Dusk settles.

At the corner of Fengcui Street in West Winster District.

A small store that appears to be a café.

A man staggeringly pushes the door open and exits.

Coincidentally, he bumps into an acquaintance.

The acquaintance holds onto his shoulder, pats him, and says, "Danny, drinking so much so early?"

"I couldn't help it, my wife just had a baby, I need to go back early. By the way, the 'coffee' here today is quite good, seems like new stuff, really powerful. You should try it, I'm off now."

The man speaks and stumbles away.

The acquaintance waves with a smile, "Take it slow, we should have a drink together next time."

But Danny, the man, has barely walked a few steps before suddenly letting out a heartrending scream, and then he collapses to the ground, his body contorted and twitching.

Finally, his whole body quickly turns black, as if frozen, standing there rigidly, a chill emanating from him.

His anguished scream quickly draws a crowd to gather around.

The acquaintance also joins the crowd and, seeing his wide-open eyes, can't help but check his breath.

"He... he's dead."

As soon as these words are uttered, the crowd immediately disperses.

Meanwhile, not far off, a flash goes off, capturing this scene in photos.

The same incidents occurred around the same time in various corners of Winster.

The next day, all major newspapers in Winster headlined the incidents.

Apart from describing the events as bizarre and horrifying, without exception, they pointed fingers at—

Illegal alcohol.

Because these victims almost all died at the doors of underground bars.

Or they simply died directly inside the underground bars.

Some even informed the newspapers, saying they were drinking with the deceased when suddenly the terrifying incident happened right in front of their eyes.

Terrified, he immediately spat out the wine in his mouth and forced himself to vomit for a long time after returning home, still shaken.

In the following days, the newspapers extensively reported on the dangers of illegal alcohol, how vendors of illegal alcohol pursued huge profits, and mixed various toxic substances into the alcohol.

Initially, such reports would certainly be ineffective.

Because in the early days of prohibition, similar reports couldn't deter people's craving for alcohol.

Even if some people lost their sights or damaged their minds by drinking, it was dismissed as their own fault.

But now it's different, with those disturbing and shocking photos showing the horrifying and bizarre death appearances, even those who loved drinking felt a chill in their hearts.

Additionally, the Prohibition Bureau continuously promoted on the streets how many people had ended up like that due to drinking illegal alcohol.

And the usually extremely low-profile Sun Church came out to preach that drinking is a sin and God's punishment, claiming that continued drinking would turn Winster into a city of sin, destined to be destroyed by heavenly fire.

For a time, underground bars were left deserted.

The once-in-demand illegal alcohol suddenly became unsellable.

Ethan and his business suffered a huge blow.

Even his ongoing negotiations for legal sales of grape bricks were stalled as a consequence.

The situation has become dire.

Sandro had to convene another meeting.

"What the hell is happening?!"

John Hott spoke first; after all, he was just a frontman, representing another individual's interests.

If the business suffers long-term damage, he would be the first to be affected.

So, those who were also agents joined him in being anxious.

"This is premeditated, Prohibition Bureau, newspaper, even the Church, are all working together against us, yet we can't even get hold of a single corpse."

George's face was grim.

Besides the agents, he was the most anxious.

Because he had just paid Ethan a three-month advance, he thought he could quickly earn back the capital with grape bricks.

Now... it's dangerous.

Not only can't Winster's goods be sold, but even people outside the city heard the news, aware of the issues with Winster's illegal alcohol, causing several ordering clients to cancel their orders.

He couldn't accept this.

"A corpse... we should soon have one."

Sandro spoke up at this point, raising his glass, and said.

"Let's drink this glass of wine and then follow me."

Honestly, with the threat outside, even the people sitting in the meeting room here hesitated, several not daring to raise their glasses.

Ethan was the first to drink the wine.

The others were also forced to drink under Sandro's gaze.

Then, Sandro stood up, limping along slowly to lead the way.

A group of people followed him to an elevator in a hidden area.

They took the elevator deeper underground.

The elevator stopped at a certain point underground, and they soon saw the corpse Sandro mentioned.

This person was actually alive, tied to a chair, someone standing beside him with a gun.

Upon seeing Sandro, he began to beg for mercy loudly: "Sandro, please, spare me, I sincerely didn't know that barrel of alcohol had issues, please! please..."

At this point, he suddenly choked, followed by a piercing scream, he twisted in agony, even the person with the gun watching him was scared to step back several times.

Finally, he fell to the ground, his body turning black, stiffening, and died just like that.

Witnessing this scene, everyone felt a chill in their hearts.

Seeing it on the newspapers was one thing, witnessing the entire process firsthand was another.

Especially since they just drank the wine.

Only Sandro seemed unafraid, slowly walking over and lightly poking the corpse with his walnut cane, saying, "This should be memetic contamination, the medium is most likely liquid. Everyone can take a look at this."

As he spoke, someone handed Ethan and others a thin stack of documents.

The term memetic contamination left most people bewildered.

Ethan was also puzzled, only George and Danny seemed to be in contemplation.

The documents Sandro provided were about Saint Kuanti, indicating that since July this year, bizarre death cases had occurred there.

The deceased showed signs of twisting and freezing.

But since Saint Kuanti was extremely cold and there were typically annual deaths from freezing, it went unresolved.

Later, the situation worsened, with increasing symptoms of freezing deaths.

Until appearances similar to the corpses in front of them emerged.

Now, it seems Saint Kuanti is already collapsing, as several days have passed without Sandro receiving any replies from people he had there, communication seems to have broken down.

Saint Kuanti...

Ethan recalled that during the true name meeting, someone indeed mentioned that ancient relics or true name artifacts were possibly at work in Saint Kuanti.

Unexpectedly, it escalated to such a severe level.

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