[Unlucky, clueless, innocent, beautiful male college student bottom x sinister, cunning, sharp-witted Taoist top]
Shi Mu's nineteenth year was full of misfortune.
Not long after the semester began, his long-distance boyfriend of a year blocked and deleted him. Then, after getting drunk at a bar, he unexpectedly had a one-night stand with someone.
He couldn't remember what happened that night, or even what the other person looked like. All he remembered was a little red mole on the web of the man's left hand, where it had held his upper thigh.
After that, Shi Mu started seeing ghosts.
Literally.
First, after leaving the hotel, he ran into a red-clothed female ghost in an alley who invited him to visit a mass grave. The next day, someone found him unconscious in front of a wild grave and took him to the hospital.
Then, as he was leaving the hospital, a mangled corpse stood by the morgue entrance and waved at him.
When he finally made it back to school, it was broad daylight, and everyone in the classroom except him was something other than human.
In just three days, Shi Mu's entire worldview had been rebuilt.
As if his bad luck weren't enough, he went online and found three masters. The first ran away after hearing what was happening to him.
The second swindled him out of five hundred yuan.
The third had a verified blue check on his profile and was an officially certified Taoist. Just when Shi Mu thought he might finally be saved,
the man stopped responding.
Shi Mu spent half a month in despair. After a childhood friend gave him a tip, he decided to track down the source of everything: the man he'd had a one-night stand with.
As it turned out, the hotel security footage had been overwritten just a day earlier, and the register with the ID information had been soaked by the front desk.
Shi Mu: "..."
Might as well be dead.
How could anyone be this unlucky? Shi Mu couldn't figure it out. In a fit of anger, he somehow got used to all the ghosts around him.
Leaving his dorm, he met a head-down ghost in the stairwell and complimented its hairstyle.
In class, he saw a hanging ghost dangling from the ceiling and smiled. "Good thing you're here. We don't need the air conditioner."
When he ran into the red-clothed female ghost in the alley again, inviting him to dance on a grave, he declared righteously, "Disturbing the peace is illegal."
The ghosts: "..."
One sunny afternoon, the master who had stopped responding called Shi Mu and asked to meet him at the school gate after class.
Shi Mu: Did you hack into my account?
The other man fell silent for a moment, then sent him a photo with the message: I'm your schoolmate.
Shi Mu opened it and zoomed in.
In the picture, he sat studying in a quiet room, a black, drooling ghost baby clinging to his back.
Shi Mu glanced at it and quickly looked away, then noticed the hand in the corner of the photo.
There, on the web of a slender, pale left hand with clearly defined knuckles, was a tiny, bright red mole.
Shi Mu: "..."
Damn it. I'm seeing ghosts.
1. The leads are exclusive to each other. The bottom has an ex-boyfriend, but the two of them are still exclusive: they never even kissed.
2. The ex doesn't get much page time. It's a campus story with episodic cases, and probably won't be too scary because I'm a coward.
3. They had a one-night stand, but didn't go all the way. They probably only kissed once, but the top is too sinister for that to be helped.
4. Believe in science.
Couldn't find a good Chinese horror story, so I wrote this unhinged one myself.
Theme: Believe in science and reject feudal superstition.
