The Spirits Knew Who Was Lying Chapter 09

The Spirits Knew Who Was Lying Chapter 09 The Weight of Fame

“I told you before-it’s easy to call them up, but sending them back is another matter entirely. Fane cu’s both ways. The more attention you draw, the more spirits come knocking. Heavy is the crown Lily couldn’t carry the weight, and now she’s paying the price. Keep an eye on her for me, will you? I can’t watch her every second of the day.”

The chat was still reeling from what they’d just witnessed-the worm, the blood, the cold way I’d explang what was coming for her.

Back home. Lily fired up her own stream. She must have heard what I’d said, because she was already dismissing it.

“Don’t listen to Lore. She’s just fearmongering. I’m perfectly fine.”

“A worm? Please. We just have different ways of communing with the spirits. She’s making things up to make herself look-”

The light fixture above her head shattered.

Glass rained down. A shard sliced across her check, leaving a long, deep gash. She scrambled off camera, stream dead.

Hours later, paparazzi caught her leaving the hospital. Her face was wrapped in gauze, blood still seeping through.

My phone rang.

“Lore. Help me. He’s back. He found me again.”

“Sorry. Can’t help you.”

“What do you mean you can’t help me?” Her voice cracked into a scream. “I’ll pay you again. Another thirty thousand.”

“It won’t matter. The spirit you picked up is too strong. I can’t handle it.”

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to help. It was that there was nothing to be done.

When she came to me that day, I’d seen it clearly. The black stain around her hairline. The death mark. Violence written into her face. Whatever was coming for her wasn’t a warning-it was a sentence.

And the spirit behind her had made it clear. Stay out of this.

The incense I’d lit that day? It wasn’t just to feed the hungry dead. It was a courtesy. A greeting to the one pulling her strings. He’d let me take the one I sent away. That was the deal.

I wasn’t about to interfere with forces stronger than me. You step into someone else’s karma, you carry the weight of it. And I had no intention of paying that price.

I hung up. Booked a trip. Got on a plane.

By the time I landed, Lily was already in the hospital.

Three days. That was all it took. She looked like something had drained the life out of her-skin stretched thin over bones, eyes sunken, hair gone gray. The photos circulating online were brutal.

Fans who once worshipped her were now saying the same thing: She brought this on herself.

The bond worm. My senior brother traced it back to the borderlands. She’d picked it up six months ago. before she even knew my name. Cultivated it, fed it, until it was ready. Then she planted it in me during that trip we’d unknowingly shared.

That was how she always knew what I knew. She’d wait for me to burn the belongings, listen through the worm, then recite the dead’s words like they were her own.

I used to think she was gifted. Now I knew the truth.

There was no gift. Just a parasite.

Once the worm was gone, she was on her own. And she had no idea how to survive without it.

The authorities called after she was hospitalized. My account was suspended. A quiet warning arrived through back channels-don’t push this further.

I understood. The world runs on appearances. On the pretense that there are no forces we can’t explain. I let it go.