You Sound Sleepy

In a dim bedroom, there was a curled up ball on a wide plushy bed. This ball was snuggly wrapped in a blanket.

Wrapped in her blanket, Lin Mian was on the brink of dying from fatigue. Her phone, which had been incessantly ringing for the last half hour, had been brazenly chucked under her bed. After a dozen seconds of lifelessness, she begrudgingly stretched an arm out and placed it under the bed, fumbling around. After haphazardly groping under the bed for a bit, she soon managed to fish out her still ringing phone.

She accepted the call. The other party’s voice came like a chilly gust of wind. “Author Mu Mian, do you know what day the day after tomorrow is?”

Lin Mian’s sleepy eyes couldn’t even open and her whole face was buried in a pillow. Mu Mian was her pen name. She listlessly put the phone against her ear and said in a stuffy voice, “Auntie, I fell asleep at 4 in the morning. So please, from the kindness in your heart… spare my life.”

Her editor, on the other hand, brutally shutdown her request. “No. If I spare your life, who will spare mine? The chief editor has had a knife to my neck these past two days, saying that if I fail to collect your draft again, I’ll have my head rolling.” 

She then gently asked,”Why did you sleep so late? Still stuck on that creative block from the night before?”

“No, last night I…” Even thinking about it gives me a headache. Turning her body over, Lin Mian replied in a soft, nasally voice, “I was just thinking about how to write a reflection paper.”

“A reflection paper? For what??”

Lin Mian, dodging the question, timidly replied, “It’s been a long time since I wrote one, so I’m a teeny bit rusty.”

In her entire life, she had only written two reflection papers, and coincidentally, both reflection papers were due to the same person.

Lin Mian then abruptly hung up on her editor. For five seconds, she laid motionless, snugly wrapped in her blanket, like a salted fish. Finally, Lin Mian, with great effort, resolved to rise and reluctantly pressed a button on her bed’s headrest. The curtains, responding to the press, began to slowly pull apart, allowing the already dazzling sunlight to pierce through the window.

She shuffled out of bed with her slippers. Her feet stepping on the thick, plush carpet, Lin Mian took a glance at the turned over movie discs and cluttered drafts that littered her carpet.

Instead of sleeping last night, Lin Mian had turned on her computer and diligently wrote 3,000 words reflecting on her sleeping in class with a document titled《500 Model Reflection Papers for Primary and Secondary Students》beside her. Unreservedly copying and pasting sections of the document into her own reflection paper, Lin Mian poured her sweat, blood, and tears into her entirely sincere words. Unable to endure writing any longer, she paused and rummaged through a couple of movie discs. In the end, she fell asleep with the movie 《The Ring》in the background. 

While shuffling, Lin Mian bitterly recalled Que Qingyan’s cold, indifferent expression. Why couldn’t he have let me write about insomnia? I could write twice as much then.

Lin Mian bent down to put the movie discs away. The movie discs were tidely put away in a bedside drawer, while the scrapped drafts were chucked in a waste basket. Finishing her tidying, Lin Mian dialed a number, and two rings later the phone was answered. 

Lin Mian affectionately cried, “Xuxu!”

Surprised, Fang Xuxu affectionately answered “Author!”

“Xuxu I missed so much!”

“…” The heartfelt confession was ruthlessly cut down. “Author, did you submit the draft? You only called me after being harrassed by the editor, right?”

“Xuxu, so this is what I am in your heart.” Lin Mian was deeply wounded. “When I woke up and saw the glaring morning light, the first person I thought of was you. Xuxu, you are like the early morning sunshine….” 

”The morning sunshine has already passed. It’s 12 am..”

“…”

Fang Xuxu was already accustomed to the other party’s emotional outbursts. She began to reflect on the time she was first hired to be the Author Mu Mian’s personal assistant. Back then, she was so excited that she couldn’t sleep for three nights, envisioning the countless possibilities where she was together with her idol Author Mu Mian. She would happily march on the road of success beside her idol.

But she was wrong, outrageously wrong.

She first met Lin Mian in Lin Mian’s apartment. Before entering Lin Mian’s door, Fang Xuxu already fantasized a pleasing scene playing out. It would be a time filled with manhua, a dreamy exchange of thoughts. Who knew that upon entering the living room, she would be confronted with a TV screen paused on a white clothed female ghost. And her supposedly mature and intelligent idol would, with an innocent face, softly say, “My bad, was watching a horror movie, forgot to turn it off.”

Fang Xuxu looked at her watery apricot shaped eyes. She immediately felt that she didn’t come here as a manhua author’s assistant, but instead as a teenage girl’s nanny. 

Mu Mian, a professional shoujo manhua author, regularly serialized the manhua《Sugary Love》on a famous shoujo magazine. It consistently seized first place on the reader’s poll every year, and it even had a short story published about it that was a big hit.

If it ever got out Mu Mian, a famous shoujo manhua author, watched horror movies in her spare time, nobody would believe it.

Lin Mian, for convenience, had recently rented an apartment near K University causing her address to change. Normally, Fang Xuxu would transfer Lin Mian the draft directly through the internet after finishing her assistant work, and when the deadline for the draft drew closer, she would work face-to-face with Lin Mian to edit the draft.

Having received Lin Mian’s new address, Fang Xuxu set out. When she was on her way there, she was stopped outside the apartment complex’s entrance by security guards. 

The location of Lin Mian’s apartment was in a quiet part of downtown. It was quite serene. To keep such peace, the security here was much stricter. Fang Xuxu could only call Lin Mian. Having just finished breakfast, with uncombed hair and milk bags dangling from her jacket, Lin Mian trotted down to pick up Fang Xuxu.

Stuffing a milk bag in Fang Xuxu’s hands, Lin Mian and Fang Xuxu got in the apartment’s elevator together. Just as Lin Mian pressed her floor’s button, two people shoved their way into the elevator’s door. 

“I have a thorny case in my hands now. It’s a lawsuit involving the upflow of economical capital chains, winning at least this much.” Dressed in leather shoes and a champagne colored tie, a figure entered the elevator while talking to someone else. “You’ve only picked up the case half a year ago and I’ve been telling you the same thing for a long time. You need to consider it, ok?” 

A familiar, cold voice responded, “Oh, you’ve come to talk to me about that case?”

The man with the champagne tie cursed. “Your old friend is just explaining the case, little Que you’re so heartless!”

“Pftt ——”

After seeing who just came in, Lin Mian suddenly choked on her sip of milk. Her shoulders trembled and she coughed intensely for a dozen seconds.

“Author, what’s wrong?” Fang Xuxu, frightened by her sudden outburst, patted Lin Mian’s back. “You okay?”

Unable to say a complete sentence due to her incessant coughing, Lin Mian could only make a gesture by patting Fang Xuxu’s arm, desperately hinting for her to stop talking. 

Thinking that she was distressed from drinking a few sips of bad milk, Fang Xuxu said, “No worries, I still have another bag of milk. Author, were you choking?”

Author!!!

What author???!!!

Finally, Lin Mian regained a portion of her speaking abilities. Still coughing and with tears glistening in her eyes, she seriously stared at her assistant and said in a quiet voice, “I was just messing with you in the dormitory. After all, I’ve never really published anything, so you can’t really call me an author….”

Fang Xuxu: “…” What the h̲el̲l̲?

Although the voice was quiet, it was made purposely loud enough so that everyone in the elevator could hear it. Lin Mian followed up by looking at Que Qingyan in surprise. “Professor Que, what a coincidence, meeting you here.”

Such quick reactions, such natural movements, I give my acting a perfect score. Lin Mian happily praised herself.

Fang Xuxu’s gaze passed over to Que Qingyan. Her eyes stared at him in interest. 

Dressed formally, Que Qingyan appeared to have just returned from official business. His shirt and trousers accentuated the lines on his slender, lithe physique, and between his eyes and eyebrows was a shining light, making it hard to cover his mature, charming face. Looking down at Lin Mian, Que Qingyan responded, “You don’t have any classes today?”

Que Qingyan wasn’t an extremely cold person, but his perfect qualities made it so that even speaking two sentences to someone, would cause that someone to feel an insurmountable sense of inferiority between them and Que Qingyan. The gap between him and ordinary people was just too huge.

“No classes,” Lin Mian shook her head earnestly and explained cleverly. “Me and two roommates moved out of school to share an apartment and were renting an apartment here. I never expected to run into you here.”

Although the apartment building was only meant for one person, the location and environment made the housing prices ridiculously high and consequently rent here wasn’t cheap. Her and two classmates, a total of three people, sharing the rent for a single expensive apartment building close to their school was completely reasonable.

Lin Mian gave herself yet another perfect score in deception.

Fang Xuxu: “…” What? The? H̲e̲l̲l̲?

During the conversation, Que Qingyan pressed a floor button on the elevator causing it to light up. As the elevator moved up, Lin Mian quietly glimpsed at the illuminated 8th floor and 10th floor button.

I live on the 8th floor. He must live on the 10th floor.

Seeing how close their floors were, Lin Mian’s heart contracted, her shoujo manhua author mind instantly flashing with countless possibilities.

The benefits gained from being close to him.

The benefits gained… 

Her mind walking astray, a thought flashed clearly in Lin Mian’s mind. A close position, an intimate relationship… wait 200,000 words.

Her fluttering heart’s indecent thoughts were swiftly retracted.

As the elevator steadily stopped on the 8th floor, Lin Mian turned her head and looked at Que Qingyan. “Professor Que, I am leaving first.”

Fang Xuxu, staring at the elevator slowly close and displaying a hundred faces of ignorance, pressed Lin Mian for an answer. “Author, you’ve been enrolling in classes recently?” What professor? What classes?

Lin Mian, heart palpitating, teared open the packaging of a milk bag. Almost, almost had to write a 200,000 word reflection paper. 

If she let Que Qingyan know that she wasn’t his student and he remembered who she actually was… it wouldn’t stop at 20,000 words. She was afraid she would have to write a 200,000 word reflection paper. 

In her entire time as Author Mu Mian’s assistant, Fang Xuxu swore that she had never seen Lin Mian behave like that in front of anybody. She asked, “Author, are you afraid of that man?”

Lin Mian opened the door to her apartment halfway and simply shook her head, giving out a melancholy sigh. 

Not only was she not afraid of him…

She even vaguely wanted to sleep with him.

She had only thought about it though. Thinking about it wasn’t illegal, right?

As the elevator slowly ascended, the champagne tie man, with a gift box in one hand and the other in his pants pocket, casually chatted, “Your student is so cute. She reacted so much after seeing her professor.”

The elevator doors opened on the 10th floor. Que Qingyan paused his step and with an imperceptible smile said, “She was scared back then.”

Near the end of the month deadline for the draft, Lin Mian, cooped up in her apartment, worked day and night for two whole days on the drafts and sketches. Fang Xuxu also ran back and forth for two whole days. Miraculously, the draft was barely turned in on time.

The night of the deadline, Lin Mian handed in the draft, changed her WeChat status to “Unavailable”, unplugged the network cable, turned off the phone, and rolled into her bed. She needed to make up for more than a dozen hours of missed sleep.

When she woke up again, it was already the next day’s night. Unsure if the convenience stores were open in the community this late at night, Lin Mian begrudgingly boiled some milk, sighing. There was nothing to eat in the refrigerator either.  

I’m miserable. Too miserable.

Suddenly, when she was flipping through her reminders, an even more miserable matter popped up in her mind.

I’ve only written 3,000 words on my 20,000 word reflection paper.

Unfinished writing and I still have to attend class… Despite these tribulations, Lin Mian still remained clear headed and focused on her priorities. This time, I need to find a secluded corner to sleep in. Preferably, out of Que Qingyan’s line of sight. If he can’t see me, then I can sleep at ease.

Today was the day she usually went to class. Reassured by her clever thinking, she didn’t seize a seat in the lecture a few hours in advance like usual, but instead only arrived at the lecture hall 15 minutes in advance. Just as she was about to search for a back seat, she caught a glimpse of someone gesturing at her.

After struggling to recall that person for a few seconds, she finally realized that it was that boy who sat next to her in class before.

“The Sleeping Goddess!” The boy pointed towards a seat. “Here! I got a seat for you!”

He was in the middle of the third row and reserved a seat for her.

Lin Mian: “…”

Who is the Sleeping Goddess??

The boy, pondering for a bit, changed his greeting. “Junior sister1, here!”

“…” Better than being called the Sleeping Goddess.

With a tender face of a junior sister, Lin Mian said, “Thank you, senior, but I’ll have to decline.”

[1] 学妹：Refers to a younger girl classmate