“But..” I tried to argue, however, Su Xiaoyun stopped me.

“Believe it or not, this is the truth,” Su Xiaoyun calmly said. “I’m cursed. Misfortune happens around me even if the black cat is with me. I try to not contact anyone, except you and Shi Yitong so that no one suffers.”

Looking at Su Xiaoyun, I was at a loss for words.

“But, your story isn’t over yet, is it?” Bai interrupted. “What happened after that? How did it lead to the current situation?”

Su Xiaoyun nodded. “No, it isn’t over yet. Mr. Wen cast a spell on me and gave me Coo when I was in junior high school. After that, my life was peaceful. Nothing happened until the second year in senior high school. I thought this matter was over and I could have a normal life from then on, but then something happened to my sister.”

“What was it?” I asked nervously.

Su Xiaoyun whispered, “My sister, Su Qiaoning jumped off the dorm building and killed herself. But I know she didn’t commit suicide, the parasite spirit took her soul.”

“Her soul was taken?” Bai shook his ears, showing great interest.

“I heard about it,” I said. “You said that the curse fell upon your sister, didn’t you?”

Su Xiaoyun nodded slightly. “Yes, that was during my sophomore year of high school, my sister came here for university. I thought everything was normal, but one morning when I was having breakfast, my father rushed out of the room without his pants on, he was panicked and shouted that he had another nightmare. In his dream, the evil spirit was furious, it said it couldn’t find its vessel and yelled at my father to give it back, or it would make my whole family suffer.”

“What happened then?” Bai asked.

“My father was terrified, but even if he wanted to give me to the spirit, it was unable to see me because of the spell. After that, we moved twice, but wherever we went, the evil spirit always managed to find my father and showed up in his dream. Though we were all terrified, my sister had to go to the university. But we didn’t expect that the evil spirit would find my sister. And as the curse befell her, all of her classmates, friends, and teachers suffered misfortunes. Every night, the evil spirit whispered in her ear, saying it would kill her, drive her mad, etc..”

Su Xiaoyun whimpered and couldn’t talk anymore, her eyes became watery.

“I never wanted my sister to bear this pain, but I couldn’t do anything. Her classmates and friends gradually found out that she was the cause, and they all left her. Everyone hated her, and at last, she couldn’t bear it anymore and yielded to the evil spirit.”

I asked, “You said her soul was taken by the parasite spirit, how did it happen?”

“Cannibalism,” Wen Jiubo suddenly interrupted, startling me.

“What? What did you say?” I was puzzled.

“I said, it’s cannibalism,” Wen Jiubo enunciated. “The parasite spirit is born after a human dies. The only reason it wants a human soul is to eat it.”

“To eat it?” Su Xiaoyun stammered in shock.

“I see. This is a good way to quickly improve your cultivation,” Bai said. Apparently, he understood.

“How?” I asked.

Wen Jiubo grinned. “Innately, the only goal for every species is to reproduce. That’s why they stay alive, to ensure the species’ survival, right?”

Su Xiaoyun and I were confused by him suddenly changing the topic, but I knew Wen Jiubo, he always did things for a reason, so I replied, “Of course, it is something every creature does. The purpose of survival is to reproduce.”

“However, many species on Earth practice cannibalism. How do you explain this?” Wen Jiubo put a finger on his chin and said, “A female mantis will cannibalize her mate after copulation; for some amphibians it’s even worse, tadpoles fatten up by eating the eggs that haven’t hatched yet; and in the African savanna, about one-fifth of baby lions are eaten by adult lions.”

I was confused, why did our topic suddenly change from demons and spirits to the animal world? What did Wen Jiubo want to say?

“But, all these natural phenomena happen because animals don’t always have enough food to eat, right?” Su Xiaoyun interrupted.

“No, you’re wrong. Cannibalism also happens among humans,” said Wen Jiubo.

I paused for a second and then blurted out, “Are you serious?”

“The world-famous cult ‘the Church of Satan’ believed that eating human flesh could purify the soul and strengthen the body. More importantly, they believed that cannibalism could raise their level in the food chain, making themselves superior to others. By standing at the top of the food chain, humans would become ‘God.'”

I was stunned and couldn’t speak at all. Cannibalism..can make a human into God? Are you serious? How could it be possible?

“Really?” Su Xiaoyun asked doubtfully.

“If you believe it, it’s true, and if you don’t, then it isn’t true,” Wen Jiubo said. “Have you ever eaten human flesh?”

Su Xiaoyun shook her head quickly.

“So we can’t tell, can we?” Wen Jiubo smiled and continued, “let’s go back to the parasite spirit. You should know the reason why the parasite spirit takes a living person, right? That evil spirit must be mad at Su Xiaoyun and her father. But its cultivation wasn’t high enough, so it didn’t possess a vessel. That’s why it came up with this nasty idea of linking itself to the human’s mind to give him nightmares. And after the human’s mind was broken, it stole his soul as food.”