Tokyo, Nerima District.
Before even reaching the cursed house, Chen Yu had already keenly sensed the unusualness of this place.
You must know that Tokyo is a metropolis, a phenomenal city in the Island Country. The Governor of Tokyo Metropolitan Prefecture had even put forth a policy offering money incentives to those who would move away from Tokyo to encourage young people to work and live in other cities.
Nevertheless, the population of Tokyo still soars every year. As young people flock to this city, the populations of other cities and towns dwindle. This decline makes those places even more attractive to the youth, causing even more people to squeeze into Tokyo; it's a vicious cycle.
Therefore, in Tokyo, the phrase "every inch of land is worth its weight in gold," is incredibly apt, and the population density of this city is extraordinarily high.
But as we approached the Nerima District, and got closer to that cursed house, the number of people on the streets visibly dwindled.
Even the occasional passersby hurried along, walking very quickly, as if something were chasing them.
"Doesn't this place look just wrong?" Chen Yu cast a strange glance at Solano, who was sitting in the back seat. He truly couldn't understand; you can clearly sense something off about this place, even just by coming here during the day.
What kind of mindset had Solano and the others been in when they entered?
Could this be what they call 'knowingly marching into the tiger's den'?
"I... we had a few drinks at the time..." Solano licked her red lips, her hands nervously intertwined, her fingers fidgeting anxiously.
She fell asleep in her bed last night only to dream of this cursed house she had visited before. Standing at the doorway of the cursed house was a pale-skinned Tokyo woman, staring at her with venomous eyes, and then slowly stepping towards her...
So she dared not sleep at all, which also made her somewhat neurotic.
Chen Yu glanced at Solano but didn't continue to ask questions. Instead, he looked out at the streetscape through the car window, while Jack next to him inquired earnestly about Solano's health.
"Gentlemen, this is as far as I can go." The taxi driver was a man, burly in stature, but now as he spoke, Chen Yu could hear a tremble in his not-so-fluent English.
He could have been mistaken for a gang member if he had snapped his tongue.
In fact, Chen Yu and his group had been refused by many drivers when trying to get a cab. In the end, it was only through Jack's superpower and the charming influence of Franklin that they successfully got a taxi.
"How many people have died in that cursed house?" Chen Yu asked the driver, perceiving that the driver surely knew something. After all, the cursed house was located in the Nerima District, and it would be odd if no one knew about it.
The driver wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked at Chen Yu with a strange gaze.
"Everyone, everyone who has gone in, has died!" After uttering these words, the driver did not even look back and drove off. Suddenly, only Chen Yu, Jack, and Solano were left on the street.
Chen Yu ignored Jack, who was comforting Solano. He was now standing at an intersection where people could be seen on three sides, but in the direction they were standing, there was no one at all.
Not far ahead was the notorious cursed house of Nerima District, Tokyo.
"Let's go." Chen Yu shook his head, not having any good ideas at the moment. The tracker showed the red dot straight ahead, and if they didn't pursue it, they would have to let Solano become a nun at the Vatican Cathedral instead, which might be helpful.
Jack supported Solano and followed behind Chen Yu.
The pair of foreigners, especially a handsome man and a beautiful woman, attracted lots of attention from Tokyo residents, but almost everyone instantly looked away when they saw where Jack and the others were headed.
By the time Chen Yu arrived at the door of the cursed house, he no longer knew how to evaluate Solano. He even doubted what they had been drinking that night. Was it red wine or the ninety-six-degree elixir of life?
Just standing on the street outside the residence, without even going in, Chen Yu felt very uneasy.
It was a very traditional Japanese-style house with a small garden, where various plants grew among the overgrown weeds that seemed to have been untended for a long time.
Jack's expression was grim, and Solano looked even worse. She could hardly stand, her legs trembling, her pupils dilated, firmly grasping Jack's collar.
"This house..." Seeing the "No Entry" and "No Loitering" signs posted on the door, Chen Yu couldn't help but shake his head.
There are always some fools who do the forbidden, and these types usually appear in horror movies. He never expected to find a whole bunch of fools, in reality, doing just that.
The red dot on the tracking device was magnified, and the architectural plan of the house appeared on the screen. Chen Yu frowned, then looked up at the second floor of the building.
According to the tracker, the source of the cursed energy was on the second floor, where the evil spirit might be at that moment.
Just as Chen Yu was about to investigate, he caught a strange odor. He instinctively stepped to the left and glanced out of the corner of his eye to see yellow stains on Solano's bare leg.
"Chen... Chen..." Jack's voice trembled, and when Chen Yu looked up, he saw a woman hanging from the window on the second floor, swaying back and forth. Her back was turned towards them, and all he could see was her long hair and skirt.
But then, the woman's head slowly turned around as if an invisible hand was rotating the corpse.
It was Solano's face.
The discovery made Jack instinctively push with both hands. If Solano was up there, then who was in his arms?
Solano nearly fell to the ground, but Chen Yu caught her again.
Immediately afterward, Chen Yu grabbed Solano's wrist with his other hand, his eyes narrowing as he looked at the woman. As soon as he had embraced her, she had tried to slap him.
Had his reaction not been swift, he likely would have received the blow.
"I... I'm sorry... It wasn't intentional..." Solano's face turned even paler as she spoke in a panic, and the trembling of her legs and the yellow trail made Chen Yu lose any desire to pursue the matter further.
"Miss Solano, we are about to enter. Is there anything else you need to add?" Chen Yu frowned at Solano. Her reaction was off, as if she was hiding something, and the evil spirit's targeting was too explicit, which was suspicious.
"I... I'm trained in massage..." Solano spoke up.