Midnight on the streets,
Streetlights, a hazy yellow,
People, restless and anxious.
The weather was cold, with a knife-like wind.

Zhou Ze also felt cold.
He didn't know where he was again,
But he knew one thing,
This was... the human realm.

He was already dead, but he had returned.
He didn't know what he should do,
He could only continue walking forward, mechanically and numbly.
He didn't have the time to think about too many other things now,
Like the place he had just descended to,
Like the old man he had rescued before the car accident,
Like the faceless woman in a red dress in the pool,
Like... his fingernails.

He had returned, which should have been a joyful thing, but even if people occasionally walked past him, even if he greeted them with all his might, no one could see him or hear him.

He was being ostracized and isolated by this world.

Those who haven't experienced "solitary confinement" won't understand the pain of being completely isolated. And for Zhou Ze, the entire world right now was his prison, a prison covered with a layer of black cloth.

No one could see him,
And no one could communicate with him.
He couldn't pick up anything solid,
Even,
The wind could easily blow right through him.

He was so weak,
The term "frail" was not an exaggeration at all when describing him.

And, what shocked and horrified Zhou Ze the most was,
He could see faint specks of light constantly flowing out of his body,
In other words,
His body was slowly fading away.

Perhaps in another quarter of an hour, he would completely disappear, erased without leaving even a trace.

He didn't know how all this had happened, but he knew that his time was truly running out.

In the Eight Immortals story, Tieguai Li (Iron Crutch Li) entered the body of a starving man who had collapsed, and thus became the image passed down through the ages.

Zhou Ze had also heard stories about ghosts "borrowing a corpse to return the soul." He also wanted to borrow a corpse, he was cold and flustered. He needed a body to cling to.

He didn't even care who that person was.

People were always selfish at times like these, and Zhou Ze was no exception. Moreover, he really couldn't take it anymore.

However, whenever he tried to approach someone, a fiery light would appear above that person's head and shoulders, preventing him from getting close. He even suffered damage as a result, accelerating his "evaporation."

He was a little tired, and a little numb.
He was waiting for his end,
Waiting for his demise.

As someone who had already died once, facing death again actually made him a little more accepting.

Moreover, given Zhou Ze's current situation, continuing to linger here, the longer he lingered, meant the longer he would suffer.

"Creak..."

Ahead, there was a store that was still lit up. It looked like a bookstore, because he could see rows of bookshelves through the glass door.

Someone pushed the door open and walked out. It was a man wearing a hoodie. The man was wearing a hat, and his face couldn't be seen clearly. He looked around for a while, then left in a hurry.

Of course, the man couldn't see Zhou Ze, who was standing less than five meters away from him.

Originally, Zhou Ze didn't feel anything unusual, but soon after the man left, Zhou Ze suddenly sensed a warm aura from the bookstore.

Yes,
A warm aura.

This warmth made Zhou Ze feel a little strange, but right now, he was like someone about to freeze to death suddenly getting a box of matches. Even if he knew that the matches wouldn't save his life, he would still strike them to feel the last bit of warmth before he died.

Zhou Ze walked towards that direction. His body passed directly through the glass door of the bookstore and continued inside, coming to the back of the bookshelves.

Behind the bookshelves,
There was a person lying down,
A handsome young man, probably around twenty-three or twenty-four years old. Because the store had the air conditioning on, he wasn't wearing many clothes, just a long-sleeved shirt and a thin jacket.

He was lying on the ground, but from him, Zhou Ze sensed a feeling of warmth, like a poor ghost who found a bag of gold coins on the road at night.

This attraction was irresistible, and Zhou Ze, right now, had no right to refuse!

Zhou Ze walked over and squatted down in front of the young man.

He didn't know how to enter the other person's body, but he understood how to make contact with the warmth he needed.

He stretched out a hand and placed it on the other person's chest.

Zhou Ze saw that his fingernails were slowly embedding themselves into the other person's body.

This was a very strange feeling, different from the "breeze" that had blown through his body when he was walking on the road before. This was a fusion, a fusion using his fingernails as a medium.

Slowly, Zhou Ze's entire being began to enter the other person's body. The two began to merge.

………………

"Xu Le! Wake up, wake up!"

Zhou Ze was woken up by a series of shoves, or rather, "stirred." He opened his eyes and found himself sitting behind the bookstore counter, with his hands pillowed on it.

"Hey, wake up!"

The woman's voice was sharp and high-pitched, with a commanding tone.

He raised his head and looked at the woman in front of him, or rather, a girl, probably around high school age. Although she was a big girl, she still had a bit of childishness about her.

"Hey, Xu Le, what exactly do you mean? You're getting bold, aren't you? You want to give my parents and my sister a hard time, don't you? You actually dared to not come home last night!

Who gave you the guts to do that!"

Xu Le?

Who was that?

Zhou Ze spread out his hands in a daze, and found that his hands were very smooth. His hands used to have some calluses because he had practiced using surgical instruments for a long time, but these hands didn't.

"Hey, I'm talking to you!"

The girl slapped the counter, looking fierce.

Zhou Ze frowned slightly, stood up, and walked to the glass mirror by the door. He saw his reflection, a strange face. No, he had seen this face before, it was the face he had seen last night.

This body,

Was it his now?

"Hey, what do you mean by this? My parents are angry, and my mom is still throwing a tantrum at home. Let me tell you, everything you eat, drink, and use now belongs to my family. What right does a live-in son-in-law like you have to put on airs in my house?

Who are you trying to show this to!

If you dare not come home again tonight, believe me, I'll come over and slap you!"

The girl made a gesture to raise her palm, but she suddenly realized that the man in front of her, her "brother-in-law," didn't dodge and beg for mercy as usual. On the contrary, the meaning in his eyes made her feel a little scared.

At this time, she looked at the time and realized that it was already 7:30.

"Hmph, I'm going to school now, I'll settle the score with you tonight!"

The girl stormed off.

Zhou Ze slowly sat back down in the chair behind his counter. There was an old laptop here, and a cell phone next to the laptop.

Even now, he still hadn't been able to adapt to his change in identity.

He was Zhou Ze, a well-known young surgeon in Tongcheng, and he was an orphan.

As a result,

He had become this person.

What did that girl just say?

He was... a live-in son-in-law?

He had a wife?

And a mother-in-law and father-in-law?

And judging from the attitude and tone of his sister-in-law just now, this "live-in son-in-law" really fit the good old traditions.

A live-in son-in-law, commonly known as a reverse marriage, was not only looked down upon by his wife's family, but was also looked down upon by everyone around him in ancient times. His status was almost the same as that of a criminal. During the Han and Tang dynasties, those who were forced to guard the borders often included zhui xu (live-in son-in-laws).

He picked up the cell phone. The phone wasn't password-protected. He didn't know if it was because that guy was lazy or didn't dare to set a password, but at least it made it easy for Zhou Ze to open his WeChat and QQ at this time.

There were very few people on the QQ list, mostly junior high school classmates, high school classmates, and college classmates. Then there was a list of family members, with only one person in it, labeled "Wife."

He opened the chat history with her on QQ, and it was empty.

Alright,

Zhou Ze opened WeChat and tried to find it. He found the woman labeled "Wife." There were replies here. Basically, Xu Le asked a lot of things, such as what to eat tonight, what to prepare tonight, how much money was needed to buy goods, how much money the bookstore had made recently, how his body was, and a whole bunch of other things.

And the other party's replies were often perfunctory and aloof,

Using:

"Oh"

"Mm"

"Okay"

To replace them.

Zhou Ze threw the phone aside. This interpersonal relationship was a bit complicated. He suddenly looked at his palm. His fingernails were no different from those of ordinary people.

But in the events of rescuing the old man who had strangled him before the car accident, escaping from the faceless woman in hell, and entering this guy's body, his fingernails had played an extremely crucial role.

As he willed it,

Just at this moment,

Zhou Ze found that his fingernails were slowly growing longer, and at the same time, they became jet-black and translucent. There was even a faint black mist lingering on his nails.

"Hoo..."

He breathed a long sigh of relief,

Closed his eyes,

And when he opened them again,

His fingernails had returned to normal.

From morning until noon, Zhou Ze sat there trying to adapt to his new identity, and also trying to smooth out the discomfort brought about by his change in identity. He didn't even eat lunch, he didn't know if he had forgotten or if he simply didn't feel hungry.

This was still Tongcheng. Zhou Ze's former home was in Chongchuan District, and he was now in Gangzha District, not far away.

In the afternoon, Zhou Ze finally sighed and silently stood up. He might as well make the best of it.

He began to try to clean up the bookshelves. In any case, he would find something to do for himself first.

The old man who had strangled him before his death had said, "He's been discovered," and the faceless woman in hell had said, "You'll be caught sooner or later," which made Zhou Ze feel a bit of a crisis.

His current state could be considered "living on borrowed time." To be resurrected after death was a stroke of luck, so he cherished it. At least, before he fully understood the situation and grasped enough clues, he had to take on this identity, preferably without causing too much abnormality, and without attracting the attention of those "who wanted to catch him."

The business of this store was really bad. The decline of the traditional book market had long been a long-standing issue, and this place wasn't on a prime street in front of a school.

It could only be said that the fact that "Xu Le" chose to open a bookstore here, whether he could break even was a question.

It wasn't until three o'clock in the afternoon that the first customer of the day walked in.

The customer wandered around the elementary school children's books section, and wandered for a long time.

Zhou Ze waited for a while, then walked over and asked, "What genre are you looking for?"

Although, Zhou Ze didn't understand either.

"Just looking around," the other person replied.

"Mm," Zhou Ze stopped paying attention to him. He hadn't yet integrated himself into the role of "bookstore owner."

But just then,

The other person suddenly walked behind him and said faintly:

"You really don't recognize me anymore?"

"What?" Zhou Ze asked.

"Last night, I hit you on the head with a baseball bat and robbed you of your money.

And I even specifically checked,

You clearly didn't have any breath left at that time."