I was cursed. My forehead had been branded with a scalding hot spoon, leaving behind white letters written in a language I didn’t understand. When I looked in the mirror, the letters were scrunched together.

I sought online help to see if someone could translate or get rid of the message. A comment under my post advised me to drink as much noodle soup as possible at a party, and then place a note on a tree describing the curse. He said that the curse could only be lifted by visiting this tree on a rainy day, in the hope that a local Taoist priest or medium would find the note, take pity on me, and help.

When I went to attach the note, a nearby man asked me if I knew how to break the curse. I told him I did, and soon a crowd gathered around us. I shared the method of breaking the curse with them, but I forgot to mention that you needed to return to the tree only on a rainy day. Later, I heard that the man's son had fallen victim to the same curse and was lying in a hospital, his condition worsening. Eventually the man decided to end his son's treatment, declaring that it was doing no good. This caused his wife to lose her sanity, and she insisted that her son was still alive inside her, even eating meals as if he were in her womb.