The traffic situation in the resort town was quite good. It was very close to the small city of Hluhluwe, and from Hluhluwe there was a national highway leading to the provincial capital, Pietermaritzburg. However, you had to first drive south to Durban, South Africa’s famous port city, and then head northwest from Durban to finally reach Pietermaritzburg—a total distance of 350 kilometers.

Samuel Young also felt it was too rushed, so he quickly said, “Mr. Hall, I’m afraid we can’t handle the business today, because my documents, including my visa and ID, aren’t here.”

“Where are they?”

“In the Western Cape Province.”

Hall thought for a moment and then asked, “Are your documents all in order? You’re not undocumented, no political issues, no banking credit problems?”

Samuel Young replied with certainty, “There’s absolutely no problem.”

Hall continued putting on his clothes: “That’s fine, we can pull up those documents online. I’ll have my colleague in Pietermaritzburg contact the police station to get you a temporary certificate.”

Any salesperson knows that delays can cause complications, so he wanted to close this deal in one go.

Hall’s car was the battered Land Rover parked out front—no one knew how many previous owners it had had.

This was the current state of South Africa’s auto industry, mainly dominated by second-hand cars discarded by Asian and European countries—a mix of all brands.

Don’t be fooled by how beat-up this Land Rover looked; once it was on the road, it was incredibly fast, zooming ahead even with two big guys in the car, still feeling light as a feather.

Samuel Young glanced at the dashboard and looked doubtful: “Only sixty miles per hour? It feels pretty fast.”

Driving, Hall smiled and said, “The dashboard is broken. We’re actually going about a hundred miles per hour.”

A hundred miles per hour is about 160 kilometers per hour.

Samuel Young was stunned. Driving an old car at this speed? He figured if they got into an accident, he wouldn’t fare much better than Meyerke—at best, they’d be able to piece him back together.

He had underestimated Hall’s driving skills. The whole way was thrilling but safe, and they made it to Pietermaritzburg—350 kilometers in two and a half hours!

Pietermaritzburg is considered a major city in South Africa and also an old one. It was founded in 1838, and because it was under British rule for a long time, most of the buildings here are in Victorian and Edwardian styles, making it look like a small European town.

But to Samuel Young, who had attended university in the magic metropolis, this was just a big village. Looking out, there were hardly any buildings over ten stories, the city’s architecture was old and scattered, almost all leftovers from the white regime era of the last century, and it didn’t even compare to his hometown’s county seat.

After entering the city, the car slowed down. Hall took out his phone and called his colleagues in the city, asking them to make an appointment with the land management department to save time on the paperwork.

After he finished the call, Samuel Young asked, “Can I use your phone? It’s like this, my phone…”

Hall was very generous—before he even finished speaking, he handed the phone over.

His phone was a well-known Chinese brand, Transsion, with an ultra-loud ringtone and four SIM cards—king of African telecom.

After getting the phone, Samuel Young was stumped. He wanted to call the reserve, but he couldn’t remember the phone numbers of his colleagues or supervisors there. He wanted to call his school, but he couldn’t remember his classmates’ or advisor’s numbers either. He did remember his dad’s number, but Hall hadn’t enabled international calling, so he couldn’t make the call!

There was nothing to be done for now, and they got busy with other things.

Hall had to take him to the Pietermaritzburg branch of the Independent Group to handle the diamonds. The process was quite complicated: the diamonds had to be appraised for purity grade, carat grade, color grade, and cut grade before a price could be quoted.

Samuel Young kept the two largest diamonds and handed over the other eighteen.

These things weren’t worth that much in South Africa, especially loose diamonds, which fetched even lower prices. In the exchange, a one-carat diamond might only go for ten or twenty thousand rand, but once it entered the mall, its price would immediately soar to eighty or a hundred thousand rand.

So, diamonds are just something that’s hyped up—their intrinsic value is quite small.

Fortunately, the diamonds Samuel Young had were all pretty big, with the smallest being over two carats, so they were still worth something. If all his diamonds had been just one or two carats each, those eighteen diamonds wouldn’t have been enough for him to buy the land in the reserve.

Chapter 7 Certificate in Hand

Walker Hall was a reliable and shrewd real estate agent. He had his colleague download Samuel Young’s ID documents from the police station website in advance, and while his colleague was appraising the diamonds, he took Samuel Young to the Pietermaritzburg government office to request the materials for the reserve land transaction and began filling them out.

Previously, land transactions in South Africa were handled by an agency called the Land Management Committee. Now, with land reform, the government had set up a new department called the Department of Agriculture and Land Reform, and Samuel Young and the others had to deal with this new department.

After getting the materials, some of them were filled out by Hall, while others needed to be filled out by himself.

Hall reminded him very seriously: “Mr. Young, this is the memorandum for the reserve land use. All these forms must be filled out. Pay attention—make sure you follow the formatting! The examiners don’t care what you write; they only care about your handwriting, whether there are any typos, and if the format is correct. These are the most important things!”