Ryan figured that there probably wouldn't be any danger here in the short term. After some consideration, he decided it was better to get some sleep first and go treasure hunting when it was light the next day.
He took a shower, found a room, and crashed.
Once again, he slept until nearly noon. After getting up and freshening up, he grabbed his tools, hopped into his car, and drove down the mountain to the first villa.
Over the next three days, Ryan searched through all the remaining villas and found quite a few interesting secrets.
For example, in the first villa below the mountaintop villa, he discovered a sex tape featuring a tycoon from the wealth list and a top-tier female celebrity. It was clear that the tycoon had recorded it himself.
There were also photos of someone giving money to another person, as well as photos of a man and a woman, who had received the money, hugging as they came out of a hotel room.
Ryan understood at a glance that these were likely blackmail materials collected by the owner of the first villa. The identities of the people involved in the bribery were probably no ordinary individuals.
The other four villas, located from the mountaintop to the hillside, were found to be completely empty. It seemed that the owner hadn't hidden any secrets in those villas, or perhaps there simply weren't any scandalous secrets to hide.
Now Ryan had arrived at the villa at the foot of the mountain, where he found the last safe.
It took him less than two hours to crack open the safe in the sixth villa.
After opening so many safes over the past few days, he had become much more efficient, halving the time it took to crack them.
With an excited heart, Ryan opened the over-a-meter-tall safe. The first thing he saw was a stack of cash and files, no different from the other safes.
But as the safe was fully opened and Ryan saw everything inside, he was so shocked that he dropped the electric drill he was holding.
On the top layer of the safe was a human head!
Ryan was stunned. He had never expected to see something like this in a safe.
Was it a prop?
Or maybe a wax head?
He had heard that modern wax sculpting technology could create incredibly lifelike figures. Maybe this was just another wax head.
Although he thought this, he still didn't dare to touch it.
He took a glance at the head, feeling a strange mixture of shock and disbelief, and noticed that the skin texture and hair were incredibly lifelike—so much so that it hardly seemed fake.
When a strong smell of preservatives wafted over, Ryan felt a chill run through him. This might actually be a real human head.
If it were a wax figure or a prop, there wouldn't be this chemical smell.
The head had clearly been treated with preservatives and other special processes to keep it preserved for so long.
"Holy crap, this guy is a psycho."
Ryan muttered, feeling goosebumps rise on his skin. He didn't know who the villa's owner was, but it was possible that this person had been murdered by the owner.
And it seemed that the owner harbored such deep-seated hatred that killing the person wasn't enough; he had decapitated the body, treated the head with chemicals to preserve it, and kept it all this time.
What was even more terrifying was that the owner had stored it in the safe in his study, probably to take it out and admire it from time to time.
After realizing this, Ryan felt a wave of dread and instinctively wanted to leave the place.
As a low-level office worker who had never experienced anything like this, he was overwhelmed by the horrifying sight. Ryan stood up, preparing to turn and leave, but then he suddenly reached into the safe, brushed aside the money, and grabbed all the file folders.
He avoided looking at the head the entire time, and after getting the file bag, he quickly left the room.
Ryan Miller threw the files into the car, tried hard to clear the matter of the human head from his mind, and drove off towards the outskirts of Fallford Bay.
Since he was already down the mountain, Ryan planned to find a translator and then head back.
By the time it got dark, he returned to the mountaintop villa with a box of files and a translator.
But as soon as he entered, he sensed something was off. The wind and rain had intensified.
This was Ryan's ninth day in this world. The rain had increased significantly compared to three days ago, and the wind had picked up, causing leaves and debris on the mountaintop to swirl around.
Ryan felt a sinking feeling in his heart; he had an ominous premonition again.
The changing weather had already given him a warning that the storms would likely get worse over time.
The only good news was that with the increased rain, the fires in the city should weaken.
When he had gone out earlier, he noticed that although there were still flickers of fire on the horizon, they had diminished significantly after several days of rain.
However, given the trend of increasing rainfall, it was possible that the entire city would soon be flooded.
Ryan realized he needed to learn how to operate a yacht as soon as possible. Otherwise, if the city was flooded and he couldn't drive the yacht, he would be at a disadvantage.
Fortunately, there were more than a dozen yachts docked at the marina down the mountain, and he could learn to drive one at any time.
After entering the villa, Ryan put the translator aside. He then opened all the files bags and began to carefully go through them one by one.
As he browsed through them, his eyes widened in surprise, tinged with a hint of delight.
He quickly discarded the irrelevant files and pulled out the most important ones.
From these files, Ryan had figured out who the owner of the villa at the foot of the mountain was.
Finn Wright, the chairman of the listed real estate company Verdant Reality, whose company was worth over 200 billion. He was also a figure on the wealth list.
Finn had a keen strategic vision. His company was established in 1992 and had been acquiring land and expanding in the San Francisco Bay Area over the past twenty years.
By 2020, the value of its land reserves had reached nearly 900 billion, with half of that value concentrated in and around Fallford Bay.
Ryan was bound to know this person. On the two subway lines he took every day, out of sixteen stations, six had Verdant Reality's properties right at the exits.
The most important document among these files was a merger agreement. It detailed Verdant Reality's plan to acquire another listed real estate company, the Regent Group.
Ryan didn't know much about the Regent Group, but judging from the document, which showed a total market value of only 10 billion and a share price of 27, he could tell that this real estate company ranked quite low among US firms.
What excited Ryan was that, according to relevant merger studies, the share price of the acquired company generally increased by 10 to 30 percent, and this figure had an upward trend over time.
Especially when a top-tier real estate company in the U.S. like Verdant Reality acquired it, this was undoubtedly good news for the Regent Group. A share price increase seemed almost certain.
And Ryan believed it wouldn't just be a 30 percent increase; it might even multiply several times over.
All he needed to do was leave this game world and buy shares of the Regent Group in the real world in advance.