"A person can't drown themselves in a bathtub; the water is too shallow, and the instinct to survive will make them lift their head." Sun Hang said, "Unless it's a sudden heart attack or high blood pressure, or they accidentally hit their head and passed out, but those are accidents, not suicide."

"But there's another possibility we can't exclude, that his will was controlled by a mysterious creature." Yang Qi said gravely, "This kind of control can override a human's survival instinct."

"In my view, the cause of death for these people is all the same." Sun Hang said.

"The same?" Yang Qi was slightly taken aback, "Have you already seen these files? Or..."

"I haven't seen their death files, but based on your description, a perceptive person can figure it out." Sun Hang continued, "There is only one cause of their death: a curse."

"A curse..." Yang Qi silently repeated the words.

"The curse of the Nameless Island, anyone who escapes from that island cannot shake off this curse. Death will find them, no matter the form it takes." Sun Hang murmured, "They can only choose to stay and become part of the curse; or escape, bearing the curse, and await the arrival of death."

"Why do I feel... you're somehow more familiar with this Nameless Island than I am?" Yang Qi asked, puzzled.

"No, I just think talking like this sounds quite imposing." Sun Hang laughed and resumed his usual tone.

"You..." Yang Qi was momentarily speechless, "But back to the point, if the Nameless Island really has a curse, then wouldn't you hunters about to land there..."

"Among those who returned, were there any hunters?"

"No... they're all researchers and logistics personnel. The two infected individuals also caught the meme in the 'accident'; before that, they were all regular humans." Yang Qi said, "A total of six Mysterious Creature Hunters stationed on the island, all disappeared during the incident."

"That makes sense, for ordinary people, this is a lethal curse, but for hunters, it might not be." Sun Hang said, "Just like the low synchronization rate between the infected and Deceitful Equipment, it's because hunters already have other mimics in their body, so they can't resonate with the Equipment's own meme... The curse follows the same logic, as the saying goes, 'one mountain cannot contain two tigers.' If the curse wants to kill the hunter, then the meme within the hunter must fight back... After all, the death of the host also means the extinction of the meme."

Sun Hang paused before continuing: "Although memes might not have self-awareness, you must know, neither do viruses or immune cells, yet the laws of nature cause them to kill each other for the host's survival... You could see it as the result of survival of the fittest — memes that don't protect the host are long gone, and those that enable the host to become a hunter have already become part of the hunter's 'immune system'... except this immune system isn't against bacteria or viruses, but 'other memes' from outside invasion."

It seemed that Sun Hang's lengthy explanation was momentarily hard to digest, as Yang Qi remained silent for a good ten seconds before finally speaking: "...From my professional knowledge, what you're saying sounds like crazy talk, yet when I think about it carefully, there seems to be some truth to it... Where did you learn all this?"

"Half of it is my intuition, the other half is the result of my thinking." Sun Hang smiled, "What can I say, I'm just exceptionally gifted and extraordinarily bright?"

"Stop joking around." Yang Qi replied, exasperated, "But looking at it from another angle, perhaps your ideas might be correct... In the rules for this trial, Dubhe Tower prohibits any non-infected human from landing on the Nameless Island... which means, aside from some supplies, the only support they can provide you is the drones in the sky...

"But don't rely too much on the drones. I've reviewed the drone patrol records in the quarantine zone recently, and the drones near the Nameless Island area have a loss rate of over seventy percent, and those that survived didn't gather any meaningful information."

"What about communications? If nothing unexpected happens, there should be a jamming zone, right?"

"Yes, remote-controlled drones cannot enter the quarantine zone; all drones used for intelligence gathering are autonomous, with pre-set round-trip routes, and only after they return can we retrieve the footage they captured. So the reasons for the drone losses are also unclear."

"So when we get to the island, we have to rely on ourselves?"

"The military ship that sends you to the island will stay five kilometers off the shore, you can use signal flares to communicate, and also call for fire support with the flares."

"How's the firepower on that military ship?"

"It's a 'Mermaid-class' missile destroyer, with firepower capable of flattening the ruins of the island's research facility, even completely destroying the underground structure." Yang Qi said.

"I'm puzzled about one thing, why didn't the Federation flatten the Nameless Island with a nuke from the start... Has this island been kept for over a hundred years, just to serve as a trial ground for us?"

"It's said that there are very valuable research materials in the institute that couldn't be taken out... back in those days, there were no computers or networks, no central databases or anything like that, the vast majority of materials were paper documents, locked in steel safes in the basement of the research facility. If I'm not mistaken, your goal for this trip is probably these documents."

"...If these documents are so precious and important, could the Federation have delayed for so long?"

"In over a hundred years, the Xiazhou Federation has sent people to the island four times: the first two were investigation groups composed of ordinary people, the third had two hunters, and the fourth was an elite team made up purely of Mysterious Creature Hunters." Yang Qi sighed, "The first three investigation teams were completely wiped out, and after three hunters mysteriously disappeared in the fourth hunter team, the leader decided to abandon the mission and leave the island... After that, the island exploration activities were shelved. I also don't know why Dubhe Tower decided to restart this investigation mission this year and even made it part of an ascension trial."

"Probably because there aren't enough cannon fodders willing to die..." Sun Hang quipped.

"That's all the information I can give you, and I only got it by tapping into my mentor's resources..." Yang Qi paused, then said seriously, "Be careful... if you notice things getting out of control, don't hesitate, evacuate the Nameless Island immediately. Better to abandon the ascension trial than risk your life."

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