Chapter 281: Catching Ghosts? Finding People?

Chapter 281 Catching Ghosts? Finding People?

"Who wants to go survive on some deserted island with you guys?"

Isabella rolled her eyes and turned to walk back.

"This place looks sketchy. Let's just go back."

"Cousin! Don't leave!"

Seeing this, Charles and Dylan immediately lunged forward, each grabbing one of her legs and refusing to let go no matter what.

"Cousin, please, don't go, don't go. This place is really fun! Just trust us this once, okay?"

Isabella was annoyed to death by their pestering. She coldly shook her hand,

pulled out two tarot cards with mysterious patterns from her shoulder bag,

held the cards between her fingertips, and looked at them with sharp eyes.

"Let go! Don't make me use these."

The tarot cards glimmered faintly in the sunlight, and an invisible pressure instantly descended.

Charles and Dylan shuddered in fear, immediately let go, and raised their hands high, not daring to pester her anymore.

They had seen with their own eyes how Isabella used these two tarot cards to easily subdue the evil spirit in the study hall building.

Isabella put the tarot cards back in her pocket, her tone still cold.

"Spill it. Why do you have to come here?

Don't give me that tourism vacation nonsense. I don't buy it.

If you don't tell the truth, I'm leaving right now, and you can stay here by yourselves."

Charles's face instantly turned bright red. He glanced at Dylan beside him, then at Isabella, and stammered,

"Dylan and I, over these years, the dividends we got from the family fund, the New Year's money our parents gave us, and, and the original shares of the Tudor Group..."

"Get to the point."

Isabella interrupted him, her eyes sharp as knives.

"I don't have time to listen to you list your assets."

Charles took a deep breath, as if making a huge decision, and finally told the truth.

"The thing is, I took all the money Dylan and I had and invested it in this Royal Peaks Manor."

"What?"

Isabella's eyes widened in disbelief.

"You two invested in Royal Peaks Manor?

When did this happen?

How come I didn't know anything about it?"

"This year, after we came back to the country."

Dylan added in a small voice. He kept his head down, not daring to look Isabella in the eye.

"We figured, since we're going to study in the country and will definitely be staying in Eltheron for a long time,

as children of a noble family like the Tudor Group,

we can't just be useless people living off others, right?

We need to develop investment awareness from a young age so we can take over the family business later.

Dylan and I discussed it for a long time and looked at many projects.

In the end, we found that if we combined our money,

we had just enough to take over Royal Peaks Manor."

Melinda frowned and asked in confusion,

"I remember hearing people say before that this Royal Peaks Manor had great business with a steady stream of customers. How did you manage to take it over so easily?"

Charles's head dropped even lower, his voice as small as a mosquito's buzz.

"Royal Peaks Manor had some trouble last year.

People said the place was haunted, and then a seven-person expedition team came here to explore and disappeared completely.

No bodies found, no one seen alive.

This incident caused a huge stir.

After that, Royal Peaks Manor was shut down, tourists didn't dare come anymore, and business plummeted."

Charles paused, then added,

"It used to cost forty million dollars to take over, but now, now the price has dropped a lot."

Isabella looked at Charles like this and had a pretty good idea. She pressed on,

"So how much did you pay?"

Dylan's voice got even lower, almost inaudible.

"Three, three million dollars."

"What?" Isabella raised her voice, full of shock.

"Didn't you think there was a huge problem with taking over a resort that was once worth forty million dollars for just three million?

There's no such thing as a free lunch! If it's this cheap, there's definitely something wrong!"

"Cousin, we know!"

Charles quickly defended himself.

"It's cheap precisely because there's a problem with it,

and we just happened to only have that much money.

We figured, as long as we solve the haunting issue,

find the missing expedition team, and get the word out,

this manor will definitely become popular again, and then we can make big money!"

Isabella helplessly put her hand to her forehead, looking at the overly optimistic Charles and Dylan.

"So you'd rather take a loss than take it over? Have you made any money?"

Charles and Dylan looked at each other and both shook their heads dejectedly.

Charles hung his head, his tone full of disappointment.

"No. The haunting news keeps dominating the trending searches.

We even bought trending topics to suppress it and hired PR companies to control the news,

but because those seven missing expedition members still haven't been found,

no one dares to come here. Business is completely dead—not even a single tourist."

Isabella looked at their dejected appearance and instantly understood everything.

She looked at Charles and Dylan and asked word by word,

"So, you tricked me into coming here because you want me to solve the haunting problem or find those seven people?"

Charles's face turned even redder. He scratched his head and said in a small voice,

"Both, cousin. We knew you definitely wouldn't want to come to such a remote place. If we asked directly, you definitely wouldn't agree, so we came up with this plan to trick you into coming."

"You two are pretty clever."

Isabella said irritably.

"You don't study properly at school, but you sure learned these little tricks fast, and you're using them all on me, huh?"

Charles blushed and couldn't help but retort,

"Cousin, you're supposed to help people anyway!

You livestream regularly and are willing to help even strangers.

You work so hard to help them solve supernatural incidents.

Dylan and I are your family. How can you not help us?"

Isabella was left speechless by Charles's words.

Looking at the stubborn faces of Charles and Dylan in front of her, her heart ultimately softened.

She sighed, reached out her hand, and pinched Charles's shoulder hard, using a bit of force.

"Cousin! It hurts! It hurts!"

Charles grimaced in pain, tears almost coming out.

"Cousin, I was wrong! I'll never dare do it again!"

Isabella rolled her eyes and let go.

"I didn't say I wouldn't help. I just don't like you lying.

If you have something to say, just tell me directly. I'm not an unreasonable person.

Let's go, let's go in and take a look at what secrets this Royal Peaks Manor is hiding."

Hearing this, Charles and Dylan instantly beamed with joy and quickly nodded.

"Okay! Thank you, cousin! Cousin, you're the best!"

Compared to Isabella's initial resistance and reluctance, Melinda and Sophie were much more excited.

Melinda and Sophie were naturally bold and especially loved novel and thrilling things.

They had followed Isabella through so many incidents and solved quite a few supernatural cases. They'd seen so many strange and bizarre things that ordinary days were too boring for them, and they'd been bored out of their minds for a while now.

Just thinking about not only exploring a mysterious haunted manor but also catching ghosts, going on an adventure, and finding the missing expedition team members, Sophie was incredibly excited.

Sophie had long thrown Isabella's instruction "no livestreaming" to the back of her mind.

Without thinking, Sophie pulled out her livestream equipment from her backpack, skillfully set it up, and hit the livestream button.

On the screen, viewers instantly flooded into the livestream room, and comments started scrolling rapidly.