Southern Archives: Forced into Love by Black Shrimp and White Shrimp

Dual male leads + mind-reading + split personality + Xia-Yan HE.

In the miasma-ridden Nanyang of the Republican era, Zhang Hailou of the Zhang family's Southern Archives accidentally inhales a mutagenic toxin while breaking into the Evil God's ancestral temple. When he wakes, he discovers that whenever he makes physical contact with Zhang Haixia, he can hear his thoughts.

He means to pry into the secrets of Zhang Haixia, the “greatest mind in Nanyang,” but one touch exposes a shocking secret:

[His hand is scraped and bleeding. Did he get hurt protecting me just now? I really want to lick it clean for him.]

[Lou Lou is so close. I want to pin him to the altar and kiss him, but now isn't the time. What a nuisance.]

[I want to lock you in the Archives' basement and chain you up, where only I can look at you.]

Zhang Hailou is struck like a bolt of lightning!

Only then does he discover that Zhang Haixia, so pure and serene, has developed a wildly possessive, unhinged personality called “Black Xia” after being poisoned by a strange toxin!

Meanwhile, the original personality, “White Xia,” is figuring out how to sacrifice himself to keep Zhang Hailou safe:

[I'd rather die ten thousand times myself than let you get hurt even a little.]

[I'm covered in toxic fluid, and my wounds have already rotted. I can't let him touch me. He'll catch it.]

[If my death can save Zhang Hailou, then dying ten thousand times would be worth it.]

One wants to drag him into the abyss and keep him imprisoned for life. The other is fighting with everything he has to push him toward a way out.

A ghost village of water demons, a phantom ocean liner, and a series of interlocking mysteries in Nanyang.

Zhang Hailou gives a cold laugh, knife in hand. “Zhang Haixia, I don't care whether you're White Xia or Black Xia. You're mine. Whatever this Nanyang conspiracy throws at us, I'll fight my way through it with you!”