Except that person had already replaced it with a nicer model. The phone's background was a selfie of the two of them in the sunlight.
He answered the call, but his mind was in such disarray that he had to have the other person repeat themselves before he understood.
The caller was the administrative department at his current company, asking whether he wanted to end his leave or request more days, since his allotted time off had run out.
The tone was courteous—one "Director Chen" after another.
Through that vengeful ghost's eyes, he knew the man had completely taken over his identity and done a far better job of it.
Lian Xia loved him. His grandmother loved him. Even at work, everything was ascending.
In truth, he didn't dare go to the man's company, but he had no choice—his grandmother's medication cost a fortune.
"This is obviously my body," he said after hanging up, throwing himself before the mirror, trembling uncontrollably. "Please stop coming out... let me go..."
"Let me go!"
With nowhere to vent his terror, he clawed at his own face until it was covered in bloody scratches.
Chapter 23
The next day, Chen Xi got up and went to work as usual.
That high-paying job the evil ghost had secured couldn't be lost, so he had to bite the bullet and go.
Lian Xia was also heading out. The two stood across the hallway from each other.
Her recent lovebug only gave her a perfunctory nod before hurrying off, as if ghosts were chasing him.
Lian Xia: ????
At the office, he opened his laptop and tried to slip into the daily workflow as smoothly and effortlessly as that evil ghost.
Naturally, that was impossible.
The client emails were mostly in foreign languages, leaving him frazzled. The translations from the software were garbled and essentially useless.
Fortunately, Gu Xichen had recently hired a professional assistant, Xiao Dong, to help with basic tasks.
After a long discussion behind closed doors, Chen Xi suddenly lost his temper and swept all the books off his desk. A gold-rimmed coffee cup flew across the room and shattered on the floor.
His uncharacteristic outburst nearly made Xiao Dong quit on the spot.
Over lunch, he quietly complained to the girls at the front desk.
"What's going on with Director Chen lately? Feels like he's become a different person."
"Heard his grandmother is sick..."
"Yeah, he took several days off. Admin had to call him multiple times before he came back in."
The young clerks chattered among themselves. When Xiao Dong went to refill his water, he turned to find the man glaring at him viciously through the glass wall, his knees nearly buckling with fear.
...
...
After a full day of setbacks and zero productivity, Chen Xi only grew more dejected.
After enduring eight hours in what felt like prison, the first thing he did was go back to his old neighborhood, seeking refuge with his only remaining family.
When he arrived, the old woman brought out a bowl of cilantro soup from the cramped, dim kitchen.
He held the piping hot soup, and tears fell instantly: "Grandma, do you really know who I am?"
Though half lost to dementia, the old woman recognized him without hesitation, smiling kindly: "It's my little Chen Xi. Your pet name is Xixi."
He bowed his head, tears dropping one by one into the soup.
"A while back you matured so much, I thought you'd been tempered by the outside world and grown up. But now you look the same as before—no difference at all."
She ladled herself a bowl of soup too, sipping from the rim while prattling on: "You're a grown man now, someone who'll take a wife. How can you still cry so easily?"
"Look at you, crying like a girl—Lian Xia is tougher than you are!"
Remembering the gentle girl, her tone softened: "Poor Xiaoxia."
"She's a child without father or mother, just like you. You need to treat her well, you understand?"
"I... I understand."
The young man hung his head, tears mingled with sobs falling into his soup—one couldn't tell which was saltier.
As if to prove himself superior to that evil ghost, Chen Xi started staying at his grandmother's place every night, genuinely and diligently caring for the old woman for a stretch.
But Lian Xia hadn't seen him lately, and her composure was starting to fray.
Especially when she traveled across half of Shanghai to find him, only to have the door shut in her face.
Desperate to understand his mood and ease his burden, she asked quietly through the iron gate: "Did I do something to upset you?"
He turned his red-rimmed eyes toward her—even the whites had gone pink: "No."
Realizing his tone was too harsh, he added: "My grandmother doesn't like seeing strangers. Don't come anymore."
With a clang, the door was slammed shut.
Lian Xia watched his figure disappear behind the door, only managing to let out an "Oh."
An indescribable emptiness swelled in her heart.
Chapter 24
The machines roared.
Lian Xia's hands never stopped, passing materials down the line one by one.
She could usually focus completely on her tasks, but today the rumbling assembly line made her restless.
Her coworkers seemed to be whispering again—and unlike before, when they'd tried to be subtle, they were growing louder. She'd already heard her own name several times.
Unable to bear it any longer, she finally stood up and walked straight into the middle of their conversation.
"Excuse me, are you talking about me?"
"Yes!"
To her surprise, Sister Huang's attitude was remarkably candid: "We're talking about your boyfriend!"
The other workers chimed in: "Yeah, we're all so jealous of you!"
"What a great guy—where did you find him?!"
Lian Xia was bewildered: "My boyfriend? Don't you all know him?"
"Know him?"
"Don't be ridiculous, we don't know him!"
Lian Xia felt the mystery growing larger: "It's Xiao Chen. How could you not know him?"
"How could it be Xiao Chen?"
Sister Huang stared at her with an expression somewhere between amused and pitying: "Didn't I tell you before—that's why you weren't interested in him?"
That's right. Sister Huang had said something like that, only she'd missed it at the time.
If her boyfriend wasn't Xiao Chen, then who on earth was it?
Sensing her bewilderment, Sister Huang said scornfully: "Turn around and look for yourself. Where is Xiao Chen?"
She turned in horror, and before her stood only a shapeless, boundless mist in the form of a person—
"Ahhh!"
Lian Xia screamed herself awake. The covers had all slid onto the floor. All around was dark, as unsettling as Chen Xi's attitude had been these past few days.
In reality, after his grandmother's condition improved, Chen Xi had returned two days ago, entering his own apartment without so much as a word to her.
When she knocked, all she got was his cold refusal: "Sorry, I just want to be alone."
His unfamiliar tone, icy expression, and distant posture stabbed her heart like invisible knives.
She sat frozen on the bed, replaying his behavior over and over, growing colder by the minute.
...
...
If this were Lian Xia from a year ago, she'd never have imagined herself knocking on a man's door in the middle of the night.
Actually, they both had keys to each other's apartments—they'd just never used them.
She knocked softly. Chen Xi's narrow eyes appeared in the gap of the door. He looked exhausted, dark circles heavy under his eyes.
"What is it?"
"I... I'm scared."
The two faced off for a moment. He saw the girl standing outside in her white nightgown, shy and delicate, like a fragrant, dew-kissed white crabapple blossom.
"Can I sleep here?"
Startled by the bold request, his eyes flickered in the dark.
"Come in."
This was the first time they'd shared a bed since becoming a couple.
She lay in his arms but noticed the scent on his body had changed.
It was the same person, but diets and routines shift, and scents shift subtly with them.
A sense of unfamiliarity gripped her heart, a vague unease.
In the darkness, she murmured like a spooked fawn: "Just now, I dreamed you left."
"Mm."
"Don't go, okay? Don't leave me."
She pressed her face trustingly into his shoulder. The man took a deep breath and pulled her into his arms. Unlike his usual gentle touch, his caresses grew forceful, almost rough enough to hurt her.
"Wait, don't—"
"What's wrong? Not happy? You came to my room this late—did you have something else in mind?"
"What?"
It was so strange—this inexplicable tone, this bossy attitude...
He laughed insolently and pressed down to claim her fragrant lips, his stubble scraping her until she whimpered: "Gentle, please—"
Before she could finish, she watched in horror as the man suddenly sat upright and began choking himself!
It was utterly bizarre.
The man gripped his own throat with both hands, squeezing until his face turned red and he couldn't breathe, then collapsed silently to the floor.
"Xichen? Xichen!"
Lian Xia's frantic cries slowly brought Gu Xichen back to consciousness. He opened his eyes to find the girl staring at him blankly, tears still wet on her cheeks.
Moments ago, she'd given him such a violent shaking that he'd nearly lost his breakfast.
Still dizzy from the jarring switch between bodies, he could only mumble soothingly and pull her close, petting her hair: "It's okay, it's okay, Xiaoxia..."
After a long silence, he barely came to his senses. She was still sitting in the dark, crying.
"Did I scare you?"