Wester truly possessed an extraordinary ability to gather intelligence.
From merely suspecting that Natalie was the culprit to uncovering nearly the entire truth, it took him no more than two short days. One must remember, the incident dated back to the 1930s. Not only had some information been deliberately erased, but over the decades a great deal of material had also been lost amid the changes of time. Everly simply could not figure out how he managed to accomplish it.
It was astonishing⊠Everly had asked Rebecca about it. Aside from the matter of the mannequinâwhere records were lacking and Wester was unable to find anythingâevery other detail he deduced matched the memories contained within the pendant almost exactly.
Although she had witnessed Westerâs capabilities before, his exceptional intelligence and sharp perception during this incident once again reshaped Everlyâs impression of the exorcist. Perhaps in the future, if she encountered a case she couldnât solve, she could turn to him for help. However, he charged a high fee, so she would need to save more money for emergenciesâŠ
Unfortunately, even though the full sequence of events had been uncovered, the deceased employer could not be brought back to life, and the verbally promised payment was impossible to collect. Moreover, the witch Natalie had clearly already left Micano City. The wooden mannequin in the storage room, as well as Kellyâs lame father, had all vanished without a trace. Thus, after lingering for a while longer, the rarely frustrated exorcist departed Micano in a fury.
Not long after Wester left, the Churchâs exorcist finished writing the incident report and hastily fled the remote, backward little city as well.
The witch incident was thus declared over, but its aftermath continued to affect the school.
Under Natalieâs curse, a large number of teachers and students at Fino Academy suffered both physical and psychological torment, taking leave from school and being hospitalized. After recovering from their illnesses, only a small portion of the students returned. The others either moved away with their families or transferred to different middle schools. As a result, the grade seven student population at Fino Academy was cut roughly in half, and the teaching staff underwent a major reshuffle, replaced by several new faces.
For Everly, however, this was good news.
With fewer students, the environment became quieter and brought fewer troubles. After the witchâs revenge incident triggered by b
llying, those hormone-driven teenagers finally learned to think twice and to stop before going too far. They were no longer bored enough to stir up trouble everywhere. Some habitual b
llies, afraid that they might be cursed, even took the initiative to lower their heads and apologize to the students they had tormented.
Whether or not they were truly remorseful didnât matter. At the very least, campus b*llying temporarily disappeared from Fino Academy.
Meanwhile, as information technology advanced and touchscreen smartphones became widely available, the internet increasingly became an indispensable part of young peopleâs lives.
By eighth grade, Everlyâs home had finally been equipped with broadband and a computer. Old John put on his reading glasses and began clumsily learning how to purchase new supplies for the shelter through online shopping.
That same year, Everlyâs touchscreen phone went through an upgrade cycle and was replaced with a newer âPearâ model with a larger screen and stronger performance. Although it still lagged far behind the phones she had used in her previous life, it was vastly better than her old one, and Everly was deeply moved.
Unfortunately, the school didnât have Wi-Fi, and in a remote small city like Micano, no carrier offered affordable data plans. Even though Everly wasnât short on money, mobile data at the time was outrageously expensive. No matter how well-off she was, she couldnât just spend it recklesslyâsheâd feel the sting!
As a result, while her classmates switched en masse to touchscreen smartphones and gradually became absorbed in posting on the campus forum and social networking sites like âChatter (Twitter),â making new friends online, Everly continued to live like a devout ascetic of the Church. She didnât install a single social media app on her phone. Every day, she either read and studied or worked out to build muscle, living with exceptional discipline. Only when she occasionally encountered a concept she didnât understand in her books would she reluctantly turn on her data to look something up online.
What Everly didnât expect was that precisely because of her socially detached lifestyle, she would, by a twist of fate, avoid the largest nationwide incident of that year.
She still remembered the date clearlyâit was May 23rd.
That morning, everyone was in math class when a boy suddenly shouted, shattering the silence.
âOh my God, Seradiya is dead!â
âWhat? Is it true?â
âWhy? Didnât they say she was getting better? How could this happenâŠâ
âItâs realâcheck her Chatter!â
The moment the boy spoke, the entire classroom erupted into chaos. The teacher at the podium was completely ignored as students leaned toward one another, buzzing with speculation. Some, prompted by the reminder, pulled out their phones and openly opened Chatter to check Seradiyaâs personal account.
Amid the noisy classroom, only Everly sat quietly in her seat, exchanging helpless looks with the equally helpless teacher.
Everly knew of Seradiya. She was an extraordinary female singer, hailed as the âQueen of Tragedyâ and the âWalking Nightingale,â one of the best-selling female artists in the United States.
Seradiya possessed a uniquely distinctive voiceâher singing melodious and ethereal, like music from the heavens. She was especially skilled at performing sorrowful ballads. It was said that many emotionally sensitive listeners would feel such intense resonance while listening to her songs that they couldnât help but burst into tears. At one open-air concert, more than a dozen audience members even experienced emotional fainting spells from being too deeply immersed in the performance. Although Everly wasnât a fan who chased celebrities, she had to admit that Seradiyaâs songs were truly beautiful.
A year earlier, at the height of her rising career, Seradiya had been diagnosed with late-stage esophageal cancer. After that, she vanished completely from public view. Some said she had gone into seclusion to spend her remaining time in peace; others claimed she was undergoing secret treatment at some institution. There were all kinds of rumors. Even when reporters combed through the entire country, they failed to uncover her whereabouts.
Then, just last month, a verified account bearing Seradiyaâs name suddenly appeared on Chatter.
The account was brand new and had posted only a single updateâa message reassuring everyone that she was safe. It roughly thanked fans for their concern and claimed that after nearly a year of treatment, her condition had improved and she had found a way to recover, and so on. Everly had only caught bits and pieces of this in passing and wasnât entirely sure of the wording. In her understanding, late-stage esophageal cancer was incurable.
Seradiya had a huge base of devoted fans. From that day on, countless fans flooded her Chatter account daily, leaving messages wishing her a speedy recovery and hoping she would return to the stage soon. Of course, there were also rational voicesâpeople like Everly who didnât follow celebritiesâwho felt that curing late-stage esophageal cancer sounded like pure fantasy. They urged Seradiya not to make unfounded claims that might mislead fans or give false hope to other patients.
A heated online argument erupted on Chatter, drawing even more attention to Seradiyaâs account.
Then, this very morning, after nearly a month of silence, Seradiyaâs account finally posted a new video. The content of the video was unknown, but on Chatterâs trending list, the hashtag â#SeradiyaDeadâ was blazing in deep red at the very top. Because of that, the boy in class didnât even need to click on the video to learn of her death.
Seradiyaâs fans spanned all age groups, with students making up a particularly large portion. After several failed attempts to regain the classâs attention, the teacher at the podium gave an awkward shrug and simply told everyone to finish scrolling through Chatter quicklyâshe would resume the lesson once they were done.
Having said that, she herself pulled out her phone and openly opened her own Chatter account right there at the podium.
Everly didnât have Chatter, nor did she have the spare data to download it⊠and she didnât really have any close friends in class, either.
Of course, if she were truly curious, she could shamelessly sidle up to a classmate and borrow their phone to watch the video. But Everly felt it wasnât worth the trouble.
It was just the death of a singer, after all. So many people died every day in this worldâhow could she possibly spare the energy to care about each one? Compared to that, she cared far more about the people around her staying alive, because when someone nearby died, it often meant danger might be approaching.
Lost in thought, Everly stood up out of boredom and left the classroom for the restroom.
It wasnât just her class. Along the way, nearly every occupied classroom she passed was noisy. People were exclaiming, sighing, repeatedly murmuring Seradiyaâs name. Energetic middle schoolers were always like thisâchasing trends at the very forefront, passionate yet somewhat superficial.
But when she finished and stepped back into her classroom, she immediately sensed something was wrong.
It was too quiet.
The math classroom that had just moments ago sounded like a marketplace was now silent enough to hear a pin drop. No one was speaking. Every student had their head lowered, eyes fixed intently on the screens in their hands. Their expressions were a strange mix of sorrow and rapture. In their differently colored pupils, identical white rectangular screens were reflected.
The video had no sound⊠or rather, when it played, it emitted only a faint rustling staticâso soft that one wouldnât notice it without listening carefully. As they watched, someone would occasionally begin to sob. Wide, unblinking eyes brimmed over, large tears streaming down their faces.
Everly had never seen such an eerie scene before. She instinctively took a step back, the hairs on her arms standing on end, a cold layer of sweat forming on her back.
This was far too abnormal. What on earth had happened�
She didnât dare make a sound to startle her classmates, nor did she dare let her gaze drift toward the still-glowing screens in their hands. Even though her curiosity had swelled to its peak, she firmly remembered one rule: if you shouldnât look, then absolutely donât look.
Because it was obviousâeverything strange had begun after they watched the video Seradiya posted on Chatter.
Was this the plot of some kind of horror movie? And if so, what type? She didnât recall ever seeing anything quite like thisâŠ
While thinking, Everly deliberately softened her footsteps and cautiously retreated to a secluded corner. She took out her phone and first called Old John.
Fortunately, he was busy tidying up the shelter and hadnât had time to browse the internet. After urging her grandfather not to go online for the time beingâand not to watch any videos anyone sent himâEverly hung up and moved through the unnaturally quiet school building.
She soon realized that the classrooms she had passed earlierâstill noisy when sheâd gone to the restroomâhad now fallen into the same deathly silence as the math room. Through the glass doors, she could see nearly everyone inside sitting with heads bowed, staring intently at the screens before them, motionless like mannequins.
She walked through this heavy stillness until she finally ran into the dean of discipline, Mr. Miller, who was on patrol.