"I messaged Mom. She'll be here in a little while." Baizhi waved her phone, then obediently sat back down at the desk.
Ning Zhe turned his head and watched her sit quietly in the chair like a well-behaved girl, his brows knitting slightly.
Something was wrong with Baizhi. She seemed to have no memory at all of what had happened last night, and even her mannerisms were completely different. The Baizhi from last night had been nothing like this shy, obedient girl. Back then, she had... seemed more human than she did now.
No, he should worry about himself first.
Ning Zhe raised his head and looked out the window. Withered crimson leaves drifted down from the old camphor tree in the courtyard, shrouded in a thin air of dusk.
He lifted one hand and looked down at the lines in his palm. A deep fear rose from his chest cavity and climbed up his spine. "If, someday in the future, I forget who I am... what would be the difference between that version of me and a Ghost?"
Perhaps it would not even be wrong to call him a Ghost outright.
Taiyi was a Ghost. It was a rule—not some randomly awakened superpower from a world where everyone cultivated martial arts. Rules were absolute. Rules were fair.
Absolute fairness meant Ning Zhe was not merely stealing other people's identities. The identities and memories he plundered were also subtly influencing him. Sometimes, he wanted to light a cigarette to dispel his frustration, but Ning Zhe did not smoke. Zhang Yangxu was the one addicted to cigarettes.
At other times, an aloof indifference rose within him, as though he were the impartial heavens, treating all things as straw dogs... But Ning Zhe knew he was not like that. The one