After sincerely thanking Teacher Mara, Everly left the library, carrying the information she had gathered.
By this point, it was already quite clear what had happened, and the missing details could mostly be filled in with educated guesses:
It all began ten years ago. One night, Teacher Berlin—who looked like a woman despite being male—summoned Paimon in Science Lab No. 3. For so unknown reason, he failed, suffered backlash, and died horribly, his head and body separated. After his death, Berlin beca a ghost, haunting the building until the principal summoned exorcists to seal him.
Ten years later, mbers of the Supernatural Research Club did sothing in Lab No. 3—perhaps accidentally damaging the soul-sealing artifact, or maybe they played so forbidden ga. In any case, they unintentionally broke Berlin’s seal. Upon revival, Berlin took on the identity of “Visual Arts Teacher Berlin,” luring the club’s four mbers into trying the “Lucky Relief” and fortune-borrowing rituals. Unaware of the danger, the four beca Paimon’s servants and spread his faith within the school…
To be honest, this was not good.
If it were just a typical vengeful spirit causing trouble, Everly would have been confident in handling it. But since this involved one of the seventy-two demons of Solomon, it sounded far more dangerous. She couldn’t openly oppose it—if she accidentally angered Paimon, the consequences could be disastrous.
Hmm… it would be better to deal with it more indirectly.
Everly went back and discussed it with Misha, then consulted Rebecca. In the end, she decided to publish her investigation results on the school forum.
This was the forum’s peak ti of activity. Not only students, but even so trendy teachers would check it when they had free ti. Everly planned to make sure her post stayed pinned for at least a week—long enough for the vast majority of students and staff to see it.
As for whether the students would choose to believe the post or not, and whether they could resist the temptations brought by the “Lucky Relief,” that was entirely up to their own fate. Everly wasn’t their mother—there were too many students for her to manage.
The school forum required registration with a student ID, so outsiders couldn’t access it. But since the opponent was Paimon—a being rumored to know all worldly knowledge—Everly didn’t want to use her own account. She feared that he might trace it back through the internet.
That was when the reliable adult, Rebecca, stepped in. One of her fortune-telling shop’s regular clients was a programr skilled in computers and occasionally working as a hacker. In the programr community, many people were superstitious—they believed certain code comnts were “guardians of the system” and must never be deleted, or the system would crash. Before running tests in critical environnts, so would even consult Rebecca’s shop for luck.
Rebecca collected a fee from Everly and communicated with the hacker on her behalf. The hacker gained access to the Katak School forum, and as Everly requested, pinned a post across all forum channels under the title:
“Shocking! ‘Lucky Relief’ Is a Scam—To Summon a Demon, This Mysterious Cross-Dressing Man Did These Things…”
Beyond posting, Everly also asked Rebecca to send a letter to the current principal. It detailed the entire “Lucky Relief” incident and earnestly urged the principal to take the matter seriously—suggesting they call a few exorcists to deal with Paimon, such as the expensive but absolutely reliable exorcist Wester, whose contact information was attached.
Whether the letter might seem like Wester’s self-promotion wasn’t Everly’s concern.
After completing all this, Everly felt she had done her utmost. Anything more would be overstepping—she needed to protect herself.
True to the tried-and-true “shocking headline” style, Everly’s post imdiately grabbed attention. The mont it went live, it caused a campus-wide sensation. In less than half a day, nearly every student and teacher had read the post, which had an explosively intriguing title.
However, the vast majority of students seed to treat it as nothing more than a made-up story. Even if so of them actually carried white plaster statues, that only suggested the post drew a little inspiration from reality. Ghosts and demons? Ha! Well-written, but not strange enough—next ti, add so more shocking material.
Of course, where there were skeptics, there were also believers. Especially those who had witnessed classmates suddenly excel after performing the rituals, or those who had obtained a plaster statue and benefited from the luck-borrowing ceremony—these students looked thoughtful after reading Everly’s post.
“Did you see that post?”
“Of course I did.”
“So… what do you think? Should we continue? Honestly, it felt so real… I’m kind of scared.”
“I don’t know… maybe we should look again?”
“…”
Conversations like this were happening all over the campus.
Just as Everly was feeling pleased with the results of her efforts, her phone refreshed—and the forum post was gone.
Not long after, Everly received a call from Rebecca. Breathless, Rebecca delivered bad news: the hacker was no longer cooperating.
Berlin—or rather, the entity behind Berlin—had targeted the hacker.
It turned out that just monts ago, while the hacker was battling the school forum’s administrators online, the protective charms Rebecca had given him suddenly began shattering one by one without warning.
“Snap… crack…”
When the last charm finally broke, the hacker’s running computer instantly went black. The pitch-dark screen acted like a mirror, reflecting his own image. Eyes wide in terror, the hacker saw that even though he hadn’t moved, his reflection slowly curled its lips into a sinister smile. Then it raised its hands, grasped its own head, and twisted it.
“Crack!” The crisp sound of bones dislocating echoed as the grinning reflection released its hands—
In the next instant, its head dropped like a heavy stone, maintaining that cold smile as it hit the floor, collapsing into a heap of rotting flesh and wriggling maggots.
“Ahhhhhh!”
Although the hacker’s computer ca back on shortly after, the terrifying incident had already drained his courage—he could no longer continue the work.
“He said he’s the one who canceled first, so he refunded all the money. So… do you want to find another hacker to help?” Rebecca asked.
Everly thought for a mont and shook her head. “Forget it. Finding soone else will probably end the sa way. Besides, the post is way more popular than I expected. After being pinned all morning, nearly everyone already knows about it. As for the fee, calculate it yourself—subtract the money you spent on charms for the hacker and your interdiary fee, and just keep the rest on account. I’ll co by your shop this weekend to restock, and we’ll deduct it from the account then.”
“Got it… Also, Miss, this opponent is very powerful. You have to be careful.”
“Mm, I’m only doing this much. I won’t get involved anymore.”
After thanking Rebecca, Everly hung up the phone and let out a long sigh.
Truly, this was one of the legendary seventy-two demons of Solomon—so quickly it had tracked down the hacker hiding behind the scenes. Being cautious earlier had definitely been the right move.
She hoped that after seeing the post, the students would wake up and avoid stepping into traps knowingly. And as for the principal, if he could take the letter she had sent through Rebecca seriously and call in exorcists early… even better if they could get soone like Wester. With him involved, everything would probably settle quickly.
Everly had high expectations for both the students and the principal.
But fate did not cooperate.
On the principal’s side, the letter she sent through Rebecca disappeared into the void—no response whatsoever.
As for the students, however, the exaggerated warning about the demon in her post actually worked fairly well. Many students had already thought the luck-borrowing ritual was troubleso. After reading Everly’s post, which laid out in detail the possible consequences of borrowing demonic power, their laziness and fear combined, and they didn’t proceed with the ritual.
The plaster statue was just a ritual prop. Without performing the ritual, it could not affect its holder in any way.
Everly had been feeling pleased with the effect of her post… but she didn’t expect that, within just a month, the situation would take a sudden turn and spiral completely out of control.
…
On November 4th, the second round of the fall SAT exams took place as scheduled. 11th-grade students who had skipped earlier rounds or hadn’t perford well previously were all taking this exam.
Not long after, the scores were released. While the majority of students who hadn’t studied enough groaned over their poor results, a small group achieved shockingly high marks.
Perfect scores, perfect scores, perfect scores… While Reading and Writing varied due to the subjective nature of grading, every single one of them scored perfectly on the Math section.
“Wait, what? Bruce? His math? There’s no way he got a perfect score!”
“Shh… Haven’t you heard? He used the ‘Lucky Relief’—the one ntioned in that viral forum post. We laughed at it before, but it’s true. The statue really can help you succeed in exams!”
“Th-then… should we…”
“Maybe we should try it?”
Humans are greedy, lazy, envious, indecisive, and prone to temptation.
When no one has gained an advantage through shortcuts, others might resist breaking the rules. But the problem was that so students had already obtained a “Lucky Relief” from Berlin and successfully perford the luck-borrowing ritual to gain Paimon’s power, achieving the results everyone dread of. Moreover, in the short term, none of them suffered any serious consequences.
“Maybe the post’s warning was just exaggeration…”
“Maybe I’m special and nothing bad will happen to …”
“The test is really hard. Whatever the consequences, I’ll try it anyway…”
With thoughts like these, batch after batch of students began appearing in Science Lab No. 3 after school, taking plaster statues and the phonetic spells from the increasingly radiant Berlin.
And the actions of these students, like “bad money” flooding the market, began to affect the original “good money” as well.
“Everyone’s going to Berlin for a Lucky Relief—Andre, Pete, Peroni… These people who normally perform far worse than will soon use the statue’s power to leap ahead, becoming more outstanding and competitive than I am. If I don’t go, I’ll be left far behind. I can’t accept that, even though I usually put in more effort!”
In the class, a girl who was close to Misha and normally studied very hard pressed her lips together, pushed aside Misha’s hand, and spoke with determination.
There were many others like her. Most of them were in the upper-middle of the class and had been strong candidates for college. Yet when students who were originally behind them started surpassing them thanks to the statue, even if they weren’t in the sa competitive path, feelings of resentnt and urgency surged among these students.
The Lucky Relief and the luck-borrowing ritual spread like a virus through the eleventh grade at an unimaginable speed—and then across the entire school.
On November 16, the day after the full moon, Everly ca to the class and found that, except for her and Misha, almost everyone was holding a white plaster statue.
Everly’s expression inevitably darkened.
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