Chapter 26

Chapter 26

An Jiujiu had suffered from bouts of hypersomnia once or twice a year since she was eight or nine years old. Now, on these two pieces of paper, the condition finally had a name: Kleine-Levin Syndrome①, also known as recurrent hypersomnia.

One full page was dedicated to a detailed description of An Ye’s symptoms during episodes and caregiving guidelines. At the bottom was a business card, presumably from her attending physician. Below it was a line of text indicating that if she became excessively aggressive during an episode, this doctor could be contacted.

The other page was a list—door code, bank password, computer startup password, phone password, payment app password, locations of several insurance policies, a list of her movable and immovable assets, and notarized property documents.

It was just a condition that made her fall asleep for days or, at most, weeks at a time. Why she needed to prepare a list like this was unclear.

Chi Tuo didn’t look at the second sheet. Instead, he searched for information on Kleine-Levin Syndrome on the computer. The paper An Ye had left was full of medical terminology, and he was especially puzzled by the phrase “cognitive-behavioral disorder.”

An Ye exhibited many symptoms during her episodes. The first listed was this cognitive-behavioral disorder, which meant she would be unable to distinguish between reality and dreams, appear very apathetic, and speak with aggression.

Additionally, she would experience decreased appetite along with hypersexuality.

Chi Tuo recalled that when An Jiujiu was little and fell into one of her sleepy episodes, she really didn’t have much appetite, got irritable when forcibly woken, and often couldn’t tell dream from reality upon waking. Back then, there were no such medical terms—everyone simply thought she was groggy from sleep.

At that time, her condition was nowhere near as severe. She could sleep in her bed without needing 24-hour supervision. When she was hungry, she would get up and raid the fridge. As long as no one woke her, she remained quiet.

It hadn't been severe enough to warrant a two-page caregiving guide.

Ten years without seeing her, five years of only exchanging red envelopes—no matter how hard he tried to get close to her, she had already lived through so many things he knew nothing about.

Like the relationship with her agent that Lan Yifang revealed only after confirming he was no threat. Like that sasaeng fan who had installed surveillance in her home. Like this illness that had already been diagnosed.

Lan Yifang had picked him up nervously and left without much clarity. Chi Tuo stood in the hallway, staring at the study and the three closed doors.

Which one was An Ye’s room…

Would it be inappropriate to go in while she was asleep? The heater inside was strong—he was sweating just wearing a sweater after taking off his coat. She was probably not wearing much if she was sleeping.

If she was still the same person who refused to wear T-shirts and always opted for camisole-style sleepwear…

Chi Tuo hesitated, then backed away and sat down on the sofa again.

The white cat, perhaps irritated by how long he’d been wandering around the living room, came over and bumped its head against his shin.

He looked down and met the blue-eyed creature’s gaze.

After all, it had once been a stray. It made its desires very clear. Once it confirmed Chi Tuo was paying attention, it strolled over to the cabinet where the canned cat food was kept and sat down decisively.

Clean and efficient. Totally natural.

Chi Tuo chuckled, got up to fetch a can for it, and cleaned the litter box while he was at it. Doing chores gave him time to slowly think through his next step.

The kitchen was quite bare. Half the fridge’s refrigerated section was absurdly filled with bottled water. The freezer was packed with pre-portioned diet meals, each labeled with an expiration date.

Chi Tuo took one out and opened it. Inside was a brick-hard piece of chicken breast, half a box of water-boiled vegetables clumped into a lump, and about one spoonful of mashed potatoes.

No seasoning—everything boiled. Only one box allowed per day. The heating instructions said to microwave it, then optionally sprinkle in a little rose salt.

Chi Tuo: “……”

If he was going to be staying here to take care of An Ye during her episode, step one would be buying actual food that humans could eat.

He applied for a period of remote work. Fortunately, the last case had just wrapped up, and he had a window of free time ahead.Next were his change of clothes, underwear, and daily necessities.

He was about to die from the heat and was wondering whether he should take off the black sweater he was wearing.

But he had on thermal underwear underneath. Baigang City at the end of December was too cold, and he’d been wearing black shirts precisely because the thermal layer underneath wouldn’t show as obviously through black fabric.

Too bad the person inside, sleeping soundly, wouldn’t be buying him a birthday present anymore. Otherwise, the kind of onesie pajamas she used to buy could really come in handy right now.

He sighed.

The white cat, having followed behind him after finishing its canned food, also let out a sigh.

“What are you sighing for? Didn’t eat enough?” he crouched down to look at the cat.

The cat couldn’t understand what he was saying. Startled by his movement, it jumped back a full step and hissed at him with fierce hostility.

Truly the perfect example of a cat's temperament—humans are just tools to be discarded after use.

Chi Tuo stayed crouched, lifting his head to look at the empty fridge and sighed again.

His messy thoughts finally calmed down a little.

He hadn’t told An Jiujiu about his return to the country mainly because his work situation hadn’t been stable yet. At the time, he hadn’t made a name for himself and couldn’t help her with anything. Plus, she’d sent him a red envelope during the New Year without even bothering to say "Happy New Year"—completely perfunctory. So he decided to wait until everything was settled before reaching out to her.

And that wait ended up being a whole year.

Over the past year, he imagined many possible reunion scenarios—like handing her his business card at a glamorous New Year’s Eve gala, or holding her autograph at a fan meet and asking for her signature, or visiting Wang Shanshan in Wangcheng during the New Year holidays.

He never imagined it would be like this.

She had fallen asleep again.

Just like ten years ago, when she would occasionally fall into these episodes once a year. Back then, it was usually Wang Shanshan who asked him to help feed her while she was busy, so An Jiujiu wouldn’t starve.

Ten years later, with Wang Shanshan no longer in Baigang City, it was An Ye herself who had come to him.

Chi Tuo didn’t know why, but amidst the bitterness, he also felt a strange sense of relief.

Time was such a long, deep river. After returning to the country, he’d kept delaying telling An Jiujiu, always finding excuses. Wasn’t it just fear of facing home after being away?

Now, even though everything had changed—her hypersomnia had gone from being a mysterious condition undiagnosable by doctors to having a concrete name; she had moved from an eighty-something square meter, modest three-bedroom apartment in Wangcheng to a three-hundred-plus square meter luxury flat; outside was the night view of Baigang City's city center and a spacious terrace of over a hundred square meters—

What he worried about was still just this: when she woke up, would she throw the diet meal tray across the room?

It really looked absolutely awful.

He’d been maintaining a fitness diet the past few years too, eating high-protein, low-carb meals nearly every day, but he had never seen such a torturous fat-loss meal.

She already didn’t eat much after waking up, and now she had to eat this kind of stuff…

Chi Tuo took out his phone and started ordering delivery. Baigang City had 24-hour fresh food delivery even at midnight. He estimated enough groceries for two people for two days, added some daily necessities for himself, and scheduled an email for his assistant Lin Hao, asking him to bring his laptop via same-day courier after work today—costs to be reimbursed separately.

As for the rest, he could make do with the desktop in the study during the day.

After settling everything, he walked back to the hallway and stared at the three doors again.

The white cat came over and bumped its head against him again. Then it walked to the innermost door and sat down.

Chi Tuo raised his eyebrows in surprise. “She sleeps in that room?”The white cat meowed at him, then got up and started pawing at the door with its front paws, making quite a ruckus—thump, thump, thump.

Chi Tuo was worried it would wake An Ye, so he quickly went over and turned the doorknob.

The room inside wasn’t completely dark. A warm yellow light strip ran around the bedroom, dimmed to the lowest setting. In the faint light, he could just barely make out a person lying in the middle of the bed—on her side, curled up into a tight ball.

The white cat walked straight in, jumped onto the bed, and curled up against the bend of her legs.

Chi Tuo thought for a moment and didn’t close the door all the way, leaving a gap so the cat could come and go. His phone vibrated. He went downstairs to pick up the delivery he had ordered earlier. Carrying two large bags back upstairs, he still felt a sense of unreality.

All those questions he’d stored up before their reunion—after seeing her curled up asleep on the bed—disappeared.

None of them mattered anymore.

The fact that they could meet again, and that he was still her emergency contact, was enough.

All the hardship, sleepless nights, and pain he had endured just to get close to her—at this moment, it all felt like nothing more than the price of reunion.

The kitchen in An Ye’s apartment was well-equipped—probably part of a fully furnished renovation. It had an oven, a steam oven, a gas stove, and an induction cooktop. There was even a juicer, coffee machine, and air fryer nearby. But everything was brand new, still covered in plastic film that hadn’t been peeled off.

Chi Tuo removed the tendons from the chicken breast, scored it in a crisscross pattern to help it absorb flavor, rubbed salt on it evenly, then covered it in a bottle of soda water and sealed it with plastic wrap before placing it in the fridge. Then he started washing the side ingredients: mushrooms, asparagus, and spinach.

It was already past four. He figured by the time he finished prepping everything, he could wake An Ye for breakfast.

He was a little nervous—slicing mushrooms cautiously. The newly sharpened knife wasn’t easy to use. The white cat kept sneaking over to steal mushrooms and roll them around for fun, making things even more chaotic.

So when he suddenly heard a hoarse and confused female voice, his hand slipped, nearly slicing his own finger.

“Chi Tuo?” It was An Ye’s voice—no, An Jiujiu’s voice.

Chi Tuo turned around and saw An Jiujiu standing behind him, just like ten years ago—wearing a spaghetti strap top that was nearly slipping off, hot pants, barefoot, rubbing her hair.

His eyes went hot, but he turned back to continue slicing mushrooms, his voice calm and steady: “Go back to sleep. It’s still early.”

No response behind him. Maybe she’d dazedly wandered off again.

Chi Tuo forced himself to focus—slice one mushroom, then another, then another.

“Aren’t you hot?” He didn’t know how much time had passed when An Jiujiu came back and handed him a onesie—Barbie-pink, shaped like a dinosaur.

Chi Tuo, still holding the knife, stared at the little protruding horn on the dinosaur’s head, thinking: this must be a ceratopsian.

He had to suppress the rising tide of emotions in his chest with this absurd, completely irrelevant thought. In that instant, he understood what it meant for reality to collapse. He couldn’t tell whether the An Jiujiu handing him a onesie was part of reality—or one of countless dreams he’d had.

Maybe this really was just a painfully vivid dream. In reality, maybe he was still running to help at his uncle’s noodle shop after school, rushing to the hospital to care for his mother, catching a one-hour nap in the hospital hallway before heading to class at dawn.

Just an illusion from exhaustion.

Otherwise, how could the An Jiujiu he hadn’t seen in ten years look like she hadn’t changed at all? Except—she was thinner.

Chi Tuo snapped out of it. She was so thin. He hadn’t noticed it in the videos, but in person, she looked at least ten jin lighter than she did onscreen.

“Where did this pajama come from?” He put the kitchen knife up in the high cupboard where An Jiujiu couldn’t reach. Even if he couldn’t tell dream from reality, he clearly remembered what the caregiving sheet had said: after waking, she might be aggressive due to confusion between dream and reality, so sharp objects must be kept out of her reach.

“Birthday gift,” An Jiujiu muttered, looking completely dazed. Then she made a request: “The white cat puked on the blanket. We need to change the duvet cover.”

“Where’s the cover?” Chi Tuo naturally followed her into the bedroom."There." An Jiujiu pointed at the wardrobe, then shrank back onto the sofa in the bedroom and closed her eyes again.

While Chi Tuo was changing the duvet cover for her, he glanced once more at the onesie lying beside him.

A birthday gift.

A gift he had bought ten years ago, prepared for the following year, but never got the chance to give…