Shen Ying, who had just regained his confidence and resolved to get into University A, had his enthusiastic footsteps freeze instantly right where he stood upon hearing Jiang Shi’s request to share a bed.
Jiang Shi naturally noticed his reaction very quickly. He stopped right at the study door, standing completely still like a wooden stake, and gazed at Shen Ying, his expression growing somewhat tense while waiting for a reply.
“You want me to sleep with you? Sure, why not!”
Who would have thought that Shen Ying would answer so briskly, without a hint of confusion on his face?
“Really?” Hearing this, a trace of bewilderment crept into Jiang Shi’s voice, as if he hadn’t expected his request to be met with Shen Ying’s agreement so easily.
Shen Ying nodded, and then his tone suddenly turned somewhat meaningful. “Of course, but… I’m mostly worried that you’ll regret it later. I don’t really mind where I sleep, but I’m afraid that halfway through the night you’ll regret it and kick me out, and I’d lose a lot of face if that happened.”
“I won’t.”
Jiang Shi gave those two words once again without the slightest hesitation or doubt. But this time, his unwavering firmness didn’t make Shen Ying as happy as it had just a moment ago.
It instantly deflated whatever courage had possessed Shen Ying to tease Jiang Shi in the first place.
This wasn’t right. Why wasn’t Jiang Shi even asking him why he would say something like that?
“No, no, no, let’s not sleep together after all.” Shen Ying was entirely focused on rushing to explain himself, completely missing the subtle shift in emotion in Jiang Shi’s eyes caused by his sudden change of mind. “Jiang Shi, let me be honest with you. I’m really not the type of person who is suited to share a bed with others…”
“It’s fine. If you don’t want to sleep with me, I can arrange another room for you,” Jiang Shi interrupted his rushed explanation.
“Jiang Shi, that’s not what I meant.”
“It really is okay. I’ve just been afraid of sleeping alone ever since I was a child.”
“Even though I got a bit more used to it later on, I still have nightmares frequently. I actually thought that if you were willing to come to my house, I wouldn’t have to sleep alone anymore.” Jiang Shi’s voice was very soft, his eyelids lowered as he spoke.
He looked just like someone who had mustered up all his courage to pour his youthful heart out to Shen Ying.
Hearing this, Shen Ying’s lips twitched, opening and closing in wordless hesitation.
After a brief silence, he ultimately couldn’t bear it any longer and caved in.
“Fine! I’ll sleep with you from now on, as long as you don’t mind that my sleeping habits involve hitting and kicking people, and that I’ll very aggressively… forcibly take over your entire bed…”
The further he got into the last two sentences, the weaker his voice became.
He wasn’t lying, and this wasn’t an excuse he had just made up on the spot. Grandpa and Peng Sheng had long since stopped daring to sleep in the same bed as him for many consecutive years because of his domineering sleeping posture. Not only would it ruin their state of well-being the next morning, but in severe cases, they might even wake up with bruises.
It was better when he was a little younger because Grandpa could still suppress his fierce and unruly little body while he was asleep. But now that he was nearly an adult, his height was shooting up and his strength was huge, he couldn’t possibly keep putting the old man through that.
Last year, Peng Sheng was at his place and the two of them pulled an all nighter playing games to finish up a client’s project. Because they were dead tired, they threw all caution to the wind.
Less than an hour later, Peng Sheng climbed down the bed with massive dark circles under his eyes. But because he was still exhausted, he collapsed onto the living room sofa in a bizarre posture and fell blissfully asleep. After waking up, Peng Sheng complained to him as if beating a gongs and drums, declaring that sleeping on a narrow sofa was infinitely more comfortable than sleeping with him, and even saying he had nearly been kicked into a semi-paralyzed state.
Of course, those were just Peng Sheng’s words, Shen Ying, fast asleep, had no way of knowing any of that.
Peng Sheng had also said back then that if he ever wanted to get a wife in the future, his sleeping habits would probably cause a huge divorce battle.
Shen Ying had dared to argue back with a stiff neck in front of Peng Sheng, but today, faced with Jiang Shi’s request to sleep with him, he had to admit that he did indeed have this nasty flaw.
He certainly didn’t want to kick Jiang Shi into a semi-paralyzed state, that would be biting the hand that fed him and would incur divine retribution.
Unfortunately, after the two of them mutually bared their “heart’s secrets,” Shen Ying ultimately ended up entering the same room as Jiang Shi and lying down on the same bed.
Jiang Shi simply refused to believe it.
Fortunately, Jiang Shi’s bed was exceptionally large, visually measuring about two meters wide. If the two of them each took a side, there would still be plenty of space left in the middle.
Shen Ying burrowed under the covers, first properly appreciating the comfort of the mattress. Knowing it was getting late, he didn’t waste words and spoke to Jiang Shi, who was already lying down on the other side with the lights off.
“Jiang Shi, I’m going to sleep then. If I really end up hitting you tonight, you don’t need to hold back, you can just kick me right off the bed. Or if you have a nightmare, wake me up whenever you want, and I’ll chase away whatever demons and ghosts are bothering you.”
Only a single small nightlight remained on in the room. When Shen Ying finished speaking, he didn’t receive a reply. Taking advantage of the faint light, he could only see a slightly raised, blurry figure on the other side of the bed. Assuming Jiang Shi was just brewing up some sleepiness and didn’t feel like talking, he didn’t dwell on it and closed his eyes to sleep.
In reality, Jiang Shi had heard Shen Ying’s considerate and repetitive reminder. It was just that ever since he stepped into the room, his heartbeat had inexplicably begun to accelerate wildly, he could even hallucinate the sound of blood flowing through his veins.
Everything was warning him of his abnormally overloaded state of excitement at that moment.
He was afraid that if he opened his mouth just then, Shen Ying would detect something off about him. Everything he had packaged and presented in front of Shen Ying would instantly crumble to dust, and Shen Ying would discover the most intense, unspeakable, and abnormal desires deep within his heart.
His left palm had already been tightly bitten into by his fingernails, yet he couldn’t feel any pain. Sister Cheng had once told him that his state was a very dangerous signal, if he ever realized it himself, he needed to actively distance himself from anyone around him.
But right at this moment, he didn’t want to distance himself, nor was he willing to.
Wasn’t the very thing he desired already right beside him?
Within arm’s reach.
Enduring the unbearable physical sensation of his racing heart, Jiang Shi chose to silently roll over, lying on his side facing the other person across the bed.
In the quiet bedroom, he could clearly hear Shen Ying’s soft, rhythmic breathing.
For a long time, Jiang Shi quietly raised his hand and reached out toward that side. But the distance was too great, he couldn’t touch Shen Ying, nor dared he touch him.
“Mm…”
Suddenly, a low murmur came from the other side of the bed. Listening closely, one could clearly tell that the owner of the voice was feeling restless.
Jiang Shi’s outstretched hand paused, but he didn’t pull it back. Instead, he kept it hovering horizontally, resting right on top of the blanket.
Slap,
The moment Jiang Shi’s fingers brushed against the blanket, they were firmly pinned down by Shen Ying, who was clearly deeply restless in his sleep.
The fast asleep Shen Ying first stretched his left leg out from under the covers, and with a sudden toss and turn, his left leg dragged the blanket right across Jiang Shi’s arm, pinning it down.
Yet faced with Shen Ying’s leg pressing heavily on his arm, Jiang Shi reacted like it was nobody’s business, acting as if that arm didn’t even belong to him.
Leaning on the faint glow of the bedroom nightlight, Shen Ying’s features gradually grew clearer in his eyes.
He watched Shen Ying for a long, long time. The speed of his heartbeat gradually slowed down and lightened, eventually returning to normal. And what made him feel even more satisfied deep inside was that Shen Ying kept shifting closer and closer to his side as he slept.
Shen Ying hadn’t lied, his sleeping posture truly was domineering. By this point, his head was long off the pillow. After shifting his sleeping position countless times over a short period, his head suddenly stopped right when it touched Jiang Shi’s horizontally extended arm, as if he had finally found the source of relief for his restlessness in his dream.
Half-asleep, he blindly sought out the direction of Jiang Shi’s arm and finally rested his head directly on top of Jiang Shi. He let out another low murmur in his sleep, but this time it wasn’t out of irritation, it was because he had finally found a comfortable sleeping position.
That night, Shen Ying had gone to sleep properly resting on his pillow. When he woke up, his body was sprawled horizontally across the entire bed, using Jiang Shi, who had been forced to sleep precariously on the very edge of the other side, as a human pillow.
“I’m sorry.”
The next morning, Shen Ying, who had slept far too comfortably, felt as if the sky was falling in. While eating a lavish breakfast at the table, he once again quietly and sincerely offered his second apology of the morning to Jiang Shi.
For the next five hundred years, no one would ever be able to understand the explosive psychological state he experienced the moment he opened his eyes this morning and his consciousness cleared, only to discover that he had been using Jiang Shi as a body pillow.
“My sleeping posture is genuinely terrible. Look, didn’t I tell you the truth?”
Jiang Shi was drinking his porridge, his tone still completely unbothered by the incident. “It’s fine. I really didn’t feel anything. I slept quite deeply last night, I didn’t even have any nightmares.”
“Really?” Hearing that last sentence, Shen Ying felt a tiny bit better before immediately following up to ask Jiang Shi, “Did you usually have nightmares every single night before?”
“Almost every night when nobody else is home.”
“Then why don’t you live with your dad? Even if he’s busy with work, he should still come home to sleep, right?” Shen Ying asked out of curiosity.
“He travels for business frequently, and he’s not always in Yining City.” After finishing his explanation, Jiang Shi’s eyelids slowly drifted downward. “That house is even bigger than this one, and I’m even more scared.”
Shen Ying was left stunned by this, feeling a mix of surprise. Weighing his tone, he asked, “Is it really that severe? Have you seen a doctor about it?”
Jiang Shi looked at him, falling silent for a few seconds before speaking. “Yes, but it requires taking medicine, and I don’t like taking medicine.”
“True, my grandpa always says that every medicine is three parts poison, and it’s even better if you can solve things without taking pills.” Shen Ying didn’t fully understand these things either, so he re-confirmed with Jiang Shi, “You really didn’t have nightmares last night? You weren’t disturbed by me?”
“Really didn’t. I genuinely slept very deeply.” Jiang Shi’s tone also gradually grew as earnest as his. “It’s been a long time since I’ve slept this peacefully.”
Hearing this, Shen Ying fell into deep thought while biting into a steamed bun.
Earlier, he had heard a superstitious saying that people who were easily plagued by nightmares might have a weak horoscope and needed some fierce object to guard them, which was why those kinds of people usually kept a knife under their pillows in their bedrooms.
Could it be…
Was he fiercer than a knife?
Actually, last night, Shen Ying had dreamed as well, but his dream was connected to the sensation he had right before falling asleep.
When he first lay down on Jiang Shi’s bed, it really did feel quite comfortable, but Shen Ying wasn’t used to sleeping on something so soft, it was so soft it made him uncomfortable. As a result, in his dream, he felt like he was constantly walking up an endless staircase made of cotton, unable to retreat or advance.
Because of this, he felt extremely irritated, and in the dream, he started running upwards, desperate to get away from all that cotton as fast as possible. But things didn’t go his way, the cotton staircase had no end in sight. Just as he was about to give up, his feet unexpectedly stepped onto solid floor tiles. He was instantly ecstatic, his fatigued and uncomfortable legs finally found relief, and the restlessness in his heart vanished like smoke.
Those solid floor tiles had given him a profound sense of security.