Chapter 27

Chapter 27

The first day went smoothly.

It was basically the same rhythm as taking care of her ten years ago—when she was hungry, she’d get up on her own to find food. When the white cat made a racket running around after using the litter box and woke her, she’d get up with a cold face and confiscate the cat toys. Her mood wasn’t particularly good or bad, she spoke very little—pretty much the same as what Chi Tuo remembered of An Jiujiu during her hypersomnia episodes.

Chi Tuo was also busy the entire day. The sudden caregiving schedule disrupted his work plans, so he spent nearly the whole day in the study making phone calls and organizing his workload. On top of that, he had to prepare fresh meals for An Jiujiu based on the nutritional ratios of those frozen diet boxes. Throughout it all, An Jiujiu stayed very quiet.

She cooperated with meals too—ate twice that day, very small portions, but didn’t fuss over anything. Whatever he gave her, she would put in her mouth without comment. She never judged the taste and put down her chopsticks after two or three bites of each dish.

It was just that, occasionally, her conversations were a bit odd. She genuinely believed she was dreaming—or rather, she thought she was still in high school. She asked Chi Tuo several times whether he had brought back the homework assigned by the teachers over the past two days.

Chi Tuo didn’t wear the onesie An Jiujiu had given him. As someone nearing thirty, wearing something like that crossed the bottom line of his dignity. Besides, it was clearly too short. He had his assistant send over a bunch of daily necessities via express delivery—excluding underwear—so he was now wearing his usual white T-shirt and grey sweatpants for lounging at home.

Even so, whenever An Jiujiu woke up and saw him, she couldn’t help but complain that he didn’t look anything like a high schooler and wondered how he had aged so much.

She was even more particular about fashion now than when she was younger, going so far as to tell him that if the collar of his shirt were widened by just one centimeter, it would look much better.

Their conversations were very domestic. An Jiujiu forgot she was An Ye, and Chi Tuo would find himself dazed into believing he was still in high school too. When An Jiujiu seriously asked him if he had done the math worksheet, he even panicked a little.

Lan Yifang dropped by once in the evening. An Jiujiu was still asleep. She made a round through every room like she was inspecting the place, then left.

Everything was fine—until that night.

Chi Tuo had chosen the guest room opposite An Jiujiu’s. To be safe, he left both doors slightly open. He already had sleep issues—trouble falling asleep, light sleeper, easily awakened by even a small sound—so he figured if she woke up at night, leaving the doors open would let him hear immediately.

But maybe because he had pulled an all-nighter the night before, or maybe because of the disorienting feeling of being mentally dragged back to high school—he slept unusually soundly that night.

What woke him up was a sudden dip in the bed. As he stared at the unfamiliar ceiling, trying to remember where he was, An Jiujiu had already lifted the blanket and crawled in.

Chi Tuo: “...Jiu...Jiu?!”

His voice cracked from shock—partly because he woke up to find someone in his bed, partly because that someone was actually An Jiujiu.

“Mm,” An Jiujiu responded, clinging to him like seaweed. Her hand touched the waistband of his sweatpants, and she frowned: “Why are you dressed so ugly this time?”

Her voice was hoarse and mumbled, lips brushing against the rim of his ear.

Then she raised an eyebrow in delight: “I’m actually dreaming about your ear piercing this time?”

Chi Tuo: “...”

She thought she was dreaming. That sheet had clearly said she experienced hypersexuality during episodes. So she dreamed about him—and not just once—but dreams like this kind of dream.

Too much information. Even after sorting it out, he still couldn't wrap his head around it.

An Jiujiu smelled very nice—dark wood and citrus, a fragrance suited to the night, subtly stirring and disorienting.

What she was doing was stirring too.

He didn’t know how many times she had dreamt of him. She moved with such ease, without hesitation. While he was still stunned, her hand had already slipped under his shirt, her slightly cold fingertips making his skin erupt in goosebumps.

Chi Tuo grabbed her hand, but she took the opportunity to straddle him. Her loose camisole-style nightdress slipped halfway off her shoulder.

There were cameras.

Chi Tuo yanked up the blanket to cover her, flustered as he tried to get out from under her.

An Jiujiu pinned his arm down with her elbow, refusing to let him move. The scene was strange—her expression looked like she was going to tie him up with a rope any second."You run again, what the hell." An Jiujiu was clearly displeased. "Seriously, don’t you get tired of doing this every time?"

Great. So even in her dreams, this scene plays out—she climbs into bed, and he runs away.

Chi Tuo didn’t know whether to feel sad or relieved. He tried reasoning with her: “You’re currently in a symptomatic state, experiencing cognitive-behavioral impairment. And I’m not sick—I'm a conscious adult. If I cooperate with this, it’s illegal.”

An Jiujiu froze, staring wide-eyed at him.

Chi Tuo thought, Great. I definitely never said anything like that in her dreams before, because she looks totally stunned.

Sure enough, in the next second, An Jiujiu grabbed a pillow and smashed it down on his face, mumbling unclearly, “That damn mouth of yours.”

Chi Tuo: “...!”

Right at that moment, he finally understood what that sheet had warned about—how reality disintegration would lead to aggression. When An Jiujiu believed she was dreaming, her actions and strength completely lost all sense of restraint. She had no concern about hurting someone. That one blow almost broke his neck.

So the task before him became incredibly difficult: he had to escape her grasp without hurting her. What began as a vaguely flirtatious encounter turned into a full-blown one-sided life-and-death struggle on a two-meter-wide bed. Chi Tuo was drenched in sweat, using the same force he used for barbell lifts at the gym to finally wrap An Jiujiu up like a silkworm cocoon in a quilt and toss her onto the bed.

An Jiujiu was panting, glaring at him through gritted teeth from within the confines of the blanket.

Chi Tuo thought she was about to start cursing him. He even found himself strangely curious about how much her profanity vocabulary had expanded over the past ten years.

Back then, An Jiujiu rarely cursed. Wang Shanshan had strict control over that, always worrying that those bad habits would become stumbling blocks in her path to stardom.

But after all that glaring, An Jiujiu just let out a cold snort and said, “Loser.”

Chi Tuo: “?”

“That night during the typhoon.” An Jiujiu’s words, even in her sleep, were short and sharp. “Just touched you and you had a reaction. Now you're pretending to be some moral sage?”

Chi Tuo: “?”

At first, he didn’t even get what she meant. After all, with Wangcheng’s climate, typhoons happened several times a year. Teenage boys could easily get, well, reactions from stiff school uniforms—so many times, he honestly couldn’t remember.

But being touched and reacting immediately...

Chi Tuo furrowed his brows, and then it hit him—that scene. The first and only time he had accompanied her for a face-to-face audition rehearsal. She had leaned close to whisper in his ear, and after speaking, she’d even exhaled softly while trying to hold back her laughter. Back then, he really did spring up on the spot, startled, and bolted straight to a corner.

...

She saw that?

...

She actually saw that?!

Afterward, they had continued rehearsing seriously, and she hadn’t shown a single sign that anything was off.

But it turned out—not only had she seen, she had remembered it for ten years.

Chi Tuo now truly didn’t know what to say. It had only been half an hour since she crawled into bed, but his mind was overflowing with question marks and exclamation points.

The white cat peeked in at the door. It couldn’t hear what they were doing, but it could sense the earlier chaos. It arched its back and did two sideways hops toward Chi Tuo to show: I’m fierce. You’re dangerous.

On the bed, An Jiujiu also glared, back arched under the blanket, and mimicked two sideways hops.

Chi Tuo: “...”

He straightened up, lifted An Jiujiu—blanket and all—onto his shoulder, walked to her room, dumped her onto the bed, yanked the blanket away, and turned to leave.“Liar!” An Jiujiu cursed again.

Chi Tuo: “?”

Logic told him that right now, An Jiujiu was in a completely disoriented state. Legally, she was temporarily considered a person without full civil capacity. His only responsibility was to ensure her safety—everything else could wait until she woke up.

But emotionally, he was in turmoil.

The waves stirred up inside him by her calling him a loser hadn’t even settled yet, and now came another—liar.

“What did I lie to you about?” Chi Tuo turned back and asked her.

But An Jiujiu suddenly fell silent. Her face, still flushed from their earlier struggle, was buried in the blanket. Her eyelids began to droop, clearly about to fall asleep.

Chi Tuo: “……”

Clearly, he was the one at fault—what was the point of arguing about this right now?

He bent down and pulled the blanket up to cover her properly. Before she completely drifted off, he turned off the lights and got ready to return to his own room to continue sleeping.

It was only two in the morning.

Just as he was about to step into the hallway, An Jiujiu sighed. Like sleep-talking, she mumbled again: “Damn liar…”

“You said you'd always be there… Liar.” She might’ve been dreaming—her words were slurred by the end.

But in the dead of night, it was crystal clear.

Chi Tuo stood frozen at the doorway for a long, long time.

The white cat rubbed against him a few times, then, seeing no reaction, let out a disgruntled meow and walked away.

Aggression—it also meant verbal aggression.

Things that a sober adult would never say aloud could be spoken freely in dreams, just like actions—they could lash out with no restraint.

And it was mutual.

That sheet had clearly stated: after waking up, An Jiujiu would remember everything she said and did during her half-dream state.

She would know exactly what she’d done to him while in the throes of hypersomnia.

Ten years without contact—and on the second night after reuniting, they might already be heading for a falling out.

Chi Tuo turned around and walked back to stand by An Jiujiu’s bed again, leaning down to pat her cheek.

An Jiujiu opened her eyes and glared at him—her expression even more unfriendly than when she’d called him a loser earlier, the kind of look that said she was ready to bite someone.

Chi Tuo cleared his throat.

“It’s been ten years since we last saw each other,” he said. “Originally, if you woke up and didn’t remember anything, I wouldn’t have said a word. But on the sheet you gave me, it says you remember everything you say and do while half-asleep.”

Chi Tuo paused for half a second, then added, “And that line was bolded and enlarged.”

Which meant she probably cared about it a lot.

After all, for most people who black out from drinking, their biggest wish is to never remember what happened while they were out.

“That night during the typhoon, when you touched me and I reacted…” Chi Tuo cleared his throat again, a little awkwardly. “It was because, back then—I really did like you.”An Jiujiu blinked.

It wasn’t clear if she actually took in what he said. Either way, Chi Tuo knew that if he were facing a fully awake An Jiujiu, there was no way he could say these things. But if he didn’t say them now, given everything she’d just done, she would definitely start keeping her distance once she woke up.

“It’s pretty normal, isn’t it?” he said. “You’re so good-looking, and you were the only age-appropriate girl around me at the time.”

“So I’m not a loser. That reaction back then was just because I was young and impulsive—and you were blowing air into my ear.”

An Jiujiu kept blinking.

“And I’m not a liar either,” he went on. “I’ve been trying to contact you for the past ten years. I even sent you an email just last week. It’s you who didn’t check your inbox, didn’t answer my calls. It’s you who stopped reaching out to me.”

“I sent you a red envelope.” An Jiujiu had clearly been listening—and even managed to shoot back a retort.

Chi Tuo: “……”

“Anyway…” He didn’t want to keep talking. Realizing she was this coherent again made him start to feel uncomfortable. “I came to fulfill a promise. I’m still on your side. Just remember that.”