“Oh, that’s why the girl was still breathing after jumping off the building!” Bai suddenly understood. “That’s because she was still alive!”

“What did you say?” Su Xiaoyun was surprised.

“As long as the soul exists, even if the body is broken, the human is still alive!” Bai said. “The reason why your sister was breathing after her suicide is because the parasite spirit hadn’t eaten her soul yet! That thing probably needs to take the human soul into the gap before eating it.”

Hearing this, Su Xiaoyun stared at Bai blankly, muttering, “So.. you mean, we had a chance to save my sister, but I..”

“No, the moment your sister jumped off the building, she was dead,” Wen Jiubo refuted. “You couldn’t save your sister’s soul from the parasite spirit, even if you could, her body was damaged so badly that there was no chance she could survive.”

“You’re right..” Su Xiaoyun lowered her head.

“But, the other victims still have a chance to survive!” My head was buzzing as I quickly stood up. “Liang Kaifeng and the female student majoring in journalism! Are they still alive?”

Wen Jiubo nodded. “Highly possible. If the parasite spirit took their souls using the same method, then we have a chance to save them.”

That meant..the girl I ran into during devil’s night was possibly that girl’s soul!

“What are we waiting for? Let’s find a way to bring them back!” I hurriedly said as I began to walk towards the door.

“Hey, don’t be hasty.” Wen Jiubo grabbed my arm and pulled me back. “According to the current situation, the parasite spirit won’t eat their souls so quickly. Su Qiaoning kept breathing for a week after her suicide, didn’t she?”

Su Xiaoyun nodded anxiously.

“Sit down, let her finish her story.” After saying this, Wen Jiubo pulled me back to my seat; he seemed very serious, so I had to sit down again.

“Now we know the whole story about why your sister committed suicide.” Wen Jiubo calmly looked at Su Xiaoyun, asking her, “So, what about the incidents that happened recently? Gu Yu said you’ve been missing since the beginning of the incidents, where have you been?”

Hearing this, Su Xiaoyun looked anxious again. She glanced at me nervously before saying, “It was me.. It was me who brought the evil spirit into the university.”

Although her answer was within my expectations, my heart dropped after I heard her words.

“What happened?”

“It’s my fault. I was blinded by hatred,” Su Xiaoyun said regretfully. “After my sister died, the only thing I wanted to do was to catch this goddamned evil spirit, destroy it, kill it. But, as Mr. Wen said, the spirit couldn’t find me, and I couldn’t find it. The only reason I enrolled in this university was to find out why my sister died and to destroy the evil spirit who cursed me. But I have been here for so long and made no progress at all. When I was about to give up, a man told me that there was a way to conjure that evil spirit.”

I saw Wen Jiubo frown, and he interrupted her, “A man? What man?”

“Uh, according to what he said, he is a local Taoist priest,” Su Xiaoyun tried to remember. “That man had a mustache and wore a shabby robe. Uh, I first thought he was homeless, but as it turns out, he is a Taoist priest.”

Hearing this, Wen Jiubo frowned, his eyes full of doubt.

I noticed his reaction and asked, “What’s wrong?”

Wen Jiubo shook his head. “No, I am probably overthinking. Go on, what did that Taoist priest tell you?”

“Oh,” Su Xiaoyun continued, “That Taoist priest told me that to conjure a superior evil spirit in one place is quite easy. He asked me to light an incense and place it behind my bed headboard. Also to put a bowl of water mixed with a drop of blood and a drop of ink at the end of the bed. The spirit would come when I fell asleep.”

“Necromancy,” Wen Jiubo said coldly. “You use your own body as a sacrifice to conjure the spirit, which means you give up your soul and directly present your body to the parasite spirit. No matter who this Taoist priest is, he didn’t mean to help you.”

“Did you use his method?” I asked.

Su Xiaoyun nodded, “Yes, I did, but not entirely. I held a needle in my hand before going to bed. When I was dreaming at night, I saw the red evil spirit approaching. I reacted before he found me and pricked myself with the needle to wake myself up. Then, I knocked over the bowl and put out the incense to prevent the spirit from possessing my body.”

“However, you couldn’t stop the parasite spirit from coming through the gap and harming other students in the university, could you?” said Wen Jiubo with his arm crossed.

Su Xiaoyu nodded, full of regret.

“But there was nothing I could do. The first thing the evil spirit wanted to do at the university was to take revenge against me, so I had to escape. However, in the end, he found me anyway. When I woke up, I was already lost in that fogbound place. I didn’t have a weapon on me, and I couldn’t find Coo.” Su Xiaoyun sighed. “Luckily, I don’t know if it was because of Mr. Wen’s spell, but those lingering demons and spirits couldn’t see me, and that’s why I could hide in the fog until you found me.”

I was shocked. “No way! What did you eat or drink in that place?”

“I didn’t drink or eat at all.” Su Xiao glanced at me like I asked a stupid question. “I was there for just an hour.”

I looked at her, skeptical. “Su Xiaoyun, you went missing for more than just an hour. You’ve disappeared for a whole week!”

This time she had a weird look on her face. “What are you talking about? But..but it’s impossible!”

“The parasite spirit has taken two people’s souls in our university,” I replied with certainty. “You were gone for more than a week, Shi Yitong and I have been crazily searching for you for almost a week.”