How long had passed since then?

He endured the pain of being burned for endless days and nights. His soul was full of hatred, causing him to be unable to reincarnate. He witnessed the humans lingering in that old and ruined village, generation after generation.

——One day, I’ll escape from this place.

——When I get out of this burning hell, all the pain that you made me go through in my life, I will pay you back twofold!

——————————————————

Before my consciousness returned from the dream, I felt I was being harshly strangled by the neck.

“You bastard——! How dare you peek at my past! You son of a bitch!”

I struggled fiercely, but judging by the pressure applied to my neck, it wanted me dead and I couldn’t fight back. It was getting difficult to breathe and I almost lost consciousness.

The parasite spirit, under the guise of Su Xiaoyun’s face, was livid. However, beneath his anger, there was a shadow of sadness.

Sadness? Yes, how could it not be sad?

I looked at the parasite spirit and squeezed out some words with great difficulty, “I.. forgive you.”

At that moment, I felt that the pressure on my neck suddenly disappear. I stumbled and fell on the ground, coughing severely.

“What did you say?!” The parasite spirit raged as if it had been deeply insulted. It grabbed my collar and lifted me up. “You know nothing! You’re just a human. You insult me after peeking at my memory! You don’t understand anything!”

“I saw it!” I didn’t know where I got the courage from, but I stared right into the eyes of the parasite spirit. “I don’t understand why, but I did see it. Your past, the life you had from your twenties to your fifties, I saw all of it.”

“What? How dare you——”

“It’s not your fault!” I shouted before it could finish. I tried to distance myself from it. “It.. was not your fault. Being marginalized by the villagers or being resented by your wife and your mother, that wasn’t your fault. You were a good painter, and you had a good personality. It’s them who bullied you.”

The parasite spirit uttered a weird scream but it didn’t come closer.

“You did nothing wrong. It was them who wronged you,” I continued talking. I stared at it and walked a step closer. “You were just born into a horrible family, in a place full of ignorant people. They were the reason why this tragedy happened to you. Even though you killed a person, it was not your fault.”

The parasite spirit uttered a scream before crying painfully, its voice raspy and full of grievance, “..I had to linger in the same place for decades or even centuries. I watched the descendants of the murderers who took my life live there peacefully and happily. In the end, even though the village was burned down and their descendants died in that fire, I was still stuck suffering for eternity in the gap linking this world to the other! How could you understand my hatred and loneliness?! The only thing I want to do is repay this hatred twofold to you, to all of you humans!”

“That’s why you cursed Su Xiaoyun, hurt all those students and took their souls?” I couldn’t believe what I heard.

“Yes!” The parasite spirit suddenly raised its voice, shouting, “I want more humans to feel the pain I felt, I want more souls to give me power. And I want this girl’s body as my vessel so that I can get rid of that emptiness within me and come to the world of the living to take revenge! Hahahaha! Speaking of this girl.. look at her! Her skin is silky white, what a beautiful young girl! She smells so good!”

The parasite spirit smiled using Su Xiaoyun’s face, running her hand through her black hair. Then, it raised her hand and slowly scratched her neck with her sharp nails, leaving a horrific cut on Su Xiaoyun’s neck.

“What a poor girl. Do you know she willingly gave me her body?” The parasite spirit said in a low voice. “She was so eager to protect her friends that she came to me by herself, asking me to take her body in exchange for your safety. Of course, I said yes, she was so eager after all. But when it comes to keeping my promise...that’s another matter.”

My heart ached so badly I felt it was going to explode with rage. However, I forced myself to stay calm by taking a deep breath. I said calmly to the parasite spirit,

“Zhao Xiangzhi, you.. Do you really want to do this?”

“Don’t call me by that name!” The parasite spirit shouted, but I interrupted before it attacked me again.

“Is this what you want?!” I shouted. “You waited for so long and finally managed to escape. You could be walking around like a normal human in this world, yet this what you want? To use your power to kill people and take revenge?”

“I’ll do whatever I want to do! Mind your own business, you little bastard!” the parasite spirit yelled.

“No, you’re wrong! Your hatred and loneliness will only grow bigger and bigger if you decide to take revenge. Zhao Xiangzhi, I don’t believe you’re this kind of person!” I shouted back. “The Zhao Xiangzhi I saw in my dream is an honest and good man as well as a talented artist. He would never spend the rest of his life on revenge, murdering people! Don’t lie to yourself! The man who endured suffering for decades or even hundreds of years is not a monster who kills people but a person who can endure extreme loneliness.”

There was a moment of silence before the parasite spirit laughed out loud.

“Even if you’re right.. So what? I’ve already become a disgusting evil spirit, and nothing can save me! I can’t go to hell, and I can’t reincarnate. My existence already has no meaning.”

“So what? Whether it has a meaning or not depends on what people think! Didn’t I say that I forgive you?!” I bravely held out my hand to the parasite spirit and said firmly, “Release Su Xiaoyun and other souls. I’ll come with you. You can use me as your vessel or a journey companion, okay?”

At that moment, I saw hesitation in its eyes.

Slowly, I walked towards it, holding out my hand.

“Let them go and I will go with you,” I repeated in a low voice, moving closer to it. “Everything will be alright, don’t worry.”