Jack's face was somewhat pale, he subconsciously grabbed Solano, then yanked hard, and the image of the house behind her instantly vanished. Solano looked at her friend with a touch of bewilderment, not understanding why her friend had pulled her.
"Indeed, it was provoked in Tokyo." Chen Yu's heart was undisturbed; he was now certain that Solano had encountered a kind of curse, a maggot-like curse that would cling to the cursed person until it was erased or the cursed person died.
"You..you just..." Jack looked at where the image had disappeared, feeling a chill down his spine. He glanced around and seemed to still feel those cold, watching eyes upon him.
This made Jack subconsciously grip the handgun holstered at his waist, as if it were the only thing that could offer him a sense of security.
"Miss Solano, when you went to Tokyo, did you visit a traditional Japanese residence?" Chen Yu asked, looking at the Supernatural Tracker in his hand. The evil force attached to Solano originated from that room, but Chen Yu needed to confirm whether Solano had taken anything from there.
"Ah, right, Meihui had told us about a very famous haunted house in Tokyo, and then Soros took us to visit that haunted house..." Solano's memories were instantly pulled back to that foreign journey.
After they had finished their project work in Tokyo, they had nothing else to do to relax, and inadvertently started discussing Tokyo's supernatural stories—after all, they had people from Tokyo in their company. As a result, under the influence of alcohol, they all went to visit that infamous haunted house.
Except for hearing footsteps and feeling a bit chilly, there wasn't much else.
As expected.
Chen Yu sighed; he didn't even know what to say anymore, only that these guys were really courting death, not just ordinarily courting death.
If this were a movie, then Solano and the others would be the leads, and given Solano's status and appearance, she was the perfect candidate for the heroine.
"Mr. Chen, so what I saw just now..." Jack also understood by now that the bizarre incidents Solano had encountered were definitely related to that haunted house.
"Yes, that place, it cursed Miss Solano," Chen Yu nodded straightforwardly, while Solano's face turned somewhat pale at the mention of the word 'curse,' which reminded her of the eerie incidents that had happened before.
That day, the day her own voice prophesied her death, Solano was staying in a room with a shroud of the Holy Spirit. She had heard strange noises outside the door, and her mother, who had gone out to get water, also disappeared without a trace. Solano watched in horror as the doorknob slowly turned by itself...
Then she passed out, and when she woke up again, she was in the hospital, with her parents by her side, and the shroud had turned to ash.
She thought it was all over, but then she received another phone call, and this time, the prophesied time of death was even sooner.
"Curse...a curse?" Solano's voice trembled slightly.
"Yes, Miss Solano, there are some places you shouldn't carelessly visit. Those places are cursed, and by entering, you might have caught the curse... But you didn't take anything out with you, did you?" Chen Yu looked at Solano with sympathy.
To be able to project power from the Island Country's Tokyo all the way to America's New York, that entity's strength was formidable indeed, probably reaching the level of a demonic spirit.
If it's said that malevolent spirits can drive a family insane with hallucinations, then demons can certainly barge into a church, snatch the victim from within, stuff them into a priest's body, and, as a bonus, hang both the victim and the priest together at the top of the church.
Demons are not easy entities to deal with; their power is elusive and often abides by some enigmatic rules. Once you break those rules, death is almost guaranteed.
Moreover, the powers of demons are incredibly diverse and it's difficult to find a standard by which to measure these strange entities. Some demons' power stems from curses—as long as you don't come into contact with their curse, you can dance on their graves without consequence.
Others will simply kill on sight, and some possess the mysterious power to manipulate time and space.
"I... we... we took a look around inside, then heard footsteps upstairs, thought there were people, so we left... I didn't take anything from there," Solano said, nervously rubbing his fingers.
Solano didn't take anything? That doesn't prove much; after all, it's hard to say if anyone else did.
"How many of those who went in with you are already dead?" Chen Yu pinched the bridge of his nose. The Supernatural Tracker had already located the source of the curse, but even if he set off now, he had no idea how long it would take to resolve the issue once he arrived in Tokyo.
After all, it was a demon they were dealing with. Even with an M29 at hand, caution was imperative. So it might be better to first alleviate the curse on Solano to buy more time.
"Only Meihuizi from our company is dead," Solano took a deep breath, trying to compose himself.
Meihuizi? Oh, right. She was the island country colleague Solano had mentioned before. She died first, so does that mean she did something to catch the demon's attention first? But it's been days since Meihuizi's death, and there's no way to find out why anymore.
Considering Meihuizi was originally from the Island Country, it would be rather difficult to find cursed items in her family home.
"And then... when I was on leave, I heard from my colleagues that Meihuizi's... entire family seemed to have died," said Solano, his voice trembling.
Chen Yu wasn't surprised; after all, it's a demon we're talking about, and one that involves a family curse at that—a family cursed en masse was hardly unusual. However, it seemed that this curse could spread in other ways. Why did that start to sound more and more like a grudge?
Chen Yu looked at Jack with a peculiar gaze. Speaking of which, Jack had also touched Solano just now, hadn't he?
If the curse really did spread, then wouldn't Jack be targeted by the curse as well?
"Mr. Chen?" Jack noticed Chen Yu's stare and looked back at him, slightly confused.
"Inspector Jack, sometimes, some very powerful demons can spread their curses from the cursed person to others," Chen Yu said, looking at Jack with sympathy. Beauty is enticing, but it can also be deadly.
A demon, without professional intervention, would likely lead to the death of not just Solano's family, but Jack's demise as well.
Jack's face turned pale.