*
Lan Yin woke up to find herself in a parallel world.
Compared to her original world, two things were different here.
First, the world was overrun with the uncanny, and inhuman creatures beyond all reason lurked everywhere.
Second, there was her deskmate, Wei Xue.
In her original world, Wei Xue had died in a car accident not long ago. He had been gloomy and taciturn, and he and Lan Yin had barely interacted.
But here, Lan Yin had not only led the class in ostracizing him, she was also the culprit behind his death.
Now, after a wrongful, gruesome death and a transformation into a monster, he had returned for revenge.
*
Wei Xue came from a poor family. An accident when he was young had left him with a disabled right leg, and he was constantly shunned by others.
When the bullies threw his mother's keepsake into the hills behind the school, he went looking for it alone and was attacked by a monster hunting for food.
As he lay dying, Wei Xue bit off mouthful after mouthful of its flesh and swallowed it, becoming something inhuman.
What should have followed was the usual tale of a vengeful ghost claiming lives. Instead, fragments of memories that did not belong to him began flooding into his mind.
On a bitterly cold winter day, he came down with a fever and lay there in a daze. Someone gently poked his arm twice, and Lan Yin handed him a box of fever medicine.
In his secret diary, over and over, he carefully wrote the same name: Lan Yin, Lan Yin, Lan Yin.
On a quiet afternoon, he dozed with his head on his desk, his gaze slipping past the crook of his arm toward Lan Yin's profile, like a shy, delicate feather.
It was all so fake, like something that could only happen in another world.
Something must be wrong with this body, which had only just died.
Lan Yin had bullied him, mocked him, and caused his death.
How could he possibly have been secretly in love with her like a dog?
To escape these inexplicable memories, Wei Xue decided to take her life as soon as possible.
That night.
In the room where Lan Yin sat alone, a chill crept up her spine and pressed against her body.
A hand silently tightened around her throat, icy and pale as a corpse's.
The evil spirit stared coldly at the tears in her eyes, his expression blank and his pupils pitch-black.
A second before he crushed her windpipe, a memory suddenly awakened.
Midsummer, a dense forest, a steep slope hidden by grass.
Everything was so unfamiliar. The only thing he recognized was Lan Yin, who had fallen down the slope, blood seeping from her legs, and was looking at him through tear-filled eyes as she called his name:
"Wei Xue..."
Then came his own voice, cool and tense as he comforted her:
"Don't cry. I'll carry you back."
What a pathetic thing.
The evil spirit watched coldly, thinking with disgust that this could not possibly be him.
[Reading Guide]
1. A ghost-phobic, stoic crybaby x a ghost who hates her, loves her, and clings to her. The ghost will gradually recall memories of her from the parallel world.
2. A bittersweet, tangled, and suspenseful campus romance, full of love and hate (?). A short, relationship-focused story.
Theme: Treat others kindly and study hard.
