There were many reasons for staying up late.
External compulsions like working overtime went without saying, but there were even more internal reasons.
They could all be summed up in one word—fun.
Everyone had piles and piles of troubles to face in life: work, studies, interpersonal relationships, romance—oh, sorry, many of you here probably didn't have that problem, so let's skip it.
Ahem. In short, the time one had entirely to oneself was pitifully scarce.
So, in order to "compensate" oneself, one was always unwilling to go to sleep.
Unsatisfied with today's life and resistant toward tomorrow's,
one always wanted to stretch out the nighttime a little longer—the time that belonged completely to oneself, completely free and carefree.
A certain writer with no social life, no mornings, who stayed home all day racking his brains over writer's block, then finally struggled to finish writing only to see it was already dark outside,
went to bed clutching his loneliness, unwilling to begin tomorrow's writing, and could only fall asleep at one in the morning after scrolling through brainless stupid memes,
understood that better than anyone.
So the pleasure of staying up late was merely a painkiller that helped you fight the misery in life.
Of course, if you were simply a terminal procrastinator who hadn't finished today's homework, or if you were thinking, "This game is fucking fun, I'm hitting King tonight!"
(-) Then pretend I said nothing.
Back to the point, whatever the reason, the most immediate reward of staying up late, at the cost of reduced sleep,
was gaining extra time in the day.
By sleeping for roughly two hours after nightfall, then another hour after returning at dawn, hollowing out his nighttime sleep and leaving only the beginning and end,
Fang Ran had successfully gained five hours to