Hearing Ed's introduction, Elena smiled back at him beautifully. Her last name was also Clegane, and he wondered what her relationship with Andre was.
Father and daughter? Well, considering her age, which looks close to mine, she's definitely his daughter, Ed thought, and let go of her hand.
After everyone was acquainted, Andre asked in a serious tone, "Elena, what's your progress now?"
Elena walked to the wooden table in the middle of the room, flipped through some papers and books, and said, "Dad, during the two weeks you were away, we followed the clues and gathered some information from the area."
"After Thaad died, his body was buried in the family tomb, so his treasure likely isn't placed there."
As they reported, Ed listened with a bewildered look. He had absolutely no idea what they were talking about, but he could roughly understand that they were searching for the treasure of a man named Thaad.
A few hundred years ago, Thaad had been the lord of this island, a very rich man, whose wealth was said to be inestimable. He was a real big shot of his time.
After Elena finished speaking, Jason, who was leaning against the wall, added, "Boss, I don't know why the Shark-Bite Gang are here too. They seem to have connected with some local gangs."
Hearing this, Andre couldn't help but frown.
"I'll go into the city first. You two tell Edward about the current situation," Andre instructed. He picked up the black cowboy hat from the table, put it on, pushed open the wooden door, and left.
Jason and Elena both turned and stared at Ed, much like children who'd just been handed a new toy and finally left alone by their parents.
"Why are you still standing? Come here, sit down," Elena said sweetly, pulling out a chair from the wooden table and patting the seat.
Ed looked at her and nodded, sitting on the cheap, cushionless wooden chair. "Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Then Elena leaned on the wooden table, resting her chin in her hands, tilting her head to stare at Ed with her watery red eyes. "I heard from Jason that the last time he went treasure hunting, the most important treasure was taken by someone else. That was you, right?"
"Damn it, didn't I just say he made the first move and took it because of the contributions he made during the hunt? My eyesight wasn't very good, and the intelligence was slightly off, so I had to rely on him to find the secret room," Jason interjected annoyedly from the side.
But Elena ignored him and continued staring at Ed, waiting for his answer.
Thinking they were all on the same team now and it wasn't a big secret, Ed nodded. He pulled the gun from his thigh and placed it casually on the table. "It was just luck. If Jason had better eyesight and reliable intel, there would've been nothing left by the time I got there. So you could say I'm very grateful for his bad luck." He gave Jason a playful wink.
Jason skillfully ignored Ed's teasing look, stared at the short gun on the table, and sighed regretfully. The weapon had once been only one step away from him, but now it belonged to someone else, a junior, no less, who seemed quite naughty and liked to tease him.
In response to Ed's answer, Elena couldn't help but giggle and shot Jason a similarly teasing look. But she didn't seem very interested in the gun itself; after a first glance, she didn't look at it again. Well, that's understandable. Guns are a man's love, not girls.
"Alright, let's not talk about old matters. Let me tell you about what we're working on now," Jason said, seeing that the two mischievous members were about to gang up on him. He quickly changed the topic and began sifting through the scattered documents on the table. After pulling out a few pages of information, a portrait, and a map, he placed them in front of Ed.
"This is what we're after this time. Take a look." Having finished speaking, he also sat down and began fiddling with his own gun.
It took Ed some time, but after reading the information at hand, he had a clear idea of their goal. Thaad, the governor of Meister Island 260 years ago, was also the second son of a once-great noble family. Possessing superb sailing skills, endless wealth, and an adventurous spirit, he formed an expensive, high-quality treasure-hunting group in his youth.
They searched for many treasures, which he used to expand his branch of the family. Eventually, Meister Island was successfully developed and became an important member of the Blood Gold Alliance.
It was said that his wealth was inestimable and his personal fortune was among the greatest in the league. He also loved collecting rare treasures. In the centuries after his death, his hidden troves were often discovered.
Legend held that he owned twelve treasure houses during his lifetime. The treasures inside varied in size, and the three largest ones had already been found. Now, they were searching for the largest remaining treasure house.
After preliminary exploration, Andre's treasure-hunting team believed the treasure should be on this island.
Seeing that Ed had almost finished reading, Elena added, "About a year ago, we found a small treasure house on the island, one of the twelve. Through it, we confirmed that the largest one is also hidden here."
Hearing this, Ed nodded, closed his eyes, and fell into deep thought. After pondering for a while, he suddenly asked, "So, what difficulties are we facing now?"
"We found the key to the treasure house, but we don't know where the treasure house itself is," Jason answered from the side.
Hearing this, Ed quickly picked up the map and placed it in front of him, brushing his hand over it as if studying it carefully. Several important locations and possible spots were already marked; clearly, they had done deep research.
What was a bottomless puzzle for others was only a matter of a blink for Ed. With a blink of his eyes, light spots appeared on the map one after another. Because this island was so famous for Thaad and had been combed over by nearly every hunter in the past, only two white dots and two blue dots remained on the entire island.
As usual, Ed started clicking from the white points. The first white dot was an ordinary treasure with no information. Despite all he had learned, the treasure still had no name—obviously unrelated to their current goal, probably something like someone's private wealth. When he clicked the second white dot, the information he was looking for finally appeared:
[ THAAD'S TWELVE TREASURE HOUSES—NO. 5
Difficulty: Insect Lovers
Popularity: 183.73k
Treasure Information: Thaad lost his fertility due to personal reasons when he was young. He knew clearly that none of his offspring would be his own, but to see all his women's true characters, he never told anyone about it until his end. Therefore, he never intended to leave his wealth to his descendants. Driven by his adventurous spirit and love of treasure hunting, he divided his treasure into twelve parts and buried them in different places.
Vault No. 5: One of the nine small warehouses. It contains various precious specimens and valuable statues. It requires no special tests and has a total value of 50 gold sails. The key is an insect unique to the island, symbolizing adventure and fearlessness. ]
Looking at the introduction, Ed's mouth first twisted involuntarily, it was hard for him to fathom the man's feelings. Despite being one of the richest men alive, he could never enjoy one of life's greatest pleasures of being a man. Setting aside the unwelcome thought, Ed studied the information seriously and grew a little confused. The difficulty this time was "Insect Lovers."
Combining the information below, it was clear that to decipher the clue, one had to know a great deal about insects.