Translated by XephiZ

Edited by Aelryinth

Mo Fan and Mu Ningxue proceeded to question the locals. Not just the shallow beach, a few other places close to a body of water also had similar incidents.

If they were murders committed by a serial killer, there had to be some similarities between the deaths, allowing them to identify the gender, occupation, or even a group of people that the killer was targeting.

The Drowning Curse might occur randomly to people living close to a beach, but it did not necessarily mean the victims were not related in some way. Mo Fan and Mu Ningxue wanted to find the key similarity between all the victims. Otherwise, they did not have any clues, apart from knowing that all the victims were killed by the strange curse.

They first went to visit the old man. If he had witnessed eight deaths so far, it was likely that he held some useful information.

The old man went ahead and told Mo Fan and Mu Ningxue a legend, something about presenting sacrifices to the ocean. The God of Sea was only willing to protect the people of the city once they gave it sacrifices.

The legend sounded like some pure bullshit to Mo Fan.

Anything about presenting sacrifices was pure nonsense, and anything that asked humans to sacrifice their lives was not worthy to be called a god, either. It was now the twenty-first century, science was the basis of every belief. Why would anyone still believe in superstitions?

"I've asked the families. The three victims that died this month were strangers to one another. I then looked at their photos, and realized that they were fairly tanned. Their families told me that they liked to swim," Mo Fan said.

"They like swimming?" Mu Ningxue was confused.

"Hehe, I don't think it's useful, either," Mo Fan shrugged.

After learning magic, Mo Fan realized he was more interested in using violence to settle disputes. He was no longer good at solving problems with his brain.

---

As they were walking along an alleyway filled with fresh flowers, Mo Fan saw a man walking toward them from the opposite direction. He was holding a bottle of beer in his hand, and seemed to be enjoying himself.

Soon, the man with the bottle of beer noticed Mu Ningxue walking toward him. His lips raised and he whistled at Mu Ningxue. His eyes were staring at Mu Ningxue's collar bones, and trying to probe deeper.

"Are you seriously ignoring my presence?" Mo Fan glared at the man and snapped in an unfriendly manner.

The man had quite a bad temper too, and snapped in return, "Who do you think you are?"

"Piss off!" Mo Fan waved and shoved the man aside with the Space Element.

Mo Fan was going easy on the man, only trying to teach him a lesson.

To his surprise, the man was no ordinary human. He immediately summoned a Water Barrier to protect himself.

"Space Element? You're an Advanced Mage?" The man raised his brows. He immediately showed a whole new level of respect for Mo Fan.

"Aren't you going to leave yet?" Mo Fan said.

"It's just the Advanced Level..."

Mo Fan swung his hand again. He was not in the mood to listen to the asshole's crap!

Mo Fan did not go easy on the man after learning that he was a Mage too. The force rammed into the man, who failed to hold his ground this time. He immediately went flying across the alleyway.

He fell onto the ground. The beer bottle in his hand smashed into pieces too, leaving foam on the ground. The man was not really injured, and rose to his feet furiously. Knowing that he was no match for Mo Fan, he pointed his finger at Mo Fan and said, "Kid, this is my territory! Just you wait, I'll make you kneel down and apologize to me!"

After saying that, he turned around and left. The alleyways were pretty complicated, so Mo Fan soon lost him even though he wanted to teach him a lesson.

"Coward!" Mo Fan found the fellow quite amusing.

"Just ignore him, it's no use wasting your time on a person like him!" Mu Ningxue did not agree with Mo Fan's approach.

"You're good-looking, so it's normal to catch people's attention, but he dared to act like a jerk and whistle! Not only was he disrespecting you, he was provoking me too! I'm already being very merciful, since I didn't beat all his teeth out," Mo Fan declared firmly.

Mo Fan always had his reasons. Mu Ningxue was too lazy to argue with him. As a matter of fact, Mo Fan was pretty much a jerk to her too, if she compared him with the man!

---

Mo Fan and Mu Ningxue came to a residential area. It was the seventh family they were visiting.

If the only similarity between the victims was they liked to swim, Mo Fan suddenly felt like it was better to go back to the inn and take a nap...

As they arrived at the place and walked past the little garden full of wisterias, Mo Fan suddenly picked up a foul smell.

Mu Ningxue smelled it too, and immediately covered her nose. She was confused why the nice-looking garden would have such an unpleasant smell...

"Anyone home?" Mo Fan walked into the house and pushed the wooden door open.

"Anyone? The whole place stinks!" Mo Fan yelled.

There was still no response. Mo Fan and Mu Ningxue exchanged glances.

Mo Fan quickened his pace and entered the living room.

"Hey, what are you two doing? Asshole, you dare come to my house! I swear I'm going to take you down!" a familiar voice came from outside the house.

Mo Fan and Mu Ningxue turned around and saw the same Water Mage they had stumbled into before.

This was his place? Mo Fan and Mu Ningxue were speechless. How small is this world?

"This is your house?" Mo Fan asked.

"Of course, don't be ridiculous! Even if you're an Advanced Mage, you can't just sneak into my house just because I took a few extra glances at your girlfriend!" the Water Mage shouted.

"Something absolutely stinks in your house, don't you smell it?" Mo Fan asked.

The Water Mage took a deep breath and immediately started coughing. He was so focused on Mo Fan and Mu Ningxue that he had simply ignored the smell.

"Why does it stink so much?" the Water Mage said.

"You should ask yourself that, I think it's coming from this big room," Mo Fan pointed at a locked room.

The room was locked from the outside. Even the gaps were sealed with nails. It did not look normal to Mo Fan, as the door would only be sealed to trap someone inside the room.

The man was startled, and his face immediately turned pale.

He quickly took out a key and unlocked the room.

As soon as the door flung open, a disgusting smell burst out from it. The three immediately held their breaths!

"Norke, Norke!" the man screamed as he rushed into the room.

Mo Fan followed after him, but he was stunned as soon as the disgusting sight filled his eyes!

The man was dumbfounded too. He fell to the ground feebly...

Mu Ningxue quickly turned around, as she did not dare to look at it further.

Mo Fan had seen horrible things before, but even he felt uncomfortable after seeing the sight in the room.

There was a man in the room. He had been tied up, most likely by the Water Mage they had stumbled into.

However, the man inside the room was dead!

His wrist was sliced open, and lots of blood had poured out into an iron pot. The man had shoved his face into the pot and drowned himself in the blood.

It was difficult to tell if the man had died from losing too much blood or drowning. Either way, his body was pale and dried up, the same symptoms shown by the victims of the Drowning Curse!

---

The man cried for a long time. It seemed the man called Norke was his younger brother!

To make things even worse, the person that had died to the Drowning Curse three months ago in this household was his elder brother...

In other words, two members of his family had died to the Drowning Curse!

"Tell us what you know. I believe you have a stronger urge than anyone else to find the real cause of their death." Mo Fan brought the man some bottles of beers to help him calm down.

The man emptied two bottles of beer in an instant. It was obvious that he was having trouble accepting the truth.

"Norke likes to surf. I didn't let him go, so he was grabbing and scratching me like he had gone insane. I thought he was out of his mind, so I locked him up in the room. I didn't come home last night, I planned to lock him up for a day hoping that he would come to his senses. I didn't expect him to drown himself in his own blood. What did I do wrong?" Bobby cried.

"I don't think it has anything to do with me, but it's indeed strange that two members of your family died to the Drowning Curse. Even though people across the world have died to it, I can't believe it's a coincidence that it has happened to the same household twice. Did your elder brother and Norke go to some place together? Or did they recently do something together, or eat the same thing?" Mo Fan asked seriously.

"They were always together. I'm a Mage, so I barely come home. I spend most of my time at the Magic Association. My elder brother always take Norke with him, but I'm not too sure where they went," said Bobby.

Bobby was grieving, and struggling to speak properly. Mo Fan did not feel like asking him more questions, either. He had no choice but to wait for the man to calm down, so he could try and get some useful information from him.

Mo Fan and Mu Ningxue went to the side. They could see the shock and uneasiness in each other's eyes.

"This is really scary," Mu Ningxue said softly.

"Yeah, I think this Norke was affected by the Drowning Curse, too. Normally, he would have run to the ocean and drowned himself, but he was locked in the room by Bobby, making it impossible for him to find any body of water. In the end, he managed to complete the drowning ritual with his own blood. It's not as simple as a disease, it's like some kind of mental torture, or brainwashing," Mo Fan said.

"But what could it be that it's able to person to drown himself in his own blood?" Mu Ningxue said.

"I've already notified Lingling. Let's keep the place as it is. I believe we might be able to find some useful clues here!" Mo Fan said seriously.

Mo Fan was initially interested in the Drowning Curse because of the reward pool, but after witnessing the terrifying death, he was no longer at ease!

Where the hell did this curse come from? It was absolutely terrifying!