Chapter 34 Nightmares and Body Temperature
——She began to get used to his embrace, but she would still wake up in the middle of the night, unable to distinguish between reality and nightmares.
Ruan Xingchen gradually got used to the warmth of Mo Xiaohan's embrace.
When his arm was across her waist, it was neither too loose nor too tight, like a cage tailor-made for her, preventing her from escaping but not suffocating her.
The man's warm body temperature mixed with his steady heartbeat became a sedative against the bloody memories, allowing her to steal a moment of peace on the edge of the noisy nightmare.
But this tranquility always has cracks.
When she woke up in the middle of the night, what she saw when she opened her eyes was often chaos: sometimes it was the swaying shadows of trees on the ceiling, and sometimes it suddenly switched to the glaring spotlights of the auction house.
She would stiffen the moment she woke up, her fingers subconsciously pinching into her palms, until the pain woke her up, and she could vaguely see the outline of the person beside her pillow -
This is not an iron cage, this is Mo Xiaohan's bed.
And every time, he would wake up immediately.
It was not the panic of being suddenly awakened, but an almost terrifying alertness, as if he had never really fallen asleep, but was just resting with his eyes closed, watching her breathing, ready to catch her fear of falling at any time.
"Are you having a nightmare again?" His voice was low, with lingering sleepiness, but his palm had already touched her back, gently moving down her spine, as if soothing a frightened cat.
She nodded, then shook her head, and finally buried her face in his neck, greedily absorbing his body warmth. He was real, and the security was real too.
She will feel better when the daylight dilutes some of the gloom.
The sunlight shone through the gauze curtains, and Mo Xiaohan's outline was coated with a soft golden edge. The scars that looked hideous at night became a kind of medal in the daytime, proving that he was alive.
She began to try to touch him, not passively accepting, but actively exploring. When her fingertips brushed against the bullet marks under his ribs, he would slightly tense his muscles, but would not dodge.
"Does it hurt?" she asked softly.
"It doesn't hurt." He held her fingers and pressed them against his heart, "It hurts more here."
Puzzled, she looked up into his deep eyes.
"Stop here," he said calmly, "the moment I found you at the auction house."
Her eyes suddenly became hot and the moisture blurred her vision.
But the cruelty of the night is never absent.
Late one night, she dreamed she was back at the auction table, with Mo Xiaohan's face sitting in the audience. She woke up screaming and found herself frantically tearing at the sheets, while Mo Xiaohan held her wrist tightly to prevent her from hurting herself.
"Look at me!" he snapped. "Who am I?"
Her vision blurred, tears rolled down her cheeks: "Xiaohan...Brother..."
"No." He pinched her chin and forced her to look directly at him, "Think about it again."
She sobbed, fragments of memory swirling in her mind: the cookies in the slums, the promise of the medical tent, the reunion after seventeen years.
"...Mo Xiaohan." She finally spoke through her sobs, "You are Mo Xiaohan."
He loosened his grip and pressed her into him, so hard it almost hurt.
"Remember." His voice was hoarse, "The person who hurts you in your dream will never be me."
The cracks were slowly healing, and little by little, she began to be able to distinguish between reality and nightmares.
The iron cage in the auction house was fake, but Mo Xiaohan’s embrace was real; the cold touch of the metal instrument was an illusion, but the warmth at his fingertips was real.
She even began to be able to show vulnerability in front of him.
After waking up in the middle of the night one night, she took the initiative to crawl into his arms and whispered, "...Hold tight."
He froze for a moment, then tightened his arms, wrapping her completely in his embrace.
"so?"
She nodded, buried her face in his chest to wipe away her tears, and replied muffledly: "Yeah."
But she could never completely shake off her fear.
Until one night, she woke up again, only to find that Mo Xiaohan was not in bed. Panic instantly swept through her body.
She stepped barefoot onto the ground, stumbled out of the bedroom, but stopped at the study door.
He was processing documents in front of the computer screen, and the silver ring on his left ring finger had a cool color under the blue light.
Hearing the noise, he immediately turned his head and frowned: "Why aren't you wearing shoes?"
She stood there, tears welling up without warning.
It wasn't because of the nightmare, but because she found that she could no longer tolerate him being out of sight.
Mo Xiaohan strode over and picked her up, pressing his palm tightly against the back of her cold feet: "I'm here."
She grabbed his collar, buried her face in the crook of his neck, and said muffledly, "...I know."
The next morning, she looked at her red and swollen eyes in the mirror and suddenly said, "Let's adjust the treatment plan. I want to try to face those fears."
Mo Xiaohan was tying his tie when his fingers paused: "Have you thought it through?"
Exposure therapy means facing the fragments of memory from the auction house and touching the fears that once dragged her into the abyss over and over again while she is awake.
She nodded, walked up to him, and reached out to adjust his tie: "I want to... get better completely."
He looked down at her with a deep gaze, and after a few seconds of silence, he asked, "Are you not afraid anymore?"
"I'm scared." She looked up at him, took the initiative to move closer for the first time, and gently kissed the corner of his lips, "But I'm not so scared when you're here."
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