Chapter 52: The Butterfly (1) |
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 mannequin—where records were lacking and Wester was unable to find anything—every other detail he deduced matched the memories contained within the pendant almost exactly.
Although she had witnessed Wester’s capabilities before, his exceptional intelligence and sharp perception during this incident once again reshaped Everly’s impression of the exorcist. Perhaps in the future, if she encountered a case she couldn’t solve, she could turn to him for help. However, he charged a high fee, so she would need to save more money for emergencies…
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 Kelly’s 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 Church’s 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 Natalie’s 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.
Whether or not they were truly remorseful didn’t 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 people’s lives.
By eighth grade, Everly’s 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, Everly’s touchscreen phone went through an upgrade cycle and was replaced with a newer “Pear” 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 didn’t have Wi-Fi, and in a remote small city like Micano, no carrier offered affordable data plans. Even though Everly wasn’t short on money, mobile data at the time was outrageously expensive. No matter how well-off she was, she couldn’t just spend it recklessly—she’d 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 “Chatter (Twitter),” making new friends online, Everly continued to live like a devout ascetic of the Church. She didn’t 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 didn’t understand in her books would she reluctantly turn on her data to look something up online.
What Everly didn’t 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 clearly—it was May 23rd.
That morning, everyone was in math class when a boy suddenly shouted, shattering the silence.
“Oh my God, Seradiya is dead!”
“What? Is it true?”
“Why? Didn’t they say she was getting better? How could this happen…”
“It’s real—check her Chatter!”
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 Seradiya’s 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 “Queen of Tragedy” and the “Walking Nightingale,” one of the best-selling female artists in the United States.
Seradiya possessed a uniquely distinctive voice—her 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 couldn’t 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 wasn’t a fan who chased celebrities, she had to admit that Seradiya’s 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 Seradiya’s name suddenly appeared on Chatter.
The account was brand new and had posted only a single update—a 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 wasn’t 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 voices—people like Everly who didn’t follow celebrities—who 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 Seradiya’s account.
Then, this very morning, after nearly a month of silence, Seradiya’s account finally posted a new video. The content of the video was unknown, but on Chatter’s trending list, the hashtag “#SeradiyaDead” was blazing in deep red at the very top. Because of that, the boy in class didn’t even need to click on the video to learn of her death.
Seradiya’s fans spanned all age groups, with students making up a particularly large portion. After several failed attempts to regain the class’s attention, the teacher at the podium gave an awkward shrug and simply told everyone to finish scrolling through Chatter quickly—she 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 didn’t have Chatter, nor did she have the spare data to download it… and she didn’t 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 wasn’t worth the trouble.
It was just the death of a singer, after all. So many people died every day in this world—how 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 wasn’t just her class. Along the way, nearly every occupied classroom she passed was noisy. People were exclaiming, sighing, repeatedly murmuring Seradiya’s name. Energetic middle schoolers were always like this—chasing 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 static—so soft that one wouldn’t 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 didn’t 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 shouldn’t look, then absolutely don’t look.
Because it was obvious—everything 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 didn’t recall ever seeing anything quite like this…
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 hadn’t had time to browse the internet. After urging her grandfather not to go online for the time being—and not to watch any videos anyone sent him—Everly hung up and moved through the unnaturally quiet school building.
She soon realized that the classrooms she had passed earlier—still noisy when she’d gone to the restroom—had 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.
Comments 3