Gu Yan felt a bit disappointed as he put his hand down. Just as he was thinking about simply moving a bit more to wake up Su Kun and make him turn over, letting the pendant fall out of his collar on its own, his lowered fingertips happened to brush over Su Kun's cotton T-shirt, touching that slightly protruding spot where the pendant was wrapped.

He originally thought his fingers would pass directly through the pendant without any sensation, just like passing through the collar and red string. Who knew, before he could react, his fingertips were pressed against by something hard and cold, leaving him stunned.

He could touch it?!

Gu Yan was a bit shocked, but he calmed down almost instantly - since he lost his physical form, he couldn't touch anything in this world, but Su Kun was an exception. Now, it was just adding a pendant on Su Kun's body to the exception.

However, his calmness only lasted for less than a second before being broken by another strange feeling -

The originally cold and hard pendant seemed to stick to his hand as if glued, and he could even feel a moderate suction force firmly grasping his hand, unable to move an inch. Instinctively alarmed, he thought he would experience that rapidly hollowing out sensation again like last time. Just as he wanted to break free, he felt a very strange warm current, faintly mixed with the cold sensation at his fingertips, like a gurgling stream, a thin pulse, all the way from his fingertips and arm to his heart.

That place that no longer beat, even feeling a bit empty as if nothing was there, steamed up a warm feeling. At that moment, the sensation of connected veins almost made him have the illusion that his blood was flowing again and his heart was about to beat once more.

This strange and wonderful feeling made Gu Yan feel a bit joyful in addition to his surprise.

That feeling of life pulsing again was almost indescribably beautiful for a lonely soul who had already lost his life and was wandering in a completely unfamiliar world.

Just as he was lingering in this experience, that layer of black aura floating around Su Kun's neck in the night, as if a rewinding tape, with that pendant as the center, retracted at a visible speed. At the same time, Gu Yan felt that something, along with that warm current, surged into his body and flowed to his quiet heart.

The entire process was a bit leisurely. Gu Yan's gaze swept back and forth between his hand pressing that pendant under Su Kun's T-shirt and his own chest. He could even see a vein as thick as a red string, faintly discernible under the skin of his semi-transparent arm.

It was like standing in a hot spring, the steaming heat making one's whole body feel refreshed, every pore slightly open, instantly perspiring a thin layer of sweat.

Gu Yan knew that he of course wouldn't sweat now, this feeling of blood boiling throughout his body, to say it was recent, seemed to be just a few days ago, to say it was long ago, felt like a previous life.

No matter how much he enjoyed this process, that feeling of comfort throughout his body, along with the black aura being completely retracted and flowing into his body, also gradually thinned and finally disappeared, leaving only that extremely thin warm current connecting his fingertips to his chest, still trickling.

Although he guessed that this suction force was related to the black aura surging into his body, Gu Yan still couldn't give up and touched that cold, hard pendant again. Seeing no movement, he grasped it and took it out from Su Kun's T-shirt.

Gu Yan, sunken into Su Kun's body, moved forward another segment of distance. By the length of the pendant's string, he carefully examined this grayish-white object lying in his palm.

Although the quality was not good, this pendant was undoubtedly made of jade.

It looked a bit old, quite aged. In theory, a jade worn close to the body would be well-maintained, but Su Kun's was a bit of an exception. Although it was smooth all over, emitting a faint glow under the not-so-bright moonlight, that glossy feeling didn't look crystal clear.

The grayish-white texture looked a bit muddy after a while, and even seemed to have a gloomy gray tone, which matched its cold touch.

This jade pendant was obviously not complete, seeming to have been shattered many years ago, this was only a part after the break. One edge was very rounded, the other edge's transition was a bit abrupt, with no sense of regularity. It's just that those sharp corners had been smoothed out a lot, at least it wouldn't cut the skin when worn close to the body.

Gu Yan rarely judged things based on intuition, with his personality, he was more willing to believe in solid arguments. It's just that this time, as if someone plucked his heart, instantly clear, he almost completely relied on that flash of a vague notion to feel that the jade in his hand and the one he accidentally swallowed were originally the same piece.

It's just that he didn't even have time to take a glance at the swallowed jade before it choked into his throat. At this point, he also couldn't dig it out from his chest to see if it also had abrupt and irregular edges that could fit together with the one in his hand.

However, why would such an inconspicuous-looking jade have this strange function?

If he wasn't mistaken, that black aura was the soul fragments Su Kun encountered outside, and after he absorbed them into his body, it seemed his strength was full... once like this, twice, three times... what about more than ten times? What would he become?

Su Kun, floating up and down in a chaotic dream, only felt that his body was a bit strange, as if someone had cut open his chest and abdomen, then reached in and stirred his internal organs, not painful, but quite uncomfortable.

This car-sickness-like nauseous feeling lasted for a while before finally pulling Su Kun out from his dream.

His crow-feather-like eyelashes trembled, then he opened his eyes in a daze. After finally focusing, what he saw was this strange scene -

That expressionless kid, half of his body was in Su Kun's body [...] the upper half was still exposed outside, his little face slightly lowered. From Su Kun's angle, he could see his knotted brows.

Holy shit!

Su Kun, who was originally still a bit dazed, was as if someone had fiercely smashed a stick on his head, smashing him with a start, instantly making him completely awake.

That kid seemed to not notice his open eyes at all, still lowering his gaze looking at something in his hand.

Following the half-taut red string, Su Kun's gaze traveled from the little ghost's hand all the way to his own neck, nearly going cross-eyed, before he finally confirmed that what the little ghost was studying with a constipated expression was none other than the jade pendant that had hung around his neck for as long as he could remember.

People always hope that they or something about them is special, and Su Kun was no exception.

Especially during those years when his chuunibyou hadn't subsided, he had imagined all sorts of fantastical possibilities about his pendant more than once. Maybe if the first drop of blood landed on it, it would become a space; or maybe one day, some master would see it and discover that it was an ancient jade that had been passed down for hundreds of years and was worth a fortune.

His thoughts were also tied to the importance Aunt Zhang placed on this jade pendant.

However, fantasies were fantasies. At that time, he didn't know what good jade was or what it meant to be worth a fortune. Since he had passed that chuunibyou phase, although he still didn't know much about jade and couldn't spout off any expert knowledge, he could at least tell that the piece around his neck, no matter from which angle or under what light, couldn't be considered a good jade.

So he stopped pondering the origins and specialness of this jade, and just assumed that Aunt Zhang placed extra importance on it because she believed that jade could ward off disasters and keep one safe. And Su Kun felt that, despite encountering small unlucky incidents every now and then from childhood to adulthood, he was still alive and kicking, so maybe it really was this jade that kept him safe.

Therefore, even after his chuunibyou fantasy period had passed, he didn't feel disdainful. Instead, having worn it for more than a dozen or twenty years, he had long gotten used to the feeling of something cool against his chest. If it were gone one day, he would probably feel so uncomfortable that he wouldn't be able to sleep.

Wait a minute!

Speaking of cool...

Su Kun suddenly remembered that on the night he was nearly strangled to death by this little ghost, after the jade had sent the little ghost back into the coffin, the next day, while brushing his teeth, he felt that something about his body was off. Now, he finally realized what was off.

That day, his jade pendant was unusually cool, so cool that his entire chest felt a bit strange.

The jade had turned cool... and this little ghost had transformed from a tall, fearsome specter into its current form...

Anyone with a brain could see the connection between the two.

So, the occasional sudden coolness of this jade pendant in the past, and those ghosts that had inexplicably disappeared after approaching him, were naturally related.

Holy shit, it was this advanced?!

Su Kun had originally thought that this jade was just for psychological peace of mind, but who knew that this thing had actually been keeping him safe! And not just this one time against this little ghost, but for at least twenty years!

What a long warranty period...!!

Thinking this, Su Kun reflexively raised his hand, pulled the jade pendant out of the little ghost's grasp, carefully tucked it back into his collar, and even patted it. Then he quickly shoved his hand back under the covers, closed his eyes, and lay there motionless like a slender cucumber in sushi, continuing to play dead. As if he had never woken up, and everything that had just happened was just Gu Yan's illusion.

Gu Yan: "..."

Having his jade snatched back by this playing-dead fellow, he wasn't angry. After all, he had seen what he needed to see and absorbed what he needed to absorb into his body. The rest he could ponder on his own. So he retracted his still-raised hand and shifted a little to the side.

The playing-dead Su Kun: So the culprit who caused me to have my guts stirred in my dreams is here! Damn it, don't you dare float up and move again! I'm not completely numb, you know! Move again and watch out, I'll vomit guts all over your face!

As if hearing his thoughts, after shifting a bit, Gu Yan left his body and floated into the air, drifting up to the bedside table. With a click, he returned to the coffin.

Su Kun, who was really about to vomit, let out a long sigh. Before long, he once again fell into a dazed, dreamy state. Just as he was wandering through fragments that were chaotic and illogical, he suddenly realized something—

That little ghost's transparency was off!