HLM – Chapter 9 Wallet’s Empty

This time, Old Wang was truly terrified. In such a focused state, to suddenly be startled like that could scare someone to death. He let out a sharp scream, “Aaaah!” and jumped up. In that instant, he nearly wet himself!

Just then, the wooden door burst open from the outside with a loud bang, followed by Charlie’s panicked shout: “Wang, are you dead?!”

What kind of question was that? Wang Bo wasn’t scared to death, but he was nearly furious to death. If that voice had come even a second later, he really might have peed his pants. Now that he realized it was Charlie who had knocked and kicked the door, he felt somewhat relieved—but damn, the guy had gone about it in the scariest way possible.

Charlie didn’t look much better. His face was pale, eyes wide with fear. His messy blond hair was in disarray, and his hands—veins bulging—were tightly gripping a pitch-black pistol…

Wang Bo, clutching a pillow to his chest for protection, looked at Charlie in horror. His eyes darted from Charlie’s equally terrified face to the gun in his hand, then down to his trembling legs. He cried out, “Are you trying to scare me to death?! What’s with the gun?!”

Panting heavily, Charlie said, “Forget the gun! Hurry, grab your important stuff and let’s get out of here. This damned castle is definitely haunted! And it’s a female ghost, I’m sure of it!”

With the bright lights on and now having a companion beside him, Wang Bo began to calm down a little. Though still shaken, he asked, “What exactly did you see?”

Charlie swallowed hard. “Dammit, I don’t know—I didn’t see anything. But this castle is definitely haunted. I heard a woman ghost crying. She said she was hungry. She kept asking who had trespassed into her grave!”

“Grave?” Just as Wang Bo was beginning to relax, his nerves tensed up again.

Charlie didn’t waste time explaining. He tossed Wang Bo’s bag to him and said, “Come on, let’s go. We’ve got to get out of here!”

Wang Bo looked hesitantly at the pitch-black night outside and said, “But damn it, where are we supposed to go? It’s wilderness for a thousand square kilometers out there! Why don’t we just stick together and wait till morning? We can call for a helicopter when it’s light and leave then.”

Indeed, without the helicopter, there was nowhere they could go. They had no transportation, and there were no roads in this territory.

Charlie muttered to himself for a while and finally had no choice but to accept Wang Bo’s suggestion. The two of them stayed in a single room with the lights on the whole time. Charlie kept his gun loaded, and both remained on high alert, watching their surroundings closely.

After that, no strange sounds appeared again. Wang Bo asked Charlie if it could’ve just been someone else in the castle. Charlie firmly denied it. The funeral team had done a thorough check before leaving—the castle was definitely empty.

If someone had snuck in afterward, that made even less sense. The main gate was locked, and the walls were far too high to scale. No one could get in, especially not a woman—and the voice they had heard earlier was definitely that of a woman.

Wang Bo had been raised as a staunch atheist, so unless he was especially frightened, he didn’t really believe in ghosts. And since they hadn’t heard anything else after staying in one room together, he was beginning to think maybe it had all been a misunderstanding.

But Charlie insisted that there was a female ghost in the castle. Wang Bo was still somewhat afraid himself, so he didn’t argue the point. The two chatted for a bit, but by the second half of the night, both were getting so sleepy they couldn’t take it anymore. Charlie proposed that they take turns keeping watch—one hour each—until dawn, when they could finally leave.

Wang Bo let Charlie sleep first. The guy had been overly tense earlier and was clearly more exhausted than he was, so naturally, he’d be more tired now.

Charlie nodded, handed the pistol to him, told him to be careful, and then closed his eyes. Not long after, he fell fast asleep.

First Time Holding a Real Gun

The first time Wang Bo got his hands on a real gun, he instantly got excited. He wasn’t a military enthusiast and didn’t know much about firearms, so he had no idea what model the pistol was—but the gun’s sleek curves looked beautiful, and just holding it made his blood boil with excitement.

However, a gun that couldn’t be fired wasn’t very entertaining. After fiddling with it for a bit, he lost interest. With nothing else to do, he summoned the Lord’s Heart.

Once summoned, the Lord’s Heart split into two parts: the Lord’s Draw Panel and the Lord’s Sandbox. Wang Bo noticed that the draw panel, which was previously semi-transparent, now had a faint green hue. Meanwhile, the green mist hovering over the sandbox had significantly thinned out—as if some of the mist had been absorbed by the draw panel.

An hour passed quickly, but Wang Bo still felt energetic. Seeing how soundly Charlie was sleeping, he decided not to wake him and spent the night playing with the gun and the sandbox.

By the time Charlie woke up, the sun had already risen.

Rubbing his sleepy eyes, Charlie looked outside and exclaimed in surprise, “It’s morning?! Why didn’t you wake me up for my shift?”

Wang Bo replied, “You were sleeping so soundly, I didn’t have the heart to wake you. Besides, nothing happened.”

Hearing that, Charlie froze for a moment. Then, breathing deeply, he patted Wang Bo hard on the shoulder and said with emotion, “Old Wang, you’ve got loyalty! You’re a true brother!”

Wang Bo didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He hadn’t expected a casual comment to deepen their friendship like this. As the saying goes—you plant chrysanthemums with care and nothing blooms, but plant willows by accident and they grow pregnant…

After getting up, Charlie went back to his room to pack. But suddenly, he let out a loud scream again.

Wang Bo jumped in shock once more and quickly ran over. “What is it? Did you see a ghost?!”

Charlie, pale as a sheet, pointed at the table. Wang Bo followed his gaze and saw sausages, apples, oranges, bananas, towels, toothbrushes—nothing out of the ordinary.

“What’s on the table?” Wang Bo asked cautiously.

Charlie looked at him with a horrified expression, then slowly shook his head and said, “It’s not about what’s on the table—but what’s not there anymore! There used to be a bunch of wild grapes here. I remember clearly—I placed a bunch of wild grapes right here before I went to sleep!”

Wild grapes were a specialty fruit in New Zealand, looking like mini versions of regular grapes. Each grape was only the size of a soybean, but sweet and very popular.

Wang Bo sucked in a breath and asked, “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely sure!” Charlie said firmly while stuffing his important belongings into his bag. Slinging it over his shoulder, he said, “Hurry up and pack—we need to get out of here. We’ll head back to Omarama and figure out what the hell’s going on!”

Wang Bo was scared too. He quickly shoved all his things into his backpack. There were still some leftover food and fruit, but Charlie told him to leave them and just get out quickly.

And so, the two of them ran out of the castle into the morning sunlight. While running, Wang Bo felt a pang of heartache: Damn it all, I finally got a piece of real estate, and it turns out to be a haunted house?!

Back in Omarama, the first thing Charlie did was take Wang Bo to the town’s church. There, he filled up a big bottle of holy water and went back to bathe with it.

After resting, Charlie began taking him around to investigate the matter of the female ghost in the castle.

They went to the local police station, city hall, churches, and more. Charlie barged into every place like he owned it. If anyone questioned them, he would flash some kind of ID. Wang Bo didn’t know what kind of document it was, but once people saw it, they never tried to stop them again.

They spent two days investigating—but came up with nothing.

However, Wang Bo did manage to get a general idea about Charlie’s job. It seemed this guy might not be just a Foreign Affairs employee…

But that wasn’t the important part. What mattered most to Wang Bo now was how to restock his supplies. Although the small town’s cost of living wasn’t particularly high, converting it into RMB still made it terrifying.

For example, one meal cost ten NZD—that’s over 40 RMB. A standard room for one night cost 80 NZD—that’s 350 RMB.

On top of that, he had been running around the past two days dealing with paperwork to apply for building a small town, and he had no idea where all the money had gone. All he knew was that the 20,000 yuan he brought with him when he left China was almost gone!