I Like You

This was the first time Cen Xia had seen the world in the small hours of the night since arriving in this world.

All he could hear was the wind rushing past his ears and the roar of the engine.

The road from the villa district to the city was long. The sky was pitch-black, streetlights stood silently by the roadside, and the two of them were alone on the road.

At first, Cen Xia managed to stay awake, but eventually he couldn't hold on and succumbed to sleepiness. He tipped his head forward, and the snug comfort of the helmet enveloped him.

The motorcycle sped down the deserted road.

Straight toward the bustle of human life.

The roar gradually faded. Lu Mian braced a leg against the ground, and the motorcycle came to a steady stop.

The person behind him was still asleep.

"Wake up. We're here."

No response.

Lu Mian leaned forward, and the person behind him abruptly lost his support. Off balance, he pitched forward, his body jolting as he woke with a start.

He was awake, but his brain was lagging behind.

Cen Xia sluggishly took off his helmet, his eyes barely able to open.

"We're here?"

He turned his bleary gaze, expecting to see Kanlitel's grand, palace-like gates, but what appeared before him instead was an iron door on the ground floor of an old residential building.

Thinking his eyes were playing tricks on him, he raised a hand and rubbed them.

Nothing changed. It was still that iron door.

Lu Mian told him to get off.

"Where is this?" His voice was bewildered.

"My home."

"Oh... huh? Aren't you going back to school?"

"Why would I go back to school? It's Saturday." Lu Mian patted him and told him to get off again.

Cen Xia got off with the helmet in his arms, his legs struggling to support him.

"Then how am I supposed to get back to school?"

"How would I know?" Lu Mian looked for an empty spot downstairs to park.

Cen Xia stood where he was, clutching the helmet. His sleepiness was heavy enough to pin him beneath Five Elements Mountain like Monkey Sun, and he wanted nothing more than to lie down right there and sleep.

After parking, Lu Mian saw him standing there with his eyes closed and found it rather remarkable. "You can actually sleep standing up?"

"How far is this from school?" Cen Xia asked, his eyes closed and his voice faint.

"About an hour's drive, a little more."

In the capital in the small hours, not even cicadas could be heard, and a taxi was even harder to come by.

His sleep-addled brain took barely a second to figure out how to get what he wanted.

Cen Xia grabbed Lu Mian, who was about to go inside. "I'm sleeping at your place."

"What?"

"Let me sleep at your place." He added, "I'm begging you."

Cen Xia's hazy, unfocused vision couldn't make out Lu Mian's expression or movements. He only heard him say, "You don't even like me, so why should I let you sleep at my place?"

What did one have to do with the other?

Cen Xia's brain wasn't willing to ponder such a profound question right now. He just wanted to sleep, and his body was so heavy that even standing there talking took effort.

"I like you. Let me sleep..."

Lu Mian lived on the third floor. The old building had no elevator, so they had to climb step by step. There wasn't even a motion-activated light in the stairwell, so they had to feel their way up in the dark.

Every step felt as if his legs were filled with lead.

Even the sound of Lu Mian taking out his keys was as loud in his ears as if it had been amplified.

The door opened, and Cen Xia couldn't wait to go inside and sleep. Anywhere would do, even the floor, as long as he could lie down.

Lu Mian stopped him and said quietly, "My sister's home. You can sleep in my room."

With that, he led him to the little room at the very end. As soon as the door opened, Cen Xia lay down on the spot.

"Going to sleep."

Lu Mian: "..."

Leaving him alone, Lu Mian went to the bathroom and took a shower.

When he came out, he saw Lu Xiao standing in his doorway in her signature Weslie pajamas, looking solemnly at the person lying on the floor as if he were dead.

Hearing him come out, she asked without turning around, "Who's this?"

A towel covered Lu Mian's head like a veil. He walked over to the sofa and sat down, saying casually, "My suitor."

"Huh?" Lu Xiao's eyes widened in shock. "Are you trying out a new joke?"

"It's not a joke."

Lu Mian wiped the ends of his still-dripping hair and said, "He Qi told Grandma nobody liked me..."

"So you kidnapped someone to like you?"

"No, he admitted it himself." As he spoke, Lu Mian took out his phone and pressed play.

Cen Xia's voice came from it, light as a cloud, pleading as if he had fallen to his knees before a divine statue.

"I like you. Let me sleep..."

Lu Xiao's expression was complicated. "You two... have already gotten that far?"

"He's still pursuing me."

"Are you planning to accept his advances?"

Lu Mian thought it over. "...That depends on how he does."

Lu Xiao: "...As long as you're happy."

The living room fell silent for a while before Lu Xiao spoke. "How much more do we need for Grandma's medical bills?"

Lu Mian paused in the act of drying his hair, but his tone was no different from usual. "We're still three hundred thousand short."

"If there's no other way, we could sell the apartment..."

"We're not selling it. This is Grandma's home."

"We only have a home if she's alive!"

"I'll figure something out. You don't need to worry about it." With that, Lu Mian rose from the sofa, went into his room, and shut the door.

Lu Xiao stood in the living room for a while, then returned to her room too.

The floor was too hard for the person sleeping on it to get comfortable. He tossed and turned but couldn't find a suitable position.

Lu Mian watched for a while, then took a pillow from the bed, lifted his head, and gently laid it on the pillow.

He was a little more comfortable now and stopped moving around.

After a moment's thought, Lu Mian took a blanket and draped it over Cen Xia's stomach.

Now it was perfect.

Satisfied, Lu Mian climbed into bed and went to sleep.

Cen Xia slept poorly. The bed was too hard, pressing against him until every bone in his body ached.

When he woke, he stared blankly at the unfamiliar ceiling. It took him a while to remember that he was at Lu Mian's home.

And that he had slept on the floor.

No wonder his whole body felt uncomfortable.

He pushed himself up from the floor and saw that Lu Mian was still asleep in bed.

His phone had fallen out of his pants pocket while he slept last night and was lying on the floor. Cen Xia bent down to pick it up and saw that it was already past one in the afternoon.

No wonder he was so hungry.

He put his phone away and opened the door.

A girl with long hair and a pretty face sat on the living room sofa, wearing a Weslie nightdress.

She had to be Lu Mian's sister.

She looked like a very well-behaved little sister, and her taste was very... distinctive, too.

When she saw him come out, she gave a wolf whistle. "Well, look who's awake."

Cen Xia: "..." Who says someone who gives a wolf whistle can't be well-behaved? Those are all stereotypes!

She pointed to the breakfast on the table. "You must be hungry, right? I bought it this morning, but neither of you woke up, so it's gone cold."

See? She's still very well-behaved.

"The bathroom's over there. There are disposable toothbrushes in the cabinet." She pointed again.

Cen Xia thanked her.

After washing up, he didn't stand on ceremony. He sat down in the armchair and picked up a cold bun to eat.

He really was starving. Everything he'd eaten at the party last night had been completely digested, and he was now in debt to his body for chemical energy.

As she watched him eat, the younger sister asked curiously, "Are you really pursuing my brother?"

The question startled Cen Xia so badly that the bun caught in his throat. He hurriedly grabbed the soy milk and gulped it down, taking quite a while to swallow.

"Cough, cough. What did you say?"

"I asked if you were pursuing my brother."

"...Who told you that?"

"You said it yourself, didn't you?"

Cen Xia almost thought he'd transmigrated again. "I said that? When did I say that?"

"Last night, right in front of my brother and me." Lu Xiao's expression didn't change. The recording had been played in front of her, so why didn't that count as saying it in front of her?

"?!"