“Okay, this is a good piece. Not that hard a connection to make if you think about it. But a good piece nonetheless.” Chef Tang smiled: “What else?”

“There is some kind of horrible curse dormant in the city, put in place by Shyurak him - her - itself. This is not my speculation, but from the Lady in White herself. ” Marcus sighed: “She told us so - and even back in the day, she conducted a big ritual to suppress it. But judging from what she told us it was not very successful, not to her own fault. And later, someone in the city who had met her also tried something - a campaign, a solution of some kind, but he failed.”

Chef Tang thought for a moment before responding: “I think I might know what it is.” 

“Yes, and is it connected to the power companies?” Gloria asked.

“Exactly.” Chef Tang’s attitude became more serious than what both Marcus and Gloria had ever seen before: “And - it is one of those things people in the city rarely discuss, even in private and among closest friends. In many places, it’s even forgotten as if it never happened. But luckily, in our district, a lot of people still do. Blood was shed, because many viewed the campaign as a disrespectful and power hungry farce.”

“Wait - wait wait wait, blood was shed, is it the cause of the fight between the South Eastern District and the rest of the city?” Marcus almost jumped from his seat.

“It was a factor, a major one, yes. ” Chef Tang nodded: “As for the actual cause and reason - who could even say for sure. All I can tell you for sure is that the city was trying to forcefully deploy a new design of transformers and power transmission system. And just like you suspected, there’s something to this system, might be whatever elements of that grand ritual you were speaking of. But - you work for the city, you know what would happen with things like this. Things are never simple.”

“And thus, arm conflicts broke out.” Marcus sighed: “The city was trying to take power from the community collective and the locals. The locals would not yield this kind of control to the city. And no agreement was reached.”

“Not just that. The most offensive part of everything, is that the city was planning to build the substations, transformers and even power stations on various holy grounds, even proposing to tear down temples to do so.” Chef Tang scoffed: “Yeah, they are so desperate for and demanding of this so-called solution, they didn’t care for what the cost might be, what this cost meant for the people here. Not even one bit. They even threw money at the people, you can imagine how insulting that was.”

“But - the one behind it died, so everything stopped, right?” Gloria asked.

“No. Like I said, nothing’s that simple.” Chef Tang looked out the window, reminiscing: “To start, the man died of mysterious circumstances. The official conclusion of the city is that he was assassinated by radicals in our district. The official conclusion of the community collective is that he was killed by political rivals in the city because of policy differences and money. But hey, it could be both, and no one is interested in anything further.”

“I see.” Marcus nodded: “I think this - this actually answered a lot of questions. Just because they tried to suppress the curse through this humongous project and failed. The curse is acting up again, and thus the circle began.”

Chef Tang thought for a moment: “By ‘acting up again’, I think you meant it had become more aggressive. Because the 15 year cycle, though obscure, is still a pattern some of us have knowledge of - and yes, that knowledge is vastly incomplete that’s basically speculation upon speculation.”

“Indeed, an elder told me about it.” Gloria added from the side.

“That sounds right. And it’s the reason why the number of sacrifices gets bigger every cycle.” Marcus nodded at the conclusion they reached together. Something tingled in his mind, a buried thought bubbled up. He made a swift turn to take a look at Gloria, thousands of words stuck in his throat.

“What? ” Gloria asked.

“Nevermind - we’ll talk about this later.” Marcus shook his head, then turned to the chef: “And this ties back to my main purpose here - Chef, what have you gathered from those men? It’s been a while.”

“Before I start, let me tell you what this is.” Chef Tang raised the small metal mirror and sighed: “I recognized this earlier, and I think I just now realized what the purpose of it would be. It’s based on Bagua Mirrors. But you know how those are - they project energy outward, and they can reflect almost any paranormal energy coming their way - curses and blessings alike. But this - it’s a concave, with no etchings or patterns along its edges. So it’s a receiver of energy instead.”

“What?” Gloria narrowed her eyes: “But those people are wearing it like - like it’s a protection of sorts. Seriously, they came into the Lanmian Forest wearing this shit.”

“It COULD serve as a protection, because it absorbs the foul energy coming your way. Technically it could absorb positive energy as well, but the effectiveness is - poor, due to many reasons.” Chef Tang put the mirror down again: “And with this simple make and material, it’ll not hold the energy for long, and instead will simply transfer the energy into the body of the wearer. It’s like wearing a gas mask and keeping the filter with you at all times. You still get affected, and at a lower speed at first. Only temporarily useful.”