HHH Chapter 62

“How did he find this place?” A middle-aged man’s voice came.

“I don’t know,” a woman’s voice followed, sounding very young. “He almost got a scare when he came to ask me for a room card earlier!”

“He must have guessed something,” another male voice said. “What I’m worried about is that he won’t cooperate.”

“Not cooperate? Just feed him a few more Songda pills. I don’t believe anyone can handle that,” the woman’s voice drawled lazily.

A third man’s voice, with an undeniable tone, said, “Wake him up. It’s too cold here!”

A ball the size of a fingernail was stuffed into Ningma’s mouth. As it melted, a faint pine scent spread, and the people surrounding him all covered their noses.

“Ugh,” feeling a warm current in his mouth, the familiar taste, like strong old wine yet also like a melt-in-your-mouth elixir, still so rich, enveloping every cell in his mouth, then flowing down his esophagus into his stomach, a warm current immediately rose.

Ningma opened his eyes and then found himself trapped in a tin box, like a medicine cabinet in a traditional Chinese pharmacy. The words “Grade A Pork Ribs” were marked on the outside of the tin box.

“Where is this?”

[If you see this text, please exit reading mode, or go to the “source webpage” to read normally]
[Please go to the source webpage to read, the following content is automatically replaced to prevent crawling] you — me, big — small, more — less, up — down, left — right….

He could still feel the all-pervasive cold, as well as the dull pain coming from half of his body. The last scene in his memory was whether he had fallen from a two-meter-high shelf, causing the wound on his left leg to rupture. The instant pain plus the extremely low temperature had caused him to faint.

Even though his cotton jacket was still on, the sensation all over his body was bone-chilling, as if he had fallen into an ice cellar, fortunately still within a barely bearable range, as long as the cold storage air compressor didn’t start again.

At this moment, there were five figures surrounding him. After he gradually adjusted to the light, the bright light shone down from above—these five people were short, thin, and fat, wearing down jackets with their hats covering their heads, leaving only nostrils for breathing and hot, staring eyes.

Ningma twisted his neck and looked around. After seeing everyone’s attire clearly, his voice was terribly hoarse. Facing one of the short and fat ones, who looked like the “boss,” he asked, “Who are you? Where is this?”

“Sorry, brother,” the short, thin one took off his hat, revealing a round face.

Ningma twisted his body, trying to sit up. After all, lying upright in a tin box like a coffin, surrounded by a circle of people, was like being laid out for viewing.

To express his apology, the short, thin man squatted down to help Ningma sit up. The two were very close. Ningma still remembered the night he arrived at the hotel and someone fell from his room. When he found the hotel, the person in front of him had taken him to the inner courtyard, but the next day he was arranged to go on a “temporary business trip” early in the morning, “just in time” before the landslide destroyed the road.

“Night Manager,” Ningma stroked his injured leg, exhaling thick white air as he spoke, “I’m here to…”

The short, thin Night Manager found a torn cloth bag and draped it over Ningma’s leg, but a metal buckle on the bag just happened to bump into his thigh bone. In an instant, a wave of pain like a tsunami swept through his brain. Before he could react, he almost fainted from the pain again.

At the crucial moment, the Night Manager pressed the philtrum of the person next to him. After the tide of pain receded, Ningma looked at his leg—he saw his right leg folded at the knee like a pair of scissors, his ankle on his thigh, the broken tibia exposed to the air. The ** wound was tightly bound with a strip of cloth, the white tendons shocking to the eye.

“Your thigh,” the Night Manager pulled the cloth bag up a bit, covering the broken tibia, so at least from the outside, it didn’t look like there was any problem. “I had it treated for you. Don’t worry, the bleeding has stopped. After daybreak, you can still get your leg reattached at the hospital.”

“Tha… thank you,” Ningma felt terribly dry in his mouth. He swallowed a few times, barely secreting a bit of saliva. “Water, is there any water?”

“Want water to drink?” A familiar male voice said from among the five people, “Mr. Ningma.”

Ningma followed the voice and looked over. It was a woman with a relatively rough figure. The moment her voice sounded, he immediately knew who it was. “Day Manager Lunzhu? You’re here too?”

“The water is a bit cold,” Day Manager Lunzhu took out a bottle of mineral water that was half-empty from her backpack, bent down, and brought the mouth of the bottle to Ningma’s lips, feeding him as she said, “I’ve drunk from it before, I wouldn’t mind, would I?”

Ningma opened his mouth. The cold ** just moistened his upper lip but was moved away. A few drops of water slipped down his neck like ice knives.

“This bottle of water,” Day Manager Lunzhu took off the mask she was wearing, revealing a professional smile, “to exchange for something on me, do you think I’d be willing?”

“Something?” Ningma’s consciousness was sometimes clear and sometimes a bit blurry, but at this moment he immediately understood what the other party wanted. “Are you talking about the Heart Bead?”

“Heart Bead?” Day Manager Lunzhu reacted for a second. “My bead has a name? What’s it called? Heart Bead?”

“Yes,” Ningma took a slight breath, “It’s called ‘Heart Bead,’ passed down from the ancient Zhangzhung Kingdom more than 300 years ago. Everyone thought it was lost, but I didn’t expect that recently it was taken out by the great-grandson of an Eight-Nation Alliance officer who attacked Beijing in the last century.”

“So there’s a source,” Day Manager Lunzhu suppressed her excitement. “No wonder it could sell for two hundred million.”

“Two hundred million is the auction price abroad,” Ningma said, looking at her greedy eyes. “As far as I know, there are people in China willing to pay 250 million to collect it. Finding the right buyer might sell it for even more.”

“Two hundred million is enough,” another female voice among the five people said, her voice crisp and neat. “Where did he hide the Heart Bead?”

Ningma looked at the speaker, who was the tallest of the five, estimated to be 1.8 meters, with a well-proportioned figure, and was very similar to the person who broke into his room that night, almost exactly the same. He said in a hoarse voice, “It’s you, Luo Kang.”

Luo Kang crossed his arms and tilted his head. “I don’t want to waste words with you. I’ll give you the Heart Bead. In exchange, you give me my life.”

“Exchange for your life?” Ningma suddenly found it very funny. Suppressing his voice, he hadn’t laughed yet when his blood-soaked throat coughed violently. The “cough cough” sound echoed above the cold storage. After half a minute, it gradually slowed down, his face flushed with a morbid redness. As he spoke, he exhaled a cloud of white air. “If I’m not mistaken—here, I mean in the cold storage, I’m not the only one lying here? Why should I believe you?”

“He knows everything,” Night Manager Huang raised a finger to tell Luo Kang to shut up, then turned his head. “Speak, what do I have to do to get you to hand over the Heart Bead?”

Ningma closed his eyes and shook his head with a forced smile.

Night Manager Huang stood up gently. The five people surrounded the tin box where Ningma was lying, each with a very ugly expression. This Molton Holiday Inn wasn’t big, but it wasn’t small either… Sure enough, the phone next to his hand rang. The skinny man glanced at the screen and answered it.

“Hello!” Half a second later, suppressing his irritation, he roared in a low voice, “Isn’t it there? Or did you not find it? How big can his room be? Dig it up even if you have to dig three feet into the ground!”

“You think there are only the five of us,” following the voice, Ningma curiously raised his head. “I didn’t expect there to be others. Let me guess who it is? The greeter at the Chinese restaurant? The maintenance electrician? Or the little sister in the back who has a mole on the corner of her mouth?”

No one answered. Everyone’s eyes were now on Night Manager Huang. So Ningma had to say to himself, “Could it be you?”

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