Curse Returns: What did the human-shaped wishing machine do wrong this time?

"I simply... I absolutely cannot recall anything that happened that day..."

"I used all my strength to squeeze out of the crowd; I almost thought I was going to die there for the rest of my life..."

"Money, money I've never seen before... It was because of money that my son died... I watched helplessly as he was separated from me by a person, unable to poop out, that feeling was truly unbearable..."

Two young people in college uniforms sat in the tea room, opposite a middle-aged woman who was silently weeping with sorrow.

She became increasingly distressed as she spoke, her words gradually becoming slurred and incoherent. She cried uncontrollably, as if releasing emotions that had been suppressed for a long time.

Across from her, the white-haired boy, who had been forced to listen to a long and tedious conversation, couldn't help but want to yawn. But as soon as he stretched out his hand, the black-haired boy next to him stepped on his foot hard.

"Ms. Yamada, we truly sympathize with your situation... but time is precious right now, could you please cooperate with our work for a while?"

Xia Youjie interrupted the woman's narration with a serious expression.

After receiving the mission, he and Gojo Satoru rushed to Sendai as quickly as possible. They had already gone down to Nagamachi Minami subway station.

Besides the dried black bloodstains, there were also some low-level curses that were born out of the panic of the crowd at the time, serving as an emotional release.

After removing all the curses, Gojo Satoru and Natsuyuki began investigating the location of the curse master.

For a period of time, the surveillance cameras in the entire subway station were interfered with and lost signal. Later, the footage was deliberately sabotaged by someone, and the police were unable to restore it despite their best efforts.

Wu Tiao Wu and Xia Youjie remembered the dashcams in those cars and found the survivors from that time.

Unlike Xia Youjie's insistence on protecting the weak, Gojo Satoru, who grew up as one of the six-eyed children of the three starter families, found it difficult to empathize with these ordinary people. Listening to their stories, Gojo Satoru went from being able to respond to a few words at first to finding them somewhat boring later on.

"Sorry, the dashcam is here. Although I know it was an accident, I'm still asking for your help."

Ms. Yamada took out a USB flash drive from the dashcam in her backpack and provided a laptop for playing the video.

This was the fourth dashcam footage that Gojo Satoru and Natsumi Yoshitsu had reviewed. After using the speed-up function, they saw several familiar figures on the computer screen.

"Ms. Yamada, we'll take our leave now."

After confirming his thoughts, Xia Youjie nodded politely to Ms. Yamada.

Before leaving, he even reached out to help the person who was swaying a little. In a place unseen by ordinary people, the curse that had just been induced on Ms. Yamada's neck vanished into thin air.

"Jay, do you think that if money were to fall from the sky out of nowhere, ordinary people would just pick it up and leave?"

Walking over to the vending machine, Gojo Satoru casually tossed in a coin and tossed the cola that came out to Natsumi Yuuki, who was frowning.

Even Gojo Satoru, who had never been troubled by money, found the behavior of those people somewhat unreasonable.

"If that person were very wealthy, they probably would, but their clothes don't seem to suggest it, and their speed..."

Xia Youjie pulled the tab on the Coke and gulped down a few mouthfuls.

"So you've found the person? Let's go! I'm going to have a good look at this curse master."

Pushing up his slightly slipped sunglasses, Gojo Satoru's eyes gleamed with eager anticipation.

The police quickly obtained information about those individuals.

The old man with gray hair and quick movements was named Itadori Yamasuke. The two children were Itadori Yamasuke's grandsons. As for the white-haired young man whose gender was somewhat ambiguous, the police station had no information about him.

"Knock knock knock—"

There was a knock on the door.

Itadori Yasuke slowly opened the door with his back hunched over, and saw two boys in uniform.

Before Itadori Yasuke could speak, the white-haired boy shamelessly shoved his face right in front of him.

"Huh? Why is he just an ordinary old man? Where's the curse master?"

Gojo Satoru furrowed his snow-white eyebrows, his expression filled with deep disappointment.

"Who are you? Why are you trespassing? And what are you, a curse master?"

Upon hearing the words "curse master," Itadori Yasuke felt a surge of tension.

He knew the people he was waiting for had arrived.

"Excuse me, Mr. Itadori, we are police officers investigating. It seems that you and your family passed through Nagamachi Minami subway station on the day of the stampede?"

After pulling Wu Tiao along for a moment, Xia Youjie smiled and handed the special identification that the police had made for them to Itadori Yamasuke.

"I don't know what happened that day. Because we had children with us, we left early in case something happened."

Upon seeing the identification, Itadori Yasuke's expression softened somewhat, and he stepped aside to let Gojo Satoru and Natsuyuki enter.

The Tiger Cane House is a detached house that has been under construction for several years. The interior decoration is not particularly trendy. Xia Youjie took a closer look at the house as he took off his shoes and walked in.

"Mr. Khajiitsu, have your grandchildren gone to kindergarten?"

Xia Youjie and the others knew that Itadori Yasusuke had two grandsons, and the photos hanging on the wall confirmed this.

There were some children's toys in a corner of the room, but the children who were supposed to be there were not there.

"Oh, the children were frightened, and we were worried they might be traumatized, so we asked a relative to take them out to play."

Yasuke Itadori served Gojo Satoru and Natsuyuki a cup of tea each.

"Is it that white-haired man?"

Xia Youjie took out a photo, in which Li Mei was so blurry that only a blurry image remained.

"...That's the child's aunt, not some man."

Noticing Xia Youjie's choice of words, Itadori Yasusuke's lips twitched slightly.

When Rime thinks someone is a woman, that person behaves like a man in certain ways; when he thinks someone is a man, he thinks they are a woman.

To this day, Itadori Yasusuke still doubts the other person's gender.

"Is that so? Thank you for your cooperation."

Seeing that he couldn't get any answers, Xia Youjie took his leave.

He also inquired about the child's aunt in the vicinity of the Tiger Rod House.

The results of the inquiries were all gossip about two women fighting over one man in his younger days, which angered the original wife to death.

"Could we have really guessed wrong? But why did we leave by such a coincidence?"

The more gossip Xia Youjie listened to, the more doubtful he became of his original reasoning.

What kind of curse master would be so outrageous as to not only fail to win a husband from an ordinary person but also help take care of their child?

But besides him, there's no one else who looks like a curse master. His monk's robe is very strange, and there isn't a single photo of that aunt in the Haddō family.

Aside from the one with white hair, surely those two children couldn't be the culprits behind all that, could they?

Xia Youjie thought this guess was absurd.

"Who knows, Jay, I'm so hungry, let's go eat!"

After investigating with Xia Youjie for a long time, they still hadn't found a trace of the curse master, and Wujiao Wu was somewhat dejected.

"All right."

Xia Youjie nodded, temporarily suppressing his doubts.