Chapter 885 - 342: Lighthouse Curse

"More like a... civilization curse?"

"Of course."

"I fabricated the term ’civilization curse,’ I guessed it. Since your entire family is unharmed, then the key to unraveling the mystery must be with you. Didn’t your father also come? Could you let him come over? I’d like to have a chat with him."

Just then—

"Hey? Wait a minute."

Chen Mang enlarged the dozen or so photos Little Fatty handed over on the screen, examined them for a while frame by frame, and found something amiss. After furrowing his brow for a moment, he spoke.

"Ai, did you notice... these people’s perspectives seem to be fixed?"

"No matter how they turn around, how they move, the direction they’re looking towards the sky is fixed?"

"Although each person’s gaze direction is different, everyone’s direction towards the sky is fixed?"

"In navigation."

"There’s something called a lighthouse, guiding ships back and forth. The existence of these people seems to be... like a lighthouse?"

Ai soon realized it too.

"Train Captain, do you mean these people have turned into lighthouses? Are they leading the way?"

"More like pointing to a certain coordinate."

"But there should only be one coordinate; each person’s gaze direction is different, unless all their visions point to one place to determine a single coordinate."

"It might be encrypted."

...

Very soon.

Chen Mang concluded that these people’s behavior was mainly due to cognitive interference.

It’s as if they performed abnormal actions, but their brains judged these actions as entirely normal and tried their best to adapt to this change in lifestyle.

Like a curse.

Yet, a curse that can instantaneously spread across millions or even tens of millions of light-years must be a bloodline curse...

As for whether this aim points to coordinates, he didn’t know yet.

He still needed to talk with Little Fatty’s father.

He had a hunch.

This person has many secrets.

Then—

The screen showed a stranger, a middle-aged man, who stepped forward and immediately said in a deep voice, "You must be the mysterious passenger my son talked about, supposedly also the leader of a civilization?"

"As a civilization leader, constantly contacting my son to obtain some of our civilization’s internal information."

"Do you know what disaster this could bring my son if it leaks out?"

"My son is simply being used by you. Do you think I’m naive?"

"The disaster you’ve brought to your son isn’t small."

"I’ve given him a carefree life."

"Along with giving him a Nami Civilization, where everyone looks up to the sky."

"What do you mean?"

"Don’t you understand what I mean? How this all happened, you should know better than me. Your son is innocent, yet you think I’m naive too?"

The middle-aged man fell silent for a moment before saying hoarsely, "What do you know?"

"A lot."

Then.

The middle-aged man received a blueprint, his pupils suddenly contracted sharply, fear flashed through his eyes — this blueprint was none other than the "Unknown Celestial Palace" blueprint, something outsiders could never obtain.

It even included the internal design of the Celestial Palace.

Even the government hadn’t figured this out, and now it appeared directly on the blueprint in his hands.

The information contained within this blueprint was already sufficient.

The middle-aged man’s body began to tremble uncontrollably, finally veins bulging as he fiercely crumpled the blueprint into his palm, hysterically shouting, "Do you think I wanted to see all this happen?!"

"I just wanted to give my wife and kids a better life!"

"Was I wrong?"

"What wrong did I commit? As a man, shouldn’t I ensure my family lives better?"

"I’ve always been honest, never done anything against the law, until that Celestial Palace suddenly appeared above my house, everything changed, and the entire civilization became like this."

"Yes."

"I understand, there’s no free lunch in this world. Every gift of destiny is secretly priced, but I never expected the price to be so high. I just wanted my family to live a bit better; I didn’t mean to destroy Nami Civilization."

"What now?"

"What should be done now? Who are you? Who are you? Why do you have the Celestial Palace’s blueprint?"

The man, somewhat collapsed, knelt on the ground, crying in pain.

The calm expression on his face moments ago had vanished completely, obliterated by a single blueprint.

No one knew how much pressure he’d borne during this time; everything appeared after the birth of the Celestial Palace. He knew he had personally destroyed Nami Civilization and couldn’t withstand such a huge burden; his spirit was already on the brink.

But if given another chance.

He would likely make the same choice.

When a person is starving.

They wouldn’t care about the downfall of civilization.

...

"Um..."

Chen Mang looked somewhat oddly at the man’s performance on the screen. He had only casually bluffed, yet the other party confessed directly—all of it. Initially, he thought he was dealing with a tough person.

The entire civilization was like this; just a few of you seemed unaffected.

If you three don’t have secrets, then that’s unbelievable.

He seemed to have...

stumbled upon some earth-shattering secret.

"Lay out everything you know from the beginning. Only I can save your civilization now, if you don’t want Nami Civilization to perish."

"I can truthfully tell you."

"Your civilization is under the ’Lighthouse Curse.’"

"Do you know about the Cosmic Landmine? That Celestial Palace is one variant of it. When a civilization probes inside, the curse spreads throughout the civilization, directing everyone’s gaze to a place in the cosmos, guiding the advanced civilization deep within the cosmos."