Chapter 298
Bill stood by, watching his younger brother’s smug display. He shook his head helplessly but didn’t say a word.
Meanwhile, Leonard had already marched over. His gaze was locked onto the glittering pile of gold around Elijah’s neck, his eyes shining with startling intensity.
Thomas followed closely behind him. Though he remained silent, a rare gleam flared in his usually calm, steady eyes.
"You guys don’t want this stuff?" Leonard asked, a hint of suppressed excitement leaking into his voice.
Elijah blanked for a moment. He looked down at the clutter of necklaces, bracelets, and rings draped over himself, then looked back up at Leonard’s wild-eyed expression, thoroughly baffled.
"You... you want this?"
He slipped two of the necklaces off his neck and jingled them in his hand. "This junk is worthless now. What do you want it for?"
"Never mind what for. Just tell me if you want it or not," Leonard said, already holding his hand out.
Though utterly confused, Elijah complied, quickly stripping the necklaces off one by one and piling them into Leonard’s hands.
"If you want ’em, take ’em. I was only wearing them for a laugh anyway." He yanked the rings off his fingers next, stacking them on top one by one. "Here, take the whole lot. No use to me anyway."
As he spoke, he cast a glance back toward the bedroom.
"There’s still some more inside. Do you want—"
Before he could even finish the sentence, Thomas blurred past him and vanished into the room.
Elijah’s voice cut off abruptly.
Holy hell, he moved so fast you’d think someone was trying to rob him...
But why on earth are they so obsessed with jewelry?
Before Elijah could wrap his head around it, Thomas emerged from the room cradling the remaining assortment of jewelry, his eyes practically glowing.
He had even grabbed a bag, and now he and Leonard were huddled together, tossing jewelry that would have cost a fortune before the apocalypse into the bag like it was free candy.
Both of them looked ecstatic.
"Talk about a massive harvest," Leonard chuckled happily.
Thomas nodded with a smile. "Yeah."
If Suzy knew they were bringing back this much jewelry, she would be over the moon.
Neither of them had forgotten that Suzy needed precious jewelry and ornaments to upgrade her spatial dimension.
Lucas walked over as well, holding a pair of antique vases. "How about these two?"
"Bring them here. Pack it all up," Leonard said, his eyes crinkling into happy slits.
Lucas looked completely bewildered. He opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it and swallowed his words.
Forget it, better keep my mouth shut.
But as he continued watching the men pack all the expensive stuff, Lucas finally couldn’t hold it in any longer.
"Wait a minute, what do you guys actually want this stuff for? You can’t even trade these things for a single piece of bread right now. Are you just planning to hoard them at the bottom of a chest?"
Leonard looked up at him, giving him a deeply meaningful smile. "Hoarding them at the bottom of a chest works fine. It’s not like they take up much space anyway."
Lucas’s twitching mouth betrayed his skepticism. He could tell the answer was a deflection, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what they were hiding.
He glanced at Thomas, but Thomas completely ignored him.
By now, Elijah had stripped off every piece of jewelry he could find on his person and dumped it all into the backpack Thomas had brought out.
"Is that it?" Leonard asked.
Elijah nodded. "That’s pretty much most of the jewelry in the apartment."
Leonard rummaged through the contents of the backpack and gave it a test lift. It felt heavy. Satisfied, he stood up.
"Mm, not bad. Quite a bountiful haul this time."
He clapped the dust off his hands, scanned the room, and mumbled, "Let me check around a bit more. Who knows, there might be more antiques."
They had already unearthed the vast majority of the supplies in the apartment and were ready to leave at a moment’s notice. However, since Leonard was still eager to look for more ornaments and antiques, the group didn’t head out immediately.
Seeing how dead-serious he was, Lucas grew even more curious. He leaned in and lowered his voice to ask,
"Dude, seriously, what are you guys going to do with this stuff? I mean, this junk isn’t worth a dime right now, and you guys don’t exactly strike me as the greedy types."
As he spoke, his gaze darted back and forth between Leonard and Thomas, his face a picture of utter confusion.
Bill walked over too, weighing a jade ornament he had scavenged from the bedroom in his hand. "Do you guys want this?"
Hearing this, Leonard looked over, his attention instantly locked onto the jade ornament.
The jade piece was a vibrant, translucent green, boasting intricate and fine craftsmanship.
Leonard snatched it up, turning it over in his hands to inspect it. Nodding in satisfaction, he carefully tucked it into the backpack.
"Want it? Of course we want it!"
He zipped the backpack shut, patted it, and looked up at Lucas’s intensely inquisitive face with a smirk.
"It’s nothing special, really." Leonard stood up and swung the backpack over his shoulder. "Suzy just happens to like these things. Ever since she was a kid, that girl has had a soft spot for gold and jade trinkets. She can’t tear her eyes away from them. Now that it’s the apocalypse and this stuff is worthless, it’s the perfect time for us to capitalize on it."
Lucas blinked, a look of sudden realization dawning on his face. "Oh, so that’s why! Why didn’t you just say so!"
If it was because Suzy liked them, then it made total sense. Girls just seemed to love that kind of shiny stuff. He had thought there was some deep, dark secret behind it.
Standing to the side, Liam’s eyes flickered slightly as if a thought had occurred to him.
"In that case, we’ll help you look!" Lucas said, thumping his chest confidently.
Having already collected all the essential survival supplies, and now knowing that Suzy fancied these trinkets, the group began tossing the place upside down all over again.
And truth be told, they actually managed to turn up a few overlooked treasures.
Every single item went straight into Leonard’s backpack.
Under everyone’s frantic searching, the previously deflated backpack quickly ballooned out, stuffed to the brim.
Suddenly, Thomas glanced in the direction of Ray’s corpse.
"Stop playing dead and get up."
Everyone’s attention was instantly drawn by Thomas’s words, and they all looked over toward the bodies.
Ray was dead beyond a shadow of a doubt, but the man next to him had only fainted.
The group instantly caught on to what Thomas meant.
Even after Thomas spoke, the man remained completely still, freezing like a stiff corpse on the floor.
Lucas wasn’t about to play nice. He marched right over and delivered a vicious kick straight to the man’s shin.
The man instantly curled into a tight ball, a sharp scream of agony tearing through his gritted teeth. He couldn’t keep up the act any longer.
Clutching his bruised shin, tears and snot streaming down his face, he scrambled and rolled across the floor until he was on his knees, trembling like a leaf in the wind.
"Don’t, don’t kill me... Please, I beg you, don’t kill me..."
His voice was high and reedy, cracking with tears. "I don’t know anything, I didn’t do anything... It was all my brother-in-law... No, it was Ray’s idea! I’m nobody, I swear..."
"Brother-in-law?" Leonard raised an eyebrow. "Ray was your brother-in-law?"
Realizing he had slipped up, the man’s eyes went wide, and he slapped both hands tightly over his mouth.
"No... No, he wasn’t..."
He tried to deny it, but Leonard didn’t have the patience to waste on his nonsense.
"Alright, cut the act." Leonard patted the man’s cheek with just enough force to rattle his head back and forth a couple of times. "We’re going to ask you a few questions. Answer them honestly, and we won’t kill you."