My Days Scraping By in Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio

Yu Chu died suddenly after staying up late at a young age. When she opened her eyes, she found herself lying in a coffin in a tattered red wedding dress, clutching a dead fox.

She was also a nameless person who coughed up blood from time to time and could come back to life even after being killed.

After finally scraping together enough money from selling coffins to settle herself and the dead fox, she stood in an unfamiliar world, feeling the few copper coins left in her pocket. Seeing how backward medicine was in this ancient era, where someone in the village died all the time, she swallowed her grief and took up the trade passed down by her ancestors: funeral services.

From then on, she did odd jobs by day and spent her nights transporting and cremating the dead. Her life was finally starting to get comfortable, and she even managed to bring the little fox back to life.

Her wonderful days were just about to begin!

On another dark, windy night, perfect for transporting a corpse, she dozed off for just a moment. A chilling wind blew, her neck went cold, and she was killed!

Calmly pretending to be dead, she narrowed her eyes and saw a blue-faced, fanged yaksha standing before her. The human skin dangling from its hand belonged to her client.

As she stared in shock, a Taoist priest came chasing after it.

Yu Chu calmly thought, Oh, so that's why people keep dying around here. This is a Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio kind of world.

Once she figured that out, the shock was so overwhelming that she fainted.

Now even more careful about staying alive, she kept unexpectedly ending up in strange situations: coming across a lost little fox from the Hu family, or a pilgrim who had died unexpectedly...

The little fox was obedient, all right, but why did it seem stranger and stranger the more she looked at it?

Content warnings:

1. The female lead isn't an ordinary person. She has dealt with the dead since childhood, so her temperament is different from that of an average person. Don't judge her from the perspective of an ordinary girl!

2. This is a mildly frightening world of ghosts and spirits. Please avoid it if that's not your thing.

3. The female lead is reborn as a nonhuman being, nonhuman! The setting includes author-created details, and she'll have all kinds of strange abilities!

4. This is a story about surviving at all costs. The female lead will get killed, so please avoid it if that's not your thing.

Check out my upcoming novel in my author column: I Made My Childhood Friend Cry Again [Female Alpha, Male Omega]

Su Mu and Lin Shen are childhood friends and have been neighbors for fifteen years.

One is a rich kid born to a nouveau riche family, while the other was born into a prestigious family with a century-long scholarly tradition.

Lin Shen has been quiet and pretty since childhood, spending his time reading. Su Mu is a mischievous troublemaker and a total childhood-friend enthusiast, but somehow always manages to make Lin Shen cry.

Lin Shen can't stand the noisy family next door, especially Su Mu, who wears gold chains around her neck and gold bangles on her wrists.

So tacky and ugly!

But wherever he went to hide, he kept running into her.

After countless days of getting upset, one day the troublemaker next door suddenly disappeared.

While he was still bewildered, his chaotic life gradually settled down.

They didn't meet again until years later, when he happened to catch sight of her while someone was asking him out and confessing their feelings.

She stood hidden in a dark alley, wearing a white T-shirt, casual pants, and flip-flops. Her dark eyes were filled with amusement as she looked at him.

Years had passed, and they had met again!

Theme: Stay positive and work hard to support your family.