It was very cold, and there was wind, as sharp as a knife cutting into the skin.

Eric Carter felt cold too.

He didn’t know where this place was again,

But he knew one thing:

This was... the human world.

He was already dead, but had come back.

He didn’t know what he should do,

He could only continue walking forward mechanically, numbly.

Right now, he didn’t have the energy to think about too many other things,

Like the place he had just gone down to,

Like the old man he tried to save before his car accident,

Like the faceless woman in the red dress in the pond,

Like... his own fingernails.

He had come back, which should have been a joyful thing, but even when someone occasionally walked by, no matter how hard he tried to greet them, still, no one could see or hear him.

He had been rejected, isolated by this world.

Those who have never experienced solitary confinement cannot understand the pain of being completely cut off, and for Eric Carter, right now the whole world was his prison, with a black cloth draped over the cage.

No one could see him,

No one could communicate with him,

He couldn’t pick up anything tangible,

Even

The wind could easily blow right through him.

He was so frail,

The phrase “too weak to withstand even a breeze” was not an exaggeration for him at all.

And, what shocked and horrified Eric Carter the most was

He could see faint specks of light constantly drifting away from his body.

In other words,

His body was slowly fading.

Maybe in another quarter of an hour, he would completely disappear, erased without a single trace left behind.

He didn’t know how all this had happened, but he knew clearly that he really didn’t have much time left.

Among the Eight Immortals, Iron Crutch Li entered the body of a starving man who had collapsed on the ground in the form of a soul, and that’s how the image passed down through the ages came to be.

Eric Carter had also heard stories about ghosts “borrowing a corpse to return to life.” He wanted to do the same. He was cold, and panicked; he needed a body to attach himself to.

He didn’t even care who the person was.

At times like this, people are always selfish, and Eric Carter was no exception. Besides, he really couldn’t take it anymore.

But every time he tried to approach someone, flames of light would appear above their head and shoulders, making it impossible for him to get close, and he would even get hurt by it, accelerating the “evaporation” of himself.

He was a bit tired, a bit numb,

He was waiting for his end,

Waiting for his conclusion.

As someone who had already died once, facing death again actually made him a bit more calm.

Moreover, in Eric Carter’s current situation, the longer he lingered here, the longer he would have to endure the torment.

“Squeak...”

Ahead, there was a shop with its lights still on. It seemed to be a bookstore, because through the glass door he could see rows of bookshelves inside.

Someone inside pushed the door open and came out—a man in a hoodie, wearing a hat so his face couldn’t be seen clearly. He looked around for a moment, then hurried away.

Of course, the man couldn’t see Eric Carter standing less than five meters away from him.

At first, Eric Carter didn’t think anything was unusual, but not long after the man left, Eric Carter suddenly sensed a warm aura coming from inside the bookstore.

Yes,

A warm aura.

This warmth made Eric Carter feel inexplicably drawn, but right now he was like someone about to freeze to death who suddenly got a box of matches—even knowing the matches couldn’t save his life, he would still strike one just to feel a final bit of warmth before dying.

Eric Carter walked over, his body passing straight through the bookstore’s glass door, continuing inside, and arriving behind the bookshelves.

Behind the bookshelves,

Someone was lying there.

It was a handsome young man, probably only twenty-three or twenty-four years old. Because the air conditioning was on in the store, he wasn’t wearing much, just a long-sleeved shirt and a thin jacket.

He was lying on the ground, but from him, Eric Carter sensed a feeling of warmth, like a pauper picking up a bag of gold coins while walking at night.

This attraction was irresistible, and right now, Eric Carter wasn’t in a position to refuse!

Eric Carter walked over and squatted down in front of the young man.

He didn’t know how to enter the other’s body, but he understood how to reach out for the warmth he needed.

He stretched out a hand and placed it on the other’s chest.

Eric Carter saw his own fingernails slowly sinking into the other’s body.

It was a very strange feeling, different from the “breeze” blowing through him as he walked down the street before. This was a merging, a fusion using his fingernails as a medium.

Slowly, Eric Carter began to enter the other’s body, the two of them starting to overlap.

……

“Ryan Cooper! Wake up, wake up!”