Knock, knock, knock.
A hollow, wooden tapping suddenly echoed beside his ear. Half asleep, Li Jingsheng was still wondering why everyone was using electronic doors these days, where on earth was that knocking coming from?
Knock, knock, knock.
Yet the next second, the sound continued.
Li Jingsheng suffered from a mild case of morning or waking irritability. Annoyed beyond measure, he forced his eyes open, sat up, and took a full three seconds to remember that he wasn’t in the modern world anymore, before irritably calling out, “Coming.”
Li Jingsheng wasn’t very good at reading the time here; every time he tried to check the hour, it took him ages to figure it out. Consequently, his concept of time in this setting was rather vague, but looking at the pitch-black sky outside the window, he knew it had to be very late.
Whoever it was, ringing someone up and disturbing their sleep in the middle of the night.
Brimming with grievances, he went to unlock the door, but that resentment vanished without a trace the moment he laid eyes on the person standing there.
Utterly astonished, he asked, “Junior Brother, why are you here? Is something wrong?”
The person before him had swollen, reddened eyes, looking as though he had suffered an immense grievance. Li Jingsheng’s tenderhearted instincts immediately melted.
Seeming to realize that he had disturbed the other’s rest, Mo Yu lowered his head, clenched the hem of his robe, and spoke with great embarrassment, “Senior Brother, can I sleep with you tonight? Strange sounds keep coming from my room, and I, I’m a little scared.”
Li Jingsheng instantly felt as though the righteous light of virtue was shining down upon him; rescuing a strayed, terrified youth who couldn’t sleep felt like an exam question custom-designed specifically for him.
Just as he was about to readily agree, Xiao Yu’s roar echoed straight inside his mind: “No way! All the rooms are identical, why would only his room have a problem?”
“Besides, if he’s scared, why didn’t he go look for someone else instead of coming to you? He’s a grown man, what is there to be afraid of? You cannot say yes!”
Though Li Jingsheng wanted to retort, he couldn’t help feeling that some of its points made sense, so he ultimately opted for a compromise.
“What’s wrong with your room? Come on, I’ll go take a look for you.”
Seeing him completely dodge the topic of sleeping together, Mo Yu’s gaze dimmed a fraction, but he still obediently led the other toward his chamber.
Li Jingsheng stepped inside and inspected the place for ages without hearing a single sound. He patted Mo Yu’s shoulder and said, “Whatever was in here seems to have left already. Sleep in peace, and if anything happens, come call me next door.”
With a profound, dark gaze, Mo Yu stared at him for a long moment before finally nodding, lowering his eyes to conceal the emotions roiling within: “Yes, Senior Brother.”
Returning to lie down on his bed, Li Jingsheng recalled the wounded look in the boy’s eyes and began lecturing Xiao Yu: “Look at you, your heart is truly as small as a mustard seed. What if there really was something wrong with his room? Besides, he’s the protagonist; he’s prime target material for all sorts of weird entities to covet.”
Hearing that, Xiao Yu rolled its eyes so hard in its mind that it began to wonder if Mo Yu possessed some sort of sorcery that had utterly bewitched its host.
“So what if he is? You said it yourself, he’s the protagonist, which means he’ll definitely be fine. What are you fussing over?”
While the two were busy bickering, the sound of knock, knock, knock rang out from outside the door once again.
Li Jingsheng subconsciously swallowed a lump in his throat.
Remembering the noises Mo Yu had mentioned earlier.
His heart sank, was there actually something out there?
Treading carefully to the doorway, he slowly pulled the door open, exhaling a quiet sigh of relief upon seeing who was standing there.
“Junior Brother, what’s wrong? Is the room making noises again?”
This time, Mo Yu’s eyes weren’t just red; his expression looked on the verge of tears. He nodded. “Mn.”
Even though he was already nearly as tall as Li Jingsheng himself, crying like that made him look remarkably pitiful and endearing.
What on earth are you thinking?
Li Jingsheng mentally delivered a heavy slap to his own face before assuming a serious expression. “Then Junior Brother had better come in and sleep with me. With me here, I doubt whatever that thing is would dare come looking for trouble.”
The reason Li Jingsheng had the confidence to say that was precisely because the protagonist was present; ordinarily, nothing major could possibly go wrong.
Seeing him agree, Mo Yu hesitated instead, asking with a slight tremble, “Is that really alright, Senior Brother?”
Ignoring Xiao Yu’s mental shrieking, Li Jingsheng pushed the door open wider on his own accord. “Of course it’s alright.”
Only after inviting the person inside did Li Jingsheng realize an awkward problem: there was only one bed.
Sensing Li Jingsheng’s internal dilemma, Mo Yu offered proactively, “Senior Brother, would you like me to sleep on the floor?”
Hearing that, Li Jingsheng’s heart softened instantly, this kid was far too sensible!
Yet allowing a child to sleep on the floor was something Li Jingsheng could never permit.
Disregarding Xiao Yu’s frantic internal chanting of “He’s just a green tea bitch!”, Li Jingsheng volunteered, “No need, the bed is big enough, sleeping together will be fine.”
Mo Yu’s eyes lit up once more. “Thank you, Senior Brother.”
Though Li Jingsheng had agreed readily enough, figuring it wouldn’t be a big deal, once they were actually lying down in bed, the awkwardness became intensely palpable. He attempted to alleviate the tense atmosphere by striking up a conversation with Xiao Yu.
Only to discover that the scoundrel had directly resorted to playing dead.
He muttered inwardly: I just let someone in to sleep for a night, is it really necessary to be so petty?
To avoid the awkwardness of facing each other, Li Jingsheng turned over to lie down with his back facing Mo Yu. Not long after they settled in, steady, even breathing drifted from behind him.
The person behind him seemed fast asleep.
It appeared the kid really had been tormented quite a bit, falling sound asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.
Just as Li Jingsheng’s thoughts were drifting off, an arm suddenly draped across his waist. Draped across was one thing, but the hand began unabashedly holding him close.
Faced with this sudden turn of events, Li Jingsheng stiffened entirely.
He genuinely hadn’t expected the other person to sleep in such an unruly manner.
He originally intended to quietly remove the arm pressing against his waist, but the moment his fingers brushed against the other, the person behind him stirred.
Instantly, Li Jingsheng froze, terrified of waking the boy up.
After a minute of this stalemate, Li Jingsheng conceded defeat.
Fine, getting hugged isn’t going to shave any flesh off my body anyway.
With that thought, drowsiness gradually overtook Li Jingsheng, and before long, he drifted into a deep sleep.
Yet the moment he fell asleep, the person behind him, who was supposed to be fast asleep, abruptly snapped his eyes wide open.
Gazing at the smooth expanse of Li Jingsheng’s fair nape, Mo Yu’s gaze held a fierce possessiveness that even he himself hadn’t noticed.
That look resembled precisely a ferocious beast eyeing its trapped prey, ready to lunge forward and sink its teeth into the other’s flesh at any second.
After staring for a long while, Mo Yu finally settled for silently pulling Li Jingsheng tighter into his embrace, pressing his face against the other’s back and listening to the steady, strong rhythm of his heartbeat.
Senior Brother, you must not come to any harm.
＊
Knock, knock, knock!
Knock, knock, knock!
A flurry of urgent pounding echoed from outside the door. Li Jingsheng felt as though this knocking was going to give him PTSD; those sounds had already followed him right into his dreams.
At this rate, he was going to start dreaming about people knocking on his door even in his sleep.
“Li Jingsheng, are you up yet? Get up already!”
Xi Feng’s irritable voice drilled straight into his ears.
Splendid, he was reminded once more that he was still stuck right here.
Irritated, he sat straight up, opening his mouth to snap before he even opened his eyes: “Alright, stop knocking! I’m up!”
Just as Li Jingsheng was about to swing his legs off the bed, he suddenly felt something resting across his torso. Looking down, he saw Mo Yu’s arm still draped over him, while the boy blinked sleepily at him as if he had just woken up as well.
Li Jingsheng jolted fully awake in an instant. Vaulting off the bed in a single fluid motion, he feigned utmost composure and said, “Junior Brother, Xi Feng is calling for me. I’m going to open the door, don’t make a sound.”
At this moment, Mo Yu’s dark hair cascaded loosely around his shoulders, lending him an air of drowsy innocence that practically threatened to melt Li Jingsheng from pure cuteness.
“Well? Are you going to open the door, or am I going to kick it down?!”
Li Jingsheng hastily reined in the brief trace of a smile that had surfaced.
He had completely forgotten about the person standing outside.
Turning around to unlock the door for Xi Feng, he didn’t even bother inviting the visitor in, simply leaning sideways against the doorframe to ask, “What is it? Didn’t Senior Brother Xi want to pretend he didn’t know me yesterday? How come he’s proactively paying a courtesy call today?”
With a grim, solemn expression, Xi Feng had no patience for banter, shoving past him directly into the room. “This is an emergency, let’s talk inside.”
The intruder moved far too fast for Li Jingsheng to react in time. Ordinarily that might not have mattered, but today Mo Yu was sitting right inside.
Recovering his wits just in time to intercept the boy, he was a step too slow; Xi Feng had already spotted Mo Yu with hawk-like precision.
Mo Yu was currently fully dressed, sitting on the edge of the bed to put on his shoes.
Wearing an expression of absolute disbelief, Xi Feng stared at Li Jingsheng while his hand trembled as if afflicted with Parkinson’s, yet he still managed to stubbornly point an accusing finger at Li Jingsheng.
“You, were you just climbing out of that bed too?”
There was only one bed in the room, and no pallet laid out on the floor; two people coexisting in the exact same quarters left no room for sophistry or denial.
Still, Li Jingsheng decided to put up a struggle.
“Er, you listen to my cuss, ahem, explanation.”
Having finished dressing properly by then, Mo Yu walked over and reached out to pull Li Jingsheng’s waistband tighter, securing it firmly. “Senior Brother, your belt is loose.”
Li Jingsheng instinctively blurted out, “Thank you.”
Only after saying it did he realize how vaguely suggestive the atmosphere had suddenly become. Sure enough, upon catching the completely worldview-shattering expression plastered across Xi Feng’s face, Li Jingsheng immediately moved to cut off any deeper, wayward imaginations the boy might be entertaining. “No, it really isn’t what you think!”
Xi Feng originally intended to launch into a severe condemnation of Li Jingsheng, but upon meeting Mo Yu’s steady gaze, a rare flash of logic kicked in, leading him to suspect that perhaps things weren’t as scandalous as they appeared.
Catching the unspoken hesitation on the boy’s face and assuming he had jumped to wrong conclusions, Li Jingsheng opened his mouth to clarify, only for Xi Feng to raise a hand and cut him off. “Forget it, I believe you, you don’t need to explain. I have more important matters to discuss right now.”
Noticing the dead seriousness on Xi Feng’s face, Li Jingsheng reined in his demeanor as well and asked, “What happened?”
Casting a sidelong glance at him, Xi Feng let out a heavy sigh and ground out, “Eldest Senior Brother is missing.”
Xi Feng had fully anticipated that the other person would react with shock or question how on earth the Eldest Senior Brother could possibly go missing.
Instead, hearing the news, Li Jingsheng’s face registered nothing save pure bewilderment: “Eldest Senior Brother is missing, so why aren’t you out looking for him instead of coming to tell me?”
Xi Feng looked ready to be choked to death by the sheer exasperation of dealing with this person; every single time he spoke with him, he had to recite the Clearing Heart Mantra several times over in his head.
Being the intensely proud and face-conscious individual that he was, Xi Feng naturally refused to admit right to the other’s face that his combat capability was too low and he was too afraid to act recklessly on his own, which was why he had sought backup.
So, he stood there with a greenish tint across his face, struggling silently.
Fortunately, Mo Yu managed to decipher the underlying meaning: “Senior Brother Xi Feng is probably telling us this because he knows his own combat power is too low, fearing he won’t be of any help even if he finds Eldest Senior Brother, so he wants Senior Brother to help search for him, right?”
Though that was indeed the gist of it, hearing it spelled out with such brutal candor left Xi Feng’s face turning a livid, sickly shade as he gave a stiff nod.
Having processed Mo Yu’s translation, Li Jingsheng finally grasped the situation. He propped his chin on his hand to ponder for a moment before arriving at an epiphany: “Oh, so you’re admitting that your skills aren’t as good as mine.”
At that moment, Xi Feng’s complexion could only be described as a complete palette of colorful shades.
Having finally broken past his own psychological barriers to come asking for help, only to be mocked in return, he felt ready to combust from pure fury.
He turned on his heel to storm right out the door.
“I don’t need your help anymore, I’ll go look by myself!”