A Marine Admiral in the Marvel Universe

Cao Gui leisurely strode away, disappeared into the sewer, and returned to the surface through the sewer.

Inside a van parked by the roadside, Gwen and Beth had already arrived. Upon seeing Cao Gui, they immediately asked, "Tell me, what just happened?"

"Ahem, it's nothing." Cao Gui coughed lightly, clenching his fist. "Harry, we got the stuff, let's go."

"Wait a moment, let me clean up the traces so that no one can investigate."

……

An hour later, Cao Gui and his group arrived at a detached villa. This was a property that Beth's mother had bought in Washington. Although it had been uninhabited for a long time, it was cleaned every day and could still be used.

The four men looked at the yellowed Declaration of Independence in front of them and scratched their heads.

"So, what do we do next?" Beth asked, looking at the Declaration of Independence from left to right. "There's nothing on this piece of paper."

Gwen paced back and forth, pondered for a moment, and then said, "It must be invisible ink. The invisible ink that exists in nature is squid ink. Maybe if we heat it up with fire, we can see it."

"Or it could be a special solution like ferrous sulfide that requires reagents to show up."

"How about... we give it a try?" Beth said. "Perfect, we've never used the oven before."

Cao Gui rolled his eyes: "No, this is the only clue. That would be too risky."

After thinking for a moment, Cao Gui continued, "Gwen, how do you visualize ferrous sulfide?" Gu Qian

“It’s acidic, and it needs to be heated,” Gwen said.

“I’ll go buy lemons,” Harry said.

"And while you're at it, buy an alcohol lamp... or a hair dryer will do too," Cao Gui said.

"Okay, got it." Harry quickly left, leaving Cao Gui and the other two staring blankly at the Declaration of Independence.

Cao Gui stroked his chin, took out his pipe, dipped it in ink, and printed out the words on it.

"The legends written down, their stains reveal their traces; the silent key, fifty-five iron pens, even Mattel could not damage them."

In these sentences, the first letters of "silence" and "Mattley" were bolded. Cao Gui didn't understand the meaning and felt that something was wrong.

Harry returned shortly afterward.

Cao Gui and his three companions hurriedly cut the lemons, and then...

"What do we do next? Cover the entire back of this thing with the coating?" Beth hesitated.

“Uh… it should start from the right,” Gwen said. “The official documents at the time were from left to right, but the writing convention was from right to left, so let’s start from the right.”

"Okay." Cao Gui picked up a cotton swab, dipped it in citric acid, applied it, and then heated it over an alcohol lamp. Sure enough, a small icon and a string of numbers appeared on it.

"My God! There really is something!" Beth exclaimed.

"Quick, take notes!" Cao Gui said excitedly. "Bess, switch to a hair dryer, don't use the alcohol lamp."

"Okay, coming right up!" Beth rubbed her hands together excitedly.

They looked excited; the clues hidden behind the Declaration of Independence must be a great treasure.

After a flurry of activity, a string of numbers was placed in front of Cao Gui and his companions.

Cao Gui scratched his head, trying hard to recall the original plot, but his mind went blank and he couldn't figure out what it meant.

"What are all these?" Harry frowned.

"I don't know either," Cao Gui said, shrugging.

“This… should be the Ottendorf cipher,” Gwen said. “Simply put, it’s the page number, line number, and letter number of a book or document.”

“So, what book or document is it?” Beth asked.

“It must be related to ‘silence.’” Gwen picked up the inscription on her pipe and looked at it: “The key to silence…”

Cao Gui frowned slightly and turned his attention back to the words on the pipe. The word "silence" and the first letter of "Mattley" were both bolded. Did that mean "silence" was a person's name?

With that in mind, Cao Gui took out his computer and started searching, entering the keywords "silence," "books," and "American history."

Soon, a message appeared: a letter from Cyrus Dugood.

Serens is a transliteration, meaning silent or speechless.

The so-called Cyrus Dugood is none other than Benjamin Franklin, the one who flew an iron kite and made a lightning rod.

This person once wrote 14 letters under the name Serens Dugood, which translates to "doing good deeds anonymously."

"Let's go, guys, let's go to the museum again and see what's written on it," Cao Gui said with a smile.

"Beth and I will go," Gwen said quickly, feeling sorry for Cao Gui. "You two should rest."

"No need. You're already in the museum's security line of sight. If you reappear, it will arouse suspicion. Harry and I will go," Cao Gui said with a smile.

"Uh... well then."

"You all stay here and take notes, see what the information is," Cao Gui said with a smile.

“No problem,” Beth said from the side.

------------

Chapter 133 The Final Location of the Treasure

“Honey, read the numbers aloud,” Cao Gui said through the earpiece.

“ok。”格温立刻回答：“10、11、8，10、4、7，9、2、2，18、7、4，13、10、4、……”

“t, h, e, v, i…” Cao Gui’s eyes darted around, and he quickly pronounced the letters. Harry wandered to the side, attracting the attention of the security guards.

Soon, Cao Gui converted all the numbers Gwen had revealed into letters.

"It's done, Cao, you can come back now."

"Roger that!"

Cao Gui and Harry rushed back into the villa: "Gwen, what do those letters mean?"

Harry asked urgently, explaining that the Osborn Group was facing a significant crisis and he desperately needed the money to bail them out.

"When you see the treasured past, follow the shadows when the time is right, and go beyond Paus and Stowe."

Beth read the whole sentence aloud, then shrugged: “I don’t know much about the others, but Pais and Stowe know very well the two founders of the Liberty Bell.”

Cao Gui looked completely bewildered. Forgive me, he knew absolutely nothing about American history.

"Oh, it's the Liberty Bell." Harry's eyes lit up. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's get to the Liberty Bell!"

“No, no.” Gwen shook her head: “There are two more sentences before that. If you don’t understand them, you won’t be able to find them no matter how hard you look.”

"So, what are those two sentences?" Cao Gui spread his hands. He could understand "The Moonlight Before My Bed" at first, but these American-style phrases were too difficult for him.

"I don't understand the first sentence." Gwen shrugged as well.

"But I do know a little about the second sentence. It should mean that if you follow the shadow of the Liberty Bell at a specific time, you can find something."

"So? What time?" Cao Gui asked. "Could it be the time the Liberty Bell was cast?"

“Probably not.” Harry shook his head. “The Liberty Bell was cast over a period of time, not a specific moment.”

“This time should be related to Cyrus Dugood,” Cao Gui said after sitting down on the sofa and thinking for a moment. After all, the clue about the Liberty Bell came from his letter.

“This…” Gwen frowned, her mind racing. Franklin was a politician, a physicist, but not an astronomer, nor a mathematician. There were very few specific dates associated with him… Could it be the date the Declaration of Independence was signed?

That's not right either; it's a period of time, not a single moment.

A look of worry flashed across Gwen's pretty face, and she looked somewhat anxious.

"Regarding Franklin's specific time..." Beth pondered for a moment, then quickly went into a room and took out a small box.

"Come quickly, all of you, come and see!" Beth took a hundred-dollar bill from the box and called out to Cao Gui and the other two.

"This is the old version of the 100-dollar bill. The back of it depicts the Independence Hall, where the Liberty Bell is kept. You can see the Independence Hall; there is a huge quartz clock here, and the hands of the quartz clock are pointing to a time. This painting was done by one of Franklin's friends."

The three of them went over to take a look, but the markings were too small to see clearly.

Beth had to pull out a magnifying glass to barely make out the time on it.

"14:20 PM".

"What time is it now?"

The group looked up, their expressions filled with excitement.

Cao Gui checked the time: "Exactly 14 PM!"

"Hurry, get to Philadelphia now... never mind, it's too late." Harry's excitement turned into helplessness. They were in Washington, while the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall were in Philadelphia. Even by plane, it was impossible to get there in twenty minutes.

“No, no, Harry, we can make it!” Gwen said. “If I remember correctly, this painting was painted in 1780, and at that time we were observing daylight saving time.”

“Daylight Saving Time?” Cao Gui asked, puzzled.

“Cao, Daylight Saving Time is when time is artificially calculated and deliberately moved forward by one hour,” Beth explained. “In other words, 14 PM back then is actually 15 PM now.”

Upon hearing this, Harry's eyes lit up: "There's still one hour and twenty minutes left. I'll contact a private jet now!"

Valley ginseng

With that, he rushed out, suppressing his excitement as he made a phone call.

Cao Gui shrugged. Luckily, the three of them were there; otherwise, Cao Gui really wouldn't have known about so many complicated things.

Half an hour later, the private jet took off, bringing Cao Gui and the other three to Philadelphia. Without saying a word, Harry immediately had the Osborn branch in Philadelphia send several cars to quickly take the four of them to the Liberty Bell.

"It's 15:13 PM now, seven minutes to go." Cao Gui glanced at his watch and said, "Let's go up. Perfect timing, the weather's nice today, the shadows are clear."

With that, he led the way up the clock tower.

The four carefully avoided the staff and, through a series of twists and turns, secretly arrived at the top floor of the clock tower.

“The shadow is over there, southeast,” Beth whispered.

The group went over to take a look and found that the shadow was projected onto the wall of the building below.

“Follow the shadows when the time is right, past Pais and Stowe.” Cao Gui laughed, “Guys, it looks like we’ve found it.”

"Come on, go down and have a look."

Cao Gui led the three of them to the wall and slowly searched along the shadows. Finally, they found a small circular groove on a brick, with a pattern inside the groove.

“Huh…this design looks like the one on the back of the Declaration of Independence,” Gwen said in surprise.