After hearing Jiao Lin's speech, the crowd below naturally fell into turmoil. At the thought of those multicolored stones, they felt as though the stones were burning their hands.
The word most often on these merfolk's lips was "curse."
Jiao Lin watched the scene with inward satisfaction, then ordered several people to carry up the two who had died because they had not used Spirit-Draining Stone. In a grief-stricken voice, he said, "This is what happens when you ignore warnings and suffer the curse's backlash."
The crowd below immediately fell silent.
"For everyone's safety, from today onward, I hope every household with a newborn will use this Divine Stone. I've also set up a formation here. Bring me the colored Divine Stones in your homes, and I'll help you cleanse the curses within them." Jiao Lin spoke sincerely, and since the villagers already thought well of him, most did not suspect anything sinister behind his words.
Almost everyone piled their stones beside the formation. Waves of red light radiated from it, resembling the work of an immortal. This only strengthened those villagers' unquestioning belief.
But afterward, some still harbored doubts and tried keeping the "cursed Divine Stones" to see what they really were. Yet before long, the merfolk who kept them died.
Jiao Lin's explanation was that keeping cursed Divine Stones nearby for too long would still endanger their lives.
Now even fewer people doubted him. Some merfolk seemed to realize something and tried leaving the village overnight, only for their corpses to appear on the seashore the following day.
Those with newborns also began actively seeking "Divine Stones" to save their little merfolk's lives.
Gradually, Jiao Lin's scheme was passed down in this way.
The lie of the "curse" persisted for ten thousand years, until nearly all these merfolk