Su Kun lay on Gu Yan's lap, rambling on, when he felt a pair of large hands lift his neck and waist. Before he could react, he saw a blur, and the next thing he knew, he was being placed on the bed with a body pressing down on him.

"Whoa! I’m over 1.7 meters tall, not 17 centimeters! Can you really lift me without batting an eye, Gu Hero?!" Despite the situation, Su Kun still found the time to quip, making Gu Yan feel an urge to bow down to his relentless mood-killing abilities.

Of course, Gu Yan didn't actually bow down. Instead, he opted to shut Su Kun up with his lips, blocking out the nonsense.

If they had been restrained earlier because of Geng Zimo's presence, now they didn't need to hold back, with no fear of being interrupted.

Gu Yan's kisses matched his personality: firm yet not aggressive, steady with a hint of possessiveness, providing a sense of reliance and security amidst the chaos. His lips, initially cool to the touch, gradually warmed up with Su Kun's rising temperature. He kissed deeply, and each time his tongue brushed against a certain spot on Su Kun’s palate, Su Kun's breath would tremble, eliciting soft moans of pleasure.

Those slightly nasal soft sounds in Gu Yan's ears felt like a kitten's paw gently scratching his heart. Thus, he focused even more on that sensitive area.

In no time, Su Kun was left panting, feeling the original pleasant tingling spreading from his spine to his lower back, gathering heavily in his lower abdomen. The itching sensation intensified, transforming into a restlessness that made him want to moan out loud.

Being brought to this state by a long kiss felt somewhat embarrassing to Su Kun, but his increasingly muddled thoughts left him unable to care. In his daze, he instinctively pulled his hand out from between their bodies, gripping Gu Yan's shoulders, wanting to both push him away and pull him closer.

Just as he was feeling lost, Gu Yan finally released his lips, planting a kiss on the corner of his mouth. His long, strong fingers gently touched Su Kun’s forehead, then slid into his hair, tenderly massaging. This comforting gesture, usually meant to soothe Su Kun, now carried an added layer of affection.

Su Kun felt as though every inch of his skin had turned into a sensitive point, trembling lightly under Gu Yan's every caress and touch.

Lying on his back, his half-closed eyes dazedly watched the dim wall lamp above, his breath growing rapid and uneven as Gu Yan's kisses lingered on his neck.

Unable to bear it any longer, Su Kun clung to Gu Yan's shoulders, pulling him down. His aroused lower abdomen pressed tightly against Gu Yan's body, unconsciously rubbing against him. The friction made a certain part swell with blood, gradually standing up.

Feeling both shame for his quick arousal and a desperate need for Gu Yan's touch, Su Kun reached down to guide Gu Yan's hand, only to find his vision blur suddenly. Before he could react, the weight on him disappeared with a rustle of fabric.

Still foggy with desire, Su Kun blinked in confusion until his eyes focused on a tiny figure sprawled on his chest.

"Wh-what...?" Su Kun's slightly hoarse voice croaked out as he stared dumbly at the figure. "What's going on?!"

The small figure lay silently, as if calming his emotions, then slowly floated up, showing a mixture of twitching and irritation on his stoic face. "The effect of the master's talisman seems to have worn off."

Su Kun: "..." Are you kidding me?

Glancing at their state, Gu Yan awkwardly muttered, "I'm going to take a cold shower."

Su Kun watched helplessly as his little buddy stood at attention between his legs, despairing: At this rate, I'll never get over it!!!

Taking a cold shower in the summer might be fine, but in the current chilly season, it would certainly lead to illness. Su Kun had always had a weak constitution, easily falling sick and taking days to recover. Seeing Gu Yan head towards the bathroom, Su Kun resignedly lay spread-eagle on the bed, silently reciting all the high school texts and poems he could remember to help calm down.

Fortunately, though their clothes were disheveled, they were still intact, and their actions had remained at the kissing stage. Otherwise, facing a shrunken Gu Yan, Su Kun would have been overwhelmed with guilt.

He liked Gu Yan no matter his form, but when it came to intimacy, it had to be with the normal version of Gu Yan. He wasn't that depraved to fantasize about a miniature version.

This night's events left a lingering psychological shadow on both of them. For a long time after, despite Gu Yan occasionally growing bigger from absorbing remnants of souls, they avoided any over-the-line actions, fearing another unfinished encounter.

Due to the limitations of Gu Yan's physical condition, he went from accompanying Su Kun to the milk tea shop almost every day to going once every five or six days.

Each time, he would go when he was bigger and leave when he felt something was off, to avoid people noticing his unusual state. The rest of the time, he wandered around Li City, looking for any remnant souls that could help him recover his physical body as quickly as possible. In doing so, he discovered many problematic places and resolved many tricky issues.

Under his slightly selfish diligence, the old lady, Comrade Mo Bao, and the master were much more at ease than before. As for the landlord, he had always been quite leisurely.

For one thing, he was the oldest among them in terms of age and seniority, and had experienced the most. He had been wandering around Li City and the surrounding areas since thousands of years ago, helping to solve many problems. The others who joined later were all willing to let him rest and recuperate, and take more care of his own cultivation.

Secondly, although this person looked gentle, his lethality was quite frightening when he took action. In order to avoid his devastating impact on urban planning, the old lady and the others always secretly vowed behind his back that unless they encountered doomsday, they must never give him too many opportunities to show off his skills.

So he was also happy to be a hands-off boss. When he was bored in the human world, he would do this and that, making his life seem decent. From time to time, he would take a trip to the spirit mountain to look after his beloved. Life was quite comfortable.

For this special department, apart from occasionally discovering some situations and informing the others, as well as allocating manpower, the only thing the landlord managed was paying salaries.

As the head of the entire southeastern region, the landlord had a very wide network of both human and ghost connections, which was inseparable from his thousand years of experience. From leaders of some key national departments to the four ghost emperors, ten kings of hell, the black and white impermanence, he knew them all and maintained close contact and interactions with them. The most important reason was that he needed to go through both the upper and lower lines to pay salaries to his subordinates.

Because his subordinates were of different races, the types of salaries they needed were also different. For example, what the master needed was currency that could be easily circulated in the human world, while the old lady and Comrade Mo Bao needed some things from the demon realm in addition to some human currency. For the ghost types, most of what they needed was underworld money.

Of course, General Gu, who was also a ghost, was an exception. Because his life was tied to Su Kun's, the salary he applied for was normal RMB.

Su Kun, who had been running the milk tea shop for nearly a month, was lying at the computer desk on this late evening of the month, calculating the income and feeling his heart surging.

After deducting the cost of milk tea ingredients, the money he earned this month was nearly three times more than his salary when he was working diligently at the company. And from the overall trend this month, the milk tea shop had already accumulated quite a few customers and had been steadily climbing uphill. If this trend continued, it would only take a few months for him to recover his initial franchise fee, security deposit, and rent!

He pursed his lips, stuck the pen between his upper lip and nose, crossed his legs, and smugly shook the paper with the accounts, his eyes narrowing with glee.

Just as he was feeling so cheerful that he wanted to hum a little tune, a thick brown envelope landed with a "plop" in front of him.

"Huh?" He maintained his pose with the pen clamped, turned his head in confusion, and saw a miniature version of Gu Yan floating beside him, pointing to the envelope on the table and calmly saying, "Salary."

Su Kun still looked at him in confusion, with a head full of question marks.

"For you to manage and supplement the household income," Gu Yan said word by word with a deadpan face.

Su Kun's eyelids twitched. He turned back, picked up the hefty envelope, and saw a note attached to the bottom, with a few scribbled words indicating the amount inside.

Seeing the words on it, Su Kun's pen fell on the table with a clatter, his expression as if he had been struck by lightning.

He was stunned for a long time before maintaining his open-mouthed state, staring blankly at the still calm Gu Yan. His fingers trembled for a while before he said, "Y-your salary is so outrageous!!"

A ghost's salary is double that of a human! I don't want to be human anymore, damn it!

"It's probably... because the job is quite dangerous and it's easy to lose your life," Gu Yan repeated the words the master had said when receiving his salary before, in a flat tone.

Su Kun: "..." Do you even have a life to lose, Comrade Gu Yan?!