Ever since the Star Realm and the Xiling had fought side by side and jointly attacked the gates of the Abyss, ...well, only a little over twenty hours had actually passed—we had only come back yesterday, and had just slept through the night. This war might have looked anticlimactic and hadn't kept us away for very long, but the pressure had been immense. Everyone in our family except Qian Qian had been physically and mentally exhausted. After getting home, we had basically done nothing but sleep. If Little Crow's crowing on the roof hadn't been so ridiculously loud this morning, I really wouldn't have wanted to get up.
Come to think of it, hadn't that dumb bird kicked her crowing habit yet? She was female!
I lay in bed spacing out for a while, looking at the familiar ceiling above me, the familiar furniture around me, and the familiar blanket covering me. Then I pulled the familiar little doll girl out from inside the duvet cover. It took me a long while, still groggy, to confirm that I was home and back to my everyday life.
It happened every time. No matter how long or short I had been away, whenever I returned from a trip, the first day home always felt unreal. It was as if my thoughts could never keep up with changes in my surroundings. Even after coming home, the sounds of artillery fire from the battlefield still rumbled through my head. I had always thought this was the inertia of Void Creatures at work, but Lin Xue and Sandora both thought I was just slow in the head...
Qian Qian was the only one who didn't think I was slow, because her brain had never been on the same wavelength as normal people in the first