UCS Chapter 108.1

Gao Gusheng’s “eagerness” clearly made the Ghost King suspicious, with a strange sense of frustration.

He could only wave his sleeve and say, “Fine.”

After the Ghost King left, Gao Gusheng sat on the bed and bit into a spirit-nourishing fruit.

He had to admit, it was really delicious.

So delicious that Gao Gusheng felt he’d asked for too little “bride price.” Seeing how readily the Ghost King agreed, he should have asked for more.

However, with a straight man’s stubbornness, Gao Gusheng insisted this was the Ghost King’s dowry, not bride price for him.

Just then, his pocket moved. A fluffy little head poked out.

Gao Gusheng was pleasantly surprised. “How did you follow me here?”

It was that red-furred squirrel, hidden in his large pocket, following him the whole way.

The Ghost King probably didn’t consider a small squirrel worth noticing, so even if he sensed it, he said nothing.

The squirrel climbed onto Gao Gusheng’s shoulder. He offered a piece of spirit fruit teasingly. “Little guy, do you want some?”

Clearly this was very beneficial to the squirrel too. It held the fruit with both paws and ate, its cheeks moving up and down, melting Gao Gusheng’s heart.

Holding the squirrel, Gao Gusheng sighed. “Little squirrel, if only I could be carefree like you. Why hasn’t Dad come yet? If he doesn’t come soon, I’ll really have to get married.”

Having finished the small piece of spirit fruit, the squirrel sat up, its fluffy tail swaying behind it, looking at Gao Gusheng seriously as if it truly understood.

Gao Gusheng blinked in surprise. “Little squirrel, why do I feel like your fur got smoother? Is the spirit fruit’s effect really that strong?”

The squirrel naturally didn’t answer. Instead, it flicked its tail, jumped down from him, and ran off.

Gao Gusheng quickly tried to grab it. “Little guy, don’t fool around! This is a ghost city! If you’re caught, they’ll make you into squirrel mandarin fish!”

However, the squirrel didn’t know that squirrel mandarin fish wasn’t made from squirrels, nor how a squirrel could become a fish. In a blink, it disappeared.

Heaven knew how—this room he couldn’t break out of no matter how hard he tried, yet the squirrel got out!

Gao Gusheng was going crazy. He irritably scratched his head, muttering, “If only the squirrel could avoid being discovered by those ghostly things.”

The moment he finished speaking, the black mist remaining in the room also disappeared.

Gao Gusheng’s hand, scratching his head, froze. He was dumbfounded.

All along the way, he’d used the “if only…” sentence pattern to make requests of the black mist, and it had been like a wishing well, fulfilling all his “if only” wishes.

This time—could it have gone to protect the squirrel?

Before he could think further, the door opened. Paper figures with cheeks painted blood-red entered the room, carrying trays with wedding garments.

A shrill voice pierced the ceiling—

“The auspicious hour has arrived! The bride shall don the wedding garments!”

＊＊＊

Endless darkness dragged Gao Shi into nightmares.

This dream was a continuation of the last.

After Gao Gusheng saw the Ghost King in the dream and awakened from it, this time he could clearly sense another person beside him. This person was formless and shadowless—he couldn’t see them, yet they truly existed.

The invisible figure embraced him tightly in the darkness. Cold hands slipped into his clothes, touching his skin, causing him to shudder.

He wanted to escape, but how could his strength compare to the Ghost King’s?

A voice whispered by his ear with low laughter, watching him struggle in terror with great amusement.

“Want to escape?”

In the darkness, Gao Gusheng was forcibly taken. It was a long nightmare.

After that long night, sunlight fell on his body, illuminating bruises covering him. Gao Gusheng was ice-cold all over, except for his cheeks, which burned alarmingly.

Humans and ghosts walked different paths to begin with. Moreover, after long-term torment, Gao Gusheng’s yang energy was extremely weak. That night of near-torturous violation had nearly cost him half his life.

He burned with fever, dizzy, seeing afterimages of everything. In that swaying blur, he saw last night’s man—Ghost King Tian Lin.

The Ghost King wore a long black robe, his hair long, gazing at him with condescending interest.

Normal people couldn’t see things from the Yin Realm unless their yang fire was weak—when gravely ill, or about to die.

Gao Gusheng knew he should rest, but he couldn’t. He still had to work. If he didn’t work, he’d have no money to buy medicine today, much less eat.

He wanted to get into university again. He couldn’t accept a mediocre life, resigned to ordinariness, passed between men’s arms before dying miserably.

Few bosses would hire someone physically disabled as an employee. This job was given because the kind-hearted restaurant owner saw how pitiful Gao Gusheng was alone and specially hired him. The boss already took care of him—he couldn’t cause more trouble.

Gao Gusheng forced himself up. His skin was pale, almost transparent, except for his flushed cheeks. His eyes steamed with fever, that cloudy gray eye not diminishing his beauty but like a broken window on a perfect car, making people want to damage it further.

The more broken, the more coveted.

The young receptionist saw Gao Gusheng’s condition and grew worried. Coming closer, she discovered he still had a fever.

She wanted him to take leave and rest, but Gao Gusheng smiled and shook his head.

The receptionist felt Gao Gusheng was bright as the moon, his cool temperament like some rich young master. Even doing odd jobs at the hotel, she instinctively felt he shouldn’t worry about making a living.

Gao Gusheng knew she meant well, but if he didn’t work, what would he use to buy medicine? How would today’s meal be resolved?

Seeing his determination, the girl gave Gao Gusheng two fever-reducing pills and watched him swallow them.

All morning, Gao Gusheng burned with fever and dizzy confusion, sweating profusely from busyness. Whether from the morning’s labor producing sweat or his body naturally recovering quickly, after a morning of work, his fever actually broke.

Though the morning was busy, with the Ghost King not beside him, Gao Gusheng felt relieved. Perhaps the Ghost King feared daylight’s fierce sun? Or perhaps he’d finally let Gao Gusheng go?

But at noon, when he went to get lunch, a pair of hands reached from behind, encircling his waist.

The icy touch sliding across his skin felt like dropping an ice cube directly into his clothes.

Gao Gusheng shivered violently from the cold.

The receptionist saw and asked worriedly, “What’s wrong? Still not feeling well?”

Gao Gusheng smiled with difficulty. “No, I—just felt a breeze, so I felt a bit cold. It’s fine, my fever’s already broken… mmph!”

Under the girl’s concerned gaze, Gao Gusheng hurried away. The Ghost King pressed against his back like a weightless spirit, yet those mischievous hands grew increasingly obvious.

The Ghost King could touch Gao Gusheng, but Gao Gusheng couldn’t brush him away.

The Ghost King, absent all morning, in the afternoon clung to Gao Gusheng like a spirit, never leaving his side. He always chose to cause trouble while Gao Gusheng worked. Several times he disturbed Gao Gusheng so much that tea spilled.

The Ghost King’s body was ice-cold, like thousand-year-old ice. Though his fever had shown signs of breaking in the morning, by afternoon Gao Gusheng’s temperature rose again.

Tormented by illness while harassed by the Ghost King, he exhausted all his strength in afternoon work to avoid major mistakes, but small errors were constant.

Many customers complained about this incompetent server. Some customers with designs on Gao Gusheng demanded he come apologize.

On one hand, Gao Gusheng’s beauty truly tempted them—watching a fragile, tottering beauty bow before them was indeed pleasurable.

On the other hand, Gao Gusheng had genuinely made mistakes. Either way, they held reason.

The manager nearly bent himself double apologizing for Gao Gusheng.

Watching the manager who cared so much for him smile and apologize on his behalf, Gao Gusheng felt terrible. He wished he could be the one apologizing to those people.

But the shop owner pressed him into the back kitchen and told him not to come out. The owner said they could all see exactly what those men had in mind.

Gao Gusheng nearly let his tears fall.

The Ghost King stood right beside Gao Gusheng, watching that single teardrop perched on the tips of his lashes — trembling, not yet fallen. One part of him felt a smug, triumphant pleasure; the other was consumed by a sullen, oppressive irritation. He simply could not stand seeing Gao Gusheng wear that pained expression for someone else’s sake.

What gave his bride the right to look at him with nothing but contempt, yet care so deeply about others?

Gao Gusheng should be his — body and emotion alike, every flutter of feeling stirred for him and him alone.

He had devised countless ways to torment him — sabotage, intimidation, threats — all for the sake of drawing out from that beautiful, expressionless face some sign of begging for mercy, or despair. He wanted to drive this lovely little caged canary straight into his own arms.

Yet no matter what he did, Gao Gusheng gritted his teeth and endured it all, the gaze he turned on the Ghost King carrying a calm, quiet disgust.

And yet, for some completely irrelevant person…

On the way home, Gao Gusheng dragged his exhausted body through the streets, and the Ghost King followed at his side — on the bus, and through the narrow alley leading home.

The body that had been forced yielded not a single thread of pleasure. He felt sick to his stomach.

Clearly, that expression of absolute revulsion on Gao Gusheng’s face left the Ghost King deeply dissatisfied.

So the next day, when Gao Gusheng returned to the small restaurant, he learned that it had closed.

“What happened, boss? What’s going on?”

Gao Gusheng saw the owner sitting in a wheelchair and his face drained of colour. He rushed over anxiously to check on him — only to be shoved violently to the ground by the owner’s son.

“It’s you! It’s all because of you, you jinx! If it weren’t for you, Dad’s legs wouldn’t have been broken! It’s all your fault!”

“You walking curse — why wasn’t it you they went after?!”

Gao Gusheng stood there, scolded and at a total loss. He looked toward the shop owner, desperate to understand what had happened. The kind-hearted owner’s lips parted slightly — but in the end, he only lowered his hand and turned his face away.