Shang Nan heard his own heartbeat; it was as heavy and urgent as the raindrops falling into the puddles.

Handing the umbrella he was holding to Yu Zhibai, Yu Zhibai tilted the umbrella slightly towards Shang Nan, while Shang Nan's hands grasped blindly at the muddy ground.

Rotting fallen leaves, hard stones, slippery muddy water flowing through his fingers.

Found it!

Shang Nan originally thought a monster's eyes might be different from human eyes, but when he grasped Yu Zhibai's eyeball in his palm, it had a bit of elasticity, like a small meatball. Subconsciously, he was certain: it was an eyeball.

"It's dirty, I... I'll wash it for you." Shang Nan scooped up the eyeball, pretending to be calm.

After speaking, he rummaged for his water bottle from his schoolbag. His movements unscrewing the cap were a bit flustered; his heart beat like thunder, his mouth was dry, and his cheeks burned.

"Splash"

Shang Nan's hand shook, the water bottle was unsteady, and the entire cup of water poured out.

The eyeball was a bit slippery; he almost didn't hold it steady.

Shang Nan handed the eyeball toward Yu Zhibai. "All done."

Yu Zhibai's brows and eyes didn't move an inch, only the corners of his mouth curved up. He raised his hand to take the eyeball from Shang Nan's palm. This was the first smile he had shown Shang Nan today. In Shang Nan's memory, it was also the first time Yu Zhibai had smiled at him since they had known each other.

Shang Nan was curious about what Yu Zhibai would do with this eyeball.

He watched as Yu Zhibai pinched the cleaned eyeball between his fingers, examined it for a few seconds, and then pressed the still-wet eyeball into his left eye socket.

After pressing it in simply and crudely, he looked up; it was all whites.

His pair of eyes, one entirely white, one entirely black, looked at Shang Nan dully and woodenly.

The umbrella cast a shadow over half his face. He tilted his head. "Thank you, Student Shang Nan."

"No... no need." Shang Nan felt his voice floating in mid-air, unsure of where to go. He could only reach out his hand toward Yu Zhibai. "Can you give me the umbrella? I should go home."

Yu Zhibai handed the umbrella handle into Shang Nan's hand. "Aren't you afraid?"

Shang Nan felt there was no need to lie. "A little."

Yu Zhibai asked, "A little?"

Shang Nan looked at his expression, very worried that the other party would gouge his eye out and press it back in again, so he hurriedly said, "It's very, very afraid."

"Okay," Yu Zhibai raised his hand and waved. "Then be safe on the road. See you tomorrow."

Shang Nan turned around, leaving impatiently.

After walking a distance, he shouldered the umbrella and started running fast, leaving Yu Zhibai far behind.

[14: When you were holding the monster's eye, I learned its true identity.]

Shang Nan's pace slowed down, panting slightly. "What is its true identity?"

"A Paper Effigy."

Shang Nan: "?"

Shang Nan was most afraid of ghosts; his face suddenly turned deathly pale.

[14: It's just a Paper Effigy, not a ghost.]

Shang Nan was speechless for a long while. "The difference from a ghost doesn't seem very big."

[14: Let's get to the point. Nannan, the eyeball you just helped it pick up was made by itself. It pastes a layer of white skin over an eyeball model to serve as the white of the eye; this layer is waterproof. Then it draws the pupil and iris on the white skin using special ink. This ink is the most realistic, but its waterproofing is slightly poor. If it gets too damp, the whole eyeball will smudge black. The eyeball you just picked up was snow-white because the ink had all been washed away by the water.]

Shang Nan praised woodenly, "As expected of a monster."

[14: There is also good news: the monster's blackening value has dropped by 0.5. This is all your credit, Nannan. Keep it up, make persistent efforts.]

Saving monsters was his job. While Shang Nan felt the mission was too terrifying, seeing progress in his work still made him a little happy.

......

Yu Zhibai watched Shang Nan run away, his figure shrinking from a small dot until he completely disappeared, vanished into the curtain of rain.

His impression of Shang Nan wasn't good—a clingy and stupid rich second generation. But he was beautiful enough, and this sufficient beauty allowed him to not dislike Shang Nan so much.

In fact, the annoyance caused by the other party was still within a tolerable range.

Yu Zhibai took an umbrella out of his schoolbag, and along with it fell several small human-shaped paper pieces. They had round heads, short and thick limbs, and no facial features drawn yet; without looking closely, one couldn't even make out their shapes.

The rain was too heavy. Fortunately, Yu Zhibai was standing under the eaves, but rain would still occasionally blow in.

They were afraid of getting wet. Following the umbrella surface, climbing up the back of Yu Zhibai's hand and arm, they crawled onto Yu Zhibai's shoulder one by one, lying there neatly in a row.

Yu Zhibai casually yanked one down from his shoulder. Using a fountain pen from his bag, he dotted on facial features, emphasizing the eyes. He smiled and tapped the little paper person's head with the pen cap. "Did you see that boy named Shang Nan just now clearly?"

The little paper person nodded.

Yu Zhibai flipped the little person over, wrote a line of words on its back, and placed it on the ground. The paper person stepped into a puddle, striding on its short legs as it hurriedly ran in the direction Shang Nan had left, looking not at all afraid of the water.

Shang Nan arrived at his doorstep.

The villa had a broad floor area. The regularly distributed night lights illuminated the garden's greenery like a set in a dark noir film, with water droplets rolling down the leaves.

It was eleven o'clock at night. Shang Nan unlocked the door with his key. The house was pitch black. Shang Nan fumbled to slap the lights on, but was startled by a woman in white sitting on the sofa with her back to him.

Her long hair reached her waist, smooth and dark. The sofa was snow-white. The five fingers resting elegantly on her knee cap were pale, to the point where the blood vessels beneath the skin were visible. The ring on her ring finger occasionally refracted specks of piercing light.

Hearing the sound of the door opening, Dai Lili turned her head sideways, tucked a few strands of hair that had fallen to her cheek behind her ear, stood up, and turned on the main light. "Why are you back so late?"

"A classmate didn't have an umbrella, so I walked him part of the way." Shang Nan handed the umbrella to the auntie. The auntie came out of her room, still looking sleepy, and asked Shang Nan if he wanted anything to eat. Shang Nan said no.

After Dai Lili stood up, Shang Nan realized the other party was very thin. A withered torso and limbs; inside the soft fabric of her loungewear, it was empty, swaying with Dai Lili's steps.

Dai Lili's cheeks were gaunt, but it wasn't hard to glimpse her peerless beauty from her youth. Her brows and eyes shared a similar charm to Shang Nan's—a careless sense of regarding everything as nothing.

"Go to sleep early." Dai Lili sat in the living room, seemingly just to wait for Shang Nan to come home.

She walked up the stairs, her shoulder blades protruding from her back like two small, parallel mountain ranges.

[14: Dai Lili is your mother. Her husband, which is your father, deeply loved someone else. Only after your father passed away did Dai Lili realize she was just a tool your father used to deal with the family elders. Dai Lili currently suffers from severe psychological and mental illnesses. All expenses in your home now come from the dividends of the shares your father left you. These are currently managed for you by your father's special assistant and lawyer.]

While Shang Nan arrived home here, Yu Zhibai also stepped into the community promptly at midnight.

This was an old community. The lights in the stairwell flickered on and off; they were voice-activated. In the rainy night, they dimmed and brightened like fireflies.

The residential buildings had fallen into disrepair over the years, the sides covered in moss and vines.

Yu Zhibai lived on the sixth floor. There was no elevator, and the sixth floor was the top floor.

The iron gate on the first floor was opened from the inside by a little girl with a ponytail sticking straight up. She hunched her waist, her face had two patches of blush as bright as rosy clouds, and her pupils were like needle points—completely invisible without looking carefully.

"Xiao Bai, did you get beaten up again?" Yu Xiaoyu saw the bruise at the corner of Yu Zhibai's mouth at a glance. She looked behind Yu Zhibai again. "Gougou didn't come back; I really miss him."

She held a flashlight in her hand, illuminating the stairwell for Yu Zhibai.

Yu Xiaoyu knew how to use the voice-activated lights, but her screams were too high-pitched and piercing. The first few times, although the lights turned on, rumors that Building 11 of Happiness Community was haunted slowly spread. Since then, Yu Zhibai made her use a flashlight and not shout anymore.

"I'm pretty much the same as a ghost anyway." Yu Xiaoyu skipped up the stairs.

Granny Yu was at home listening to the radio. She was extremely old, huddled on the sofa with a hunched back, covered by a thick blanket. Her head was full of silver hair, and wrinkles covered her from forehead to neck, down to the backs of her hands.

Hearing the sound of the door opening and closing, Granny Yu moved and straightened up, the blanket sliding from her shoulders to her legs.

When she was young, she didn't live in Happiness Community in Huinanfang; she lived in the countryside with Yu Zhibai's mother. At that time, she was a shamaness famous far and wide. Granny Yu took on all sorts of jobs, helping the living call the dead, and helping the dead call the living. Later, these skills were passed on to Yu Zhibai, but her own body collapsed, becoming less and less presentable, unable to walk even a few steps. Those in the know said she had offended the immortals and was being punished.

"You're back?" Granny Yu's voice sounded like a rusty kitchen knife scraping against the side of a wok. "It rained; are your eyes okay?"

Yu Zhibai sat down on the sofa. Yu Xiaoyu hopped over holding a box and squatted in front of Yu Zhibai, turning her head to answer Granny Yu along the way. "Grandma, Xiao Bai's eyes got wet and can't be used anymore. He has to change to new ones." When Yu Zhibai wasn't home, it was Yu Xiaoyu who kept Granny Yu company and chatted to pass the time.

The plain-looking box was opened. Inside lay a stack of cut white paper. He peeled off the outer layer of the already dirty eyeball and threw it away. New white paper was pasted onto the periphery of the eyeball mold; the size was just right.

"Here." Yu Xiaoyu held the ink pen and handed it to Yu Zhibai.

Yu Zhibai pursed his lips and completed the final step. At this moment, the paper effigy eyeball in his hand could pass for the real thing, except it lacked blood vessels and nerves connecting to the brain.

His eye sockets were two black holes; the beam from the overhead light could shine into them. Yu Zhibai changed into a pair of new eyeballs for himself, adjusting the position to be more precise. After confirming there were no issues, he opened his eyes. The pupils contained a shallow smile. He started to clean up the items on the coffee table, throwing the discarded eyeballs that could no longer be used into the trash can.

Yu Xiaoyu squatted on the ground, tilting her head and scrutinizing Yu Zhibai intensely. "Xiao Bai, your eyes are smiling today. You're so good at drawing; I want ones like that too." The little girl's eyeballs were too small, the size of sesame seeds, lifeless and dull, completely mismatched with her lively and vivacious tone.

Granny Yu let out a wheezing sound. Yu Xiaoyu turned to look. "Grandma, Xiao Bai got beaten up again today!"

Grandma had fallen asleep. Yu Xiaoyu put her index finger to her lips. "Shh, we need to be quieter."

Yu Zhibai turned off the few lights in the cramped living room, leaving only a small desk lamp by the sofa so Grandma could sleep peacefully.

The desk lamp's light was faint, only able to illuminate a small area. Within this dim circle of light, Yu Xiaoyu's face was as pale as paper, with bright red lips and cheeks. Rather than a little girl, she looked more like a paper person right now.

Yu Zhibai lowered his eyes, his long eyelashes casting a shadow beneath them. After changing to new eyeballs, his features became clear. His gaze appeared gentle and peaceful under the lamp, elegant and beautiful. The red of his lips faded to pink; the previous aggression and weirdness were already hidden.

......

Early morning. Shang Nan's room was silent.

The boy on the bed seemed to be sleeping soundly, but according to the host database shown on 14's side, its new host was a very insecure person and a very light sleeper. It was just that the Main System had sealed the host's memories, so the host didn't remember anything.

The French window that had been closed before sleep was quietly pried open a slit from the outside.

[14: Nannan.]

As 14 expected, it only called out softly, and Shang Nan woke up immediately. However, he wasn't fully awake; he hummed a groggy "Mhm," not knowing why 14 woke him up, and his eyelids were about to close again.

[14: "Someone" is here.]

Shang Nan shut his eyes directly, shutting them tight. The surroundings were quiet. Shang Nan knew the "someone" 14 mentioned was definitely not a human.

After a long silence, Shang Nan's curiosity finally defeated his fear. He cautiously opened one eye, meeting the gaze of the little paper person that was about to stick itself onto his face.

It might have been an illusion, but Shang Nan saw a trace of awkwardness on its face.

"What do you want to do?" Shang Nan couldn't bring himself to be afraid of such a round-headed, round-brained little paper piece. It was only the size of a palm, with dark eyes like two longan pits and short, thick limbs.

"Did Yu Zhibai send you?" A little paper person... Yu Zhibai was a paper person, Shang Nan thought, so it must be Yu Zhibai. Did he want to assassinate him?

Seeing it was discovered, the paper piece simply lay down and played dead, becoming a real piece of paper.

Seeing this, Shang Nan reached out to pick it up and turned on the light.

Very ordinary white paper, nothing strange about it. The facial features were drawn roughly, and there were mud specks on the paper person's two little short legs, probably dirty from the run over here.

[14: It likely came to erase your memory.]

Shang Nan saw a line of words on the back of the little paper person. The handwriting was scribbled but had character: He knows nothing, he remembers nothing.

Shang Nan sat cross-legged on the bed wearing thin navy blue striped pajamas. His neck was like white jade. The hair on the back of his head was messy from rolling around on the bed for half the night. The halo of the desk lamp fell on the bridge of his nose; his aura was soft and graceful.

He was still studying the little paper person, his mind full of question marks. "If Yu Zhibai is so powerful, why does he let people beat and scold him?"

[14: Not sure, but those people's punches and kicks can't hurt him at all... Nannan, you have too little contact with him; a lot of information regarding him is still in a locked state.]

"Alright, going to sleep then." Shang Nan grabbed the paper person, turned off the light, and tucked himself in.

The little paper person was covered tightly under his palm.

The rain outside lessened again. Shang Nan re-entered dreamland. The little paper person under his palm never showed any abnormality, behaving itself and staying motionless. Until a long, long time had passed, it lifted its head and pushed desperately with its limbs against the object pressing it down. After working for a long time, it finally gave up, dropped its head, and sighed.

Only then did Shang Nan slowly lift his eyelids, his voice husky and soft. "Be good, I'll take you to see your master tomorrow."

Behind the rusty iron door of Unit 603, Happiness Community. Yu Zhibai, sitting on the sofa, closed his homework notebook and looked up, staring straight at a certain point ahead. "Discovered?"

Yu Xiaoyu stood by the armrest of the sofa, rolling her sesame-seed-sized eyeballs. "Will Xiao Bai solve it yourself? Or should I go instead?"

Yu Zhibai thought for a few seconds and said, "You will scare him."

The Author has something to say: The paper person who gouged out his eyeballs in front of his wife: You will scare him.

Yu Xiaoyu: Uh-oh.