◎ Survival Guide ◎

Shi Li was completely shocked.

In the two years they were together, she had never seen Chen Du so fragile.

In the sunlight, his skin appeared nearly transparent. His prominent Adam’s apple bobbed as he choked up, and the fine veins on his neck pulsed visibly.

Shi Li suddenly found the scene a little uncomfortable and looked away.

Of course it wasn’t heartache. A soul had no heart.

Maybe… she just wasn’t used to it?

Shi Li had always thought Chen Du seemed to lack the emotional attachments of a normal human being. She had even secretly joked that under his perfect appearance was an AI.

He was always in a hurry. His grand and cliché dreams were built on barren ground, so he worked harder than anyone else.

His twenty-four hours were meticulously scheduled, as if a steel ruler was embedded in his nerves, with precision down to the micrometer. He was like a finely engineered mechanical clock, every gear calibrated to perfection, humming day and night, without a trace of warmth.

Even being in a relationship seemed optional for him.

To be accurate, being in a relationship seemed optional for both of them.

When they were together, it was the most difficult and impoverished phase of their lives. Two poor students looking up at the stars, desperately chasing the future they dreamed of in childhood, with barely any time to spare for each other.

Thinking back, in those two years, they had never gone on a proper date like other college couples.

So Shi Li always believed Chen Du’s emotions were restrained, cold, and never indulgent.

She recalled the sorrowful figure of that woman earlier and sighed softly.

True love really could change a person. Even someone as indifferent as Chen Du could fall deeply in love.

Looks like she called him a scumbag too soon. She’d better stay out of the couple’s business.

What she really needed to think about now was how to get Chen Du to withdraw the money.

Yelling like earlier clearly wouldn’t work. Chen Du couldn’t hear her.

A soul and a living person were like radio stations on different frequencies—unable to interfere with or sense each other. Only when he was asleep could the frequencies align.

Then what could she do?

Did she have to possess his body again and take the money to burn it for herself?

Shi Li still hadn’t figured out the side effects of spiritual possession. She didn’t know whether the strange incident last time was because she was too frightened by those dogs, or because she stayed in his body too long.

Once her soul projected to the living world, it lost connection with the underworld. She couldn’t contact her supervisor for answers.

She couldn’t experiment recklessly either. Chen Du’s life mattered too.

…Such a headache.

Shi Li sat on the coffee table, crossed her legs, and scratched her head in frustration. No matter how hard she thought, she couldn’t come up with a good plan.

She glanced up at Chen Du.

He had already collected his emotions. After lighting one last cigarette, he suddenly stood up and walked toward the bathroom.

Wearing slippers, his entire demeanor was still cold and indifferent. Other than his slightly damp eyelashes, he showed no signs of anything unusual.

The bathroom door wasn’t closed. Shi Li floated over to the doorway and watched him brush his teeth and wash his face.

As he washed, his high-bridged nose started bleeding again.

Shi Li guiltily drew back a little and watched Chen Du turn on the faucet with a blank expression.

He didn’t seem surprised or concerned.

The sound of water echoed. Drops of blood fell into the white ceramic sink, diluted into a faint red, trickling softly down the drain.

Chen Du tilted his head back. When the bleeding stopped, he picked up a towel and dried the water from his face.

Under the cold white bathroom light, his skin looked even paler. His wrist bones were slender, and the blue veins on the back of his hand bulged beneath a strip of medical tape.

Shi Li had a strange feeling—like he had lost a bit of weight compared to yesterday.

She blinked uneasily.

…She really had pushed him too hard.

After finishing, Chen Du reached for the white toothbrush beside him.

This time, he didn’t smile.

He bent down and stared directly at the toothbrush. His eyes, misted by the steam, looked wet and glassy.

After a long while, Shi Li heard him say something very softly.

“What should I do this time? What about you? Can you teach me, please?”

What should he do… asking a toothbrush was pointless.

Obviously, he should go out and apologize.

Swallow his pride and coax her. Give her a bouquet of flowers. If that didn’t work, buy her a purse… What was the point of talking to a toothbrush?

Shi Li couldn’t help rolling her eyes.

After speaking, Chen Du ruffled the “head” of the toothbrush and returned to the living room to rummage through the coffee table.

As if looking for something.

Shi Li followed him, arms crossed, watching curiously.

She was so bored she almost wanted to help him search.

The coffee table was nearly buried in cigarette butts. Scattered around were old newspapers, stacks of research papers, a pile of utility bills, and a few empty liquor bottles…

Shi Li clicked her tongue and shook her head in disgust.

Mister, with such a mess, it’s a miracle if you find anything.

Sure enough, after turning the entire coffee table upside down, Chen Du still didn’t find what he was looking for.

He frowned and stood there for a moment. Finally, with no better option, he straightened up and went to the washing machine to fish out two clean pieces of clothing.

Without saying a word, he started getting changed.

Shi Li froze. Only when she saw the faint outline of his abs did she hurriedly turn around and cover her eyes—no peeking.

Before she could take her “hands” off her tightly shut eyes, the apartment door slammed with a “bang.”

The draft in the hallway whistled through Shi Li’s body.

She opened her eyes and stared at the now-empty living room.

Chen Du had gone out again.

She glanced at the calendar hanging on the wall. Today was Wednesday—if Chen Du remembered to flip the calendar.

So, was he going to work?

Although his temperament had become increasingly strange and hard to read, when he was home, he at least made the place feel alive and less boring.

Shi Li blinked gloomily. Not sure how to kill time, she suddenly felt like a lonely old-fashioned housewife who never stepped out the door.

…Tch.

She really wanted to take a nap. Too bad ghosts didn’t need sleep.

Shi Li lay flat on the floor, lazily rolling in the shadows. Then she couldn’t resist sticking her arm into the sunlight, watching the rays pass through her hand, tingling slightly, making the skin turn translucent—quite a thrill.

She looked like grilled octopus.

Shi Li played around for a while, sighed in boredom, then flipped over to keep lying there.

She blinked and suddenly saw something under the opposite side of the coffee table, buried in the dust.

It was a small medicine bottle.

Was this what Chen Du had been searching for?

Shi Li “rolled” under the coffee table and brought her nose close to the dirty little bottle, tilting her head for a better look.

The label was covered with English words. She didn’t understand any of the medical terms. Besides, the side showing the medicine name was facing down.

Shi Li wasn’t surprised.

People always said modern life was about working, earning money, popping pills—then repeating the cycle.

These days, who didn’t have a couple bottles of supplements at home? Take some, recharge, and it’s another great day.

Shi Li tried to pick up the bottle for Chen Du. As expected, her fingers went straight through it, not even brushing off a speck of dust.

She let out a hum, softly floating out from under the coffee table, and began pondering how long it would take before Chen Du noticed it.

Ugh, stop worrying about his problems.

Better think about how to get that 120,000 yuan burned for herself.

If she didn’t possess Chen Du’s body…

Shi Li’s eyes suddenly lit up.

Could she maybe send Chen Du a dream?

Actually, the underworld did offer a service for delivering dreams to loved ones—but it was ridiculously expensive. Just a bit cheaper than reincarnation.

After all, delivering dreams violated the principle that the two worlds must not interfere, and came with serious risks.

Shi Li had only seen one ghost buy that service—he had won a huge lottery in life but died before cashing it in. With the deadline approaching, he paid a fortune to have a dream delivered to his family, telling them to redeem it.

A poor ghost like Shi Li couldn’t afford it. Besides, she didn’t have anything important enough to send a dream for.

But things are different now.

She had already projected herself into this world and was living in the same space as Chen Du. When he fell asleep at night, the boundary between the two worlds would begin to blur, and his consciousness would no longer be clear. If she called out to him loudly like she did during the day, maybe he really could sense it.

Wouldn’t that be a form of visiting him in a dream?

Shi Li was so excited that she suddenly stuck herself to the ceiling, spinning in a circle with her head against a few mold spots on the plaster board, wishing she could drag Chen Du back to bed immediately.

Shi Li waited all afternoon with great anticipation. When the sun had set and the sky turned dark with wind and rain, Chen Du finally returned.

He was carrying a laptop bag in his left hand and a plastic bag in his right, bringing in wind and rain from outside.

He probably didn’t bring an umbrella and looked quite miserable. His nicely shaped thin lips were dry and bloodless, and the black bangs on his forehead were damp and messy.

Rain had soaked his trench coat shoulders. Chen Du brushed them off indifferently, as usual tossed the coat onto the back of the sofa, and walked straight into the room with his things.

The desk was right by the bed, just like before.

Chen Du took out the laptop, plugged it in, and opened it.

In the dim room, the faint blue screen light illuminated his eyes.

He began typing on the keyboard, quickly replying to several emails, then took a boxed meal from the plastic bag and broke apart a pair of disposable chopsticks.

Shi Li leaned over for a look and couldn’t help feeling a bit dazed.

This scene was just too familiar—

The same room, the same desk, a silently running computer, and a boxed meal that was a little cold…

No, it was different—before, there were two meals.

One for him and one for her.

It was the cheapest boxed meal from the fast-food place downstairs, fifteen yuan each, one meat dish and one vegetable dish, with rice and pickled vegetables, but it tasted surprisingly good.

She wondered whether the price had gone up after all these years.

Back then, Chen Du was always very focused on work and couldn’t even spare time to eat, leaving the boxed meal open at the side.

Shi Li would take the chance to secretly steal two pieces of meat from his box when he wasn’t paying attention. Then, feeling guilty, she would return one piece along with a big spoonful of rice.

She thought she moved quietly, but Chen Du always noticed.

He probably found her sneaky stealing quite funny. The corners of his lips would twitch, his eyes still fixed on the code on the screen, but one hand would leave the keyboard and gently push the meal toward her…

“How are you this greedy? I’ll get you one with two meat dishes next time.”

“I’m not greedy. I was just worried you couldn’t finish it. It’s not good to eat too much meat at night.”

“Oh, then thank you. You’re so kind.”

“…You’re welcome.”

…

The boxed meal was still the same kind, but the ordinary conversations in this space, along with the cheap desk, had faded in color.

Shi Li came back to her senses and sat on the edge of the desk, resting her chin in her hand as she watched Chen Du eat while working.

The screen showed the backend of Lin University’s academic system.

Professor Chen was grading student assignments. They were all electronic documents, lines and lines of code. He browsed them quickly, occasionally taking a bite of food. He sat like that for several hours.

Shi Li waited patiently for hours.

At eleven o’clock, she finally saw him finish grading the last assignment, but he didn’t shut the computer.

He opened a new blank document.

…This guy had way too much energy.

Shi Li drooped her shoulders and yawned, starting to count on her fingers what time he might finally go to bed.

But it was as if Chen Du was doing it on purpose.

He stared at the blank document for ten minutes, deep in thought.

Just when Shi Li was starting to get impatient, he finally began to type in the document, carefully selecting his words.

Maybe he wasn’t satisfied with what he wrote and deleted everything word by word.

In the silence of the deep night, Chen Du breathed softly. He rubbed his brow, his expression extremely serious.

Almost devout.

As if writing some kind of important work.

Shi Li sat on the floor, resting her chin in her hands as she watched him type a few more lines, still not satisfied.

The delete key clicked crisply, and the document was again left with only a few sentences.

The night grew deeper and darker, as if someone had poured a whole bottle of ink.

It was past midnight, already a new day.

Chen Du suddenly seemed a bit irritable. He tugged at his collar, his right hand absentmindedly combing his hair, lowering his head and letting out a heavy sigh.

As if he was afraid of not finishing some task.

Or maybe… he was very sad.

Chen Du sat silently for a while, finally calming himself, and reached for the water cup beside him—

It was empty.

He numbly stood up, holding the empty cup, and went to the living room.

Shi Li blinked as she watched his back.

What kind of thing could be so hard to write? Even someone as capable as Chen Du was troubled by it?

Shi Li floated over curiously and glanced at the screen—

But it wasn’t the profound thesis or complicated code she had imagined.

It was a black text on white background document. The simple combination of Chinese characters didn’t make any sense to Shi Li.

The title was—

“A Survival Guide for You”

The first line.

“I don’t know what year or month it’ll be when you wake up. Maybe this guide is already outdated, but it should still be somewhat useful. I hope you’ll have the patience to read it through.”

The second line.

“If you wake up earlier, there should still be some money in the account. The password is your birthday. I hope it’s enough to support you for a while.”

There was a lot of blank space in the middle, all deleted. No one knew what he was trying to write, writing with such difficulty, deleting and writing again.

After all that blank space, came the final two lines.

“I miss you so much.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t stay with you always. Take good care of yourself and live well.”

Shi Li tilted her head in confusion, completely lost, having no idea what it meant.

Before she could figure it out, a sudden bang came from the living room, followed by the sharp sound of breaking glass.

Shi Li was startled and rushed out instinctively.

In the pitch-black night, her vision was perfectly clear.

Someone was lying in the middle of the living room.

—Chen Du.

It was Chen Du lying there.