Chapter Forty-Three: Sleepwalking
That night, Lin Yu was once again engulfed in a series of nightmares. In her dream, she was curled up in a drafty mud-brick classroom. Dean Li had become her homeroom teacher, relentlessly lashing the blackboard with a pointer.
A putrid stench assaulted the back of her neck, and suddenly a toothless old man appeared behind her, grinning eerily. His withered fingers gripped a comb with missing teeth, the teeth scraping against her scalp as if countless ants were crawling into her head from her hair roots.
News clips about human trafficking flashed through his mind; the powder on the comb was their tool for committing crimes. Lin Yu suddenly knocked over a bench and staggered out of the classroom.
The dirt road turned into soft, mushy dough under her feet. Seeing Lin Min pass by the door, she ran forward desperately, but no sound came out of her throat, only cold white breath.
Lin Yu felt unsteady on his feet, and every step he took felt like he was about to trip over, so he had to crawl forward using both his hands and feet.
The footsteps behind her grew closer, and the old man's face twisted and deformed like melting wax, sometimes transforming into Team Leader Dong, sometimes into Dean Li. He grinned maliciously as he caught up with his mother, and the two began to wrestle and struggle. Lin Yu stood rooted to the spot, watching the old man open his gaping maw and devour her dream.
As the world turned upside down, she fell into an even deeper nightmare. Lin Yu found herself on a podium, the chalk in her hand twisting and turning into gray-white maggots, which crawled out from between her fingers.
In the last row of the classroom, that strange old man was sitting in her seat, his cloudy eyes staring straight at her. His chapped lips opened and closed silently, spewing out a stream of words as thick as ink.
"If you can't sell a hundred tickets to Bi Gan's movies, come and be my wife!" The bold black characters floated past, twisting into rattling chains in the air.
Lin Yu staggered backward as the edge of the podium melted away, and the classroom began to spin silently, knocking her to the ground and causing her to fall heavily at the old man's feet.
......
Jiang Chuan's door was ajar, and Lin Yu pushed it open and walked in.
He had lived alone for many years and didn't have the habit of locking his bedroom door when he slept at home. So, when he was shaken awake in his sleep and vaguely saw Lin Yu standing by the bed, he momentarily thought he was still on the massage bed in the club.
"What's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?" He paused, then asked in a hoarse voice.
Moonlight streamed in through the open doorway, like melting silver foil spilling over the bedside. The hem of her linen skirt brushed against her bare forearms. Lin Yu's pupils, like two obsidian stones soaked by rain, stood barefoot in the moonlight, her ankles damp with the coolness of the night dew.
Her long hair cascaded down like a waterfall, making her look like a bewitching sea siren who had just emerged from the deep sea.
"I want to talk to you about work!"
Jiang Chuan glanced at the wall clock; it was just past two in the morning. He sat up, puzzled. The dark gray silk quilt slipped from his shoulders, and his expression, still hazy from half-awake, had lost its usual sharpness.
"Now?"
"Now, immediately!"
Lin Yu's voice trembled with tears, but her gaze was empty and lost, giving the scene before her an eerie atmosphere. Her fingers hung limply at her sides, and her shoulders trembled silently.
"I will definitely cooperate with the company's transformation, please don't sell me out!" Tears, like dew on flower petals, rolled down in large drops, landing on Jiang Chuan's hand with its slightly bulging veins.
Even the most foolish person would notice something was wrong. Jiang Chuan waved his hand in front of Lin Yu, who stared straight ahead, completely oblivious—a typical symptom of sleepwalking.
He threw back the covers, rolled out of bed, took Lin Yu's hand, and gently soothed her trembling fingers with his palm. "Of course I won't sell you off. Be good, go back to your room and sleep first. We can discuss it tomorrow, okay?"
Lin Yu's sobs suddenly turned into violent struggle. "No, no, no!"
The scream was like a snapped string, and tears spread across the linen fabric. Moonlight cast spiderweb-like shadows on her eyelashes, trapping Jiang Chuan's suddenly contracting heart.
"I don't want to be someone's concubine. Dong Guobin doesn't eat sauerkraut. We're not on the same path!" Lin Yu was on the verge of a half-dream, and her words were completely illogical. Her absurd accusation made Jiang Chuan let out a low laugh.
"No one's concubine is allowed!" He reached out and pulled Lin Yu into his arms, tightening his grip and drawing her close to his chest. His heart felt like it was melting as he whispered against her cool earlobe, "You can only be with me!"
His hand rhythmically stroked the back of Lin Yu's head, sliding down her neck, his knuckles digging into her thick hair, as if soothing a frightened kitten. The body in his arms gradually relaxed, collapsing limply onto his shoulder like a puppet with its strings cut.
Jiang Chuan carefully placed Lin Yu's head on the pillow, looking at her face, glistening with tears, bathed in moonlight.
He hesitated for a moment, then got up and gently closed the door. He took a warm, damp towel from the bathroom and carefully wiped away her pale, tear-streaked face.
His palm slid down her slender ankles, gently enveloping Lin Yu's cold feet, carefully wiping them clean with a towel, and then pulling them back into the warm blankets.
His hand paused for a moment under the covers, his thumb unconsciously rubbing her slightly protruding ankle bone, using his palm to gradually transfer his body heat to her, feeling the icy skin in his hand slowly warm up.
After doing all this, Jiang Chuan sat on the edge of the bed and gazed at Lin Yu quietly for a moment. Lin Yu's sleeping posture resembled a question mark, her hair spread out on the pillowcase, rising and falling gently with her breath, like black seaweed drifting in the moonlight.
One strand of hair tangled around his fingertip, as if trying to hold on. He responded by gently playing with more hair wrapped around his palm.
Jiang Chuan lay down on the other side of the bed, deliberately keeping a distance between them. But Lin Yu unconsciously turned over in her sleep, her body moving closer to the heat source without her noticing. Their breathing gradually synchronized, weaving an intertwined cocoon under the moonlight.
The buzzing of the alarm clock shattered Lin Yu's hazy dream. She instinctively stopped her phone, her eyelids feeling as heavy as if they were glued shut.
The simple metal lampshade above her head was coldly looking down at her. When her gaze finally focused on the unfamiliar ceiling light, she suddenly threw off the covers and jumped up.
At the foot of the bed, a pair of pink plush slippers were neatly arranged, with the toes pointing outwards at a standard 30-degree angle. This obsessive-compulsive arrangement was clearly Jiang Chuan's doing.
Lin Yu's temples throbbed. He checked himself over and over again to make sure his clothes were on properly before he felt relieved.
Her memories, like a cassette tape, played back fragmented pieces of last night. She picked up her phone, put on her slippers, and stepped onto the cold floor.
The living room was empty, the air filled with the aroma of the automatic coffee machine working diligently. Glasses sat upside down on the filter rack on the bar counter; everything was as orderly as ever.
A yellow sticky note was stuck to the refrigerator door. Lin Yu walked over and took it off. Jiang Chuan's handwriting was strong and clear. "Breakfast is in the microwave. Microwave for two minutes. Remember to lock the door before you go to sleep. See you the day after tomorrow, Banban!"
The microwave hummed in the quiet kitchen. Lin Yu leaned against the counter, pondering the deeper meaning behind Jiang Chuan's words, "Remember to lock the door."
She is not a habitual sleepwalker. She has only experienced this three times in her life, the first two of which were before she started elementary school, and she has had virtually no sleepwalking experiences since adulthood.
This unexpected incident caught Lin Yu off guard, and it just so happened to happen at Jiang Chuan's house.
Lin Yu vaguely remembered having a long nightmare in which she walked barefoot through the dark living room, stumbled and pushed open Jiang Chuan's bedroom door, and stood by his bed to talk to him about work.
The more I thought about it, the more confused I became. My memories were like torn pieces of paper, barely piecing together fragmented images. The phone screen lit up and dimmed again, the text in the chat box was typed and deleted repeatedly, until finally only a blank input box remained.
Since Jiang Chuan remained silent, determined to gloss over the situation, why should she worry unnecessarily and hold a grudge? The microwave dinged, as if sealing the deal. Lin Yu sighed and brought out the plates.
......
Two days passed peacefully like this. Jiang Chuan's message vanished without a trace, not even a punctuation mark appeared. If Lin Yu weren't still living in his house, he would almost suspect that Jiang Chuan's fervent pursuit was just his own unfounded imagination.
When the HR department's dinner invitation popped up, Lin Yu was staring intently at the outline annotations of her invention patent on her computer screen. She subconsciously opened WeChat; Jiang Chuan's chat history was still stuck two days prior.
She tapped a few keys on the keyboard, then finally turned off the screen and angrily slammed her phone face down on the table. Since he wasn't coming back until tomorrow, why bother reporting her whereabouts to him?
Outside the office's floor-to-ceiling windows, the setting sun was painting the clouds a honey color. Colleagues were gradually packing up to leave, their laughter carrying the lighthearted anticipation of the weekend.
Lin Yu likes these moments. Friday is the happiest day of the week for Lin Yu, and he is full of anticipation for the upcoming two-day holiday.
She wished every day of her life were Friday, and at the same time, she longed to never have to worry about Sunday nights and Monday mornings.
Her idyllic daydream was interrupted by the vibration of her phone on the table, like a pebble thrown into a calm lake. Lin Yu stared at the flashing caller ID on the screen, and the sounds of laughter and conversation that filled the office suddenly seemed distant.
All these years later, Lin Jianguo has never been able to escape the shadow of his divorce. In Lin Yu's eyes, what broke his father was not the marriage or Lin Min, but the deep-rooted cowardice and stubbornness in his character.
The father whom young Lin Yu once looked up to and admired has now become a disillusioned man who drinks heavily and whose moods are unpredictable. At work, he encounters setbacks everywhere, struggles to manage interpersonal relationships, and is gradually marginalized by his colleagues' exclusion and his superiors' cold indifference.
The promotion opportunity that was once within reach vanished, and he was eventually transferred to a leisurely retirement department, thus ending his career. On the other hand, his mother, Lin Min, enjoyed a wonderful life with both career and family success after remarrying.
This stark contrast shattered Lin Jianguo's fragile self-esteem. He began frequently drinking heavily, numbing himself with alcohol.
Year after year, alcohol not only eroded his health but also dragged him into an abyss of mental decline, causing him to wither away like a dead plant at a visible rate.
Lin Yu hadn't contacted her father in a long time, and the sudden phone call made her throat tighten for no apparent reason. She deliberately avoided talking to her father, as if as long as she didn't hear that hoarse voice, the tall figure in her memory wouldn't crumble.
She was unwilling to accept the fait accompli, and thinking of his worn-out, aged face, she wanted to say something even more hurtful to him.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
