The Billionaire’s Treasure Wife

Lindsey rolled her eyes indifferently and teased, “If you have the time to ramble on, why don’t you settle down and consider a way out?”

“Who says I’m not thinking about it.” Bruce was a little uncomfortable by her comment. “But it doesn’t stop me from wanting to know what’s on your mind.”

“What could be on my mind.” Lindsey stopped and tilted her head slightly, shining her torch into his well-defined jaw and smiling mischievously away. “If you get out, you have to promise me one condition.”

“I’ll promise you now.” Bruce said anxiously, “Whatever you tell me to do, I’ll never say no, provided you don’t leave me again.”

“Fine, a promise from a gentleman is a promise.” Lindsey raised her arm and gave him a gentle tap on the shoulder and smiled, “There’s air in the pit, not counting the entrance we fell through, there should be other exits.”

Bruce sniffed and had a flash of light, “I’ve thought of a way to find an exit.”

“Uh …” Lindsey’s eyes widened and she looked at him incredulously. “Are you sure.”

Bruce threw her a: you’ll see look. Flicking his head down into the pocket of his combat suit for a while, he pulled out a lighter, and a ball of cotton thread.

Lindsey watched his movements, curious, and asked, “How do you do that.”

“Light the cotton string and you hold the torch to see which way the smoke is drifting.” Bruce said, slowly squatting to the ground and firing the cotton thread to set it on fire.

Lindsey shone her torch to one side and realised they were going the other way.

“It’s okay, we’ll just walk back.” Bruce saw her bitter face and said, “If you can’t walk, I’ll carry you.”

“I don’t think so.” Lindsey brushed it off, picked up her handheld power station and pulled him with her as she turned around to walk back.

At a fork in the road, they stopped, took their bearings in the same way, and continued on.

Bruce marked the walls of the pit at every turn to avoid getting lost.

Little by little, time passed and the two of them walked for over four hours through the maze of pits below.

Sitting down exhausted, Bruce looked at his atomic watch and smiled bitterly as he took out his water bottle and took a sip.

“How big is this place, we’ve been looking for it for over thirty hours before, and here we are marking it, and we haven’t found the exit after another four hours or so of walking.” Lindsey was too tired to move and leaned against him breathlessly. “Bruce, where the hell do you think we are here.”

“We’re underground.” Bruce reached up and scratched her nose, suddenly smiling. “Who just perked up and told me to get my head out of my ass.”

“It’s been hours, have we been spinning in place.” Lindsey said, raising her torch to shine it up the wall of the pit. “Look, here’s the mark you just left.”

Bruce took a look and was confused as well. Both of them were exhausted after walking for so half a day, and they hadn’t expected to keep spinning in circles.

“I want to get some sleep and refresh myself to keep looking.” Lindsey took a few nibbles of the compressed biscuit. “It’s awful, I want to go back and eat shabu shabu.”

“Do you want to eat me then?” Bruce smiled and took her by the shoulders. “I’ll let you have your fill any time you want.”

Lindsey gave him a disgusted look and said, “You haven’t bathed in days, who wants to eat you.”

Bruce laughed and took a break to pull her up again and keep looking.

They took several breaks in between, and the time on their atomic watches showed that they had been in the pit for at least 96 hours, and it was impossible to tell whether it was day or night outside.

After another long search, Warren and Hector suddenly appeared ahead of them, and the four of them joined together, looking up at the sky above them.

It was already the fourth night and the stars could be seen in the night sky. A cold wind blew through the cave entrance and rustles fell in droves.

“Lindsey, Bruce, you stay here and keep watch, I’m worried that some terrorists are following us.” Warren raised his hand to check the time and his eyes fell on Hector. “You’re with me, go and move Chief Gu and the little brother over.”

Hector nodded at him and without a word turned to head back.

Once they were gone, Bruce also led Lindsey into the darkness, looking nervously in the direction of the cave entrance.

They were at least six metres above the ground and it was not easy to get up there.

The soil in desert areas is always soft. If they climbed up without making sure the ground was safe, they might be used as live targets by the militants.

After a while, Bruce noticed Lindsey was shivering and reached out to take her into a tight embrace. “Are you cold?”

Lindsey shook her head. “It’s bearable, I’ll tell you if I can’t stand it.”

“Take a nap in my arms, you’re exhausted after days of tossing and turning.” Bruce rubbed the top of her head, keeping his gaze fixed in the direction of the cave entrance.

“Okay then, I’ll squint.” Lindsey was indeed tired and closed her eyes and soon fell asleep.

Waiting for Warren and Hector to carry the remains over, Bruce took one look at Lindsey in his arms and, after some discussion with Warren, agreed that Hector should go up first to see what was going on.

Things weren’t going too well, however, as the earth of the pit wall couldn’t hold Hector’s weight, and his movement triggered a crumbling when the dagger was stabbed in.

“What do we do? We’re not really going to dig this place up, are we?” Hector returned to them, sighing in frustration. “The earth is too loose for a knife to hang.”

“Let’s rest and recharge, then take our time to figure out what to do.” Warren said, trying the headset he was carrying and finding no signal, which gave him up.

After drinking some more water and eating some compressed biscuits, the atmosphere gradually became frozen as no one spoke.

After a long time, the light at the entrance of the cave became brighter and brighter, and the temperature of the surrounding air, too, gradually increased.

Lindsey woke up in a daze and saw that everyone did not look well, so he couldn’t help but ask, “What’s wrong? Still can’t get out.”

“It’s a bit difficult, the earth is too soft to hold the weight of a person.” Warren was holding the map and studying it carefully, when he looked up at her. “Are you okay.”

“Fine.” Lindsey smiled and got up to walk down towards the hole.

The hole was completely draped to the point where there was barely a hint of stress on the loose earth, making it really difficult to get out of the pit.

Dropping her eyes, Lindsey’s eyes fell to the atomic watch on her wrist and her mind wandered.

The atomic watch carried a tactical rope that was ten metres long, so if she could get up close enough to the mouth of the hole, she could get out.

With that in mind, she lifted her wrist and pressed the switch for the rope towards the wall of the pit.

Before Warren could say anything to stop it, a bright black light shot out from her wrist and sank deeper than a metre from the ground.

Lindsey made a perfect jump climbing the rope with both hands and quickly began to run up the wall of the pit, spinning in circles.

She was on the verge of reaching the ground when the other end of the rope suddenly came off the wall!

Lindsey was about to fall to the ground, but Bruce was able to catch her just in time, otherwise she would have taken a bad fall.

“I’ll try.” Warren, who also had a special atomic watch in his hand, had considered this method earlier, but was not impressed.

“Warren, you have to be careful.” Lindsey had sand all over her face and head and backed away in distress.

Bruce helped her sit down, took out the satellite phone and tried a few times, finding no signal at all so he put it away again and looked at Warren anxiously.

Warren, after all, was a trained Special Forces soldier, so he made a preparatory move, shot the rope out of his hand and immediately climbed deftly along the pit wall.

Once he was up, Hector took the atomic watch Bruce handed him and put it on, followed his example and was soon back on the ground.

Bruce waited for them to drape the rope down and painfully hoisted the bodies of his father and Ransom up in body bags. He then waited for Lindsey to go up before pulling the rope himself and struggling to climb up.

All back on the ground, Warren was the first to contact Operations Command via satellite headset to report his position.

An hour later, a military plane landed without incident and Bruce boarded it with Lindsey, holding his father’s body.

Hector and Warren follow behind, both carrying Ransom, their faces heavy.

The plane took off, flew low for a while, found the jeep parked in the desert hinterland, Hector opened the hatch and lowered it down, retrieved the car and followed the plane all the way to the command centre.

Command was surprised to read the information Warren had brought back. Bruce and Lindsey were asked to fly directly back to B City on the military plane, while Warren stayed behind and continued the mission.

It was after 9am when the military plane arrived in B City.

The news was received by Old Mr. Grant, Admiral Aidan, and the leaders of Leon’s former unit, as well as a number of high-profile generals in the army.

When Lindsey came out of the cabin, his eyes reddened as he saw the men taking off their caps, and he stepped aside in silence.

Old Mr. Grant, sad and happy, hesitantly stepped forward to lift the white cloth and saw Leon’s air-dried face, his tiger eyes trickling with tears. “Leon, you’re home at last!”

The anguished cry caused those behind him to stir.

Bruce held Old Mr. Grant in time and spoke in a hoarse voice. “Grandpa, I’ve brought my dad back.”

“Yes, yes.” Old Mr. Grant let out a sad cry and turned to look at Aidan. “Aidan, you guard your brother and give him a ride.”

“Yes!” Aidan hung his head in silence and took the stretcher himself, carrying one side with Bruce and walking in silence to the hearse parked near the tarmac.

After laying Leon’s body to rest, Bruce returned to Nine Lakes Hill, where Lindsey had fallen asleep from exhaustion.

He went to his room, took a shower and hesitantly knocked on the door of Old Mr. Grant’s study.

“Sit down.” Old Mr. Grant wasn’t in the best of spirits, his whole deeply curled up in the recliner, completely lacking his usual aura.

Bruce pulled back his chair, glanced up at Aidan and sat down honestly.

Old Mr. Grant was clearly devastated, leaning back in his recliner and staring for a long time before slowly opening his eyes. “The identification that needs to be done still needs to be done, to save some people from thinking that I just pulled a random corpse and passed it off as my own son.”Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

“Dad …” Aidan shouted, his face frightened. “I’m going to make the arrangements.”

Old Mr. Grant waved his hand, his eyes falling on Bruce, and added, “When the recuperation time is over, it’s time for you to wind down and go back to the army, and Professor Lee will step in to help set things up for Lindsey.”

“I got it Grandpa.” Bruce hung his head, sour emotions spreading instantly across his chest, and choked back a sob as he related what he had seen, in the pit.

“That’s my son, too bad time won’t come for him.” Old Mr. Grant let out a deep sigh and waved his hand wearily. “You all go out, I’ll be by myself for a while.”