It was nearly twelve-thirty when Jian Yue, lying in bed and already drowsy, finally heard the dorm room door being pushed open.
He heard Mu Yansheng walk over to his bed, point at the clothes in his hands, and ask, “Where should I put these?”
“Just leave them on the chair for now. Thanks for your help this time.”
The young man forced himself to poke his head out from the bed despite his sleepiness to look at Mu Yansheng. His hair was somewhat mussed from the pillow, his eyes half-closed, with obvious drowsiness in them. Even his usually clear voice carried an unconscious, slurred quality.
Mu Yansheng set his clothes on the chair, and looking at Jian Yue’s sleepy state, said, “Alright, go back to sleep.”
So the young man closed his eyes and burrowed into the covers.
Perhaps because he was too tired to fight off his drowsiness any longer, Jian Yue’s consciousness sank into dreams the moment his eyes closed.
Before falling asleep, he had naturally assumed the system would, as before, extract his consciousness so he could enjoy the most comfortable sleep. But he’d forgotten that the system was a blockhead, so much of a blockhead that it would only act if he explicitly told it to.
Thus, this time, without a reminder from its host, the system stayed silent after noticing that Jian Yue had fallen asleep.
Deep in the night.
Rustling sounds arose one after another by his ear.
It was as if something was making noise on the other side of the wooden board at the head of his bed.
And every so often, he could hear the faint clinking of metal or some other hard object striking the wood.
Jian Yue’s sleep was, in fact, very light.
This was also why he often had the system extract his consciousness from his body.
Even the slightest disturbance would wake him. Being jolted awake again and again had begun to affect his sleep quality.
In his dreams, the young man frowned as if awakened by the noises by his ear, letting out an unconscious murmur. It was like sleep-talking, or perhaps just a few absent-minded grumbles.
But soon he drifted back to sleep, only burying his face deeper into the covers.
After that came a long stretch of silence.
About thirty minutes later, another round of rustling sounds came from the head of the young man’s bed.
This time, whether intentionally or not, the noise was considerably louder than before. The clanging against the wooden board rang clearly in his ears, making the young man turn over in displeasure with an annoyed, breathy huff.
Perhaps because Jian Yue had genuinely struggled to adjust to his part-time work these past few days, he had accumulated quite a lot of fatigue, and his body had grown accustomed to deep sleep. So although Jian Yue was woken by the sounds each time, he would still sink back into a groggy slumber.
His consciousness remained hazy like this, at the level where the next morning he would wonder whether those noises had been a dream or reality.
Sleep quality without the system’s help was truly abysmal.
If he hadn’t had morning classes, Jian Yue would surely have slept the day away like yesterday, making up for the rest he hadn’t gotten.
When his bed curtains were carelessly pulled open, the young man was still in a dazed, unfocused state, slow to come to his senses.
This was a side of Jian Yue he had never shown before.
Even that familiar expression of his seemed blurred and muddled by his current daze.
“Were you having trouble sleeping?” Shen Yu, already up, asked the young man who was still sitting on the bed in a daze.
The morning sunlight fell on Shen Yu, tracing the near-perfect lines of his profile into gentle curves. The boundary between light and shadow merged and converged on that soft face, making anyone who faced its owner unconsciously let down their guard.
The young man’s misty eyes turned toward the speaking Shen Yu.
Looking closely, one could see that the young man’s eye color was actually quite pale. Unlike Shen Yu’s distinctly light brown, it was a shade closer to grayish black.
Like a translucent crystal that reveals two different colors under sunlight and shadow.
“Mm…” In response to Shen Yu’s question, Jian Yue answered half a beat late.
After all, it had been a long time since he’d felt this hollow, never-fully-rested exhaustion, so it was hard to adjust to for a moment.
Hearing this exchange, Li Cheng, who had already dressed and was preparing to head out, paused briefly in his movements before continuing to straighten his collar as if nothing had happened.
He was wearing that same black trench coat as usual today, but on closer inspection one could notice subtle differences in the details, making it clear this was a fresh change of clothes.
And Li Cheng’s glasses, the ones he normally only wore when reviewing documents or reading, were properly perched on the bridge of his nose this time. Those thin, delicate silver frames happened to conceal the faint dark circles beneath the pale gray eyes behind the lenses.
Mu Yansheng, by contrast, looked considerably more authentic.
He had clearly just woken from sleep, like Jian Yue, and so remained sitting motionless on the bed, as if in a daze.
His black curly hair was slightly disheveled, the somewhat long ends sticking out like frazzled fur, an utter mess.
His eyes were half-squinted, and his sharply angular features lent an air of menace to his expression, which was written all over with morning grumpiness.
Mu Yansheng just sat there on the bed without moving, watching the two of them Shen Yu, already tidied up and dressed, seemingly dissatisfied with something or other. One could only see him hunched slightly at the waist, knees propped up a little, the fabric stretched taut over the curve of his chest hanging loose over the abdomen he leaned back on, his posture both deliberate and stiff.
Early in the morning, the four dormitory occupants were already a study in contrasts.
In the end, Jian Yue climbed out of bed in a trance-like daze, stepping down the ladder.
Perhaps it was because Jian Yue’s usually placid face was written over with sleep-drunk haziness. Even those typically distant brows and eyes looked only round and docile, prompting Shen Yu beside him to steal a couple of extra glances.
Jian Yue was still in this dazed state as he took his toiletries to wash his face. Only after washing up and becoming fully awake did he begin to regain his usual composure.
Jian Yue walked to his desk and, seeing the clothes laid on the chair, prepared to change into them, only to discover that among this pile of clothing… something seemed to be missing.
Hmm… there didn’t seem to be any underwear in there.
Could Mu Yansheng have forgotten to grab it?
That was entirely possible. After all, the machine for drying underwear was kept separate from the one for drying other clothes, and Mu Yansheng clearly hadn’t paid attention to how many items of clothing he’d taken to dry.
Besides, at the time, Jian Yue had thought it would look odd to drape his underwear openly over his arm, so he had deliberately pressed it beneath the bottom of the pile. It wasn’t surprising that the other hadn’t noticed there was one more item.
Sure enough. When he asked Mu Yansheng about it, Mu Yansheng said he genuinely had no idea that he had also dried a pair of underwear, so everything became clear.
After confirming with Mu Yansheng, Jian Yue nodded to show he understood: “Then I’d better go check that dryer first, in case anyone else needs to use it.”
With that, Jian Yue made a snap decision and walked out of the dormitory.