Several days has passed and Lisa was still unable to shake the gut feeling that she had. The map was just like talking to her and was telling her to go to it. With a pen between her lips she looked out the window of their tiny apartment. The weather was nice, it was not too hot and it was not raining. A bit cloudy but a fine day in general.
She pulled out the map again from the drawer of her working table and looked at it. The next thing she knew was she was booking a flight online to the Philippines. She shook her head in defeat cause she knew that her curiosity got the best of her.
After a week, it was the day of her flight. She made an arrangement with their distant aunt who will look after her 2 younger sisters while she was gone. She was excited for the trip thinking that it could be her little getaway and a little vacation from all the working she was doing. She figured that her "me time" was long overdue.
Philippines
In a little more than half of a day, she arrived at Manila airport. It was a little past 9 when she arrived so she decided to go straight to her hotel. She took a cab and checked in on the front desk. The hotel room she booked was a humble standard room with an overlooking view of the city. She stared outside the window over the bustling sight of the city night. She felt a bit tired just looking at the heavy traffic outside. She felt like looking into a sea of vehicles tangled into a chaotic art.
She decided to relax for a bit and she went down on the hotel's bar. She sat at the counter and ordered a glass of margarita. She took a sip and she almost spit it out, she thought that it will taste good since her boss from the fashion company often orders it. She then asked for something sweet instead. The barkeep readily obliged and served her a long island iced tea instead.
"Welcome to the Philippines Ma'am" he said.
"Thank you..." she replied squinting at his name tag "...Rodel."
She smiled back at the guy and was a bit conscious since it was the first time that she has ever been called 'Ma'am'.
"Say, do you know where this Rizal Park is?" she inquired.
"It is just near here Ma'am. You will only take one jeep and you are there." he answered. "You just say you are going to Rizal park and the driver will know. You know, you can also use the taxi if you want. You just pay 70 pesos, it's enough."
"Thank you very much. That's really helpful."
The night went by just like a blink and she was feeling heavy, from excitement or from those glasses she downed the night after, she was not sure. She fixed herself, got dressed and prepared herself for an adventure of her life.
It was just a quick ride from her hotel to the park mentioned at the map. She alighted the vehicle and went on the starting line indicated on the map. She was lucky and it was a bit cloudy. She never experienced that hot of a weather. She felt like she was going to melt from the heat of the blowing wind.
She followed the map to the letter and all the instructions step by step. The X mark led her at the feet of one of the flagpoles. She observed the base of the flagpole and one side appeared to be some kind of small door. She pried it open and an indentation appeared. It looked awfully similar to her bitten coin. She took the coin from her purse and placed it on the indentation. It fit perfectly and another opening emerged. This time it produced a piece of paper. She took the piece of paper and stood up.
"Hey you."
She quickly turned around trying to hide the piece of paper on her back pocket. She somehow let her guard down when she saw who it is that called her. It was an old woman. She was modestly dressed and looked like she was from around the place.
"I have been waiting for you."
Lisa was puzzled and with her brows pulled together she asked. "Me? Why? Who are you?"
"I was your grandfather's housekeeper. He used to live in a house nearby and I was his housekeeper there. When he decided to go back to his home country permanently he gave my family the house together with a large sum of money that I could not even spend if I live lavishly my whole life. But he had just one condition. That I am to wait for his heir or heiress to appear under this flagpole and open his secret safe. He also asked me to give you this."
It was a photo album and some letters in it.
"Pardon me my dear. But I have to go back now. I have been waiting for you for a long time. Now I could finally rest."
Mystery Continues
She watched the old lady disappear into the crowds. She sat on a park bench and looked at the piece of paper she just found. There were words written on the piece of paper. The words are random and they do not make up a single sentence. The words were :
sequence
lemon
groan
core
self
vision
certain
fragment
cultural
choose
facade
cultivate
The words didn't make sense to her and no matter where she typed the words, the results were not yielding any thing that is relevant to her or to her grandfather.
She went back to her hotel room and buried herself in the bed with the words circling around her head. No matter how deep she dug into her memory, nothing really seemed to be making sense. And with the paper on her hand she decided to go back down again for some drinks.
"Good evening Ma'am" she was greeted again by the friendly barkeep.
"Long Island Iced tea please." she requested.
"Coming right up." he heeded.
She placed the paper on top of the counter turning it up, down, around and about. She thought that maybe she was looking at it at the wrong side, wrong level or with just a wrong mindset.
"One long island Iced tea." the barkeep paused for a bit as he looked at the piece of paper on top of the counter. When he realized what that was he quickly covered it up with a coaster and slid it towards Lisa.
"Hey, what's wrong?" she asked.
"You shouldn't be displaying your seed phrase like that." he replied.
"Seed.... What?"
"Seed phrase." and he placed his index finger on his lips indicating that it's a matter of utter confidentiality. He pointed to her phone and asked her to search for that.
She thanked Rodel and went back up to her room. She looked around the internet about seed phrases and she learned that those are used to restore a cryptocurrency wallet. Following several articles she was able to download a wallet and tried to restore the wallet using the seed phrase her grand father went.
The wallet loaded up and displayed that the wallet has a balance of 10,000 BTC. She knew that cryptocurrency has a corresponding fiat value and she searched for the conversion rate. She checked it twice and then three times and she almost fainted when she realized how much money her grandfather left her. She may not knew him but she was sure that she will never ever forget him.
Sources:
Lead Image : https://www.publish0x.com/samhamou/satoshis-treasure-a-treasure-hunt-to-find-1-dollar-million-i-xwnnkm
Image 1 : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rizal_Park
Image 2 : http://pshero.com/photoshop-tutorials/graphic-design/creating-old-paper-with-custom-brushes
Wow! So this is the satisfying ending I missed? 10000 BTC! Wow! Please let me know if you have dug up some seed words, too. Hahaha!