In the rainforest.
Vroom...! Vroom! The old engine roared through the air.
A camper van was seen struggling to cross a muddy slope.
Vroooooom!!!!
With another roar from the engine, the van finally managed to climb up and continued its slow journey north along a path that could hardly be called a road.
Inside the car.
"Fuck!"
Leon, who was in charge of driving, angrily punched the steering wheel.
"I'm so sorry, Mr. Joseph." Seeing this, the old professor sitting in the passenger seat quickly said, "I almost spent all my savings to get me and my students here, and I can only afford to hire you for protection. I'm really sorry."
Upon hearing this, Leon lightly waved his right hand and said, "It has nothing to do with you, it is... well... never mind."
"That's good, that's good." The professor was finally relieved.
In fact, Leon's real anger had nothing to do with the other party, but it was inextricably linked to money.
Through a professor named Quill Sears, beside him, and four students behind him, he learned that the High Heel Club was a gathering place for mercenaries, assassins, and smugglers, which was no secret in Loja.
Secondly, the bartender with the slightly foul mouth told him all the information about the rebels' impending attack on Loja, including the disease. After all, this wasn't much valuable information, worth at most the price of two drinks.
Can..
210!
$210!
Honestly, after learning all this, Leon really wanted to punch himself.
For this graduation exam, the company provided each person with 3,000 dollars in operational funds, which they could use as they pleased.
Leon felt incredibly guilty for being ripped off by over two hundred dollars at Romanée Conti, after all, no matter how much money the company had, it was still the company's money....
Furthermore, the fact that the female bartender immediately recognized him as a newcomer caused Leon to even begin to doubt himself.
Fortunately, Leon had a strong mental fortitude and quickly processed these emotions. Moreover, he learned from his mistake and knew that if he encountered a similar situation again, he would definitely not hesitate to negotiate the price properly.
Quill Sears and his group were originally history professors and students at Cambridge University in England. They ventured to Africa in search of the so called "Stairway to the Sun".
Based on a diary entry written by a Portuguese captain, Sears concluded that a plant existed in the Congo that could cure all diseases.
The diary entry mainly recounts how the captain and crew, aboard a warship named Glory Reborn, escorted a group of explorers into the Congo rainforest to map out resources and mark feasible routes, in accordance with King Manuel I's orders, thus facilitating subsequent colonial development.
What seemed like an ordinary experience was the reason why Professor Sears was willing to spend all his savings to come here, simply because the Portuguese captain wrote two paragraphs.
"God help us, if we hadn't been so desperate and eaten those red flowers raw, half of us would have died of measles!"
as well as.
"Those flowers were amazing, a true gift from God! How did we all manage to walk out of the rainforest healthy? It's unbelievable! It's a pity we used them all up. If only we could have picked a few to take back and plant... Well, maybe we'll save that for next time. Hopefully, we can still find that ancient city"
Measles, or smallpox, is actually the same disease that ravaged the world for thousands of years, starting with written records.
Between the 16th and 19th centuries alone, at least 150 million people died of smallpox in Europe, and this is only the recorded number, the actual number is likely much higher.
The fact that it could cure smallpox and help the captain and crew walk out of the rainforest healthy and unharmed shows that the red flower does indeed have extremely high medicinal and research value.
Unfortunately, HMS Glorious Resurrection was followed by the British Navy during its evacuation from Africa, and the last paragraph of its diary reads.
"Ha! Cunning, treacherous Englishmen! Why should we gift you our carefully drawn maps after risking our lives crossing this barbaric land? I'd rather destroy them! If we don't return on time, it means we've died far from home, no longer able to fight for the Empire...
May Your Majesty soon restore the Empire's glory!"
Sears speculated that the captain and all crew of the HMS Glorious Resurrection were very likely captured by the British Navy and eventually executed after negotiations broke down.
Although the Portuguese Empire was the first global empire and the longest lasting colonial empire, it was in a dark period at the end of the fifteenth century.
With internal royal infighting, external threats from powerful enemies like England, the Netherlands, and Spain, not to mention the countless pirates spawned during the Age of Exploration, there were simply too many factors that could have led to the permanent disappearance of the Glorious Rebirth.
As for where Sears acquired the diary, it was five years ago when he visited Amsterdam, Netherlands, and bought it from a privately owned gift shop.
The shop also has many diaries or manuscripts of sailors and captains from the 13th to 19th centuries, but they are not famous paintings or works of art, and they have not been carefully preserved, so they are more like the scraps of antiques.
As a history professor, Sears naturally couldn't resist the temptation and spent nearly £1,000 to buy more than ten books.
After returning home, reading, deciphering, and attempting to repair the missing parts, they discovered the history of the Glory and, through other documents and materials, successfully replicated the crew's landing point before their deep rainforest expedition, namely Loja.
However, when Sears reported this discovery to the school, hoping to secure funding to search for the Stairway to the Sun to benefit humanity, he was met with the response, "Are you kidding me?"
No one, and no organization, believes that investing money will yield a return.
The very existence of the Stairway of the Sun has been questioned. More importantly, Sears only deduced the crew's route before they ventured into the rainforest, knowing nothing about the journey that followed.
Sending people to explore the Congo rainforest, which covers an area of approximately 2 million square kilometers, in search of flowers?
Are you kidding me?
Despite facing setbacks at every turn, Sears firmly believed in the existence of the Stairway to the Sun and that he would be blessed by Lady Luck. So he sold all his possessions and took his four most prized students to Africa.
And then...
This amateurish and absurdly unsuccessful expedition team of teachers and students continued to encounter setbacks.
After listening to Sears and the students' accounts, Leon connected the strange phenomena in Roja to indirectly prove the real existence of the "Stairway to the Sun".
It's just that something went wrong at some point in the process, causing the plant that could cure the disease to become a poison.
After reporting the intelligence and personal speculations, Leon readily accepted the $1,000 reward and led them to the northern village where the infection first originated.
Just then.
"Mr. Joseph," a girl sitting in the back row asked curiously, "why did you become a mercenary?"
"Of course it's for the money..."
boom!!
Leon's next speech was interrupted by a sudden explosion.