Wen Yan furrowed his brow slightly, channeling a boost of Yang Energy to Brother Ye from afar.

With the reinforcement of Yang Energy, the black gas that continually surged from Brother Ye's feet up into his body began to slow in its spread, and his consciousness started to return.

Feeling the power in his body, Brother Ye hurriedly cupped his hands in thanks to Wen Yan.

"Thanks, but I'm afraid I can't see you off. I have to take care of my own affairs first."

Brother Ye returned to the village, and wherever he went, the black gas that only Wen Yan could see followed.

The ominous black gas continuously surged out from within the village, with some areas showing signs of decreasing and gradually disappearing.

The villagers, who were happily dancing around the bonfire just the night before, now quietly and unanimously began preparing for Brother Ye's afterlife.

Brother Ye dragged out a black coffin from his house, and some villagers went to the cemetery forest opposite to start digging a grave for him.

The orderly yet eerie feeling made Wen Yan realize that this certainly wasn't the first time something like this had happened.

No wonder Little Green Snake said there's a curse here.

Wen Yan approached the entrance of the village and beckoned to Little Green Snake.

"What's the deal with this curse?"

"I don't know. It's always been like this. People who go out usually get affected sooner or later.

Over the years, only Sister Ye hasn't been affected.

That's why the task of bringing people back has always fallen to Sister Ye.

Once affected, they typically die within one to three days."

Wen Yan looked from afar at the busy Brother Ye and the villagers. Observing closely, he noticed black gas emanating from each villager, flowing along the ground like a swarm of ants into Brother Ye.

What Little Green Snake said might be true—everything here, not just living beings but even the buildings, are cursed.

Or rather, they are tainted by that black gas.

In his eyes, it looked more like Brother Ye was absorbing the black gas from others and other things.

So here's the question: He's not Tong Si, so why can he see these things?

Apart from him, the villagers and Little Green Snake clearly couldn't see it.

If the black gas is indeed the curse, then Sister Ye must have it too, but he hadn't seen it on her. Why hasn't the curse manifested on Sister Ye?

Just as Wen Yan was pondering these things, his phone rang.

A call from Feng Yao.

Thanks to the coverage from Divine Land's signal, there was reception even here.

"Hello, Wen Yan? Did you reach that village?"

"Hmm? I got here yesterday. Why?"

"We found something."

"What is it? Tell me."

"We couldn't find out who was buying large amounts of customer data before, right?

We pushed the timeline back by half a year and expanded the search to include everyone, human and not human alike.

Ultimately, we traced it to someone who died a few months ago, who should be connected to this matter.

You'll never guess who it is?"

"Stop beating around the bush, just say it!" Wen Yan snapped at Feng Yao.

"Hey, it's one of the two people you sent back to Sister Ye's hometown."

"Hmm???"

"Unexpected, right? Who would have thought? The guy died a while ago and didn't even become a ghost.

We tracked down his info, retrieved some of his call records and chat logs.

It turns out that the person buying up masses of user facial data was probably him.

It has something to do with the curse in their village.

This guy got some information from somewhere and planned to drag a few hundred thousand people down with him.

He somehow determined that if he could dilute the curse with a few hundred thousand people,

it would weaken the curse's power to the point where it couldn't kill anymore.

From his tone, it clearly sounded like something was egging him on from behind.

He died before he could finish what he started.

We had a wrong lead from the start and wasted a few days."

"Alright, keep investigating."

Wen Yan hung up after understanding the situation, pondered a bit more, and then called Chen Tao to inquire about the curse.

Chen Tao said that if the curse could span such a wide area and pass down through so many generations, then he also had no way to deal with it.

In the end, it's who's fortunate enough to survive.

If outsiders meddle, it might have adverse effects, so Wen Yan was advised not to get involved recklessly.

Wen Yan watched the black gas converging along the ground toward Brother Ye and pondered for a moment. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

He then made a call to Feng Wei, asking Feng Wei and Tong Si to come pick him up.

After hanging up, he glanced at the two Golden Pagodas set outside the village.

"Hey, I've been wondering, as Master Chen said, Sister Ye's situation wasn't serious enough to merit enfeoffment, but she still got hit by a car.

After the accident, and following her hospitalization, Sister Ye never had a stroke of bad luck again, everything was peaceful.

I thought it was strange before, even marveling at Master Chen's high level of skill.

So, Sister Ye not coming back might not have been due to ill luck at all.

Was it you two that intentionally kept Sister Ye from contacting you and prevented her from bringing you back personally?"

The two Golden Pagodas stood silently, motionless, without a trace of ghostly presence.

But Wen Yan was now quite certain that the issue had to be related to these two, or at least one of them.

"Using my hand to bring you two back, and the first to take you over would be Brother Ye.

If I didn't know, it would be one thing, but now that I do, you using me to inadvertently cause someone's death, that I cannot tolerate.

I refuse to believe it."

Wen Yan stepped into the village and headed to the other side.

When he arrived, he saw Brother Ye already sitting on the ground, with the black gas having reached his chest, with wisps circling his head.

He first bestowed a bit of Yang Energy, then quickly approached and spoke rapidly.

"Do you want to gamble?"

"What?"

"Come with me. If you lose the bet, you die outside—at least you'll have fought back and possibly see Sister Ye one last time.

If you win, then we might find a solution to the curse problem in the future.

You have three seconds to decide. If you're willing to come with me, hurry up."

"Uh, I..."

"If you're not willing, I'll knock you out and drag you along. Dammit, someone used me to bring that thing back, so I just can't let you die."