, also known as volcanic glass.
This object, resembling a primitive "chainsword," was so heavy that it was considered a special weapon by the renowned "Jaguar Warriors," and was named "maquahuit."
Perfectly crystallized prismatic crystals are actually quite common in nature, but superstition persists, and the claim that natural crystals can absorb negative energy persists.
Jack suspected Aubrey had proposed this trip just to appease Alice, who believed in this belief. However, it's well known that women, like dragons in European and American mythology, are drawn to shiny things.
Since Hannah and Jiejie seemed so excited, he naturally didn't want to spoil the fun.
Although trudging through the deep pit dug by the excavator, stepping deep and shallow through the reddish-brown mud, the girls cheered enthusiastically when they saw the vast, naturally occurring white crystals scattered across the ground, easily accessible.
Jack was also quite impressed. After all, he had never seen a crystal mine like this in his entire life. A simple dig yielded a fist-sized piece of high-purity white crystal. After washing away the dirt, he could clearly see the lines on his palm from one side to the other.
While knowing it was of little value, mostly used as industrial raw materials, careful searching could still yield gem-quality ore.
Natural crystals, depending on the geological conditions in which they formed, can be mixed with various minerals and inclusions, resulting in unique internal cracks and colors. The more beautiful they are, the more valuable they are.
Driven by the girls, they enthusiastically dug for a whole day. From fist-sized to arm-thick, even the size of volleyballs, the bizarre natural crystals filled an entire pickup truck, weighing over a ton, and were hauled back to the mine.
With a high-pressure water jet, the surface dirt was washed away, and the natural glass shone with captivating colors under the light. Jack finally had a more direct understanding of the high-quality mining area that Aubrey had mentioned.
According to the miners, while natural crystal itself is indeed a cheap gem, the white crystal produced here is of very high quality, with a fist-sized piece selling for three or four hundred dollars.
If you come across a fine piece, perhaps one with unusual inclusions, it can easily fetch seven or eight hundred dollars, or even thousands.
Jack randomly selected a few pieces that caught his eye, thinking it would be a good idea to take them home and carve a wooden stand to display them.
Since this was a "team building" trip, eating and drinking were inevitable. After a busy day, everyone had worked up a good appetite. After packing up their favorite finds, they drove to a riverside campsite.
Traveling with the rich is worry-free. Aubrey had hired a party company in advance, and they had already set up everything at the campsite, just waiting for guests to arrive.
Premium steaks from Texas to the west, crawfish and smoked duck from the "Pelican State" (Louisiana) to the south, paired with peach wine and fresh peaches from Georgia to the east—the specialties of these three states were served to the FBI.
While everyone knew Aubrey's spending was expensive, they all felt comfortable enjoying the meal, knowing they were merely guests, while Alice, still in a relationship with Aubrey, was the host.
While it's unclear why this self-proclaimed intimacy phobic had suddenly fallen for Alice, a single mother, a look back at their past interactions revealed some clues.
Back in the "collar bomb incident," the two had faced life-or-death trials together. When Alice's life hung by a thread, besides Jack, the busy protagonist, Aubrey was by her side almost the entire time.
It's understandable that a bit of a "drawbridge effect" would develop during this period; after the official establishment of the Most Wanted squad, it's natural for some hidden feelings to develop through daily interactions.
Jack had no right to deal with such matters anyway. He even tried to comfort Jubal, who was a little worried about this, in front of Aubrey.
If the two of them ended up together, there was nothing to say. Alice's position was almost equivalent to that of an office worker, so it wouldn't affect anything. Just don't make it too public within the FBI.
Moreover, it was still too early for them to talk about marriage, and it was even unclear whether they would get married. There were many couples in the United States who didn't get married but lived together for their entire lives.
If they broke up, it would be easy. Just kick Aubrey out. He was a wealthy retired Wall Street man who came to the FBI purely to pursue his ideals. It didn't matter which department he worked in.
(End of the chapter)