I'm Afraid You Won't Be Able to Sleep

"Don't like this song? Then I'll change it."

Lu Ban immediately switched tracks, and a child's tender voice began singing a gentle melody.

"By a great river, the waves roll wide; the wind carries the fragrance of rice flowers along both banks."

"No."

"This is the call of the heart, this is the dedication of love, this is—"

"That's not it!"

"You're like a fire in winter, blazing flames warming my heart."

"I said that's not what I meant!"

Qin Tiantian interrupted Lu Ban as he changed songs.

"You listen to this at night and can still fall asleep?"

She had heard of people counting sheep to fall asleep, people who needed the sound of thunderstorms to sleep, and people who snored within three seconds of closing their eyes. But needing to listen to a Spring Festival Gala playlist to sleep was a first for her.

Besides, these songs were all from thirty or forty years ago, weren't they?

They were even older than Lu Ban.

They said that when Heaven opened one door for a person, it closed another window.

Qin Tiantian thought that Lu Ban being so handsome yet having no girlfriend—not even a single girl around him—seemed to prove the saying true.

"I'm afraid you won't be able to sleep if you don't listen to these."

Lu Ban explained with complete seriousness.

"?"

Qin Tiantian froze.

How else could she possibly fail to sleep? With this music playing, only a ghost could fall asleep!

"Are you sure you want to turn it off? Something very bad might appear afterward."

Lu Ban asked again and again for confirmation.

"...It's all special effects!"

Qin Tiantian hesitated for a moment before speaking with apparent certainty.

"Oh."

Lu Ban immediately turned off the music player, pulled up the blanket, and lay down in the chair.

Qin Tiantian also crawled back under the covers, hugging her shark plushie.

She soon fell asleep.

For some reason, Qin Tiantian, who should have felt unsafe, found herself sleeping exceptionally comfortably in Lu Ban's bed, as if she had returned home. After lying there for only a short while, she entered a deep sleep.

She wasn't dreaming, yet Qin Tiantian felt that something was approaching her.

A cold, soft, delicate hand seemed to brush lightly across her face.

Qin Tiantian's consciousness grew slightly clearer.

Was that Lu Ban? Did he take advantage of me falling asleep and launch a sneak attack without even following martial ethics?

She tried to open her eyes, but her eyelids felt heavy, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't lift them.

Qin Tiantian felt the hand slide from her cheek to her neck. Then, some kind of force pressed down on her throat, trying to strangle her!!!

The girl felt a wave of suffocation and tried to kick her legs, but her body seemed to have been filled with lead. She couldn't move.

In the darkness, where she couldn't even make a sound, a noise suddenly rang out.

It was the melody of some kind of music, calming the mind while carrying a solemn, dignified quality.

As soon as she heard it, Qin Tiantian felt her body relax. The force around her neck gradually vanished, and she opened her eyes.

"What are you do—"

Qin Tiantian had just been about to curse Lu Ban for attacking her in the night when she discovered that, in the dim room, Lu Ban was sitting in a chair in one corner. He held his phone in his hand, its glowing screen the only source of light. The blanket was neatly draped over him, and he was some distance away from her. Clearly, he hadn't just returned to his seat.

Only then did Qin Tiantian realize that both her hands were crossed in front of her, her fingers clutching her own neck as if she were trying to strangle herself!

"!!!"

Qin Tiantian froze, and her hands almost tightened.

"Blegh, blegh, blegh!"

She hurriedly let go, sat up, and didn't forget to pull her half-fallen collar back into place.

"What just happened to me?"

Qin Tiantian looked at Lu Ban in disbelief. He remained motionless, merely staring toward where Qin Tiantian was.

No—more precisely, he was staring at some empty space behind her.

Every hair on Qin Tiantian's body stood on end. Her neck stiffened, and she felt as if something were lying across her shoulder. It was as though the moment she turned her head, she would see the tattered Lan Lan Lu plushie grinning at her with a ridiculous, comical smile.

Lu Ban said nothing. He merely opened the music player on his phone.

"Will you remember tomorrow the diary you wrote yesterday?"

The melodious singing echoed through the room late at night, easing some of the frightening, eerie atmosphere.

Lu Ban set the phone aside and calmly opened the computer. He continued playing music through the computer's player, locked his phone, and placed it to one side before turning his chair toward Qin Tiantian.

"There's no problem. Go back to sleep."

"???"

Qin Tiantian felt as if someone had poured cold water over her from head to toe. Her head was filled with questions, none of which had been answered.

This was what he called no problem?

There was a huge problem here!

"Mm, I'm not entirely sure either. Normally, they should be hostile toward each other. I don't know why they joined forces against outsiders today. But don't worry, I've already warned them. If they cause trouble again, I'll switch to songs by young idol singers."

Lu Ban offered an explanation.

"They?"

The muscles along Qin Tiantian's back twitched. Although it was summer, cold sweat broke out all over her body.

"Didn't I tell you before? There are some strange things in my room."

Lu Ban wore the expression of a waiter whose customer had already been told that the super-spicy dish was far hotter than ordinary food, yet had insisted on ordering an enormous portion of it in front of his girlfriend, only to be rendered speechless by the spice halfway through the meal and sent to the hospital—while the girlfriend who had accompanied him was chatted up and taken away by a handsome man at the next table, leaving the waiter to quietly clean up the plates alone.

"Wasn't that all special effects?"

Qin Tiantian clutched her shark plush cushion.

"Do you want to hear their stories? I gave them names. One is A-Zhen, and the other is A-Qiang. One day..."

Lu Ban continued, asking her.

"No, no need. I'm going to sleep now."

Qin Tiantian immediately lay down and pulled the blanket over her head.

"Women really are troublesome."

Lu Ban sighed and picked up his phone.

The icon on the phone had already changed into an option for The Silent Land.

He checked the mission's completion progress.

So far, his follower count had only just reached thirteen thousand. Compared with before, however, it had already more than doubled!

The views and follower growth from the videos he painstakingly edited and uploaded were far inferior to the traffic brought in by streamers who already had fans. Lu Ban couldn't help wondering what in the world was wrong with this place.

"Still a little slow."

Hearing Qin Tiantian's steady, deep breathing from beneath the blanket, Lu Ban thought to himself.

"Should I hold a repost giveaway after all?"

Lu Ban thought it over. He didn't have much money, and a few hundred yuan could attract only a limited number of fans. It would be better to try something more distinctive.

For example, taking one person along on his next expedition seemed like it could work quite well.

He had just finished writing the post and was preparing to publish it when Lu Ban reconsidered.

The forbidden places he explored were dangerous, haunted houses where he risked his life for everyone's entertainment. People were happy to watch Lu Ban court death, but they probably wouldn't be willing to go themselves.

Why not instead take the person designated by whoever won the draw? That way, everyone could settle their grudges and grievances, and everybody would be happy.

"As expected of me."

Lu Ban praised himself. After revising the post, he was just about to publish it when his phone suddenly rang with its default ringtone.

He hurriedly lowered the volume so he wouldn't wake Qin Tiantian and invite more trouble. When he looked at the screen, he saw an unknown number.

A call in the middle of the night—was something wrong?

Lu Ban answered the phone.

*

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