The woman giggled, her laughter like music played by a master pianist's fingers. Beautiful notes drifted up and wandered around Qingmu, floating away one moment and winding back around him the next.
The guitar music from the stage harmonized perfectly with those notes, ringing in Qingmu's ears along with the girl's moving singing.
Music always had the power to strike straight at the heart. It could excite people or soothe them, offer comfort in sorrow or hope in despair.
Music like this was intoxicating.
Qingmu really wanted a drink. Even his eyes were already full of drunkenness.
He pulled the woman, whose whole body gave off a fragrance, into his arms and drew her face before his.
The lighting was dim. He still could not make out her face, only a hazy outline.
"Miss, what are you trying to do?" Qingmu asked again.
"What do you think?" The woman was still giggling, her fragrant breath spilling onto Qingmu's face.
"One hundred and fifty," Qingmu said.
The woman paused, then said, "What do you take me for? Am I worth that little?" Her voice was cloyingly sweet, resisting yet inviting.
"One hundred and fifty," Qingmu repeated.
The woman suddenly realized something, and her laughter faltered. "What did you say?"
Grinning, Qingmu said, "I said we're closing. Please settle your bill. One hundred and fifty!"
A pair of beautiful, slightly alarmed eyes emerged in the dim light. Two pink lips parted slightly, like rosebuds in May. "You really are formidable. No wonder you're the most outstanding Awakened of the Alliance's younger generation!"
Her voice trembled with a little excitement, yet carried a trace of reproach, like a resentful wife who had just encountered her husband after his years away from home.
Now it was Qingmu's turn to be surprised. "What did you say?"
He released the arm he had around the woman's neck.
Her body went limp and fell into his lap.
"Stop pretending! I wasn't sure before, but being able to ignore my Fragrant Hypnosis gave you away," the woman said, leaning against his chest. "They say only a Great Dream Mentor can remain undeluded by sensory stimulation, unenchanted by bodily pleasures, and unabsorbed in the world outside the soul. If the Alliance were still around, you would surely become the greatest awakening mentor since Master Nanke!"
"I don't know what you're talking about. If someone like that really exists, he's either an immortal or a block of wood." For some reason, Qingmu thought of Liu Xiahui and imagined how that gentleman, famous for remaining unmoved with a woman in his lap, must have felt at the time.
Doing nothing did not necessarily mean thinking nothing. Outward calm did not necessarily mean there was no torment within.
The ancients had it rough! he sighed inwardly.
"So are you an immortal or a block of wood? Oh, right, you're wood, because your name is Wood." The woman sat up, giggling.
"Who exactly are you?" Qingmu examined the woman's features carefully, hoping to glean some information from them.
The woman dipped a finger in some liquor and wrote a Z on the table, then joined its two ends. It looked like an 8 with a flat top and bottom.
In Qingmu's eyes, the symbol gradually came alive, like an hourglass, constantly turning and flowing.
What a familiar symbol!
Deep in Qingmu's brain, certain memory cells that had gone untouched for a long time showed faint signs of awakening. But it hurt so much! He was lazy, too lazy to do much of anything and too lazy to think much either.
The woman leaned over again, resting against Qingmu's shoulder and looking toward the stage. "That beautiful girl talking in her sleep onstage is your handiwork too, isn't she?"
"Oh, that has nothing to do with me-"
Before Qingmu could finish, a loud, piercing crash of breaking glass interrupted him.
"Hey! This is a bar, not a nightclub!"
Bi Shenghua slammed the table so hard that two stemmed glasses toppled over, rolled onto the floor, and left broken glass scattered everywhere.
"I've been watching you two long enough! If you want to get intimate, go get a room at the hotel next door, damn it!"
Qingmu felt more wronged than Dou E. He looked out the window to see whether it had started snowing.
"Oh, someone's awfully jealous!" The woman glanced at the furious, hands-on-hips proprietor in the distance, whose gender was hard to tell, then back at Qingmu. "You have unusual tastes! No wonder..."
She rose gracefully, turned, and walked toward the door.
"Hey, do you want an umbrella?" Qingmu asked.
The woman looked back with a smile. "I'll come back for you. You're in my dreams, and I must be in yours too!"
With that, she plunged into the pouring rain. In the dim yellow streetlight, the rain looked like gleaming silver threads. Her departing figure was graceful and swaying, like a slender willow in the wind.
"She certainly ran off fast! 'In your dreams, in mine'-shameless!" The anger had yet to fade from Bi Shenghua's heroic-looking face. Pointing at the broken glass all over the floor, Bi Shenghua told Qingmu, "Sweep this up!" Then came a warning to Xiao Qi: "Don't you help him!"
Helplessly, Qingmu picked up a broom and started sweeping. Yet after all that sweeping, there seemed to be no less glass on the floor.
Crow flew from one table to another, following Qingmu's shuffling footsteps and calling, "Sweep it clean! Sweep it clean!"
Qingmu planted his hands on his hips and scowled. "Whose side are you on, anyway?"
"Mine, of course!" Bi Shenghua came over and snatched the broom from Qingmu's hands, shaking her head with a sigh. "What am I supposed to say about you? You can't even sweep a floor, yet you're out charming women everywhere. Who do you think you are, Prince Duan? Poor and pretentious-I really don't know what those women see in you!"
Seeing the proprietress sweeping in person, Xiao Qi hurried over to help. Bi Shenghua refused his help, however. "Go help Mo Yu pack up."
Mo Yu was the singing girl's name.
As Xiao Qi passed Qingmu, he pulled a face and whispered, "Sharp tongue, soft heart. The boss lady still cares about you."
Outside, the rain grew heavier, showing no sign of stopping. Faint thunder sounded in the distance.
Mo Yu stood at the door with her guitar on her back.
Xiao Qi took an umbrella from the cabinet and opened it for Mo Yu. "Going back to school?"
Mo Yu nodded, then shook her head.
Xiao Qi said, "It's so late, and raining so hard. I'm afraid you won't be able to get a ride."
He opened the ride-hailing app on his phone. Sure enough, there was not a single car.
Mo Yu's eyes were still vacant, but anxiety appeared on her face.
Bi Shenghua said, "The music conservatory is so far away. If you can't get a car, just stay. We have plenty of room here, enough for one or two people."
Xiao Qi added, "That's right. Band members have stayed here before when it got too late to go home. The boss lady's right out back, and Qingmu lives upstairs. It's very safe."
"No," Mo Yu said anxiously. "I have to get back before midnight."
As she spoke, she made to rush out into the pouring rain.
Xiao Qi was closest to her. He caught her hand and shouted, "It's raining so hard, you'll get sick! Besides, school is so far away. Even if you ran, you couldn't get back before midnight!"
Mo Yu began crying as she struggled. "Let go of me! Let go! If I don't get back by midnight, I'll die!"
Both Xiao Qi and Bi Shenghua were startled. "Why?" they asked in unison.
Only Qingmu looked unconcerned. With his hands in his trouser pockets, he walked under the eaves, looked up at the sky, and muttered, "The rain's not that heavy, and the thunder's not that loud!"
Whether his words had jinxed it or not, the heavens suddenly turned violent as soon as he finished speaking. The rain abruptly intensified, and a long streak of lightning lit up the sky.
Immediately afterward, a thunderclap exploded overhead. It sounded as though a firecracker had been stuffed into their ears.
Boss Coal covered his head with his wings and complained to Qingmu, "Jinx! Jinx!"
The proprietress and Xiao Qi were both amused and burst out laughing.
Only Qingmu stared fixedly at Mo Yu's face.
The female student, who had just been struggling and crying, insisting on returning to her dorm at all costs, now stood motionless after that thunderclap, as though scared witless.
Her face was pale, as if she had suffered a serious illness. Her expression was blank, her body stiff and trembling slightly. Only her eyes were no longer empty. They had regained the clarity a girl's eyes should have, though a little bewilderment remained.
"Where am I? Why am I here?" Mo Yu murmured.
"You're at a bar. You just finished singing," Qingmu said, watching Mo Yu. "You were about to go back to your dorm."
As though remembering something terrifying, Mo Yu screamed and fainted.
Bi Shenghua and Xiao Qi hurried over to support her. "What happened to her?"
"She was sleepwalking. She's just woken up," Qingmu said, looking at the unceasing sheets of rain.