Exclusive Empathy

Liang Yan's first impression of Song Guobai: This ghost's acting is professional. He really does look human.

Song Guobai: Sure, I was once a fallen genius, but did you really have to strip me of my humanity? :)

Liang Yan's second impression of Song Guobai: The senior may be a pervert who likes hanging around toilets, but he's good-looking. Let's touch him.

Song Guobai: Did you call me here to work on a research project, or to study me?

·

Liang Yan from U University's School of Business has a secret identity that is widely rumored on campus: master of spotting terrible romantic prospects, and Grandmaster Liang of love fortune-telling.

Of course, there's a secret behind that identity too: he can't read faces or tell fortunes at all. Instead, when he touches someone, his five senses let him reverse-engineer their true emotions. That's his golden finger.

When he sees a nuclear-explosion mushroom cloud over his buddy's head, he knows the guy has failed another class. When he smells the artificial sweet fragrance clinging to a girl who's come for a fortune, he thinks, Tsk, another sea king who's fallen for my good looks and wants to scam me.

Then he meets Song Guobai.

Liang Yan says solemnly, "You have a bad name."

Song Guobai: ?

Liang Yan: "I can't sense anything from you. You should change your name to Blank Bai."

A few seconds later.

Song Guobai: "Can you sense it now?"

Liang Yan: "Yeah. No wonder you're my senior. That punch really hurt."

·

After meeting Song Guobai, Liang Yan's golden finger, which had been with him for years, finally wakes from a long sleep and gets to work: evolving.

Liang Yan: "Damn, I thought this was an innate skill. Turns out I can level up on my own?"

Liang Yan: "Whoa, this guy's out of control. Let me read his fortune... He needs to do good deeds and build up some karma."

So today he "happens" to rescue a roommate who's about to jump off a building; tomorrow he "coincidentally" finds a missing little girl; and the day after, he "accidentally" wakes a crowd of people who were about to be blown sky-high in their sleep.

Song Guobai: "Hero, you're a better fit for my name than I am now."

Liang Yan: "So I can finally marry into your family?"

Song Guobai: "Your complexion's looking good, Guobai."

·

In a small town in the southwest, word spreads in no time that intern Song Guobai has brought home a crazy, devoted guard dog.

On a dark and windy night, a young man on the verge of going berserk is pinned firmly to the ground. Scars crisscross his exposed collarbone.

"Senior, please, give me... You're the only one who can save me."

His voice breaks into a sob, but the young man doesn't ease his grip. His smile is bitter beyond words.

Liang Yan, I'm not your medicine.

Because nothing in this world can be both the cause of an illness and the ingredient that cures it.

But there is one way.

Then and now, their roles are reversed. The young man beneath him closes his eyes with a smile and loses consciousness. Liang Yan's eyes are bloodshot, and the fingertips he draws back from the young man's body tremble in time with his pounding heart.

Between the two of us, you're the real madman.

·

"How many emotions do you think humans have?"

"Since they say there are seven emotions and six desires, seven?"

"More than that. Studies show there are a full twenty-seven."

Anger, anxiety, confusion, disgust, fear: these were the unavoidable roads we traveled before we met.

Desire, adoration, romance, joy, surprise: these are the chapters waiting to be written after we embrace.

Come, surrender yourself to me, even the deepest sovereignty buried in your subconscious.

Welcome to a world overwritten by me, a world called you but which is really me.

"Senior, I forgot to say earlier: the last of the twenty-seven is lust."

"..."

[Reader's Notes]

Song Guobai (bottom) × Liang Yan (top)

Older top, both sexually inexperienced, one-on-one, happy ending

Two onions peeling each other layer by layer and doting on each other, mutual salvation, mostly sweet everyday life

No supernatural elements, no horror, no split personalities. Apart from the top's golden finger, everything follows scientific materialism (with a sea of liberties taken in psychology and architecture).

Realistic setting, not much of it is pure campus life. Graduation season, competitions, and internships ahead!

[This novel is complete. The side couple, He Yu × Ju Xiaoshan, has started their story next door. Come check it out!]

Theme: Study hard and make progress every day.