“Of course, it’s the amount you owe now. If you don’t give me one million, you will never leave this room,” Wolfy signaled to his subordinates.
The subordinates immediately surrounded Jessica, each holding a gleaming knife in their hands.
Jessica was now scared and wanted to escape, but when she turned around, she faced a man holding a dagger, with a cold smile on his face.
“What… What are you going to do? I’m going to call the police!” Jessica quickly took out her phone from her bag.
Wolfy smirked, “Go ahead, when the police arrive, we’ll tell them that you hired someone to kill.”
“You’re talking nonsense! I haven’t done anything!” Jessica immediately retorted, her hand that was about to dial the emergency number stopped.
Wolfy took out a USB flash drive from his pocket and waved it in front of Jessica, saying, “This room is equipped with surveillance cameras. Your every move and every word from that day is copied onto this USB flash drive, solid evidence!”
As Jessica looked at the USB flash drive in the man’s hand and noticed the cameras in the room, she felt utterly helpless.
She realized more than anyone that if her plot to hire someone to assassinate Leo was exposed, not only would the police hold her accountable, but Sophia would never forgive her.
She might even sever all ties with her daughter.
If she had known it would come to this, she would never have hired someone to kill.
Now, with her secrets in the hands of the other party, she was like a lamb waiting to be slaughtered, with no way out.
After struggling with inner pain, Jessica gritted her teeth and said, “I’ll give you one hundred thousand, let me go!”
“One million, not a penny less!” Wolfy took back the USB flash drive.
“I… I don’t have that much money, only one hundred thousand…” Jessica stammered.
“Is that so? Brothers, help her count her personal assets,” Wolfy said.
As soon as Wolfy finished speaking, one of his subordinates snatched Jessica’s handbag and emptied its contents onto the floor.
“Tsk tsk, so many bank cards. Let’s swipe them one by one,” Wolfy rubbed his hands together.
Jessica sat on the ground, started throwing a tantrum, and began to scream.
Unfortunately, her tantrum had no effect on someone like Wolfy. In the end, under the threat of the knives and the serious danger to her life, Jessica could only enter her PIN on the point-of-sale machine.
All the bank cards were eventually swiped, totaling more than eight hundred thousand.
For Jessica, who valued money above all else, it was like a knife cutting out a large piece of flesh from her heart.
The enormous blow left Jessica with no strength to leave. Instead, she was thrown out by Wolfy’s subordinates.
As Wolfy looked at Jessica lying outside, he spat fiercely and said, “Plotting against your own son-in-law will bring consequences.”
“Let me kindly remind you one last time, Leo is not someone you can mess with. If you want to stay alive, don’t provoke him.”
Jessica didn’t know how she managed to leave the village, but she only knew one thing-her retirement savings and her mahjong money were all gone!
At eleven o’clock in the morning, at the departure gate of Riverdale Airfield, Leo met Professor Orlando and others.
Accompanying Professor Orlando were Frederic and Rita.
After a brief exchange of greetings, they headed to the city center to have lunch first.
They sat in a private room at a restaurant, and when the food was served, Leo got straight to the point, “Professor Orlando, what happened?”
“Dr. Bloomer, it’s not appropriate to talk about this before the meal. Let’s eat first, and after we finish, we’ll tell you,” Rita said.
They were making it all so mysterious.
Leo smiled and decided to focus on the meal for now.
Leo was a curious person. After finishing dinner, he put down his chopsticks and looked at Rita. “Can we talk now?”
Rita glanced at Professor Orlando, who nodded in response. After a moment of contemplation, Rita lowered her voice and said, “Dr. Bloomer, have you ever heard of ghost weddings?”
“Ghost weddings?” Leo was momentarily taken aback. Archaeology seemed to have nothing to do with ghost weddings.
Ghost weddings, also known as spirit marriages or ghost unions, were practices in ancient times. Sometimes, young men and women who were engaged to be married would pass away before the wedding ceremony took place due to various reasons.
During that time, the elderly believed that if they didn’t arrange a marriage for them, their souls would be unable to move on and would linger in the mortal realm, causing unrest for their families. Therefore, it was necessary to hold a ghost wedding ceremony for them, burying them together as a married couple in a joint grave.
This practice also prevented the occurrence of lonely graves in the family burial grounds.
In some cases, young men and women would pass away before they even had a chance to be engaged. Out of love and longing for their children, the elderly believed that even in death, they should arrange a marriage for them to fulfill their parental responsibilities.
Ghost weddings had a long history in Atraria and had become widely known.
In essence, a ghost wedding was a wedding ceremony for the deceased.
Ancient Atraria attached great importance to the coming-of-age ceremony. Men would have their coming-of-age ceremony at the age of 20, while women would have theirs at 15, signifying their transition into adulthood.
However, without marriage, they would not be able to receive ancestral sacrifices after death.
Furthermore, in the eyes of the living, it was considered pitiful for the deceased to be without a partner in the afterlife, as it was an emotional attachment for humans.
The formation of this custom stemmed from the love of elders for their children, filled with beautiful expectations for their happiness and well-being.
Additionally, people in the past were generally superstitious about the so-called “geomancy” of burial grounds, believing that the presence of a lonely grave would affect the prosperity of future generations in the family.
Therefore, some geomancers, in order to make a living, actively promoted ghost weddings.
Even today, in some remote areas, this custom still persists.
In fact, ghost weddings, scientifically speaking, had no basis, nor did they hold any logical reasoning from a geomancy perspective.
Strictly speaking, ghost weddings were true superstitions.
Some unscrupulous individuals saw a business opportunity in ghost weddings and engaged in the ghastly trade of stealing and selling corpses, profiting from this backward practice.
After Leo shared what he knew about ghost weddings, it captivated Professor Orlando and the others.
“Professor Orlando, is it possible that you encountered a case of a ghost wedding during your archaeological work?” Leo voiced his speculation.
Professor Orlando shook his head. “On the contrary, it was a ghost wedding gone wrong that led to the discovery of an ancient tomb.”
It turned out that in Green Plum Village, located in the Horndean County of Riverdale City, two individuals were not only engaged in tomb raiding but also involved in the despicable trade of stealing and selling corpses.
A week ago, these two self-proclaimed tomb raiders used shovels to unearth an ancient tomb not far from Black Crow Mountain, near Green Plum Village.
With the expectation of numerous treasures and invaluable antiques inside the tomb, the two were overjoyed.