Trafford's Trading Club

Chapter 1506: Chapter 233: One Big Watermelon

She’d seen this famous structure who knows how many times… the massive Sphinx loomed over the golden sand, and beside it was the so‑called largest pyramid on the mainland.

“Th–this… this is?!”

Right now Claudia felt everything was unreal. A second ago she’d still been in Britain, in that seaside academy, and yet after stepping through a single door she… she’d arrived on another piece of the mainland?

She even thought this was one of those super‑realistic 3D street paintings… the kind that’s drawn on the ground to look like a sheer cliff drop… but obviously, that wasn’t the case!

What kind of 3D painting can present itself in full 360 degrees?

Some kind of virtual projection tech?

Don’t be ridiculous. This scorching heat, the burning that made her skin feel like it was screaming, and the sensation of her feet on the sand all proved one thing.

She really had, in an instant, crossed a continental plate and come to another country thousands of miles away, one that once had a brilliant ancient civilization.

“You… you’re… what are you really…”

Claudia’s voice trembled as she looked at Luo Qiu. She was so stunned that the pepper spray she’d sneakily hidden in her hand slipped out and fell.

Boss Luo glanced at what Claudia had just dropped… and, as if he’d never seen such a thing before, waved his hand casually. “It’s called the Border Gate… as long as you set a set of coordinates, it can link two different coordinates. Pretty convenient.”

Claudia’s mouth opened and closed. Following the motion of Luo Qiu’s hand, she saw a door gradually fade away… and on the other side of that door, it was clearly the staircase in front of the Butterfly Society clubroom.

Claudia couldn’t help but pinch her… little tummy—ouch!

Boss Luo now walked slowly toward Claudia… the straight‑A girl jolted in fright and instinctively backed away, cold sweat streaming as she said, “Wh–what do you want? To… to kill me to keep me quiet?”

Luo Qiu: “Why would you even think that.”

Claudia blurted out, “If everything I just experienced isn’t an illusion, that means you’ve mastered some method way beyond human understanding… it should be some kind of Space technology… I can’t explain it and I can’t even grasp it, but obviously, any person… any country would go mad trying to get their hands on this tech—and me, just a small student, am clearly in danger now, because I know this secret… so, so wouldn’t killing me to keep me quiet be the logical move?”

Strictly speaking, this wasn’t a formal deal this time, so Boss Luo wasn’t using his usual official tone for regular customers… some playful mood stirred in him for no reason, and he chuckled. “Claudia, you’re actually reminding me—maybe I really should… mm, do exactly what you just said.”

“No—!”

The straight‑A girl abruptly shrieked, then swung her suitcase hard at Boss Luo. “D–don’t come closer! I’ve learned taekwondo and… and karate!! I… I also know kung fu!! TaiChi! I learned it from an old gentleman from Hua Country in the Park! O–one big watermelon!”

Watching Claudia strike a not‑very‑standard “White Crane Spreads Its Wings” pose on the Yellow sand, and thinking of that old gentleman from the Park she’d mentioned, for some reason a children’s rhyme suddenly popped into Luo Qiu’s head.

—A watermelon round and round,

—Split it once, two halves are found,

—You take one half, he takes one,

—Give it to you and you won’t take,

—Give it to him and he won’t accept…

Emmmmm… that old gentleman from the Park should have the real goods… probably.

“Sorry for scaring you.” Boss Luo shook his head, then simply snapped his fingers. “Relax, you’ll forget all about this soon.”

Claudia’s eyes instantly went vacant, turning muddled and dazed, but the state didn’t last long… she very quickly came back to her senses.

“Huh, where is this?” Claudia’s gaze cleared bit by bit as she looked around in confusion.

“The pyramid,” Boss Luo said casually. “After we got off the plane, we rushed straight here… did you forget? The person who brought us here just left not long ago.”

“Oh… right.” Claudia rubbed her forehead. “I might be too tired… but why did we come walking into the desert with no gear at all?”

Behind his back, Boss Luo quietly snapped his fingers again. He looked at Claudia and smiled faintly. “Gear? We’re wearing our gear right now, aren’t we?”

“On… on us?” Claudia reflexively looked down. “Huh, when did this… just now there was clearly… could it be I’m hallucinating from the heat?”

She was dressed in clothes suited for desert travel, and at her feet there were backpacks stuffed with supplies… Claudia squatted to check and found everything neatly organized and plentiful inside—mm, that was indeed her style of packing.

“All right, the supplies are really plenty… oh, when did these two camels show up?” Claudia rubbed her head again, feeling like a lot of things weren’t supposed to be this way, yet somehow felt like they’d always been this way… she even gradually started to think that these suddenly appearing things were perfectly natural!

“Get on.” Boss Luo easily swung himself up into the camel’s saddle, then glanced at Claudia and said casually, “You already know how to ride a camel now.”

Already know… already know? When did I learn… oh, right, I can ride camels.

Claudia found that she really did mount the camel effortlessly… haha, how amazing, she herself couldn’t even remember where she’d learned to Control a camel—though equestrian, she had studied at the girls’ high school she’d attended before.

That must be what they call touching one and understanding the rest… mm, it must be that!

…

“Where are we going?” Skillfully guiding her camel side by side with Luo Qiu, Claudia quickly snapped out of all the impossibly reasonable weirdness and recalled why they’d come: to search for clues about the mysterious disappearance of her father, Professor Xie Jiatu, and to head for the site of the research project Professor Xie Jiatu had investigated back then.

“We’ll go here first.” Luo Qiu handed Claudia a small slip of paper.

She unfolded it and saw a string of numbers with symbols… Claudia blinked and said, “Coordinates? Where is this?”

Boss Luo said calmly, “As for places related to Golden Eyes, what exactly we can find, we’ll only know once we get there.”

“Where did you get these coordinates from?” Claudia frowned—she was clearly the one who had brought up Golden Eyes first. Ever since her father went missing, she’d been investigating nonstop, but aside from that name, she had never managed to learn anything more about Golden Eyes.

How did he know… He’d only heard about this a few days ago, and he’d already found clues about Golden Eyes.

“A certain Miss Witch gave them to me. She’s had contact with Golden Eyes before… if they’re the same person, that is.” Boss Luo said with a smile.

“Oh, a Witch… Witch?” Claudia blinked, then shook her head. Suddenly, she felt like a Witch popping up out of nowhere was somehow entirely reasonable, one of those ‘everyone knows’ things, so she fell into thought and said, “I can’t say for sure the exact place the coordinates point to, but just going by latitude and longitude, it should be somewhere around here… Since the coordinates the Witch gave are around here, and my father also came to this area to investigate ruins… Golden Eyes is probably the same person. It’s just, with so many people in the world, how on earth are we supposed to find Golden Eyes?”

“Roughly, we just keep walking.” Luo Qiu said in a tone that sounded very practiced. “On the road, something will probably happen.”

“How do you know?” Claudia couldn’t help being suspicious.

“Because it happens a lot.” Boss Luo joked about himself. “My constitution is the type that easily attracts all sorts of weird things… Of course, even so, it’s not all bad.”

Claudia thought, how could it be that easy. All around them was nothing but desert, desert, and more desert, the dazzling sand so bright it almost hurt to look at—there wasn’t even a soul in sight, where were things supposed to ‘happen’?

Suddenly a sound came from ahead—roughly from the other side of a sand dune up front… It seemed like someone was doing something on the far side of that dune.

Claudia couldn’t help opening her mouth… She felt it was just a coincidence—this place was near the site of the world’s largest pyramid, a very famous scenic spot, so having tourists nearby was hardly surprising.

“Should we… go take a look?” Claudia said, a little excited despite herself.

“Why not.” Boss Luo said, meaningfully this time. “This is supposed to be an unforgettable adventure… If it’s too bland, wouldn’t we have come for nothing?”

As he spoke, Boss Luo patted the camel’s hump… The camel lazily started walking toward the other side of the dune.

Claudia thought that sounded about right—she was naturally a very curious sort, and she couldn’t hold herself back. She quickly followed after him.

With camels as transportation in the desert, traveling was actually quite convenient… They soon climbed the dune and saw where the sound had come from.

If they hadn’t looked it would’ve been fine; the moment she saw it, Claudia couldn’t help but suck in a sharp breath.

Down the other side of the dune, several old off-road vehicles were currently chasing a camel that was running for its life… A man was riding the camel, face covered, looking like a male.

And from those off-road vehicles, people kept leaning out to attack the man on the camel—shotguns, and even powerful crossbows!

“…What are they doing?” Claudia took a deep breath.

She actually knew perfectly well what was happening down there; she just needed a confirmation out loud.

“Pretty obviously, a hit.” Luo Qiu sized it up with a glance. “The guys in the cars look like desert bandits.”

“That guy who’s running, he’s heading our way!” Claudia’s voice suddenly tightened. “What do we do… They look like they’ve seen us too!”

“Classmate Claudia.” Boss Luo blinked as he spoke. “I never learned taekwondo or karate, and I’m not good at TaiChi either… so, could you protect me later?”

Claudia stared at him, dumbfounded, then snapped, “You… you call yourself a man?”

Boss Luo shook his head and slowly slid down from the camel. “In that case we can only surrender… If we don’t resist, these bandits probably won’t kill us right away.”

Claudia no longer knew what to say—during this brief exchange, the man on the camel who was being chased had already reached the two of them.

The off-road vehicles, rushing up behind, finally outpaced the camel… The vehicles circled around in front of the hunted man, as well as Luo Qiu and Claudia.

The camel under the masked man suddenly let out a sharp cry and then collapsed to the ground—the camel’s hind leg had been pierced by a bolt from one of those powerful crossbows.

“He… help me…”

The masked man was thrown clear when the camel fell, rolling two or three meters before crashing to the ground… He scrambled up in a panic and raised his head, signaling desperately for help from Luo Qiu and Claudia.

The off-road vehicles stopped at nearly the same time. From each vehicle, two or three dark-skinned men got out. Weapons in hand, they tightened the encirclement step by step…

Claudia instantly clenched her fists, replaying in her head all the taekwondo and other fighting techniques she’d learned over the years… She took a deep breath, and just as the bandits around them drew closer, Classmate Claudia moved!

She suddenly raised both hands high, then shouted, “I surrender—!”

“Then I’ll surrender too.” Boss Luo’s voice came softly, at a volume that seemed meant only for Claudia… At the same time, he also raised his hands to show the bandits he had no intention of resisting.

The masked man who’d been chased all this way watched this scene, and his shoulders slumped as he sat down in despair.

Not long after, the bandits herded the masked man together with Luo Qiu and Claudia into the same off-road vehicle, then quickly left the area.

…

“If I’d known you were this useless, I wouldn’t have run toward you.” The masked man let out a heavy sigh. “Then my camel wouldn’t have gotten hit by a crossbow bolt… You know, all this way, they hadn’t landed a single shot!”

“You think we wanted this? If it weren’t for you…” Claudia started to protest heatedly… but she was quickly calmed down by Luo Qiu sitting beside her, who waved a hand lightly.

Boss Luo looked at the masked man who’d been chased and suddenly asked, “Sir, how should we address you?”

The masked man glanced at the young man and woman squeezed together in the back of the vehicle, frowned slightly, then said simply, “Aria… a local.”