Hello, My Friend Has Passed Away

When you're out in the world, you get to choose your own identity.

Xu Zhan has no scruples whatsoever.

At the supermarket, he claims he's a young widower with two kids to snag discounted groceries.

When quitting his job, he tells his boss he's terminally ill and doesn't have long to live.

So when a group of tourists at a scenic spot crowd around him, chattering and asking what he's doing there, he says:

"I'm here to collect my friend's body."

Then Xu Zhan sees their frozen expressions, and the fresh corpse behind them, its blood not yet dry.

Xu Zhan: Okay, fine.

This is an age when order is on the verge of collapse.

Spiritual qi is scarce, and the earth's ley lines are sealed. Spiritualists fight tooth and nail over a single spirit artifact, and turn against each other over a few spirit crystals.

Ordinary people are nothing but ants caught in the crossfire, living without fear and dying without understanding.

Until a mysterious spiritualist walks onto the battlefield.

"I mean no disturbance," he says coolly. "My friend came here while he was alive. Have any of you seen him?"

Xu Huai: ...

Hello? Can you hear me? I'm not your friend. We don't know each other.

Xu Huai spent his life on the move. He was once thrust to the very top, and he was also betrayed brutally.

So what if he died?

He thought that within a few decades, the world would surely follow in his footsteps.

Then a con man approached his corpse, took his bloodwood puppet, stole the token of the [God], and slandered him out of nowhere:

"How could I have a moron like him for a friend?"

"He didn't even dare face me when he died."

"Where's that ambition you used to have? You went and died, leaving a huge mess behind."

"I never should have let you out."

How could anyone be so shameless?

Xu Huai waited in the shadows for Xu Zhan to come crashing down. He waited until Xu Zhan was sitting in the stronghold of another gang of con men, his enemies, [The Remnant Night].

The young, handsome man sat listlessly at the end of a long table, fiddling with Xu Huai's bloodwood puppet.

"Before you kill someone, do you never check who they are?"

Then, with a bored air, he added,

"Forget it. Since he dared to die, I'll take over his enemies."

Many years later, the era before the spiritual qi revival had become a topic in history textbooks, and everyone knew the name of Xu Zhan, the savior of the world.

Mr. Xu's followers said:

"Mr. Xu is always right, except for one thing."

"We don't usually call it friendship when someone topples an apocalyptic organization to fulfill another person's last wish, spends years poring over their notes and handling the keepsakes they left behind, and then insists on having their names carved together on the divine stele..."

Another person covered his mouth and said through tears:

"Mr. Xu's friends have all passed away. Don't remind him."

#HE

#A feel-good power fantasy with mild character distortion

#Romantic misunderstandings

#The protagonist and his CP are only one meeting away from getting married

A recommendation for my upcoming novel: The Cannon-Fodder Subordinate of the Dragon-Pride Protagonist

In feel-good power fantasies, there's always a sidekick who sacrifices himself for the dragon-pride protagonist.

He'd take a knife for the protagonist, and the protagonist would support his whole family.

He Yu was one of them.

He didn't want to defy fate. He was doing this willingly, but he still had to guard against one common scenario.

So, with his last bit of strength, he grabbed his boss's hand as he lay dying.

"You forgot... You forgot..."

You forgot about my little sister, right? Stop making excuses to drop by my house all the time.

His boss's hand was stiffer than stone, his lips pressed tighter than a ruler.

"I hate you for being so... If I'd known... I wouldn't have..."

I hate how you've kept quiet since we were kids. If I'd known you liked her, I could at least have put in a good word for you. I wouldn't have set her up with that unreliable guy.

He Yu died from saying too much.

When he woke up again, he was thirty minus twelve.

He had become the illegitimate son of his boss's sworn enemy... his boss's mortal enemy.

His face bore a passing resemblance to his former self, but he was treated completely differently.

"Get out!"

The hotel bed was soft, the lighting suggestive. The floor was hard, and his knees hurt from kneeling on it.

He Yu got to his feet, avoiding the shards of a wine bottle his boss had just smashed onto the floor.

"How many times have I told you not to drink when you're out? Don't you know how awful you get when you're drunk? You grab onto anyone you see and won't let go.

"Give me your hand. Let me see if it needs a bandage... Uh, Mr. Shang?"

Shang Mouhe thought he was going insane.

How could he... how dare he... mistake him for someone else?

Theme: We're all ordinary people