Chapter 4

Chapter 4

An Jiujiu was hungry.

When she opened her eyes, it was pitch black around her. The old air conditioner was rumbling as it blew damp, warm air. Her phone had already shut off automatically from being out of battery too long, and the cup of water on her nightstand was nearly empty.

An Jiujiu struggled to sit up, enduring dizziness as she got out of bed. Holding her cup, she opened the door and, in the lit living room, closed her eyes and called out, “Mom, I’m hungry.”

“Come eat,” someone responded. “I made you some small wontons.”

It wasn’t her mom—it was Shi Tuo.

An Jiujiu stood in the living room with bedhead like a bird’s nest for two seconds. She’d slept so long her brain wasn’t functioning, and she could only let out a monosyllable: “Eh?”

“Your mom went to Lin City,” Shi Tuo helpfully explained her “eh.” “She was afraid you’d sleep too long and starve, so she asked me to come check on you, and also drop off the test papers from the past two days.”

An Jiujiu was still standing where she was, her messy head wobbling slightly. She shuffled over in her slippers to the coffee table, picked up the AC remote, and turned on the living room unit. Then she wobbled her way to the dining room.

“You should go change first,” Shi Tuo still hadn’t looked at her.

An Jiujiu scratched her neck, glanced down at the breezy camisole and shorts she had on, muttered an indistinct “mm,” and shuffled back into her room.

Five minutes later, she came out properly dressed at last, and her eyes were able to focus again.

“How long have you been here?” she sat cross-legged across from Shi Tuo, waiting for her wontons. “Add more seaweed.”

“Just finished a test paper.” The water in the pot had just started boiling. Shi Tuo was preparing the soup base. When he turned around and saw the pillow mark still on her forehead and her face contorted mid-yawn, he frowned in disgust. “Did you brush your teeth?”

“Brushed. Washed.” An Jiujiu slumped over the dining table, holding a spoon, waiting to be fed.

“Still have a fever?” Shi Tuo, done with the soup base, pulled a thermometer from his backpack and handed it to her. “Check it.”

“I never had a fever,” An Jiujiu mumbled but still tucked the thermometer under her armpit, slumping back over the table.

On the bench across the table sat Shi Tuo’s backpack, half the table covered with test papers and a notebook of mistakes. Nearby was a fan her mom used while cooking, turned to its lowest setting, oscillating gently. Every time it turned her way, it flipped the corners of the test papers.

In the kitchen, the range hood was running. Shi Tuo dropped the small wontons he had picked up on his way from school into the boiling water. Beside them, a white porcelain bowl was filled with steaming hot, seasoned broth.

Once the wontons were cooked, a pleasant hint of food-grade alkaline aroma spread through the room. This same living room that had been a chaotic mess just two days ago now had a faint, peaceful domestic atmosphere thanks to the smell of food.

An Jiujiu closed her still-groggy eyes. She only opened them when a bowl of hot wontons with dried shrimp and seaweed was placed in front of her. She twitched her nose and sniffed.

“No white pepper,” Shi Tuo said as he pulled the thermometer out from under her arm. “There was only one chili pepper in the fridge. I chopped the whole thing in.”

Must’ve been a leftover, lonely in a corner of the fridge, and eventually met its end, chopped into pieces and used to the fullest.

36.8°C.

Definitely no fever.

“Only one, huh...” An Jiujiu looked a bit disappointed and took a sip of the soup.

Shi Tuo had chopped the chili pepper finely, so the broth was still spicy.

Satisfied.

An Jiujiu began to eat in earnest.

Half a bowl of wontons in, she finally felt human again. Chewing on seaweed, she leaned forward and peeked at the test paper in Shi Tuo’s hands.Math test paper.

…

“This one’s yours.” Shi Tuo pulled out An Jiujiu’s homework from his backpack. “I checked—our class’s progress isn’t the same as yours. These class notes should be useful to you.”

The top classes like Class 1 and Class 2 had already finished the senior year curriculum long ago, while An Jiujiu’s mid-tier class was still wrapping things up. Shi Tuo’s earlier notes were just in time to help.

An Jiujiu forced down the last bite of wontons, stood up to wash the bowl and pot, then came back and resignedly began doing her homework.

She was actually very clear-headed about boundaries. She would stubbornly pester Shi Tuo to boost her gaming rank if she lost too many matches, and she would grumble if the wonton soup wasn’t spicy enough. But despite Shi Tuo being way ahead of her in grades and class progress, she had never—not even once—asked him to do her homework for her.

She was very aware of what she should and shouldn’t do.

It seemed like a common trait among kids from unhappy families: early maturity, and even among those closest to them, they maintained silent rules about boundaries during play or conflict.

Shi Tuo’s top-student-level notes were much more organized than An Jiujiu’s, so catching up on two days of homework wasn’t too hard. She finished her English paper in half an hour. The lingering fullness from the wontons and the sense of achievement from getting close to finishing her work finally lifted her mood a little. Biting on her pen, she nudged Shi Tuo’s slipper with her foot.

Shi Tuo had already finished his homework and was playing on his phone. When he noticed movement under the table, he first shifted his foot to protect his slipper. After finishing reading the page on his phone, he finally looked up at her. “What are you doing?”

Earlier, he hadn’t dared to look at her. When she had wandered out like a sleepwalker, the loose camisole she was wearing had slipped off her shoulder, and she had no idea she was on the verge of a wardrobe malfunction as she shuffled through the living room.

He’d nearly thrown his own hand into the boiling water along with the wontons.

She was way too unguarded with him right after waking up.

“What are you reading?” she leaned over to look at his phone. “Why do you look so grim?”

It was a webpage full of text, starting with a section in English, followed by densely packed Chinese. It looked very professional.

“Hypersomnia research?” An Jiujiu got interested and nearly sprawled across the table. “Any research on symptoms like mine?”

An Jiujiu occasionally experienced hypersomnia. It wasn’t the usual sleepiness people complain about—she would stay in a sleep-like state all day, could fall asleep again right after being woken up. Sometimes it lasted two or three days, the longest had been over half a month.

It didn’t happen very often—about once or twice a year.

She had been to the hospital, but Wangcheng was just a small southern city. Even after seeing all the specialists at the local top-tier hospital, her test results were normal and the episodes didn’t follow a pattern. The doctors just chalked it up to adolescent hypersomnia, maybe related to stress or her menstrual cycle.

Her family’s financial situation was average, so after confirming there were no major health issues, they didn’t pursue further treatment. When episodes occurred, her mom would simply tell the school she was sick or had a fever.

Because of this, Shi Tuo had also started paying attention to sleep-related research online.

But ultimately, they were still kids under eighteen, with limited exposure. They came across lots of vague, contradictory info, most of which involved abnormal body indicators. Cases like An Jiujiu’s—Shi Tuo had never seen one.

“No symptoms like yours…” Shi Tuo looked up, stopped mid-sentence, then fell silent for half a second. He casually grabbed a mistake notebook off the table and held it up to block everything below her chin.

An Jiujiu: “?”

The T-shirt she had just changed into was an old one for home wear, washed so many times the neckline had gone loose. From Shi Tuo’s angle, when she leaned forward like that, he really could see everything...

When she stumbled out earlier still half-asleep in a camisole, it had been the same. After changing, she realized she had been maybe two millimeters away from a full wardrobe malfunction.

She wasn’t too bothered though. She tugged her shirt up a bit and casually asked, “Now you can’t see anything, right?”

Shi Tuo: “...Yeah.”

Maybe his exasperated face was too obvious, because An Jiujiu muttered, “It’s not like it’s rare. Everyone has them.”...

That’s not wrong either.

Shi Tuo stopped paying attention to her and lowered his head to continue looking at his phone.

An Jiujiu pulled out her math test paper again, glanced at it twice, felt dizzy, and then started fiddling with Shi Tuo’s slipper.

Shi Tuo clicked his tongue, put down his phone, and said, “Hurry up and do your homework. Once you’re done, I’m leaving.”

“You know...” An Jiujiu, with a resigned expression, pulled out some scrap paper. “Why... why does my dad, An Huaimin, not want me to act?”

She corrected herself. She didn’t feel any familial affection for the man she had hardly seen growing up, only a sense of absurdity.

His only contribution to her life was the 2,000 yuan a month, which was the living allowance he gave her mother after her mother had to quit her job to take care of the family.

And then he acted as if he had the right to control everything. Every time he came home, he either complained about how dirty the house was or criticized her grades, belittled her mother’s job, as if he had made such great sacrifices and suffered so much.

But this man couldn’t even wash his own feet; her mother had to pour his footbath water for him.

She didn’t understand.

She wasn’t particularly good at studying. She couldn’t be like Shi Tuo, who could sit down and finish his homework quietly no matter what happened, with always stable grades.

Her academic talent only allowed her to keep her grades at a middle level. She was just an average person, with average self-discipline and intelligence, unable to study as deeply as Shi Tuo.

If she had to follow the traditional path of studying hard and getting into a university, even if she stayed up late for the entire senior year, she might barely make it into a less popular major at a 985 school, and even then, employment prospects would be a concern. Their family’s financial situation clearly wouldn’t allow her to continue studying, and with the competition in a small place like Wangcheng, it would be hard to even consider the civil service exams.

So for her, going into the entertainment industry seemed like a broader path than simply going to university. Though risky, the rewards could be great if she succeeded.

She didn’t understand why An Huaimin was so strongly opposed to it.

Then she thought about Shi Tuo, who also wasn’t too keen on her going down this path.

“He doesn’t oppose you acting.” Shi Tuo smiled, “He’s just looking for trouble.”

Even if Wang Shanshan said that her daughter was going to apply to Tsinghua or Peking University, An Huaimin would still find a reason to argue. He just wanted to feel like the head of the household and wasn’t happy that Wang Shanshan made decisions on her own.

It probably also had something to do with his own guilt over his extramarital affair. When he came home and saw no one cared about his opinion, that guilt turned into anger.

Some of the inherent flaws in some men.

An Jiujiu seemed to understand but also didn’t: “Then what about you? Don’t you also not want me to act?”

Shi Tuo put down his phone, his face darkening.

She actually put him and An Huaimin on the same side.

Could they possibly be the same?!

“Do you remember the first time you shot an ad? You slept for a whole week at home.” Shi Tuo’s face was expressionless. “Later, the ad became popular, and they put your photo up at the bus stop outside our neighborhood. You would rather wake up half an hour earlier and take a long detour than go to that bus stop.”

“You’ve shot so many print ads over the years. When was the last time you looked at those photos?”

Shi Tuo felt like this person had no conscience. How could he be the same as her dad?!

“Later, your mom got scammed out of a thousand yuan trying to get you more similar work, and you just shut yourself in and slept for ten days.”

“I’m not against you acting.”“I just think this industry is too complicated. If you really get into it, the pressure will only get bigger than it is now.”

This isn’t something An Jiujiu truly enjoys.

He was just worried.

He didn’t want to be on the same side as someone like An Huaimin, so he spoke more than usual and at a faster pace.

An Jiujiu thought for a long time after hearing that, then added, “But acting can make money.”

“I don’t want my mom to keep sleeping in the guest house by the film studio, handing out business cards.”

“I don’t want to live in this house anymore.”

“So, I need to make a lot of money, so that my mom can leave An Huaimin, so that my mom can have a place to live.”

She didn’t want her mom to keep silently serving An Huaimin, pouring tea and water for him.

Shi Tuo quietly watched her. After a while, he nodded.

“Okay,” he said. “Then I’ll help you.”

An Jiujiu raised an eyebrow. “How?”

Shi Tuo: “You go act, and I’ll help you catch up on the lessons you miss.”

An Jiujiu: “... I thank you.”

Shi Tuo: “When I become a lawyer, I’ll specialize in entertainment law. That way, your mom won’t get scammed anymore.”

An Jiujiu: “... Oh.”

Shi Tuo paused for a moment, then said, “I also won’t be like Cen Ying...”

Silence.

After a while, Shi Tuo heard An Jiujiu softly murmur an “mm.”

The corners of his mouth curled up. He looked up and, once again, expressionless, raised a wrong-answer notebook under An Jiujiu’s chin, saying, “... You should throw that shirt away.”

The collar was so old that you could stuff another person inside it.

The fan, which had been diligently spinning, now blew across the dining table. The test papers that weren’t weighed down by the wrong-answer notebook were scattered across the table like slow-motion chaos.

Amidst the mess, An Jiujiu angrily grabbed the collar of her shirt, saying, “You could’ve just not looked!”

Shi Tuo: “... You’re the one who shoved it in front of me.”

“Just close your eyes!”

“... Are you going to do your homework or not? Are you not going to school tomorrow?”

“You’re so annoying!”

After several days of frustration due to her parents, An Jiujiu finally returned to her lively self, grumbling and grumbling as she started chewing on her math test papers.

Shi Tuo stayed with her, helping her finish the last math problem. He yawned, complaining about her wooden brain but still patiently going over the formulas with her over and over.

So An Jiujiu thought to herself, she’s good as long as she has Shi Tuo.An Huaimin, Cen Ying, and even those passersby who had once approached her and then walked away without hesitation, none of them mattered.

She had Shi Tuo by her side.

Eighteen years, Shi Tuo had always stood by her side.

That was enough.