“You keep telling me to wait for you, to stay calm, not to be impulsive, and... and something about how you can’t do it alone, I can help you, you must believe me.” The senior was acting very nervous, and Jiang Cheng understood she was imitating Professor Chen’s state at the time.

“It was Yuan Xiaoyi calling,” Jiang Cheng said.

The senior nodded and said very softly, “I could tell it was her too, her voice was very loud and grating, and her state seemed off too, like she was very excited, completely different from how she usually seemed to me.”

“Before, she was in a... a panicked state, didn’t like to interact with people, teachers, classmates, anyone, she was timid and withdrawn, and she’d get scared even if someone spoke a little louder, she’d tremble all over.” The senior was worried Jiang Cheng wouldn’t understand, so she explained in detail.

“I saw Professor Chen’s emotions were very volatile, he even forgot his scarf, and just kept walking out, so I grabbed the scarf and chased after him.”

The senior paused for a few seconds, then continued, “Giving him the scarf was one thing, but another thing was I was worried about Professor Chen, and wanted to ask if he needed any help.”

“Professor Chen was very busy during that time, and I always felt that ever since Professor Chen started interacting with Yuan Xiaoyi, he changed as a person, he became very strange, like all his thoughts were focused on her condition, and he became less concerned about many things in his life and work, and needed other people to help him.”

Jiang Cheng sighed, looking at her with the sort of expression that said 'you are so kind', it seemed the senior had helped Professor Chen a lot in these areas.

This also explained why she knew so much about Professor Chen, and Yuan Xiaoyi’s affairs, she was like Professor Chen’s assistant.

“But after Professor Chen took the scarf, he told me to stay here, he was going to find Yuan Xiaoyi.”

“He also told me that if anyone came looking for him, or called the office, to write down the matter, and he would deal with it when he came tomorrow.”

“Then he hurriedly put on the scarf and walked out of the office.”

The senior continued to recall, “But as soon as I sat back down in my seat, I heard a sound coming from the corridor outside, it was that kind of continuous collision sound, very heavy, very muffled.”

“I felt something was wrong, and hurried out to look, and found that Professor Chen had fallen down the stairs, he was unconscious at the time, his head, the floor, were all covered in blood.”

“Professor Chen was going to find Yuan Xiaoyi, but fell down the stairs midway.” The situation was basically as Jiang Cheng had expected.

“That’s how it was.” The senior took a deep breath, looked at Jiang Cheng and said, “It was the same section of stairs you just walked up.”

Jiang Cheng remembered that section of stairs, it was very orderly, there was no reason for such an accident to happen.

Just as Jiang Cheng was about to confirm further, a detail that the senior inadvertently mentioned caught Jiang Cheng’s attention, “Because Professor Chen is old, and had surgery on his legs a few years ago, he is always very careful when going up and down the stairs, but this time, I don’t know who it was, but someone spilled water on the steps.”

“Professor Chen slipped because he stepped on the water.” The senior’s face vaguely showed a hint of anger when she spoke about this.

But Jiang Cheng understood, now he could be sure it was the Shixin Mo (蚀心魔, Heart-Eating Demon) that was doing it, leaving water stains everywhere it went, it had almost become its trademark.

“Oh, right.” The senior seemed to have suddenly thought of something, and looked at Jiang Cheng with a strange expression, “At the time... at the time I also found Professor Chen’s cell phone on the ground, it was badly damaged, the casing was cracked, it was in the corner of the stairwell.”

Jiang Cheng looked at her, not interrupting, he knew there was definitely more to come.

Sure enough, the senior lowered her voice and continued, “Just as I picked up the phone, the screen suddenly lit up, and it was a text message, the sender was... Yuan Xiaoyi.”

“She said she had a way, she finally knew how to get rid of that person’s entanglement, one of her five friends told her.”

“And told Professor Chen not to bother her, saying that this time, she was confident she could completely get rid of the person who was stalking them.”

“I didn’t think much about it at the time, I was just focused on getting Professor Chen to the hospital, and it wasn’t until the next day that I heard Yuan Xiaoyi had been found passed out in front of the warehouse.”

“Some of the photos here were taken by people from the school security department at that time.”

“They also found evidence that Yuan Xiaoyi had smashed things at the scene, the mirror on the wall, that was smashed by Yuan Xiaoyi, and she brought the mirror there herself.”

Jiang Cheng nodded, what the senior said was very close to what he thought, the school was worried about the matter blowing up, so they had people take photos of the scene, keep the evidence, and then clean up the scene.

This was also consistent with the later behavior of the people from the security department after they discovered Gao Yan.

Taking a moment to glance at the time, Jiang Cheng was still concerned about Yuan Xiaoyi, so after hurriedly comforting the senior for a few words, he left on some pretext.

On the way to the grove, Jiang Cheng integrated the information he had obtained today in his mind, from the library, and what the senior had just said, gradually, a clearer train of thought emerged.

For the first time, the entire mission was presented to Jiang Cheng in the form of a scroll.

First of all, it could be determined that Yuan Xiaoyi’s so-called five missing friends did not exist in the real world, they were the other five personalities derived from her main personality after suffering some kind of strong stimulus, which is commonly referred to as multiple personality disorder.

Secondly, the identity of the stalking ghost following them, hunting down girls in the mission, had also been confirmed, the foreign exorcists called it the Shixin Mo (蚀心魔, Heart-Eating Demon).

In fact, it was just a Western ghost.

Although he hadn’t seen its true face, it was likely related to water.

Moreover, Jiang Cheng noticed that both Curator Zhou and Professor Chen in the senior’s account had mentioned a very important point—

This Shixin Mo (蚀心魔, Heart-Eating Demon) seemed to only be able to move at night.

Finally, what exactly happened in the warehouse on the night of Professor Chen’s accident?

From the current point of view, the Shixin Mo (蚀心魔, Heart-Eating Demon) harmed Professor Chen in order to prevent him from going to find Yuan Xiaoyi.

And from the results of the incident, Yuan Xiaoyi performed some kind of ritual in the warehouse that night, just like the former foreign exorcists.

In the text message that Yuan Xiaoyi sent to Professor Chen, she mentioned that she had found a way to completely get rid of the Shixin Mo (蚀心魔, Heart-Eating Demon).

And this method was told to her by one of her five friends.

Connecting the library and the notebook together, it was not difficult to guess that this so-called friend was Xiao Hui, one of the five personalities.

The characteristic of this personality was that she loved to stay in the library, reading extensively.

Jiang Cheng followed this line of reasoning, and it should be that by some coincidence, the book that should have been destroyed was collected by the library, cataloged, and finally borrowed by Xiao Hui.

The book contained information about the Shixin Mo (蚀心魔, Heart-Eating Demon), and how to deal with it.

So on that night, Yuan Xiaoyi, representing the main personality, and the other five personalities, “gathered” in the activity center’s warehouse.

Following the methods in the book, they set up the ritual, planning to completely get rid of the Shixin Mo (蚀心魔, Heart-Eating Demon)’s entanglement.