◎ Princess Bed. ◎

Chen Du finished showering and only opened the door after changing into his home clothes in the bathroom. The steaming mist drifted out through the crack of the door, hitting Shi Li’s face.

Shi Li couldn’t help but curl her lips.

You damn man, wrapping up like this in your own home, what’s the point?

Shi Li “leaned” on the doorframe, watching him wash up with great interest.

Chen Du opened a new tube of toothpaste from the cabinet under the sink, brushing his teeth while playing a podcast.

Well, look at that—it’s all in English. Impressive.

Shi Li listened for a bit but didn’t understand a word.

The underworld was different from the human world. It didn’t distinguish race, nationality, or belief. The dead were a messy mix. There was a bunch of foreign ghosts stationed around her.

At first, she was excited, planning to make friends with the ghosts next door. Wouldn’t it be like studying abroad without leaving home?—She had missed the postgraduate exam line by just two points, and English was her weakest subject.

But before she could take action, she suddenly realized.

She was already dead. Still thinking about learning English?

No wonder so many students and workers lived just fine, yet she died suddenly.

She really was completely messed up in the head.

So the plan was shelved.

After five years of giving up, the English vocabulary she used to recite late into the night was all gone from memory. Truly, nothing is brought with you in birth or death.

…Fortunately, Chen Du’s English torture didn’t last long.

After brushing his teeth and rinsing the white foam off his fingers, he silenced his phone.

The washroom suddenly fell into complete silence.

Faint honking came from outside the window, cold and mechanical. The world was even busier than it had been five years ago.

Chen Du suddenly lowered his head, the base of his palm resting on the edge of the sink. Warm water droplets slid from his hair, down his nose, and into the drain.

In the mirror, only his dark hair and tense jaw were visible. He stared quietly at the wall, as if deep in thought.

Shi Li floated behind him, puzzled as she looked at him.

Five years apart, how had this man gotten weirder and gloomier?

Back in university, Chen Du was already an odd person. Handsome, yes, but always cold and lacking warmth. Now he seemed even more off…

How to describe it… Chen Du now seemed more like a ghost than she did.

Shi Li almost pressed her face to his, carefully observing him.

About a minute later, Chen Du raised his head again. His fair face cast a clear reflection in the mirror.

He placed the black toothbrush in his hand beside the white electric toothbrush on the counter, adjusting their position so they stood side by side precisely.

The two toothbrushes looked like two upright sentinels, standing guard left and right.

He seemed pleased, the corners of his lips lifting slightly, as he affectionately touched the cap of the white toothbrush.

That kind of touch was very gentle, like ruffling someone’s hair.

“…”

Damn it. Even in death, she had to witness people showing affection.

Shi Li stormed out of the bathroom, pouting and “sat” on the couch, sulking.

It really wasn’t her being petty.

Fine, date all you want, but wasn’t this guy being too much of a hypocrite?

Back then, she bought a pink electric toothbrush during a Double Eleven sale and thought it was pretty good, so she wanted to get him a matching blue one. He didn’t agree.

—The next day, there was a whole pack of ten-yuan toothbrushes at home.

Just knew he’d choose practicality. Not a shred of romance…

…Bullshit!

What, pink and blue is too tacky, but black and white looks classy? Or was the new girlfriend really so beautiful he was lovestruck enough to feel aroused just looking at a toothbrush?

Totally playing favorites!

Too much! And that brand—it was the one she had wanted most back then but couldn’t afford! Almost a thousand yuan for a single toothbrush—what a waste!

Shi Li “ground” her nonexistent teeth, sulking alone for half an hour, then started to feel bored.

Forget it.

There was only one living person in this apartment right now. All the love and hatred of her past life should be buried. She still needed him to “carry” her outside to have fun.

The rules of soul projection were clear. As a soul, her range of movement was limited to this apartment. If she wanted to go beyond the spatial limits around it, she had to “possess” a living being.

—And the only living being in this apartment was Chen Du.

This was her only goal now.

Back when the underworld supervisor announced the prize results, he clearly stated that the reward would end under only two conditions.

Either she fulfilled her unfinished regrets and obsessions from life and returned to the underworld.

Or, wait for her turn to reincarnate, or spend six million underworld coins to be reborn as a human.

When she heard those two options, she couldn’t help but roll her eyes and stubbornly asked the supervisor, “But I don’t have any obsession. How can I complete it?”

The supervisor gave her a cold glance. “You do.”

…Great. So whatever you say goes?

Even in death, she was being PUA-ed.

This world is like that—underworld or human world, all the same damned thing.

So the first path was cut off.

And the second one… If she didn’t have to wait eighty-two years, or if she had that six million, would she even be in this mess? Asking to die?

Shi Li curled up on the couch, rubbed her nonexistent hair, and sighed deeply.

After washing up, Chen Du walked into his room—this apartment only had one bedroom, the same room Shi Li used to have.

Behind the door, the room was completely silent.

Shi Li waited five minutes, confirmed he probably wasn’t doing anything weird, and floated inside through the door.

Being a ghost had one benefit—enhanced night vision.

The curtains were drawn, and the lights were off. It was pitch dark. When she was alive, she wouldn’t have been able to see a thing.

But now, Shi Li could clearly see Chen Du lying quietly on the right side of the bed, eyes closed, chest rising and falling evenly.

For some reason, his skin looked even paler than before.

Shi Li used to envy Chen Du’s good skin—it was evenly fair, no sunspots, no acne. But now looking at his complexion, it seemed too pale—unhealthily so.

He really… looked more like a ghost than her.

Still handsome, though.

Shi Li’s eyes swirled mischievously as she shamelessly took in the view of his straight high nose bridge, the sexy sharp Adam’s apple, the prominent and tense collarbone, admiring the free show of a handsome man asleep—then suddenly remembered something, and her expression turned ugly.

After all, they had been together for two years, and were in the prime of youth. Even if the feelings were average, physically they matched. Shi Li wasn’t prudish—she wanted it too, so they had done pretty much everything.

But!

…Shi Li’s eyes landed on that old iron-framed princess-style bed and rolled her eyes.

That bed was the one they had picked out together at IKEA when they first moved in.

Shi Li had liked the flamboyant Barbie princess style since she was little. Unfortunately, there were few rooms in the house—one for her parents, and she had to squeeze into one with her brother on a bunk bed.

Later, when her brother grew up and wanted a room of his own, their parents partitioned a corner of the balcony and moved Shi Li there.

That space was only a few square meters, barely enough for a simple wooden single bed. As for a princess bed, she was tactful enough not to even mention it.

So, when Shi Li and Chen Du were browsing IKEA and she saw that creamy white European-style wrought iron bed frame, she couldn’t take her eyes off it. She tugged at his sleeve desperately and kept winking at him.

When Chen Du saw the wrought iron roses on the headboard, he frowned hard and looked like he had swallowed a fly, wanting to say something but holding back. In the end, he said nothing, used part of his internship salary, and bought it.

IKEA was in the suburbs. Neither of them had a car. Chen Du rented a battered pickup truck and transported her beloved princess bed and a matching white vanity back “home.”

At the time, Chen Du had just gotten his driver’s license. Shi Li sat in the passenger seat, gripping the handle tightly with little trust. Every turn made her jump, afraid the bed would be shaken to pieces.

But he seemed to be doing it on purpose, driving unsteadily and suddenly braking now and then. The iron bed danced happily in the back of the pickup truck, clanking and rattling.

Back to the point.

Shi Li snapped out of it, rolled her eyes again, and glared at the man lying stiffly and properly on the bed.

Tch, so stingy. Not only did he move in with his new girlfriend into the place they used to live, he didn’t even change the bed?

Same bed, different person rolling in it. Didn’t that bother him at all?

Also, he just went to sleep like that?

Didn’t he send his girlfriend a goodnight message before sleeping? He was just as cold as before.

This kind of person, if not for that face, would definitely be single for life.

Shi Li squatted by the bed, propped up her chin, and stared at him for a while longer. She yawned in boredom, turned her head to look at the window, but the outside world was tightly wrapped by curtains, not a hint of light coming through.

So boring.

Shi Li’s eyes shifted, scooted two steps closer to the bed, then suddenly chuckled twice and leaned over, reaching a wicked hand toward the handsome guy’s chest.

The underworl supervisor had told her that if she wanted to use a living person as a “vessel” to roam the human world, it had to be when the vessel’s “soul” was unconscious, meaning asleep.

If the vessel became conscious, then her soul would automatically leave and return to the apartment.

So wasn’t now the perfect time? Chen Du had just fallen asleep. He definitely wouldn’t wake up so soon.

Shi Li squinted her eyes, leaned down slowly, and reached out to “hug” Chen Du.

Of course, she didn’t touch anything. But in the next second, she suddenly felt a steady and strong heartbeat, as if coming from her own chest. Then, her limbs seemed to have warm blood flowing through them.

Shi Li opened her eyes and pressed her long fingers against her aching temples. Sure enough, it was pitch black around her. She stretched out a hand and waved it, seeing nothing.

Using Chen Du’s eyes, she couldn’t see through this heavy darkness.