“Not a thriller?” Xia Yu asked in surprise.
“No more thrillers. I’m writing a detective story now,” Wen Ziying replied.
“How can you deduce anything from this? Where’s your outline?” Xia Yu flipped through the manuscript.
Following Wen Ziying’s guidance, Xia Yu quickly found the story outline.
The outline was quite detailed. Xia Yu glanced through it and felt speechless.
The male protagonist became a couple with a girl he met by chance, but she only met him at night, claiming she was too busy during the day.
After a week of getting to know each other, the male protagonist felt something was off and turned to his best friend, who was a tech geek obsessed with hacking into classified files. One day, while investigating a recent string of murders online, the friend casually helped check out the girl and discovered she had given a fake name to the male protagonist.
Through subsequent dates, the male protagonist subtly questioned the girl and even took her photo.
After providing all this information to his friend, the male protagonist finally learned the girl’s true identity—she had died last month.
Recalling his girlfriend only appeared at night and had some eerie behaviors, the male protagonist was terrified. He vowed never to see the ghost again and even brought home a Buddha statue, Taoist talismans, and a cross.
However, he couldn’t stand being fussed over by his left and right sides for more than five days. After a hospital checkup confirmed he was physically fine, he concluded she must be a good ghost and decided to reunite with her.
Their relationship quickly deepened. When his friend found out, he immediately tried to stop the male protagonist and invited many monks and Taoist priests to exorcise him, but nothing worked.
For his girlfriend’s safety, the male protagonist changed their meeting location.
Gradually, he noticed his girlfriend would disappear for a day or two before reappearing, with injuries and a tired expression.
He sensed something was wrong. After she vanished for a whole week, he sought out a famous monk.
The monk, however, was a fraud. Hearing the male protagonist’s story, he was confused, thinking the guy was delusional. He told him this was the consequence of a ghost lingering in the human world and being affected by yang energy. The solution was simple: use his talismans to capture the female ghost, dig up her ashes, reunite her soul with her bones, and nourish her spirit with the bones.
The male protagonist felt he couldn’t handle it alone, so he enlisted his friend. During another meeting with his girlfriend, he tied her up and applied the monk’s talisman. Sure enough, she couldn’t break free.
Together, they put her in the trunk and drove to her burial site.
They dug up the urn and, following the monk’s instructions, pressed the girl against the urn to send her back.
However, no matter how hard they pressed her face toward the urn, nothing happened. As they struggled, dawn approached. According to the monk, once daylight came, the girl’s soul would dissipate, no matter where she hid.
When the sun rose, the male protagonist cried loudly, hugging his girlfriend tightly for one last moment of warmth. Surprisingly, she was unaffected by the sunlight.
Confused, the male protagonist tore off the tape on her mouth. Tears streaming down her face, the girl screamed: “I’m the murderer! I’m the murderer! What exactly do you want from me?”
The outline ended abruptly here.
Based on the previous context, Xia Yu guessed that the girlfriend was the serial killer his friend had investigated. Her disappearances were due to her committing murders, and her injuries were from fighting. The reason the records showed she was dead was because she had staged her death.
Looking at the manuscript in his hand, Xia Yu asked Wen Ziying, “You call this a detective novel?”
“It could also be a comedy,” Wen Ziying replied casually.
“This isn’t suitable as a novel. It would work better as a comedy movie,” Xia Yu commented.
“Whatever. I’m writing it this way,” Wen Ziying insisted.
It was her pen, so Xia Yu couldn’t stop her. Besides, he secretly hoped Wen Ziying would fail so he could complete his mission.
Picking up the manuscript again, Xia Yu suggested adding a plot where the male protagonist and his friend try to verify whether the girlfriend is a ghost, using various coincidences to deepen their misunderstandings.
Nodding, Wen Ziying worked with him to revise the outline.
Three hours later, Wen Ziying significantly altered the plot, letting the girlfriend reveal herself as human to readers from the beginning, while the male protagonist and his friend remained unaware. This completely transformed the novel’s tone into something absurd and silly.
Late at night, Xia Yu put down the manuscript and went to bed.
He looked forward to seeing what kind of story Wen Ziying would ultimately create.
At six in the morning, he returned to his own body.
After stretching lazily, Xia Yu’s excitement from the previous night faded, and he began worrying about meeting Xu Youxiang.
Better to end it quickly than prolong the pain. Problems only caused more trouble when left unresolved; facing them was the only solution.
He got out of bed, packed his suitcase, and sat on the living room sofa, waiting.
At seven, Youxue came out of her room to prepare breakfast and was startled to see Xia Yu on the sofa.
“What’s wrong?” Xia Yu looked at Youxue.
Approaching him, Youxue reached out to check Xia Yu’s pockets and then had him stand up while she examined the sofa.
Finding nothing, she rubbed her chin and looked at Xia Yu.
“Where did you hide the snacks?” she asked.
Tapping Youxue’s head, Xia Yu countered, “Just because I got up early means I’m sneaking snacks?”
“You did it last time,” Youxue insisted it was his fault.
“Go away,” Xia Yu shooed the girl off.
At 7:30, An Siyao came out of the bedroom, and the three had breakfast together.
Taking the black cat and two hamsters with them, the three left home again, heading toward Yaoguang.
Xia Yu handed the two pets to a taxi driver for delivery while he and the two girls took the high-speed train, arriving at Yaoguang first.
In front of the Yu family villa, Xia Yu gave Youxue the driver’s phone number to receive the cat and hamsters and went to Xu Youxiang’s place.
Xu Youxiang didn’t live in Yu Liang’s villa but had rented an apartment outside.
It was an ordinary high-rise apartment. Xia Yu took the elevator to the 23rd floor.
Standing in front of the door, he pressed the doorbell.
The door quickly opened, revealing Xu Youxiang sitting in a wheelchair, cradling a baby. Xia Yu’s expression darkened.
In Xu Youxiang’s arms was a small infant.
Xia Yu reflected, trying to recall when he had been with Xu Youxiang like this—had they drunk alcohol? Had she moved too fast?
But these weren’t the main issues. Taking a step forward, Xia Yu grabbed Xu Youxiang’s hand: “I’ll take responsibility for the child.”
Xu Youxiang, who had originally looked gloomy, couldn’t help but laugh at his words: “Don’t joke around. Did my sister ask you to take care of the child?”
Xia Yu visited Xu Youxiang once or twice every week and knew the child wasn’t hers. However, he hadn’t expected it to be her younger sister’s.
“Your father must have worked hard,” Xia Yu teased, poking the baby’s face.
“Yeah, unlike someone I know,” Xu Youxiang replied.
Frowning slightly, Xia Yu sensed a hidden meaning in her words.
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