Late at night, the living room was pitch black, the street lamps from the residential area filtering through the curtains and casting a faint orange glow on the ceiling.
Occasionally, a late-returning car drove past downstairs, tires rolling over the road with a creaking sound.
White Li seemed to be suffering from insomnia.
Not long after her shower, she had burrowed under the covers and announced she was going to sleep.
Lin Du appeared tired as well and had retreated to his room early.
Seeing Lin Du enter the bedroom, the living room darkened.
White Li quietly reached out from under the covers, removed her wristband, and placed it beside her pillow.
Most of a fox’s sleep is light sleep.
If she heard Lin Du’s movements in her dreams, she could wake up immediately and put the wristband back on.
That was her only confidence to sleep here tonight.
But perhaps she was too vigilant—she couldn’t fall asleep at all.
The more she told herself to sleep, the more alert her mind became.
‘Not good… I have school tomorrow…’
White Li closed her eyes tightly, her eyelashes trembling slightly.
She turned over, buried her face in the pillow, then turned back to stare at the ceiling.
The quieter it got, the easier it was for her to pick up tiny sounds.
The hum of the refrigerator, the dog barking outside, the footsteps from upstairs.
Every sound made her ears twitch involuntarily, trying to confirm whether it was Lin Du’s footsteps.
And sleepiness was crushed into pieces under this vigilance.
Damn it.
She shouldn’t have come here in the first place.
She should have just stayed on the floor and refused to move—he couldn’t have carried her over, could he?
White Li pulled the blanket higher, covering half her face.
She almost wished Lin Du would get up now, take one look at her, and exclaim with wide eyes,
“Who are you?”
Then she could say,
“It’s actually me, White Li. The boy you knew before was fake,”
and finally fall asleep with peace of mind.
But he didn’t come out.
The bedroom door was tightly shut, not a sound emerged.
‘…’
White Li sucked in a breath of cold air and shifted positions.
Maybe she should sneak back?
Tomorrow morning she could just say she couldn’t get used to sleeping there—that was an option too.
She could pack up before dawn, walk out the front door, and return to her shabby house.
But… she really was tired today.
The thought of having to carry her bag all the way back made her not want to move at all.
Besides, it was cold and dark there, not even a bed, covered in glass shards and dust.
Tired.
Let it all burn.
White Li closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
The weather in April was already warm.
Walking under the sun during the day even made her feel hot.
Soon, she’d only need to wear short sleeves.
The blanket felt a bit stuffy, so she pulled open a corner, revealing her small face.
Moonlight happened to fall on White Li’s face, illuminating her skin until it was almost translucent.
The shadow of her eyelashes lay under her eyes like two tiny fans.
She fished her phone out from beside the pillow.
The screen lit up—it was now 1:23 AM.
White Li rolled over again, reached into her pants pocket, and touched a small, round object with her fingertips.
It was the Wonderful Mysterious Tool.
She pinched it, held it up to the moonlight, and looked at it.
After the Blazing Knight had left, she’d swept it out from under the bed, rinsed it with water, and put it in her pocket.
At the time, she hadn’t known why she picked it up—maybe she’d been following the rule that if you pay for something, you have to use it.
White Li stared at the little pill for a few seconds, a thought flashing through her mind.
In her past life, she had used the Fiji Sleep Induction Method to force herself to sleep, and it never failed.
She wondered if it would work on this body…
She placed the pill in her palm and slowly closed her eyes.
Inside the bedroom.
Lin Du’s eyes snapped open.
He gasped for air.
A small patch of his pajama shirt on his back was damp with cold sweat, sticking to his skin.
He sat up, grabbed the cup on the nightstand, and drained it in one gulp.
Again.
That dream.
The world forged by blazing flames, the black sky, the boiling lava, and the dragon chained to a black mountain peak.
He had tried to approach it, to talk to it, to ask,
“Who are you?”
“Why are you in my head?”
“What do you want?”
But the dragon gave him no chance.
Every step forward he took, he was burned into a charred mess and fell off the cliff.
Even if he managed to dodge, he got swatted away and embedded into the lava, sizzling and hissing.
He had tried going around, approaching from the side, crawling forward while the dragon had its eyes closed.
But every time he got within a few meters of the dragon, some invisible force sent him flying.
Lin Du set the cup on the nightstand, leaned back against the headboard, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples.
He guessed the dream was related to the wristband and the thing hidden inside the red gem.
But the dragon never gave him a chance to speak.
It was like a beast locked in a cage for too long, losing all ability to communicate with the outside world, leaving only its instinct to attack.
“I’ll ask Minister Qiuyue about it another day,”
Lin Du muttered to himself, unstrapping the wristband from his arm and placing it on the nightstand.
“After all, they made this thing. If I want to solve the problem, I have to rely on them.”
The silver-gray wristband lay quietly on the table.
Lin Du stared at it for a moment, then pulled the blanket up, ready to lie back down and go to sleep.
Faintly, a soft breathy sound came through the wall, as if from the living room.
“Mm… ha…”
Lin Du’s fingers froze at the corner of the blanket.
He held his breath.
The sound seemed deliberately suppressed, yet it escaped through the cracks of fingers.
It sounded like either great pain or solitary pleasure.
Lin Du frowned.
Only White Li was sleeping outside.
Was she talking in her sleep?
Having a nightmare?
He remembered how much she had gone through today, and that he had invited her to sleep in an unfamiliar place.
Having a nightmare was natural.
But that sound… didn’t quite sound like a nightmare.
It was more like…
He couldn’t quite put it into words.
Maybe… he should go check?
Lin Du tiptoed to the bedroom door and pushed it open a crack.
The hallway was dark.
He placed his hand on the doorframe, held his breath, and peered sideways through the gap.
On the folding bed in the living room, the blanket bulged into a small mound.
Moonlight happened to fall on that blanket, illuminating a small tuft of silver-white hair peeking out from under the edge.
Lin Du blinked, thinking he had seen wrong.
He rubbed his eyes, and that silver streak looked like a reflection off metal—he couldn’t tell clearly.
After some hesitation, Lin Du pushed the door open and walked out slowly.
All he could hear was the faint, ragged breathing coming from under the blanket, like waves lapping against a shore.
He walked up beside the sofa, bent down, and called softly to the slightly trembling blanket.
“White Li?”
The blanket trembled violently, as if struck by lightning.
“Mmph!”
A muffled response came from under the blanket.
It shook hard once, then immediately fell still.
Lin Du saw a hand quickly retract under the edge of the blanket, clutching something unknown.
“Are you okay?
Did you have a nightmare?”
Couldn’t he just sneak up on her?! Why alert her?! Aahhhh, so stupid!