Chapter 1 Anomaly

A small village of only a few hundred people was holding a banquet that lasted until midnight. Food and wine seemed to grow out of the ground and were continuously brought to the long tables. Later, Hao Ren even began to suspect that the banquet would continue forever, like a rotating stream of time with no end—but the banquet finally ended, just as Lily was already snoring with her rice bowl in her arms.

The banquet dispersed, but the villagers gathered in the square still seemed to be immersed in endless celebration. Young men and women began to dance an ancient dance around the bonfire, while others shouted and drank the remaining wine. These villagers, who looked numb and vulgar during the day, seemed to have gained some kind of spiritual power at night, appearing particularly... vivid. Vivid was the most appropriate word Hao Ren could think of.

Katherine and the Wang brothers had seamlessly joined the villagers' subsequent celebrations, and Pierre was not spared either. He was dragged to the bonfire by two village girls, and at least now he seemed to be throwing himself into this enjoyment. However, Hao Ren and his group politely declined the invitations from the old village chief and other villagers, claiming that they were tired from traveling a long distance and asked to return to the longhouse to rest. After some negotiation, this request was granted.

The longhouse was some distance from the central square, but the noise from the square could still be heard clearly. The first thing Hao Ren and his group did after returning was to check their physical condition, not only through self-perception but also by having the data terminal perform a comprehensive scan of each person.

"Everything is normal," the data terminal said after finally checking Hao Ren's body. "The things you ate earlier did contain some kind of strange magical reaction, seemingly something produced by magic, but for your constitution, the effects of these magics are negligible."

"...This heartless thing ate at least six people's worth of food," Hao Ren said, rubbing his forehead and glancing at Lily, who was curled up and snoring on the short bed next to him. "She's not worried at all."

Lily's powerful and resilient biological clock was working, and she was currently in a state where lightning wouldn't wake her up. The husky girl, full after eating, was completely asleep in a ball, with no reaction to Hao Ren's comments.

"Nothing in the world can stop a husky from stuffing food into its mouth, except for that pile of 'Emperor's Delights' you brought back last time," Vivian glanced at Hao Ren. "What do you think is going on here? Could it be that Hercules set up some powerful secret realm blockade here to avoid the eyes of the demon hunters?"

Hao Ren shook his head: "I can't see any clues yet, but I can be sure that the atmosphere in the village is abnormally strange. However, I estimate that we'll soon know the reason. That Pierre is obviously still..."

Before he could finish speaking, a burst of footsteps came from outside, followed by a few knocks on the door. Pierre's voice sounded: "Are you all still awake?"

Hesperides got up to open the door, while Vivian casually threw a small bat out the window, then nodded: "He's alone. It looks like he shook off those villagers."

After Pierre entered the room, Hao Ren poured him a glass of water: "I thought you couldn't get away."

At this time, Pierre was indeed completely different from his performance at the banquet earlier. He swept away the calm, comfortable, and adaptable appearance he had shown before, replaced by a face full of seriousness and worry. He took the oak cup Hao Ren handed him, hesitated for a long time, and still didn't drink: "I'd better not touch these things anymore. This is a cursed place."

"We know there's something wrong with this place," Hesperides said casually, leaning against the door. "But what about the curse?"

"This is..." Pierre cast curious glances at Hao Ren and Vivian. He pointed at Hesperides and Lily, who was snoring, "Are they from 'your side' too? May I have the honor of knowing their identities first?"

The curiosity of a spirit world detective would not weaken under any circumstances.

"Oh, you almost saw them last time," Hao Ren didn't mind, and began to introduce his two companions, "This is a descendant of Olympus, real name Hesperides. If you've studied mythology, you should know who she is. The one sleeping... well, she's the overlord of the Northern Snowfields, known as a low-配版 Fenrir (low-configuration Fenrir)..."

Vivian couldn't stand Hao Ren's wording: "Saying she's a demon hunter's former emperor is stronger than low-configuration Fenrir."

Hao Ren curled his lips: "No way, whenever I mention the former emperor, I can't help but think of *zhong dao beng cu* (dying before achieving one's ambition)... although she really did *beng cu* (die) back then."

Pierre didn't know what Hao Ren and Vivian were muttering about. When he first heard the name Hesperides, he immediately perked up, staring straight at the legendary "Goddess of Dusk" with an expression that was one hundred percent like looking at a walking ancient fossil: "A descendant of Olympus?! Good heavens! It's worth being trapped here!"

"Alright, alright, don't mention the old days, I'm sentimental," Hesperides waved her hand vigorously. "You should talk about the curse you mentioned earlier. You really are trapped here?"

Speaking of this, Pierre calmed down in an instant. His first question was about the mental state of Hao Ren and his group: "Do you have any abnormal feelings now? Do you still want to leave here? Can you still remember how you came here?"

Hao Ren reassured him: "Don't worry, we're a bunch with high resistance. At least this little bit of magical erosion has no effect on us. You're talking about the food earlier, right? No effect."

"It's not just the food," Pierre said solemnly. "From the moment you stepped into this place, this cursed land has begun to prevent you from leaving. The so-called curse is like this. You must find a way to leave here immediately. Perhaps the curse can be lifted from the outside. If you drag it out for too long, I'm worried that even you will be affected... uh..."

Pierre became a little embarrassed as he spoke. He remembered that the people in front of him were genuine supernatural creatures, truly belonging to "that world." He, a half-baked spirit world detective, was probably unable to estimate the bottom line of this group of "magical creatures." He felt that his words were a bit presumptuous.

Hao Ren didn't care about these things. He was very grateful for Pierre's kind reminder, but he was also very confident: "Don't worry, we know our own abilities. I've dealt with even more dangerous places."

Actually, he wanted to say that he had blown up more dangerous places, but then he thought about it, and felt that he had been led astray by the Dragon Queen. He had unconsciously accepted the setting of "Bombing Ren", so he quickly swallowed those words back.

Pierre took a breath: "Then of course that's the best. This cursed place doesn't know how many people it has swallowed. If you hadn't appeared, I'm afraid I wouldn't have been able to hold on."

"How long have you been trapped here?" Hao Ren looked at Pierre's clothes. "Looking at your condition... it hasn't been a short time."

Vivian also added: "Also, there are three other people. They're not with you, are they? Do you know their situation?"

"Here, the decay of things cannot be used as a time reference," Pierre looked at his attire. "Some things can last longer, while others will rot at a faster rate than outside, with no regularity. I've been trapped here for two months, and those two Chinese people surnamed Wang seem to have come a year ago, as for that Katherine..."

Pierre paused, frowning: "I've talked to her, but she has been completely captured by this land. All of her mind has been distorted, and sometimes she even thinks she was born and raised in this village. I only heard her talk about topics related to the outside world once. She still thinks the current American president is George W. Bush."

Hao Ren and Vivian looked at each other, and Hesperides slowly uttered a sentence: "That was really many years ago."

"Obviously, being trapped here will cause the individual's time flow to become strange. Katherine always feels like she just arrived here a few days ago," Pierre shrugged. "In fact, if I hadn't been taking magic potions, I would have lost myself long ago."

"Why did you come here?" Hao Ren asked curiously.

"To find the secrets of ancient times, what else?" Pierre smiled bitterly. "Spirit world detectives are scavengers who run around following fragments of historical clues. I saw this place in some broken ancient books. Some descendants of ancient families call this place the Cursed Land, so I came here, wanting to see if there were any relics that could be unearthed, but I almost lost myself. Alas, I was seriously injured by an evil spirit when I was searching for a secret realm tower last year. I had just recovered two months ago, but I didn't expect to encounter such a place again."

Vivian looked at Pierre for a while, then suddenly patted the latter on the shoulder: "Young man, take my advice, you're not suitable for this line of work—you're naturally good at throwing yourself into all kinds of deadly events."

Pierre: "..."