Old Liu closed his folding fan. "Very well, I'll draft the guest elder appointment letter right away."

For ordinary sects, a guest elder appointment letter was just a formality, but for warlocks, it was equivalent to a contract.

Old Liu said he was drafting the letter, but it had actually been written long ago. He could just grab it from the house, sign, and stamp it.

As Old Liu walked into the house, I followed him. "You old codger, what are you up to? Why did you drag another person in here? And why would we need a coroner?"

Old Liu chuckled. "Master, to be honest, I've had my eye on this girl for days. Think about it, during the last mission, how much trouble did she solve for you single-handedly?"

I tapped my hand. "Mo Caiwei is capable, but she's part of the government! What is Liangjie Tang? A bunch of outlaws. If it weren't for the Yin soldiers cleaning up after us, I would have been arrested and executed several times over."

"And you're bringing an official warlock into Liangjie Tang? Are you trying to get me killed faster?"

Old Liu gave me a helpless look. "Some things have both advantages and disadvantages. There's a reason I brought her in."

"Besides, Mo Caiwei is just a guest elder. She won't be staying in Liangjie Tang permanently, and she won't have access to our core secrets. What are you afraid of?"

"Just trust me."

I thought about it for a long time but still couldn't figure out what Old Liu was planning. However, seeing that Old Liu was usually reliable, I decided not to argue with him.

And just like that, Mo Caiwei became a guest elder of Liangjie Tang in a daze.

Old Liu smiled and put away the appointment letter. "Guest Elder Mo, you can talk about business now. Xiao Chun, bring tea."

Mo Caiwei took the teacup and said, "This matter has to start from my childhood. The village I'm talking about is called Paper Doll Village. Most of the warlocks in the village are retired coroners, and my master lived there."

"I wasn't originally from Paper Doll Village. I lived with my father and the others in Sanxie Li. Later, I followed my master into Paper Doll Village. It's a long story..."

Mo Caiwei said:

"The place where my family lives is called Mo Family Village, but outsiders call it Sanxie Li (Three Curses Village) because three cursed things have happened to my family since my grandfather's generation.

There was once a fortune teller passing by who said that my family had suffered a ghost calamity, and as long as one person was still alive, they would be entangled with ghosts.

As a result, he died not far after leaving the village. He drowned while washing his face by the river. To this day, I still don't understand how someone could drown in a shallow ditch that barely reached anyone’s ankles.

The villagers said that he had offended the ghosts and gods by saying the wrong things and had been killed by them.

Since my grandfather's generation, the villagers have been afraid to talk to my family because my grandfather was a man who had died and come back to life.

My grandfather's name was Mo Gannian, his nickname was Gannian'er. He was born on the twenty-ninth day of the twelfth lunar month, just one day before New Year's Eve. Many people said that names shouldn't be given like that. Gannian'er, Gannian'er, isn't that chasing the year and making the year leave?

My great-grandfather didn't believe it, but my grandfather really did leave with the year. That year, the carriage he was driving overturned into a ravine. When they found him, there was only a piece of clothing left. The clothing was scattered in the snow, and the edges of the shreds were covered in blood, as if it had been torn apart by wolves.

My grandmother cried so hard that she almost took my father with her.

If things had ended there, it would have been one thing.

But on New Year's Eve five years later, my grandfather actually walked back on his own. No one saw how he entered the village. All they knew was that he was sitting cross-legged on the heated brick bed, asking for wine!

The villagers were terrified. They wanted to light firecrackers to ward off evil, but on that night, none of the firecrackers in the village would light. The fuses were as if they had been soaked in water. You could squeeze water out of them.

Even more frightening was that all the couplets and good fortune signs posted throughout the village had turned white overnight, like elegiac couplets for the dead, frighteningly white.

From that day on, the villagers avoided my grandfather whenever they saw him. My grandfather ignored them and went to sit at the entrance of the village every day before dawn, his eyes staring straight at the road, sitting there from morning till night without moving, rain or shine.

The villagers were afraid and didn't dare to enter the village. Some even secretly brought a shaman to exorcise the evil spirits. As a result, as soon as the shaman saw my grandfather, he immediately knelt down and kowtowed on the ground, repeatedly shouting, 'Old immortal, spare me! Old immortal, spare me…'

My grandfather sat there as if he hadn't heard anything, not moving at all, until the shaman died on the ground from kowtowing.

Now the villagers were even more afraid. There were all sorts of rumors. Some said that my grandfather had been taken away by a fox spirit and had stayed in a fox den for five years.

Others said that my grandfather was just a dead man who had come back to collect debts from the villagers and wouldn't leave until all the villagers were dead.

Some even said that he wasn't my grandfather at all, but a great immortal wearing human skin…

Later, even my grandmother ran away and never came back.

But when my grandfather was alive, as long as no one provoked him, he really didn't bother anyone. He just sat at the entrance of the village like he was going to work.

After sitting there for five years, he died at the village entrance. In the end, my father buried him in the house, the grave right under the edge of the heated brick bed. You could see the grave mound by just raising your head while lying on the bed.

So, my father became the second curse of the village."