“Doctor! Doctor! I’m begging you on my knees! Please save my child, doctor!”
The woman’s desperate cries echoed in his ears.
Wei Xicheng slightly opened his eyes, but his eyelids felt as heavy as if they were carrying a thousand pounds—no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t lift them.
He heard the doctor’s voice say, “We’ve done our best. The patient’s condition is not optimistic… You should prepare yourselves mentally.”
As soon as those words were spoken, the woman’s cries grew even louder, making his ears ache. Suddenly, a powerful force crashed into him, as if someone had thrown themselves onto his body.
Sure enough, in the next second, the woman’s voice exploded right beside his ear.
“Chengcheng! Wake up and look at Mommy! No matter what troubles you’re facing, tell Mommy! Open your eyes and look at me!”
Wei Xicheng couldn’t move at all. He could only let the woman grab his hand and press it against her face. The dampness soaking into the back of his hand sent a deep, sorrowful sensation into his heart.
He tried to block out the woman’s cries and focus on processing the storyline. Once he understood what had happened, he couldn’t help but want to hold the woman’s hand. She was a mother who genuinely cared about her child—but that child had endured far more than he should have.
The original owner of this body was also named Wei Xicheng, which made him feel a little strange. The original was only eighteen years old, having just graduated from high school, yet he looked like an old man in his seventies or eighties—haggard, pale, and emotionally numb.
The system also told him that this body wasn’t acquired through a soul exchange; rather, the original owner had just died—by suicide—at the moment Wei Xicheng arrived.
For a brief moment, a heavy feeling settled in Wei Xicheng’s heart, because this was not a happy world.
On the surface, the original owner had grown up in a seemingly perfect family. His parents had stable jobs, his grandparents were still alive, and he had never encountered any major hardships in life.
Yet despite this background, he became more withdrawn with each passing day, growing colder and more distant.
His family noticed something was wrong, but no matter how they tried to communicate with him, they never got an answer. Eventually, when they couldn’t understand his behavior, his parents assumed it was just a phase of adolescence. They even hired a psychologist to help him, but it was useless.
From the information he had, Wei Xicheng could tell that the original owner was aware of his family’s concern. However, what he had experienced was something he simply couldn’t bring himself to speak about.
If he told them that he could see ghosts, his parents probably wouldn’t hire a psychologist for him—they would send him straight to a psychiatric hospital instead.
At least, that was what the original owner had believed.
To Wei Xicheng, the original owner’s thoughts and personality seemed extreme. He understood his family’s concern, but he couldn’t fully trust them. He feared what he saw, yet he bore the burden alone like an adult…
Such an obsessive child ultimately chose to end his own life on his eighteenth birthday.
After living in fear for over a decade, the original owner became withdrawn and antisocial. Yet, deep in his heart, he still yearned for light and beautiful things.
The original owner had fallen for a boy in his class—the class’s little school idol, Lin Yan.
Lin Yan had good grades, excelled in sports, and was well-liked by everyone. So, the original owner often wondered: if he couldn’t see those filthy things, could he have lived as happily as Lin Yan?
People tend to desire what they can never have. The original owner’s admiration for Lin Yan gradually took on a different nature. His prolonged attention and constant gazes did not go unnoticed by others.
Teenagers often don’t realize how hurtful their words can be. They joked recklessly about Lin Yan and the original owner, unaware that each word was like a knife slicing into his heart.
If it had only been that, perhaps he wouldn’t have given up on life so easily.
But the final straw was the transfer student who suddenly joined their class—He Cheng.
He Cheng quickly blended in with the boys and girls of the class. When he first saw the original owner, he even tried to start a conversation, but a boy beside him immediately pulled him back.
“Him? He likes our Lin Yan. Doesn’t even take a good look at himself.”
“Don’t bother with him. He’s weird.”
“He’s the wandering ghost of our class, hehe.”
“Let’s go, let’s go, time to play ball.”
In the original owner’s memory, He Cheng had looked at him deeply upon hearing those words. In the end, he, too, chose to ignore him.
That wasn’t the worst part.
The worst part was that the original owner discovered He Cheng’s secret—a secret that was both the same and different from his own.
He Cheng could also see ghosts. But unlike the original owner, he wasn’t afraid. Instead, when no one was around, he would joke and play around with the ghosts surrounding him.
Hidden in a corner, the original owner watched as He Cheng laughed and joked with the spirits. The negative emotions in his heart grew like wild grass.
And when he saw He Cheng and Lin Yan getting closer—casually slinging their arms around each other’s shoulders, easily obtaining the warmth he could never even touch—those emotions reached their peak.
He needed relief. He would go mad.
Their names both ended with Cheng—Chengcheng and Chengcheng—yet their lives were complete opposites.
After taking in the entire plot, Wei Xicheng’s eyes snapped open.
The sight before him made his pupils shrink.
A female ghost with disheveled hair was hanging upside down in front of him. Her blood-red eyes glowed eerily, blackened blood oozed from her seven facial orifices, and her long tongue nearly reached his face.
Disgusting and terrifying.
Wei Xicheng closed his eyes and reopened them, forcing himself to ignore the ghost.
Reading the storyline let him experience the original owner’s emotions, but now, he had to experience them in reality.
“Chengcheng!” A voice filled with joy rang out.
The woman hastily stood up, wiping her tears as she loudly called for the doctor.
After getting a response, she grabbed Wei Xicheng’s hand. “Are you feeling unwell anywhere, Chengcheng? Tell Mom, and I’ll get the doctor to help you. Don’t be scared, okay?”
Wei Xicheng shook his head at his mother and forced a weak smile. “I… I don’t want to die anymore.”
His throat was dry and hoarse from not speaking for so long, and even uttering those few words caused him immense pain.
“Good, good, Mom understands. Chengcheng, don’t talk anymore. Just rest, everything will be okay soon.”
As she spoke, large tears once again fell from her eyes.
She had only one son. Watching him grow more and more withdrawn as he aged, only to now attempt suicide—how could she possibly feel at ease? How could she not blame herself?
“Don’t… cry.”
Wei Xicheng weakly lifted his hand, struggling to wipe away his mother’s tears.
His body was incredibly frail—even such a simple action took all his strength.
“Okay, I won’t cry.”
His mother wiped her tears away and forced a smile. “Your dad will be here soon. In a couple of days, when you’re better, we’ll go home. You can do whatever you want, but you can’t be so reckless again, okay?”
Afraid that her son might have another moment of weakness, she spoke a little more than usual. Only after finishing did she realize that he had just survived a brush with death. She quickly shut her mouth, not wanting to irritate him.
She looked at the boy lying on the hospital bed—his pale face carrying a reassuring smile—and felt a deep ache in her heart.
As a mother, she had failed. She didn’t even realize how much psychological pressure her son had been under. Just thinking about it made her heart ache terribly.
Though her son was now safe, her heart remained uneasy.
The doctor conducted another thorough examination on Wei Xicheng. In the end, he concluded that the boy had been saved by his strong will to live. He informed his mother that while Wei Xicheng’s condition was stable, his body was still weak and required careful recovery.
His mother nodded repeatedly, meticulously noting down every key point the doctor mentioned.
Ultimately, for this small family, the original owner’s actions had caused the greatest upheaval they had experienced in the past twenty years.
For the time being, no one paid attention to Wei Xicheng. He shifted his gaze back to the female ghost in front of him.
He was not that eighteen-year-old boy.
He had weathered too many storms. The countless worlds he had experienced had granted him an unshakable composure.
He wasn’t afraid, because from the storyline, he knew that although the original owner had yin-yang eyes, a powerful master had once used his body as a vessel to create a protective formation when he was young.
Any ghost that tried to harm him—unless it was more powerful than that master—would ultimately be destroyed, their soul scattered completely.
As a result, the wandering ghosts all knew that he could see them, and they loved to appear before him to scare him for fun. But they never dared to cross the line—they wouldn’t actively seek death.
The original owner had long since forgotten this, being too young at the time. Even his parents barely remembered that so-called “wandering charlatan.”
Wei Xicheng narrowed his eyes, studying the female ghost closely. His stare made her a little uneasy.
She bared her teeth and stretched out her bony hands, pretending to grab his neck.
“Chengcheng, the doctor said you shouldn’t eat right now, but you can drink some water.”
Wei Xicheng turned his head toward his mother.
The female ghost also retracted her hands. She had only been playing around—she never truly intended to seek death here.
“Mm.” Wei Xicheng replied with a single syllable.
“Don’t speak. Just nod or shake your head when I ask, okay?”
His hoarse voice pained his mother.
She gently propped him up as if handling a fragile doll, then brought a straw to his lips. “Open your mouth. You don’t have the strength right now—I’ll hold the cup for you.”
As he drank, Wei Xicheng glanced at the ghost again from the corner of his eye.
Now that there was some distance, he could see her full form.
She wore a hospital gown stained with specks of blood. Her messy hair covered most of her face, and her long tongue had been retracted. She was sitting on the windowsill, watching his interaction with his mother.
Noticing his gaze, she immediately stuck out her red tongue and spread her arms as if she were about to lunge.
Wei Xicheng quickly averted his eyes.
He had already made some calculations.
If He Cheng could get along with ghosts, then it was clear these spirits had their own consciousness. The extent of their intelligence was still uncertain, but judging by this long-haired ghost’s actions, she didn’t seem to have the reasoning ability of a normal adult.
Perhaps intelligence was linked to power.
“Rest well. If you have any questions, we’ll talk when you’re better. Don’t shoulder everything alone—you still have your parents.”
His mother stroked his head, set the cup down, and helped him lie back down.
Then, she sat beside him, watching over him.
She was afraid that if she looked away for even a second, she would lose the son she had only just regained.
Wei Xicheng glanced at the dark circles under her eyes and the strands of white hair on her head. His heart softened.
Obediently, he closed his eyes.
