A New Idea for the Game

After nearly three hours of drilling and sawing, Ryan finally managed to pry open the safe door.

He tossed the tools aside and eagerly yanked the door open, peering inside.

But what he saw made him pause.

The safe, over a meter tall, wasn't filled with cash or secrets, but stacks of notebooks.

Curious, Ryan reached in, pulled out one, and glanced at the cover. It read "2014."

When he flipped it open, he was taken aback again.

The pages were filled with letters he couldn't decipher—neither French nor English, but the script looked somewhat similar to Spanish.

"Is this Spanish?"

Ryan had watched a Spanish drama, Money Heist, produced by Netflix, and he remembered the language. The writing in the notebook looked strikingly similar to Spanish.

With a puzzled expression, he dumped all the notebooks from the safe. They were identical, except for the years written on the covers, and all were written in Spanish.

Judging from the faded ink on the notebooks and the Arabic numerals written on the covers indicating dates, Ryan began to form a vague suspicion that these notebooks were likely Aileen's diaries.

"No wonder she's a Harvard graduate—writing her diary in Spanish."

Ryan muttered, impressed. Aileen's Harvard background meant her English was undoubtedly solid.

However, her choice of Spanish, and the fact that she kept it locked in a safe, clearly aimed to prevent prying eyes.

If these were written in English, Ryan's mediocre English would still allow him to read them, but in Spanish, they might as well be hieroglyphs.

But Ryan had a stubborn streak. The more he couldn't understand, the more determined he was to figure out what Aileen had written in her diaries.

It was like the safe—if it hadn't been locked and he could have searched around, he wouldn't have cared much.

He couldn't read Spanish, but he had something that could: translators.

Nowadays, many translators could work offline, translating text and images. Apple phones even had this feature built-in.

But without the internet, phones were far less effective than dedicated translators.

Still, Ryan wasn't in a rush. He didn't immediately head down the mountain to find a translator. Instead, he decided to push through and crack open the other three safes in the villa.

He grabbed his tools and went to Gavin's master bedroom, found the safe in the wardrobe, and got to work.

When the night fell, Ryan could finally forced open Gavin's safe.

The contents didn't surprise him. There were stacks of cash, Chinese yuan, US dollars, euros, and Hong Kong dollars, followed by rows of gold bars.

Ryan barely glanced at them. In this world, cash was useless—too slow to burn even as kindling, and gold was no different from bricks.

His eyes landed on the second layer of the safe, where there were several file folders and four old-fashioned cellphones.

Out of curiosity, he opened one folder and found equity documents—companies in which Gavin held shares.

He glanced at it but quickly lost interest, instead picking up a notebook from inside.

When he opened it, his expression turned odd. It was a handwritten ledger. It records transfer information—recipients, amounts, dates, and banks.

The names were just surnames, but the amounts, often in the millions or tens of millions, hinted at the recipients' significance.

Given Gavin's status, if he wanted to give money to someone, he wouldn't need to secretly record these transfers.

Ryan barely pondered for a moment before guessing that this list was very likely a bribery ledger.

In addition to the list, Gavin had also stored several old-fashioned cellphones in the safe. Some of these phones contained only a single phone number, with no name saved.

Some of the phones had names saved, but the quantity of phone number was minimal. However, quite a few of the surnames matched those in the ledger, though it was unclear if they were the same individuals.

Ryan didn't know who these people were, but it didn't take much thought to realize that they couldn't be ordinary people.

Otherwise, Gavin wouldn't have stored their numbers in old-fashioned phones, locked in a safe.

These phones likely held Gavin's most important connections.

At first, Ryan didn't pay much attention to these items, thinking they were useless to him now.

But then his heart started racing.

He had a new idea for the game.

After the game ended, he could return to the real world.

He could use this opportunity to gain the maximum advantage for himself.

When he moved things yesterday, he saw calendars in the mall and other places. This deserted world also started from February 2, 2020.

Five days later, it was February 7.

The time here was synchronized with the outside world.

This world was identical to reality, except for the absence of people—it was like a copy-pasted version of the real world.

If Gavin's safe in this world had these materials, then his safe in the real world would have the same.

He couldn't take the materials out, but he could memorize the connections and the bribery list.

Even if he called those numbers later to blackmail, the people on the other end might not give him the time of day. But Ryan figured that memorizing this information might come in handy someday.

With this thought, Ryan excitedly began sorting through the materials in Gavin's safe, setting aside the useful ones.

But he didn't start memorizing them right away. He remembered the other two safes in the villa and the six other villas down the mountain.

People always liked to hide secrets in their own homes, whether they were wealthy or not.

Since Gavin had hidden secrets in his villa, the other six villas might also hold something valuable.

Ryan's eyes almost gleamed with excitement. He quickly grabbed something to eat and then took his tools to crack open the other two safes.

But this time, he didn't find any secrets—just passports and important documents.

It was already midnight. Ryan wanted to rush down the mountain to the other villas to look for secrets, but his body couldn't take it.

He had worked all day yesterday, slept only one night, and then worked all day. Both his energy and physical strength were completely drained.