The body swap turned kissing into something extraordinarily subtle.
Although he very much enjoyed seeing Yin Chen uncomfortable, Song Zang had to admit that he felt a little uneasy too.
Kissing him was like kissing himself in a mirror.
The lips still carried their familiar soft texture, but subconsciously he could sense a difference in body temperature from before, along with a breathing rhythm that was difficult to synchronize…
While they kissed inside the enclosed phone booth, neither of them dared keep their eyes open for long.
They really were not used to it, so they tacitly decided not to keep entangling themselves for the moment and instead adjust separately.
First, they would properly play the roles of each other’s social identities and hurry to board the cruise bound for the South Pole.
Yin Chen had booked a family suite in advance. It covered two floors and used blue-and-white naval-themed elements throughout, giving the space a very fresh feeling.
The master bedroom had an entire wall of floor-to-ceiling glass, with a viewing balcony outside. The moment the door opened, a warm sea breeze swept through their hair, carrying a harmless trace of humidity.
It should have been the perfect beginning to a vacation, but Song Zang stood hesitating at the doorway, and his lazy, relaxed expression abruptly tightened.
Yin Chen grabbed his wrist and directly dragged the person walking ahead of him back.
“…Song Zang, you need to learn how to control your strength.”
Song Zang hugged him without answering.
Being held tightly in his lover’s arms, Yin Chen strangely felt none of the enjoyment he should have. He even found it irritating.
Because… this was his own body. He genuinely felt absolutely nothing toward himself.
And the nearly suffocating inhuman pressure of this body, combined with Song Zang’s slightly cold expression at the moment, made him seem inexplicably unfamiliar.
The danger instinct built into the human brain made Yin Chen abruptly raise an arm and brace it against Song Zang’s arm. In a cold voice he said, “Wake up a little. You’ve already crushed the door handle, and you broke one of the suitcase wheels. Didn’t you notice?”
He was about to continue listing all the things Song Zang had accidentally damaged along the way when his voice suddenly stopped.
Song Zang exhaled softly and, without explanation, lifted him off the ground. His arms locked around Yin Chen’s waist while he raised a brow and asked, “There was a dried corpse on the sofa for who knows how long. You didn’t notice that either?”
Yin Chen froze. He stopped struggling and immediately quieted his breathing. Only then did he faintly smell the corpse-like odor drifting from behind the soft sofa.
He knew perfectly well what a human corpse smelled like. But experiencing it personally through a human nose left him with nothing more than the sort of danger signal produced by a security alarm.
That indescribable odor had even been wrapped in the sea breeze and diluted by the clean oxygen inside the room… Yet once someone truly noticed it, it became impossible to ignore.
Yin Chen chose to separate his consciousness from himself for a moment to avoid overreacting. Then he patted Song Zang with the back of his hand. “Put me down. I see it now.”
Song Zang naturally refused to cooperate. He deliberately put on a thoughtful expression and pinched Yin Chen’s thigh. “No. The floor is filthy. You really can’t see it?”
“Tss… gentler. I can’t see anything. That’s the only advantage of a soul swap.”
That was true. To Yin Chen, having a somewhat narrower “field of vision” really was an advantage, but Song Zang was not enjoying it nearly as much.
Only after experiencing this body for himself did Song Zang begin to understand just how broad Yin Chen’s visual perception normally was… just how completely open it was. Only then did Song Zang truly understand how reasonable some of Yin Chen’s cleanliness-obsessed reactions in daily life had been.
Through Yin Chen’s eyes, it seemed as though he could see absolutely everything, including traces that humans had deliberately erased.
At that moment, the scene unfolding before Song Zang gave him the illusion that he was still inside a game instance.
With the corpse hidden inside the sofa as the center, filthy, rotting black-brown pus spread outward in rippling streams, almost seeming to rise and move with the ocean breeze.
From time to time, strange white foam bubbled upward, occasionally mixed with piercing streaks of scarlet.
The visual effect was overwhelmingly vivid, like a three-dimensional timeline made concrete. He could almost smell that truly insane mixture of foul odors: fresh flesh cooling from scorching heat until it turned cold and stiff, then slowly changing and rotting beneath fierce sunlight.
Damn it. How did a vacation somehow come with an unsolved murder case?!
Song Zang unhappily held his breath and slowly shifted his attention back toward Yin Chen. He glanced at Yin Chen’s helpless brows, then his nose, then his lips…
“Chu.”
He still could not hold back. Like someone who had endured a long drought finally meeting sweet rain, Song Zang kissed and bit down hard, and at last felt much better.
He remained somewhat aggrieved, holding Yin Chen against the door while murmuring unhappily, “Yin Chen, you’re really so beautiful. And so clean… You’re the only clean thing in the whole world. What am I supposed to do? I don’t even dare sleep tonight. I want to sleep on top of you.”
The deliberately sweet, cutesy voice he normally used when acting spoiled with Yin Chen came out automatically, but the voice itself felt wrong.
Song Zang behaved as though he noticed nothing. He kissed the corners of Yin Chen’s lips again and again, completely ignoring the faint disgust on the other person’s face.
“Call the police first and change rooms.” Yin Chen turned his face away and let Song Zang’s kisses land on his jaw. “Are you not planning to put me down?”
“Are you comfortable?” Song Zang answered the question with another question, his eyes curving with amusement. His tongue casually swept over a canine as his voice gradually lowered. “I used to love being held by you. I’m letting you experience it too. Isn’t it interesting?”
Physical attraction did not disappear merely because their souls had swapped bodies. Song Zang had already adjusted himself.
Kissing was supposed to be the most comfortable form of intimate interaction. When he was happy, he wanted to kiss. When he was unhappy… he wanted to kiss even more.
“I know what you like better than you do. Go call the police. If you don’t report it soon, the police boat is going to leave.”
“Let it leave. That person has already been dead for more than a year. They won’t find the killer anytime soon.” Song Zang spoke softly, his lips brushing the side of Yin Chen’s face. “The two of us can investigate secretly. We’ll definitely be faster than the police here, okay? I don’t want them dragging us away for questioning.”
“Mm? You can already tell the time of death? Song Zang… you really do have a knack for being me.”
For some reason, Yin Chen’s attitude suddenly softened a little.
He lazily found a comfortable position in Song Zang’s arms and relaxed. The faint, pleased flush gathering at the corners of his eyes was almost impossible to miss.
Of course, he was not hiding anything either. He was simply more restrained than Song Zang had always been.
“Ten more minutes of kissing. Then we go eat.”
“…Okay.”
Seeing that Song Zang still looked dissatisfied, Yin Chen raised a hand and rested it on the top of his head, soothingly rubbing it. Then, because the texture of that hair felt so different from usual, he quickly pulled his hand back.
After thinking seriously for a moment, Yin Chen placed his hand against Song Zang’s ear instead. He pinched it lightly and continued assigning tasks. “I can’t see dirty things today. You’re responsible for cleaning.”
“Got it. I guarantee you’ll be satisfied.” Song Zang felt quite comfortable under his touch and proactively leaned his head closer. “But Yin Chen, if something is wrong with you, there aren’t supposed to be any secrets between us!”
“At this point, what secret could I possibly still have?” Yin Chen did not understand.
“How come you never told me that this world looks… this filthy to you?”
It was not merely filthy. That word was far too mild.
Broken, chaotic garbage information was visible everywhere, surging wildly like water rushing through a storm drain. His whole body felt submerged in some complicated muddy liquid, as though the current might sweep him away if he became careless, leaving his mind lost with it.
Precisely because of that, Song Zang could maintain enough rationality right now only by clinging tightly to Yin Chen, whose engagement ring was flashing brightly on his hand.
At least he would not suddenly lose his temper from sensory overload, run off to destroy some random piece of public property, or punch straight through the cruise ship.
As for Song Zang’s question, Yin Chen lowered his eyes and thought back for a moment before replying, “At first, I didn’t think there was any reason to tell you. Later… I guess I simply got used to it without realizing.”
“Can you really get used to something like this? Baby, you’ve had it rough.”
“…It’s not that serious. My cleanliness obsession has improved a lot. I should probably be able to raise that crocodile cat you keep thinking about now.”
“No, no, no! Now I finally know what that thing looks like. It’s disgusting!”
The crocodile cat was a small NPC creature they had once encountered in an instance. It had a long snout, a soft fluffy tail, and steel-like claws.
The pink pads beneath those sharp claws were soft and flexible enough to help humans peel fruit.
Back then, Song Zang had adored it so much that he wanted to bring it home, while Yin Chen had nearly cut the creature’s tail off with one slash.
Looking back on that memory after the body swap, Song Zang genuinely admired Yin Chen’s good temper.
Yin Chen had actually managed to stop his blade patiently, turn around, and argue with Song Zang instead.
After all, that tail was not really a tail at all, and the fluff was not really fur. It was actually… a huge mass of dried umbilical cords left behind after the infants had been stripped away.
Yin Chen clearly remembered the scene too. He gave a lukewarm smile and raised a brow. “You were wrong?”
“I was wrong. I really was wrong.” Song Zang was rarely this honest.
“Then agree to one request.”
“Mm-hm.”
“Before we switch back, you’re not allowed in bed.”
“…What?!” Song Zang could not believe what he was hearing. “The South Pole cruise takes ten whole days. You can endure that? I have high needs, baby.”
The smile deep in Yin Chen’s eyes became a little more genuine. He turned his head toward the glass window and admired the reflection of the two of them for half a second before slowly nodding.
When he answered, his tone was perfectly matter-of-fact. “I raised you to be delicate and tender. I didn’t do that so you could play with yourself.”
“Only I’m allowed to play with you. Don’t even think about touching.”