Chapter 234: 230 The Source of the Hanako Curse

He Jia'an's sudden disappearance caught the Chosen Alliance Investigators following him in secret off guard, but their leader, Matsumoto Gin, did not show any panic. Instead, he said calmly and steadily, "He must have stepped into a Space Channel leading to the Inner World again. It's fine, we just need to go in as well."

Upon hearing this, the Chosen Alliance Investigators all fell silent on the spot. A few seconds later, someone said over the communication channel they were using to contact each other, "Let me go."

"Count me in."

"Me too..."

Suddenly, the people on the communication channel began a fanatical, headlong dispute over exploring the death zone; they all volunteered to go to the Inner World.

To this, Matsumoto Gin remained as calm as before, saying as if he had expected it, "No need to argue. I have already decided on the personnel; I will lead the team myself..."

Everyone was shocked to hear that Matsumoto Gin was going to mobilize personally, and they all began to urge him not to be impulsive.

But Matsumoto Gin's mind was made up, and he spoke, "Becoming an S-Class Investigator is not a noble status to me, nor is it a higher rank or title, as if I no longer have to do dangerous things once I obtain this designation. On the contrary... as a Senior Investigator, the more dangerous the incident, the more I should participate."

Simply put, with great power comes great responsibility.

From a certain perspective, Matsumoto Gin and He Jia'an are actually the same type of person.

He Jia'an stepped into empty air, his body sinking rapidly. After experiencing a dark passage for about ten seconds, he found that he had lost the sensation of weightlessness again. His feet landed on a floor covered in stains and blood, and he stumbled, grabbing the wall panel to barely avoid falling.

"Where is this... have I returned to the Inner World again?" He Jia'an shook off the bloodstains stuck to his hands. He wanted to pick up his fallen hat, but realized it was also soiled with filthy blood, so he immediately abandoned the idea and walked out of the restroom, his round head still wrapped in bandages.

Ah—

Just as he walked out of the restroom, He Jia'an saw a cowering little girl crouching in the hallway and immediately chased after her without hesitation, "Huanin, don't run! Let's talk, Uncle will give you a Red Envelope!"

Hanako turned into a wisp of black smoke and fled in a panic again; clearly, the power of the New Year Red Envelope made her feel a strong threat.

After a wild chase, he unknowingly arrived at the location of that Biology Classroom again. Because the door to the Biology Classroom was hidden, He Jia'an could not see the entrance to the classroom, but Hanako easily passed through the wall and reached the space inside.

"So that's it, is this the source of the Hanako Curse?" He Jia'an realized. He stepped forward and touched the spot where Hanako had just passed through the wall, but he could only feel a solid wall. He knocked on it, and the wall responded with a dull echo, as if telling him the wall was very thick and there was nothing inside.

"I'm sorry, but I have to disperse you no matter what today." He Jia'an whispered to himself, walked into the room next door, opened the window, and jumped outside, stepping onto a protruding white ledge that extended along the wall.

He Jia'an took a deep breath, gathered his courage, pressed his back against the wall, and moved sideways like a crab, climbing all the way toward the window of the hidden room next door.

Below was solid ground, a height of at least twelve meters; falling from here would mean certain death. Moreover, for some reason, the weather in the Inner World today was very Abnormal. It was not as calm as when he entered this world last time, where he could see the dead-silent Red Moon. It was as if a storm was brewing in this Inner World city. The wind was howling, and the dark clouds flashing with red lightning on the horizon were all gathering toward a spot about two or three kilometers in front of He Jia'an. The sky revealed a huge hole, the clouds were swirling, lightning was crisscrossing and flashing within the wind and clouds, and the thunder was incessant.

"Hey!" Just as he almost stepped into empty air and lost his footing, He Jia'an grabbed the frame of the next-door classroom window tightly, narrowly avoiding a fall.

With a forehead full of cold sweat, He Jia'an quickly moved to the window, opened it, and successfully climbed into the Biology Classroom.

The moment he climbed into the classroom from the window, it was as if the classroom possessed some kind of will, realized its own bug, and immediately repaired it, sealing the classroom window as well, leaving only a few gaps in the wall bricks to let some light in. But under the current severe weather outside, there was no possibility of any light getting through.

He Jia'an took out his phone and turned on the flashlight to illuminate the Biology Classroom he had returned to.

The Biology Classroom was clean and tidy, as if nothing had ever happened. The human model was still placed by the wall, and countless jars of human tissue were categorized and placed on rows of shelves.

Although he had only taken a fleeting glance last time and did not pay attention to more details, He Jia'an still felt something strange.

The last time he and Misaki Naomi escaped this classroom, a huge monster had clearly run out of the Summoning Array of the Sacrificial Ritual. Its size had almost covered the entire width and height of the classroom, like a massive, piercing train, destroying everything in the Biology Classroom.

But now, the classroom was clean and tidy, and the objects were all placed properly. It did not look like it had been destroyed at all, and there were no traces of any Abnormalities, as if this classroom had been reloaded, and all the damaged items had been restored.

When the flashlight's beam projected onto the classroom blackboard, He Jia'an saw the Ritual Array of the Sacrificial Ritual with intentionally missing details, just like the scene Misaki Naomi had described when she recounted her experience.

"If I don't complete it, it should be fine, right?" He Jia'an pulled back a bit, letting the circle of light grow larger to see the almost complete blackboard, then had a second thought, "Come to think of it, where did Hanako hide?"

He Jia'an began to walk around the Biology Classroom, not forgetting to observe the shelves. When he reached the third-to-last row of shelves, his expression suddenly changed, because the transparent jars on this row were filled with human heads!

"These must all be Hanako's trophies." He Jia'an looked at those rows of "lifelike" heads; some had eyes wide open in death, others had closed their eyes in regret, their expressions frozen at the final moment before these people died.

It wasn't until He Jia'an saw a rotten head in a jar and a liquid that was starting to turn deep red, like a potion, that he noticed a label stuck to the back of the jar, clearly written with the three large characters "Ju Xiuyi".

But this was not the end. He Jia'an continued to observe the heads on these shelves and finally made a new discovery, and the news was shocking enough.

He saw a woman's head soaking in a jar, and the label on the jar had her name from when she was alive written on it: "Takayama Keika".