My Strange Tale Love Strategy Simulator

Li Ziqing emerged from the ripples in the space.

She wore a wreath of colorful flowers on her head—red, yellow, and purple—mixed together as if they had been picked and woven from wildflowers.

She was wearing a white dress and took a barefoot step out of the air onto the stone pavement.

As soon as she appeared, she hugged Zhang Ying's arm, buried her head in Zhang Ying's chest, and her voice was tinged with a sob.

"Where have you been these past few days? Why can't I find you?"

Shen Yugang, standing to the side, was completely terrified. He stared blankly at the scene, his mouth slightly agape and his eyes wide open. He simply couldn't believe that Zhang Ying would be so cruel as to kill even a ghost.

He gave Zhang Ying a thumbs up, his voice very low.

"Brother Ying, you're awesome."

Zhang Ying ignored Shen Yugang. He gently comforted Li Ziqing in his arms, his tone much softer than usual.

"I'm sorry, I've been too busy these past few days and some things happened, which is why I haven't been able to contact you."

Li Ziqing looked up at Zhang Ying, her eyes brimming with tears. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and tears still clung to her eyelashes, but the next second, her expression changed.

Her brows furrowed, and the sadness on her face was instantly replaced by anger.

"Who? Who hurt your eyes?"

A crimson mist suddenly appeared around Li Ziqing. The mist surged from her body, growing darker and thicker, like a blood-red cloud gathering behind her.

Shen Yugang, who was watching from the sidelines, was so frightened that he took half a step back.

Zhang Ying immediately said, "It's nothing, it's just from overusing my eyes. The doctor said it will recover naturally. Don't worry, senior."

Li Ziqing's anger subsided somewhat. The crimson mist gradually dissipated, as if it had never existed. Her expression changed from anger to worry, and she reached out to touch Zhang Ying's sunglasses.

"You should rest well. I don't want to see my junior get injured so badly again."

Zhang Ying nodded.

The atmosphere on the field eased a little. Zhang Ying coughed twice, cleared his throat, and pointed to Shen Yugang beside him.

"Senior, my buddy is having some issues and I'd like to ask you to take a look and see if there's anything wrong with him."

Li Ziqing turned around and looked at Shen Yugang.

Shen Yugang immediately grinned awkwardly, unsure of what to do with his hands, and finally rubbed them on his trouser legs a couple of times.

"Hello, sister-in-law, I'm Brother Ying's friend."

Li Ziqing's face flushed instantly. The blush spread from her cheeks to the tips of her ears, and even her neck was tinged with pink.

"What sister-in-law? We haven't reached that point yet."

Her voice was much softer than before, carrying an indescribable shyness.

But immediately, her expression turned puzzled.

She circled around Shen Yugang twice, looking him up and down, and then pointed to herself.

"Can you see me?"

Shen Yugang immediately nodded. "I can see it."

Li Ziqing frowned. She returned to Zhang Ying's side, tilting her head to look at Shen Yugang as if he were a rare specimen.

"Strange, how can a living person see me right now without any external force?" She turned to Zhang Ying and asked, "Could it be that your friend has a natural ability to see ghosts?"

Zhang Ying shook his head.

"My friend is just an ordinary person."

He then repeated to Li Ziqing what Xie Lichun had told him.

After listening, Li Ziqing closed his eyes.

She raised her right hand, palm open, fingers slightly spread. Wisps of blood-red energy detached from her fingertips, like red threads, drifting slowly in the air.

The blood vessels gathered in mid-air, forming a thin red line that lingered around Shen Yugang.

The red line circled twice above his head, paused briefly on either side of his shoulders, and finally stopped at his chest.

Shen Yugang stared at the red lines, his face filled with tension. His body was taut, his back ramrod straight, and his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

The red threads swirled around him for a while, then, as if they had found an entrance, they burrowed into his body.

Shen Yugang shuddered.

A moment later, Li Ziqing opened her eyes. Her expression was somewhat surprised.

"It's true, I can't feel his presence as a living person at all."

Zhang Ying immediately asked, "How is it? Did you figure anything out?"

Li Ziqing nodded. "When I examined his body just now, I couldn't sense any fluctuations of a living soul within him. Instead, there was the lingering spirit of a dead person."

She paused for a moment, her brows furrowing slightly.

"But it's different from what you said before. If your friend really didn't have a soul inside him, he would have long since become an unconscious shell. The fact that he's still perfectly fine can only mean one thing."

"What?" Zhang Ying and Shen Yugang asked in unison.

Li Ziqing replied in a serious tone: "Your friend's soul has been captured, or more precisely, imprisoned, but his consciousness has separated from his soul and still exists in his body. It's like his soul leaving his body, but his consciousness has been preserved in his body."

"His current state is like being caught in quantum entanglement in physics. If your friend's soul is still intact, then his consciousness will be fine. Once your friend's soul disappears, then no matter how far away he is, his consciousness will disappear in an instant."

"As long as his soul is intact, everything will be fine?" Zhang Ying asked.

"It won't be a big problem in the short term, but if it goes on for a long time, your friend's memory will get worse and worse until he forgets everything, even his own existence. And then—"

Li Ziqing pointed to the lawn on the ground.

Shen Yugang swallowed hard, his voice trembling. "Dead?"

"It's not that easy." Li Ziqing shrugged. "You'll become a vegetable, and the kind that you'll never wake up from."

Shen Yugang's face turned pale instantly. He turned around, put his hands on Zhang Ying's shoulders, and shook Zhang Ying back and forth forcefully.

"Help me, Brother Ying! I don't want to become a vegetable!"

Zhang Ying was so dizzy from being shaken that he reached out and pushed Shen Yugang's hand away.

"Stop shaking me, or I'll throw up. You need to know how to save me first."

Zhang Ying rubbed his neck, which was sore from being shaken, and looked at Li Ziqing.

"Senior, so you mean my friend's soul is trapped somewhere? The only way to save him is to find his soul and put it back into his body, right?"

Li Ziqing nodded.

Shen Yugang scratched his head, running his fingers through his hair and pulling hard a couple of times. His expression was full of anxiety and confusion.

"God knows where my soul is?"

Zhang Ying didn't answer immediately. He pinched his chin, narrowed his eyes, as if recalling something.

Then he hissed.

"Perhaps I really do know where your soul might be."

Shen Yugang was stunned.

"what?"