In the end, Xiaoxiao Ji couldn’t slip free of Nana Toki’s shadowy claws.

Lu Ming felt the female ghost he’d met was off, a chill like mist clinging to his skin. But until she harmed the living, he couldn’t intervene. That leash was there to stop Spirit Exorcists from turning the innocent into quarry.

He watched the girl and the ghost shuffle out of the classroom, like a reluctant pair tugged by invisible strings. Then he opened his phone, the screen a cold lantern, and searched for the cheapest place to crash. He headed off in the opposite direction from Nana Toki, his steps light but his mind heavy.

It was only his second day down the mountain, yet the mortal world had already thrown him curveballs like wind-tossed leaves. Just as his master had rasped on his deathbed, the secular dust would be his harshest trial. Until he became the strongest Spirit Exorcist, he couldn’t afford to fall face-first in the mud.

...

On the other side, after bringing Nana Toki home, Xiaoxiao Ji didn’t dive into her room like a rabbit into its burrow.

Fear came first, then thought. She could see ghosts now. A materialist girl who worshiped science, she’d never imagined a ghost would cling to her like a damp shadow.

And the ghost looked her age, fresh as frost and just as cold.

Who could take that and not crack?

“Um… excuse me, Miss Ghost—why are you moving into my house?”

She’d known for a long while something was off at home, a draft under the door. But learning for real that a ghost lived here still made her heart tremble like a sparrow in winter.

Calm down first, she told herself. Ask why she’s living here. Then see if you can invite her out, like smoke through a window.

The plan sat neat in her mind—until the answer slipped in crooked.

“Why am I staying in your home?”

Nana Toki sat beside her, arms folded, eyes thoughtful, a moonlit statue. After a beat, she softened with a warm smile. “Because I’m your guardian spirit. So I live here.”

“...”

Her tone was so casual it felt made up on the spot, and Xiaoxiao’s heart thunked like a dropped stone.

She almost knelt right there, ready to plead, Sister Ghost, if you’re going to kill me, just do it—don’t loop around like a cat to scare me!

Her courage wasn’t as fat as people imagined.

If she were really her guardian spirit, she wouldn’t have scared her half to death last night.

“Relax. I won’t hurt you. I’ll protect you.”

Nana Toki seemed to know exactly what rattled her. She rested a cool palm on Xiaoxiao’s head, smoothing hair like water. No need to be so tense, that touch said. Her Nesting Phoenix at home always hit the cute button in the strangest places, and she didn’t really mind.

Her hand was ice-cold, winter river cold. Yet Xiaoxiao didn’t understand why her chest warmed, a hearth lit from within. It felt like she’d heard this promise many times already.

“Why would you treat me like this?”

In novels, ghosts were villains who sucked life force like parasites in the dark. Why did this one feel like a different breed entirely?

“Because I like you.”

The air turned odd, like rain before thunder. It was probably just Xiaoxiao feeling the tilt. Being liked by a ghost shouldn’t be happy news—but her heartbeat still kicked up like a drum.

She was catching feelings for the girl who’d scared her unconscious last night?

Was she crazy, or was the world?

“Why’s your face red?”

Seeing her cheeks flush like ripe apples, Nana Toki blinked. “Are you so nervous around me you’re forgetting to breathe?”

That courage was tiny.

“N-no way!”

She threw off Nana’s hand and bolted for her room, shut the door, and flopped onto the bed. Only after staring at the ceiling like a blank sky did she begin to settle.

That ghost—ghostly indeed.

“Shutting the door won’t help. I’m a ghost.” She can walk through walls.

Half a head slid out of the wall by Xiaoxiao’s pillow, a pale blossom through stone. Her heartbeat, just calmed, spiked like she’d mainlined rocket fuel.

Are you trying to kill me? Who greets people like that?

“W-w-what do you want?!”

Wrapped in her little quilt, she scrambled to the foot of the bed, putting a safe stretch of space between them. Her voice rose sharp as a kettle’s whistle.

“Nothing urgent. I’m just hungry. I want to eat.”

Nana Toki drifted fully through the wall and hovered in front of her. “Could you cook me something?”

Lingering among the living, without human vital energy, really doesn’t work…

Xiaoxiao Ji: “...”

“Aren’t you a ghost? Do ghosts need to eat?”

“Why wouldn’t they? That’s species discrimination. I protest!”

Nana Toki floated lazily to her side, lips quirking. “If you don’t rustle up something for me, I’ll go invite other ghosts over to play with you tonight.”

Other ghosts?

“You’re still a—human?!”

Xiaoxiao nearly jumped out of her skin.

One ghost already had her hanging by a thread. Another would snap it.

“Of course I’m not human. I’m a ghost,” said Nana Toki, deadpan.

Xiaoxiao Ji: “...”

So Xiaoxiao was forced to get up and scavenge for food. But what food in the yang world would suit a ghost?

She ran a loop outside. She didn’t find what Nana wanted. She did, however, fill her own stomach first.

“Are you sure you didn’t use ‘go find food for me’ as a pretext to solve your own dinner?” Nana Toki eyed the fresh street pancake in Xiaoxiao’s hands, stern as a teacher.

Her body usually moved only at night, owl-hours. With all this fuss, her activity stretched thin, and she could feel the burn.

She had only herself to blame.

Every world, her body was the worst—disposable, a pawn tossed aside.

Nana Toki, daily, felt fate was unfair.

“This can’t be helped… This is the living world. Where would ghost-food be sold?”

Xiaoxiao nibbled her newly bought pancake, careful as a mouse. She was helpless too.

It wasn’t that she didn’t try. Even if she burned the food as an offering, Nana Toki couldn’t eat a bite.

Otherwise she wouldn’t still be wandering around with the sun nearly gone.

“If only we could find Classmate Lu… He can see ghosts. He’ll know something…”

“The sun’s down. You still expect to find that idiot?” Nana Toki squinted, drifting behind her like a stubborn cloud. “Unless he’s got nowhere to sleep—otherwise, who doesn’t go home for dinner? Wandering now is a sickness.”

“Ah… that’s Lu Ming…”

The words had barely left Nana’s mouth when Xiaoxiao froze mid-step. Nana, unable to brake in time, passed straight through Xiaoxiao’s body and floated ahead.

And then—

They saw him. Leaning against a utility pole, sitting by the roadside— the Protagonist Lord himself.

Nana Toki: “...”

She’d forgotten. Early arc. No spare cash for a hotel.

“Lu Ming, why are you here?”

Xiaoxiao walked over, pancake in hand, confusion on her face like mist. She hadn’t thought anyone would actually be loitering here at dinnertime, just like the ghost sister behind her had said.

“Uh… I’m out here pondering life. Whether we rush to glory or drift into mediocrity—philosophy stuff.”

“Whoa! Truly a Spirit Exorcist. Your questions are refreshingly lofty.”

“But, Classmate Ji, why are you still outside so late?”

Lu Ming cleared his throat on the curb, hoping to pivot the topic and rinse off the awkwardness.

But—

“You’re here because you don’t have enough money for a hotel, so you’re hustling work,” Nana Toki said, pointing at the ad pasted on the pole, eyes flat as dusk.

In this worldline, the Protagonist Lord might be the poorest she’d ever met.

“Ahem. In any case, that’s none of your business, ghost. If you two don’t have anything else, move along. Don’t mess up my work.”

Since his cover was blown, Lu Ming didn’t get mad. He laid his cards on the table.

“If not for the situation, I wouldn’t be using my skills to feed myself.”

“Then here’s a chance to feed yourself without using your skills. How about it?”

“What do you mean?” Lu Ming frowned. Without his gift, he’d be just another passerby. How else was he supposed to make money?

“Tell me a way to stay active among the living without absorbing human life force. She’ll pay for your hotel.”

Nana Toki pushed Xiaoxiao forward like a sacrificial lamb. The Protagonist Lord’s tricks were usually solid.

Might as well fleece him a little.

“Eh… I’m the one paying?” Xiaoxiao blinked, utterly lost.

“You want a method that lets a ghost live in the human world without taking in human vital energy?” Lu Ming’s brow arched. So this mysterious ghost truly didn’t want to rely on the living.

Except—

“There is no such method.”

Ghosts who linger among the living survive on obsession, thin as candle smoke. When that obsession burns out, the soul scatters like ash. That’s the cycle, the river of cause and effect.

To stay long in the daylight and refuse human life force—almost impossible.