An exhausted, listless office drone from the city x an earnest, country bumpkin ghost
After graduating, Jiang Bozhou got a job at a major tech company and became a corporate workhorse.
He felt as if someone was sucking all the yang energy out of him every day.
On the Ghost Festival, he caught the male ghost in his rental apartment.
After making nineteen visits to the psychiatric department and consulting six spiritual masters, Jiang Bozhou accepted that Chen Shaonian was real.
He asked Chen Shaonian three questions:
First, if you're a ghost, does that mean you don't have to pay rent?
Second, if you're going to drain me, you don't have to suck me completely dry, do you?
Third, what grudge do you have against me? Or do you have some unfinished business?
Chen Shaonian answered all three:
First, what's rent?
Second, I didn't drain you dry! Is there another ghost outside? That one called “work,” is it?
Third, I don't know. Given how things are going,
maybe we were a couple in our past life and even kissed.
Jiang Bozhou: ...People were this open-minded back in feudal times?
A country bumpkin of a ghost, he doesn't know about paying three months' rent up front, workplace attendance, or shampoo.
He doesn't even know who he was or why he became a ghost.
He washes his face with soap and waits at home for Jiang Bozhou to finish work.
He eats the food delivered by the mysterious people in yellow and orange.
All Jiang Bozhou did was show him how to order takeout and adjust the water heater.
The country ghost lit up and praised him for being so amazing!
Jiang Bozhou said you had to wear a suit to important events.
So Chen Shaonian went looking for a “suit” to wear, hoping Jiang Bozhou could see his true form.
Jiang Bozhou got home and took one look. Good heavens, why was there a Western ghost in his house?
Chen Shaonian came over draped in a sheet of ghost skin, all skin and bones beneath it.
Jiang Bozhou saw his tall, broad-shouldered, sturdy ghost roommate, with his narrow waist and long legs,
and realized he was in serious trouble!
Once he gained a physical body, the male ghost started cooking in an apron.
He was even the perfect traditional homemaker ghost.
At night, the ghost sat on Jiang Bozhou's chest. Jiang Bozhou couldn't breathe, and the ghost fed on his yang energy.
Chen Shaonian: Here comes the ghost pressing down on you.
Jiang Bozhou: Look at the figure other ghosts have... and then look at yours... Don't you know the difference?
Chen Shaonian: Why are you grumpier than a ghost every day?
Jiang Bozhou: Hello, I'm a working adult.
Chen Shaonian thought Jiang Bozhou was embarrassed by him. City people all liked tiny wives, so he decided to leave Jiang Bozhou's life.
When Jiang Bozhou came home from work, the ghost was gone, and he panicked.
The country ghost didn't even know how to read traffic lights. Where could he have gone?
What if a Taoist caught him?
When Jiang Bozhou found Chen Shaonian, the ghost was crying all alone.
“Let's go home.”
“Let's see if we can find out who you were when you were alive.”
“Maybe we really did promise each other something in our past life, for this one.”
Reading Guide:
A lighthearted, healing little sweet romance, with a tearjerker or two in their past lives.
Each other's first and only love, in this life and every life.
August 9, 2026
Theme: Cherish life and take love seriously.
