Terence Bey's expression turned quite strange. He felt something was off today. Evelyn, who was always making foolish mistakes, had suddenly announced that she wanted to find Hamunaptra. Now a few strangers had appeared, also claiming they were searching for Hamunaptra? Was Hamunaptra some kind of tourist attraction now? Or had someone been actively promoting this place everywhere?
"I don't know where you heard about this place," he said. "Hamunaptra is just a legendary city, not a place that actually exists."
Though mentally cursing, Terence Bey still stuck to his duty—to keep the secret of the City of the Dead as much as possible, preventing anyone from entering or even approaching that legendary place.
"It really exists!"
Evelyn, who always gave Curator Terence Bey a massive headache, jumped in again, waving the map in her hand.
"I have a map of Hamunaptra," she said, "but the part showing the location was burned."
Evelyn completely ignored Terence's displeased expression. Instead, she glared at him angrily, feeling that his carelessness had destroyed a very important map. This map might have proven the real existence of a historical period and would be of great significance to archaeology. As an archaeologist, she believed it was her responsibility to search for Hamunaptra and prove its existence.
"What do we do now?"
Jonathan looked at the burned map, ignoring both the curator and Ethan. He lowered his head, thought for a moment, and came up with an idea.
"Maybe we can go find someone."
"Find someone?"
"I got this thing from that person," Jonathan explained. "Maybe he knows something."
Upon hearing this, Evelyn became excited as well. Ignoring the surrounding onlookers, she urged her brother, "Then what are we waiting for? Let's go find that person right now."
"Ahem."
Ethan cleared his throat to emphasize his presence. Evelyn finally noticed their group and looked at Ethan with a slightly dazed expression.
"We want to go to Hamunaptra," Ethan said. "We were wondering if we could join your... adventure team?"
Evelyn stared blankly at Ethan, then turned to look at Logan beside him and continued to stare. In Cairo at this time, it was hard to find men who fit her aesthetic standards. They were either ugly... or just plain ugly. Even women liked to look at handsome men for eye candy. In this environment, suddenly seeing two men above average, it wasn't surprising that Evelyn was momentarily smitten.
Fortunately, Jonathan didn't fall into a daze. When he heard that Ethan and his companions also wanted to go to Hamunaptra, his first reaction was, Someone wants to steal my treasure!
Just as he was about to refuse, the young man across from him said, "I'm not interested in treasures or anything like that, so you don't have to worry about me competing with you for the legendary gold."
Upon hearing that Ethan wasn't after the gold, Jonathan's attitude immediately improved.
"Let's talk outside."
Evelyn had also come back to her senses by this time. Hearing that Ethan and the others also wanted to go to Hamunaptra, the academically driven woman didn't think too much about it. She simply felt that having a few more people on the trip was no big deal.
At the same time, she noticed Ethan and his companions' clothing. It was clean, neat, and clearly expensive, suggesting that they had come from elsewhere. Could they be archaeologists too?
"Hello, I'm Evelyn Carnahan, and this is my brother Jonathan."
"My name is Ethan. This is Logan, and this is Ada."
The slightly dazed Evelyn had no guard up at all, which saved Ethan the trouble of fabricating a backstory. Just a few simple introductions, and he had smoothly "joined" the small group formed by the siblings.
"Isn't that a bit too easy?"
Logan found the situation a bit unbelievable. With all his years of experience traveling across different worlds with Ethan, he had never met someone so naive. These were complete strangers who had just appeared out of nowhere, and this woman had absolutely no defenses?
Everyone ignored Curator Terence Bey, who was left speechless and depressed. They left the museum chatting, and Evelyn even brought them back to her place without any hesitation, asking her brother to entertain them while she packed and changed.
She had already decided to find the person Jonathan mentioned. As for Ethan and the others? They were just a few more companions. Having more people to talk to during the journey didn't sound like a bad thing.
After Evelyn left to change, Ethan also began to feel a little absurd. Evelyn was a bit naive, but wasn't she a little too unguarded? How had she managed to live safely to this age without being sold off? Egypt at this time was not exactly safe.
"Let me confirm one more time," Jonathan said. "You really don't want any of the gold inside?"
Jonathan was also quite the oddball. He didn't care where Ethan and the others had come from. All he cared about was whether they'd be taking a share of the treasure.
"Yeah. That stuff's useless to us."
Jonathan glanced at their clothing. As an experienced thief, he had sharp eyes. Though he couldn't quite tell what made their outfits unique, he could tell they were expensive—definitely not something ordinary people could afford.
So he reached a conclusion: these people were loaded.
"So what exactly do you want?" Jonathan asked. "You're not just going to see the legendary pyramids, are you?"
"I want to find the two legendary books," Ethan replied.
Ethan didn't hide his goal. Maybe he felt a bit guilty about taking advantage of the siblings?
"You mean the Book of the Dead and the Book of the Living?"
Evelyn, who had changed her clothes, rushed out of her room. Her place wasn't large, and the soundproofing wasn't great. Ethan hadn't spoken particularly softly, so she had overheard everything.
"Do those two books really exist?"
"If Hamunaptra exists, then why wouldn't the two books exist?"
Evelyn nodded. Ethan's reasoning made perfect sense to her. But after hearing that the two legendary books might really exist, she became even more eager. She wanted to head to Hamunaptra immediately.
"Let's go find that person now."
"Now?" Jonathan hadn't expected Evelyn to be in such a rush. He still wanted to have a proper chat with Ethan and see if he could get some money out of these 'rich folks'.
"Of course now. Where's the person you mentioned?"
The person Jonathan had referred to was Rick O'Connell, the male protagonist from the movie. His unit had discovered Hamunaptra during his military service, and they had found a small box with a map inside.
That item was actually a multi-functional key, though no one knew that yet. Jonathan had previously stolen this key, and it was now in Evelyn's possession.
Now that the map was damaged, Jonathan thought of finding O'Connell again, hoping he could give them the exact location of Hamunaptra.
That male protagonist was currently locked up in Cairo prison.
Cairo prison, naturally, was dirty and chaotic. The warden could decide at will whether a prisoner lived or died, or when they would be released.
Just like now, he decisively agreed to release O'Connell.
Unlike in the original plot, where O'Connell was already hanging from a rope before being saved through negotiation, Ethan wasn't sure the protagonist in this real-world version could last that long. If the hanging began, he might really die from a broken neck.
If that happened, Ethan would have no choice but to obtain the location of Hamunaptra from the curator, who was also a guardian. That would be much harder, since these guardians were completely willing to sacrifice their lives to keep the secret.
To make sure nothing went wrong, Ethan directly proposed taking someone from their prison as soon as he met the fat warden.
"I don't care why you locked him up," Ethan said. "And I don't care what you think. Right now, you have two choices. Hand him over to me."
"Or?"
The warden didn't believe he was the type to be swayed by a little money or a few threats.
"Or I'll take him myself," Ethan said. "In that case, you won't get any benefits—and you might end up with more trouble."
Words alone weren't enough to convince him. But when Ethan followed up by conjuring a flaming fireball in his once-empty palm, the situation changed.
As the fireball drifted closer and closer to the warden's face, the terrifying heat it gave off made his thick beard begin to sizzle. The scorched smell reminded him that this definitely wasn't an illusion.
"I'll release him immediately."
If it had been a threat of force, the warden might have temporarily given in, only to take revenge later.
But now, the threat came from a mysterious sorcerer. The fear of supernatural power extinguished any thoughts of retaliation. Even if someone gave him extra courage, he wouldn't dare. He even had the urge to leave Cairo and hide somewhere remote, afraid this sorcerer might come looking for him again.
As the panicked warden personally went into the prison to release O'Connell, Ethan turned back to find Evelyn and Jonathan staring at him in stunned silence, their eyes wide with disbelief.
"What's wrong?"
Evelyn was the first to recover, though her expression was still dazed. She shakily raised a finger and pointed at the fireball in Ethan's hand.
"It's just a simple little spell," Ethan said. "Just a small display. No need to be so surprised."
He lightly closed his fist, and with a soft poof, the fireball vanished, leaving only a wisp of smoke curling from his fingers.
(To be continued.)