Song Mo died.
Then she came back to life.
In front of her lay an unfamiliar male corpse.
...
In the messy bedroom, items from the desk were scattered all over the floor, and the drawers were wide open, their contents thrown about haphazardly.
Behind the light green blackout curtains was a wide-open, old-fashioned glass window, through which tangled, aging electrical wires could be faintly seen.
Outside, the daylight was bright. The sound of neighbors opening their doors in the hallway was just as usual, and if one listened closely, the cries of vendors from the nearby vegetable market could also be heard.
This was a residential building in an old neighborhood.
“Good morning! Off to work, you two? I'm just heading out for my morning exercise...”
“Hurry up, get a move on! You're going to be late, kid. Put on your red scarf before you run off! Hey—take your milk, let your dad take you on the electric scooter!”
“Old Wang, playing cards this afternoon? My grandson went to his grandma's.”
“Boss, two pickled cabbage buns, two fresh meat buns, a marinated egg, and a soy milk. Pack them separately, hurry, I'm in a rush!”
The hustle and bustle of everyday life made the morning feel exceptionally vivid and alive.
But the problem was, this wasn't Song Mo's own bedroom, and this body wasn't Song Mo's either.
On the floor in front of her lay a gruesome, pale-faced middle-aged male corpse.
She had to be dreaming.
Song Mo expressionlessly touched the large, drafty hole in the back of her head, even feeling the sticky brain tissue inside.
Then, she uttered her first words since coming back to life:
“Ah, the back of my skull is gone.”
“Maybe I should just die and go back. At least my own corpse was a bit more intact.”
...
Song Mo was a bit unsure if her current state counted as “alive.”
After all, even with her limited medical knowledge, she had never seen anyone survive after losing so much blood and having their skull shattered.
She felt no pain, only a chilly draft at the back of her head.
Even emotions like panic and fear had vanished.
【Discovered Low-Grade Material (Writing): Wang Dazhi's Corpse (During his life, he installed a camera in his tenant's room and sneaked back in the middle of the night to retrieve it. After being discovered by "Song Mo," he feared exposure and violently attacked to kill her. During the struggle, the resisting "Song Mo" accidentally killed him.)】
A string of characters that looked as if they were soaked in ink silently floated above the corpse.
Facing a recently deceased corpse, Song Mo felt a strange lack of any fear.
She squatted down, searched the floor, and indeed found a blood-soaked pinhole camera.
“So this is a parallel universe? I'm absolutely certain I drowned after falling off a cruise ship—and this isn't my body either.”
“Here's the question: if I ‘revived’ here, where did the original ‘Song Mo’ go?”
Song Mo completely ignored the bizarre text and hopped in place twice, finding that she indeed felt no discomfort.
Not only did her waist not ache and her legs not hurt, she didn't even have a breath or a heartbeat!
Good news: Reborn in a parallel world.
Bad news: Alive in name only.
The ink characters, as if dissatisfied with Song Mo's disregard, dissolved like ink in water and revealed the next lines of text:
【Remaining Lifespan: 6 days, 23 hours, 49 minutes, 40 seconds】
【Screenwriter Points: 0】
【Current Manifested Scripts: 0】
【Please write a script as soon as possible to extend your survival time.】
Song Mo: “...”
Just revived and already being rushed to die, and why does she still have to work as a screenwriter even after being reborn!
...
Reborn, with a golden finger.
Song Mo only had time to briefly mourn her original six-figure savings before starting to think about how to deal with the mess in front of her.
The original host didn't live alone; she co-rented this old apartment with two girls who worked at a hot pot restaurant.
Coincidentally, the original “Song Mo” was also a creator, but her meager salary could barely support her.
The dead man lying on the floor was Song Mo's landlord.
He must have slipped into the rented room in the middle of the night, not expecting the original host to be awake, and immediately attacked her with a hammer he brought.
But perhaps because it was his first time killing someone, or because he feared her screams would attract attention, the killer intended to murder and struck with lethal force, shattering the original host's skull with the hammer.
This might have been the opportunity for Song Mo's arrival.
But before the original host collapsed, she used all her strength to stab a calligraphy brush into Wang Dazhi's neck.
Then, the original host died, and Wang Dazhi lay on the ground, making wheezing, raspy noises as he watched his blood drain away bit by bit.
He probably never expected a young woman to have so much strength, nor did he expect to be killed in return.
...
Wang Dazhi's appearance had no special features—a very ordinary face, slightly dark skin, and pale lips.
His wide-open eyes were already cloudy, with a trace of disbelief still lingering on his face.
The upper half of the corpse wore a yellowed undershirt, and the shorts on the lower half couldn't cover his bloated belly.
One of his flip-flops barely hung on his foot, while the other had flown off to who-knows-where.
Just looking at his appearance, he was the classic image of someone you'd find in a card room: middle-aged and bloated, with a bit of pocket money, holding a thermos, blowing smoke at his fellow players, and bragging to his tenants.
But right now, a hollow calligraphy brush tube was thrust straight into his neck, and the spurting blood had stained almost the entire bedroom floor.
Most of the blood had dried, soaking into the carpet and leaving an unsettling dark red stain that looked like pig's blood curd.
The exposed skin of the corpse had already begun to show small patches of livor mortis.
Song Mo fell into deep thought.
It was summer now. In six hours at most, the stench of the corpse would penetrate the thin door of the rented apartment.
When that happened, it would play out just like the plots in police procedural dramas: the roommates would call the police due to the smell, and the officers arriving at the scene would stumble upon a corpse and a floor covered in blood.
Oh, and a “killer” who was still alive despite a hole in her head and having lost at least a bucket of blood.
Call the police?
How would Song Mo explain her current state as a living corpse?
Who knew if this parallel universe had some fanatical scientists who loved dissecting things?
Run away?
She had no memories of the original host. It could be said she was facing an almost completely unfamiliar world.
Run where?
Song Mo was confident in herself: if she ran, she'd be caught in three days at most, not to mention she was currently a living corpse.
So... her gaze finally fell back on that line of ink-style characters.
“I hope you can be of some use.”
...
Song Mo had two roommates who both worked at a hot pot restaurant. One was named Cui Lili and the other was Ma Aiyuan. Neither was very old, right at the age of working like a horse... ahem, in the prime of their youth.
The two of them had worked the night shift yesterday and hadn't returned to rest until four in the morning.
By noon, having caught up on sleep, Cui Lili and Ma Aiyuan yawned as they walked into the kitchen one after the other to forage for food.
...
“Oh my god, I'm exhausted. I'm telling you, that table of customers dragged on until three-thirty yesterday.”
“Their alcohol tolerance was terrible, but they just kept drinking and throwing up. By the end, I wanted to go over and beat them both up.”
Cui Lili expertly tore open a pack of instant noodles, slipped the bag into a bowl, and sniffed as she tore open the seasoning packet and poured in hot water:
“What's that smell? I smelled it when I was sleeping. It can't be the sewer backing up again, can it? The landlord always says he'll fix it, but he never actually does anything.”
“I smelled it too. It smells like death. Maybe we should just hire someone to fix it ourselves. I always feel like that landlord looks at people weirdly.”
Ma Aiyuan waved her hand in front of her nose, then suddenly realized something:
“Huh? Have you talked to Song Mo today? This smell seems to be coming from her room—”
The two who were making instant noodles were shocked at the same time.
Song Mo was a shut-in and a third-rate writer. Not only did she have an irregular schedule, but she also always worked at night and slept during the day.
Out of concern for their fellow impoverished comrade, they were always worried she might suddenly drop dead while writing.
This smell—could Song Mo have kicked the bucket in her room?
Terrified, the two girls supported each other as they tried to knock on Song Mo's door:
“Song Mo! Song Mo! Are—are you okay?”
“Song Mo? If you don't open the door, I'm calling the police!”
After knocking for a long time without hearing any sound from inside, Cui Lili and Ma Aiyuan were on the verge of tears, their fingers hovering over the emergency call button—
With a creak, the door suddenly opened.
With disheveled long hair and a look of exhaustion, Song Mo slowly opened the door, revealing a messy floor behind her.
She yawned and replied lazily and slowly, “Oh, you're back.”
Cui Lili and Ma Aiyuan finally breathed a sigh of relief, but they both pinched their noses and took a step back, craneing their necks to peer inside.
The faint stench had disappeared, as if it had been nothing but a momentary illusion.
The room looked very messy. The desk had been moved to face the window.
The bed had also been rotated, and books were thrown haphazardly on the floor, leaving almost no place to step.
“Is there a smell in your room? Don't let your takeout spoil. If it attracts mice and cockroaches, that fat landlord will have another excuse to come over and nag us.”
Cui Lili complained casually, then noticed a few stray bloodstains on the floor: “Are you bleeding?”
She had absolutely no idea that just a few seconds ago, on the floor just a wall away, lay the landlord's corpse.
“Yeah, I stayed up late writing a script yesterday and got a nosebleed. When I woke up this morning, I wanted a change of pace, so I rearranged the room. I'm still a bit lightheaded right now—”
Song Mo leaned against the doorframe, keeping the door open for them to see.
Seeing that she was fine, Ma Aiyuan let out a small sigh of relief. Her gaze swept past the gap in the door, and she spotted a piece of red gum that seemed to have hair stuck to it.
It was flat but slightly curved, with a large clump of hair stuck to it—
She hesitated, not knowing if she should advise her roommate to take better care of herself: losing so much hair, she'd go bald sooner or later.
Who knew that Song Mo would quickly bend down, pick up that piece of “chewing gum,” hold it in her hand, and say with inexplicable delight:
“So it was here!”
The piece of skull the original host had lost was finally found.
Rate on N.U.
