As expected, after passing away peacefully, He Yan found himself back in that mysterious space, where a portion of his shattered spiritual sea had once again merged.

However, even after experiencing three full cycles, the repaired part of his spiritual sea was still minuscule compared to the whole, occupying only the tip of the iceberg.

At this rate, would it take hundreds of reincarnations for his spiritual power to be fully restored?

......

When his consciousness returned, the only sensation He Yan felt throughout his body was cold.

It was an indescribable bone-chilling coldness, as if countless thin streams of air were invading his body through his flesh, running rampant in the gaps between his bones.

He Yan wanted to open his eyes, but for some reason, his eyelids were extremely heavy. His consciousness was also hazy, his limbs soft and powerless, unable to even move his hands and feet. If it weren't for his spiritual power supporting him, he might not even have the strength to think about these things.

He arduously released thin threads of spiritual power from his spiritual sea, only to find that as soon as the threads entered the air, they became stuck as if falling into a quagmire, barely able to move. The images of the outside world that he could perceive were nothing more than blurry black fragments.

Something was wrong!

Instinct told him that his current situation was probably not very good.

He Yan forced himself to calm down. While mobilizing his spiritual power to keep himself awake, he quickly browsed through the information that suddenly emerged in his mind.

The name of this body was Han Ziyu, currently a freshman at the renowned A University in country C, with a somewhat reclusive personality.

If there were no accidents, he should have happened to encounter Han Ziyu being "sought for revenge" by a ghost.

This matter was a bit complicated to explain.

Although Han Ziyu had a reclusive personality and didn't get along with others, his academic performance was outstanding. He also didn't like to cause trouble, so although his popularity at school wasn't great, he never had any major conflicts with his classmates.

Delving deeper into Han Ziyu's social relationships, he was originally an abandoned infant left on the roadside, later picked up and raised by a kind elderly couple. This elderly couple were also honest and ordinary farmers, without having made any enemies. Han Ziyu had a dull temperament since childhood, and rarely lingered anywhere other than school and the store where he worked part-time, so he had no opportunity to offend anyone.

Such an ordinary and unremarkable male college student naturally couldn't have formed deep hatred with anyone, let alone have someone come back as a ghost to seek revenge after death.

So this time, Han Ziyu was actually taking the blame for someone else in being "sought for revenge" by a ghost.

And this "someone", for Han Ziyu who had an extremely narrow social circle, was actually not unfamiliar. It was none other than the senior sister he had been secretly in love with since entering university, their class assistant and the beauty of the Information Department, Yan Xixi.

The A University that Han Ziyu attended was a science and engineering institution, with a terrifying male-to-female ratio of seven to three. In his computer science major, the gender imbalance was even more severe, with only about twenty female students in seven classes combined.

In such an environment where monks outnumbered the porridge, female students would naturally receive attention. Yan Xixi had a fresh and beautiful appearance, a tall and flawless figure, and was also very emotionally intelligent and capable. Not only in her own major, but she had countless suitors throughout the school, with secret admirers too many to count.

Han Ziyu was just one of the many people secretly in love with Yan Xixi. With his dull personality and dislike for interacting with others, even though he liked Yan Xixi, he never thought about actively pursuing her. Moreover, he had a clear understanding of himself. In the nearly one year since school started, Yan Xixi had not accepted anyone's confession, clearly having very high standards.

As an ordinary college student with no background, no looks, and only grades to show for, he naturally had no chance of catching the goddess's eye.

But what kind of person was Yan Xixi?

Although Han Ziyu only silently liked her without making it known, and always behaved in a very restrained manner, with her emotional intelligence, after a few interactions, she keenly sensed through some details that this little junior had ideas about her.

Of course, this was not a rare occurrence. For Yan Xixi, who received a confession every three to five days on average, being secretly admired by a junior was really such a small matter that it wasn't even worth paying attention to. So she had never taken it to heart, maintaining an ordinary and distant relationship between a senior sister and junior brother with Han Ziyu, as per her usual way of handling things.

But for some unknown reason, two months ago, Yan Xixi suddenly started to act out of character and began to get close to Han Ziyu. Not only did she enthusiastically help him with some things, but she also took the initiative to invite him out to play several times.

However, strangely enough, every time Yan Xixi asked him out, she deliberately avoided the places frequently visited by A University students, as if she didn't want others to know that they had any private dealings. And each time they went out, it was just simply eating or playing, without any ambiguous behavior except for a few unintentional physical contacts.

But even someone as slow as Han Ziyu couldn't see through this. This lonely youth, who had extremely little romantic experience due to his personality, was teased a bit by the goddess in his heart and his thinking ability began to greatly decline. Being led by the nose in a daze, how could he have the presence of mind to notice these details?

Yan Xixi, as the goddess of the entire academy, naturally had a reason for condescending to take the initiative to get close to a junior whose highlights couldn't be found no matter how one looked.

It turned out that before entering university, due to some complicated reasons, Yan Xixi was responsible for someone's death. Perhaps that person's obsession was too deep, as they actually turned into a ferocious ghost after death to take revenge on her!

After narrowly escaping the ghost's revenge once, Yan Xixi panicked and pulled some strings to find a mysterious master. Coincidentally, this master really had some skills. He told Yan Xixi that this vengeful ghost's resentment was too strong, and it had returned to the mortal realm with a warrant from the underworld to seek revenge, making it difficult to subdue by ordinary means.

If Yan Xixi wanted to escape this calamity, the simplest method was to find a suitable person to be her scapegoat. Once the vengeful ghost got its wish, it would automatically be expelled from the mortal realm.

Moreover, because this vengeful ghost took an innocent life while holding the King of Hell's warrant, even if it returned to hell, it would be severely punished, which could be said to permanently eliminate any future troubles.

After some guidance from the mysterious master, Yan Xixi ultimately chose Han Ziyu to be this scapegoat.

After roughly understanding the ins and outs of the situation, He Yan inwardly thought that things didn't look good.

Tonight, as luck would have it, was the day that vengeful ghost came to claim a life, and right now, he should be trapped in the ghost's powers.

According to the original trajectory, Han Ziyu would die at the hands of the fierce ghost tonight. He must find a way to save himself!

The situation was too urgent. After realizing his predicament, He Yan no longer dared to hesitate. He immediately used all his strength to condense all the spiritual power he could mobilize into a bundle and attacked vigorously in one direction.

After a moment, an extremely faint tearing sound was heard in his ears. After a buzzing in his mind, He Yan suddenly opened his eyes.

As far as the naked eye could see, it was still a pure pitch black.

Even on the darkest night, there would be a faint moonlight leaking through the cracks of the curtains. It would never be like this, as if the light source was completely cut off, and even the outline of his own body could not be seen clearly.

This was a barrier set up by the fierce ghost.

He Yan turned his head slightly. He was lying on a bed that was not very soft. The bed was small. When he moved his stiff arms, his fingertips touched the cold and hard wall.

That fierce ghost should be in a corner of this room, watching him gloomily, ready to pounce on him and take his life at any time!

If he died here today, no one would find out...

The boys' dormitory often played games late into the night. In the long run, it greatly affected Han Ziyu's mental state. After living in the school for half a year, he finally gritted his teeth and applied for a commute. He used his not-so-abundant funds to rent a cheap single room off-campus.

Because he lived alone, Han Ziyu's death was not discovered immediately. It was not until the school found that he had been absent from class for two consecutive days and that his phone was always unreachable that they went to the address he filled out on the application form and found that Han Ziyu had died in the rental house at some unknown time!

Although he didn't know what the connection was between spiritual power and ghosts, since he was able to break through the first layer of the fierce ghost's barrier with spiritual power just now, it showed that spiritual power did have some effect on ghosts.

This gave He Yan a little more confidence.

Strictly speaking, this fierce ghost was also innocent. Since it was able to obtain a warrant from the underworld, it meant that it was indeed carrying a great grievance and was specially pardoned to return to the living world to take revenge.

Originally, after taking revenge, it could return to the underworld on its own to reincarnate. But after being misled by Yan Xixi to kill the wrong person, not only would it be punished after returning to the underworld, but it would also be thrown into the animal realm to suffer for the next three lifetimes!

But Han Ziyu was equally innocent!

At this moment when his life was threatened, the first thing He Yan considered was definitely his own safety. So although he knew that this fierce ghost was also innocent, he would never soften his heart because of this and show mercy to it.

After breaking through the first layer of the barrier, He Yan did not withdraw his spiritual power, but carefully controlled the spiritual power threads and let them spread in this not-so-large room.

The coldness in the room became heavier and heavier. Although it was early summer, at this moment, in He Yan's perception, the temperature in the room was lower than the coldest winter. He curled up on the bed in silence, carefully probing every inch of air in the room with his spiritual power.

Finally, when the spiritual power threads swept over the part near the roof, He Yan suddenly felt a faint and intangible fluctuation. Then, as if suddenly enlightened, he "saw" the fierce ghost with a hideous and terrifying face through his spiritual power!

The fierce ghost only had half a body, and the lower part of its waist had completely disappeared. The broken part exposed the minced flesh that was still bleeding. Its face was also tattered, completely torn from the left forehead to the right chin, and then crudely stitched up in a crooked manner. Those scarlet eyeballs were especially terrifying!

The fierce ghost seemed to sense his spiritual power. The red light in its eyes grew stronger, and the corners of its mouth suddenly opened, revealing two rows of sharp teeth. It lowered its body and pounced towards him extremely quickly!

He Yan secretly said it was not good, and hurriedly mobilized the spiritual power threads to form a barrier in front of him, trying to block the fierce ghost's momentum.

He had not yet figured out how to use spiritual power to deal with ghosts, so he was inevitably a little flustered when facing this fierce ghost.

He Yan was frowning and waiting to endure the pain of his spiritual power being torn apart, but when the fierce ghost was about to hit his spiritual power threads, it suddenly stopped in mid-air. Then, as if enduring some great pain, its body suddenly twisted and it let out a howl with its mouth wide open!

That scream was extremely shrill and pierced into He Yan's mind, directly making his head hurt and his vision go black. When he came back to his senses, there was no trace of the fierce ghost in the room, and the strange pitch-black in the room was also broken. The cold moonlight was shining on the desk piled with messy books through the gap of the curtains that were not tightly drawn.

However, He Yan did not let his guard down.

Although the fierce ghost had disappeared, the coldness in the room had not dissipated, and had even intensified a little...

Could it be that some bigger creature had come?

In the original trajectory, there was no such thing.

He had just arrived in this world, was he destined to not survive the night?

As if to confirm his guess, after a while, he suddenly felt a coolness spreading from his toes, crawling up inch by inch over his insteps. That kind of cold and sticky ominous touch made him uncontrollably get goosebumps all over his body!

He Yan tensed his body, but did not dare to move. Unlike the fierce ghost just now, this unknown creature that suddenly appeared gave him a strong sense of oppression before he even saw its appearance, making him instinctively raise an alarm in his mind!

He Yan's hands unconsciously clenched the thin quilt, his mind went blank for a moment, and then he tentatively explored downward with his spiritual power. He found that it was a blurry mass of black air, with the edges constantly vaporizing and distorting. He could only barely discern that it was a long strip-shaped thing, and a tentacle-like thing stretched out from it, locking his ankle, which might be the "arm" of the black shadow based on its position.

He couldn't just sit and wait for death!

He Yan was about to harden his scalp and fight to the death, but unexpectedly, as soon as he sent his spiritual power over, the black shadow suddenly got up and pressed towards him. He only felt that his eyes went dark, and his whole body was invaded by a heavy coolness. He could no longer see any light...

Author's Note:

Long strip-shaped attacker: ??? Author, come out and let's talk about life?

————————

In fact, the title of this world means:

A lump of pitch-black gong: Wifey, hungry!!

Delicate and soft male college student shou (rolls eyes): Feeling body hollowed out