The three often played Honor of Kings together. As the saying goes, gaming exposes a person’s true character. Yan Luqing gradually discovered that although Lu Qingxin’s name meant “fresh and pure,” in reality he was oily enough to be squeezed for juice.

There was also that boy named [Yezi] who had once added her on WeChat through the big group. Yan Luqing finally met him in person. By then, Yezi had already heard about the gossip between her and Gu Ci. He looked at her with resentment in his eyes: “If you weren’t single anymore, you could have just told me directly. Why did you have to say you had a mental illness!”

Yan Luqing could only smile.

By now she no longer tried to argue against the rumors between her and Gu Ci, because she realized it was truly useless.

As soon as she said: “Really, it’s not…”

She would immediately be booed by a crowd until she stopped her “quibbling.”

During the day she bustled about at school, at night she went home and watched a little television with Gu Ci, the two of them having short conversations. Then before going to sleep, Makka Pakka would once again show her a statistical chart of the frequency of names she had mentioned in her mind recently—Gu Ci still galloped far ahead of the rest.

Yan Luqing could only defend herself: “You don’t understand, it’s because the people around me bring him up every day… How could I not think about him?”

It had to be said, although Gu Ci had only been to school once, that one trip had left an impression too deep—his legend still circulated there constantly, and as a bonus, he had turned her into someone “with a boyfriend.” Truly killing two birds with one stone.

On the fourth day of school, that night, Yan Luqing suddenly received a transfer.

It was from Alipay, four digits. She stared at it for a long time, yet could not think of who would send her money through Alipay.

Then, a WeChat message arrived.

【Eldest Senior Brother】: Junior Sister, I see you haven’t gone to find Master for a long while, probably because you don’t need it anymore, right? So the tuition will be fully refunded to you.

Yan Luqing: “???”

She immediately typed a reply.

【Runaway Saintess】: What? I already studied, why would the money be refunded to me?

Eldest Senior Brother sent a voice message, his warm, mellow voice very pleasant to hear: “Actually, Master doesn’t do this for money. His family is ridiculously rich, the kind that collects rent until his hands are sore. Doing this is purely the old man’s late-life hobby, to prevent senile dementia—that’s what he says, haha. I think maybe it really does help? After all, he really looks more and more spirited these days.”

Yan Luqing: “…………”

But she had already studied, how could she not pay them money? Just as Yan Luqing was about to transfer the Alipay money back, she discovered Eldest Senior Brother’s account had already blacklisted her.

She tried transferring through WeChat to the old man, but WeChat required manual confirmation. As expected, the old man didn’t accept.

Just what kind of strange immortals had she run into?

After sighing with emotion, Yan Luqing went to bed. She hadn’t expected that with such a cheerful mood as she fell asleep, she would once again have a nightmare.

Still that damned movie’s damned scene.

Only this time, she was no longer alone. The fog surrounding her dispersed, and before her appeared a mirror.

What was eerie was that the “her” in the mirror was conversing with herself, the content of the dialogue no different from that in the movie, but Yan Luqing was cast in the role of the weaker main personality.

And yet.

The face in the mirror gradually became less like her own, and instead came to resemble the original appearance of this body when she had first transmigrated—the very look she had once judged as being fit to play a female ghost with just a little makeup.

Then once again, the toll of a bell shocked her awake.

This time, for the latter half of the night, Yan Luqing could not fall asleep no matter what.

She even turned on all the lights in her room, letting Makka Pakka accompany her with constant chatter, but it was all of no avail.

At one point she even thought about going downstairs to find Gu Ci, but soon pressed that idea down.

The day of his departure drew closer and closer. In fact, Yan Luqing’s attending school also had one purpose.

—She had all along been deliberately training herself to get used to days without Gu Ci.

According to the original book’s plot, he was destined to leave. Although she did not know what their relationship would be afterward, her relying on him too much was, after all, never right.

This counted as… another degree of “desensitization.”

Yan Luqing even endured the pain of quitting her daily ritual of “Miracle Ci Ci Crown Exchange”! Alas, what a great sacrifice this was—no one but herself could understand.

Thinking and thinking wildly about many matters, it was only when dawn approached that she finally grew a little drowsy. Yan Luqing simply turned off her alarm, informed Big Black and Little Black that she wouldn’t be eating breakfast, and slept straight until noon, only going to class in the afternoon.

Yan Luqing’s recovery period after watching ghost films had always been four or five days—nightmares in succession, then a return to normal. Because her sleep quality, as Gu Ci had witnessed in the tree hole, had always been extremely good.

So this was already the fifth day. No matter what, she should be able to get a good night’s sleep.

—That was what she thought before going to bed.

Two in the morning.

Gu Ci had recently received many documents from his uncle, and had to video conference with him and his company people. Because of the time difference, he had no choice but to adjust his own schedule.

During a break in their company meeting, Gu Ci went to the kitchen to get a bottle of cold water.

He never demanded much of his own sleep schedule. In the past, his sleep had been so poor that he had to rely on medication to sustain it. Yet here, with Yan Luqing, his quality of sleep had inexplicably improved somewhat.

Gu Ci suddenly curved his lips in a smile. Perhaps he had been infected by a certain someone who could fall asleep in just over ten seconds.

So thinking, he opened the refrigerator door, about to take the water.

From behind suddenly came a set of somewhat familiar footsteps.

His hand stilled. He turned around, and there stood Yan Luqing in her pajamas.

Only, with one glance, he could already see something was wrong.

The kitchen lights were fully on, shining over the girl’s skin, pale to the point of transparency. Her hair was tousled from sleep, her eyes open yet unfocused, dark circles under them from poor rest. Step by step, she walked straight toward Gu Ci in a daze.

Gu Ci did not rashly call out to her.

If his judgment was correct, she seemed to be… sleepwalking.

He quickly connected it to all the triggers of Yan Luqing’s sleepwalking.

Most likely, it was that movie.

Most likely, she hadn’t been sleeping well recently—only that whenever she appeared before him, her face always had a light layer of makeup, looking as if she were in good spirits, so Gu Ci had not realized her dark circles had become so obvious.

His hand still rested casually on the refrigerator door, cold air streaming continuously outward.

Yan Luqing walked up beside him and suddenly stopped. Though her expression was dazed, she forcefully pried his hand off the refrigerator door, then slammed it shut with great strength—

As if in defiance, as if she deeply hated this refrigerator.

Gu Ci’s brows furrowed slightly. He made no sound, continuing only to observe her every move.

Unexpectedly, after closing the refrigerator door, Yan Luqing stood in place for a while, then suddenly raised both hands and firmly grasped the hand he had been resting against the refrigerator.

Gu Ci was taken aback.

But she was not done. Her hands traced upward along his fingers bit by bit, then shifted to grip his wrist—

After that, she slowly hugged his entire arm, in the posture of embracing someone.

Gu Ci’s whole body froze, only his fingertips moved faintly. He lowered his eyes to look at the crown of her head.

Yan Luqing hugged his arm, her head resting right against his shoulder.

Suddenly, without logic, without warning, she blurted out two sentences.

“I’m so sleepy.”

Muffled and aggrieved.

The second, her young voice carried a trace of tears.

“I’m afraid.”

——

When Yan Luqing woke the next morning, she felt she could hardly open her eyes, her eyeballs sore.

Looking in the mirror, she found her eyelids a little swollen.

Not only that, but her dark circles were even worse.

But she hadn’t had any dreams last night? Yan Luqing thought in puzzlement.

She had even been happy, thinking that the ordeal had finally passed—could it be she had dreamed again, even cried in the dream, only she didn’t remember?

As usual, Yan Luqing put on her makeup, concealing the puffiness around her eyes, tidied herself, and went downstairs.

At breakfast, she kept feeling there was something off about Gu Ci, though she could not pinpoint exactly what.

Aside from greeting each other when they first met that morning, neither of them spoke again.

It wasn’t until she was about to leave for class that Gu Ci, standing at the entrance, asked her: “What time are your classes over today?”

While changing shoes, Yan Luqing answered: “Only this morning, I should be back in the afternoon. Why, do you need something?”

Gu Ci hadn’t spoken yet, when Yan Luqing looked at him and suddenly realized what was wrong. She pointed at his eyes: “Gu Ci, you didn’t sleep well last night, did you?”

“Mm.” He nodded, very naturally leaning against the wall to the side, looking rather tired. “So I wanted to ask you… can you help me again?”

“Mm? Me help you?” Yan Luqing thought for a moment. “Oh—you mean hypnosis!”

Now Yan Luqing felt herself to be a master hypnotist who had already graduated, and she immediately agreed: “Sure. After class I’ll probably have a meal with my classmates at school, then I’ll come back and help you.”

Gu Ci was still leaning against the wall. He smiled at her and thanked her.

……

Yan Luqing was in high spirits the whole morning.

First, that annoying dream had not come the night before. Second, Princess Ci had personally asked her for help.

The feeling of being needed was so wonderful. More importantly, it depended on who needed her—just thinking of that enemy nation princess, sleepy-eyed and asking her for help this morning, Yan Luqing couldn’t help but add countless filters of weakness and fragility to him, as if he were some pitiful little thing waiting to be rescued by her.

Yan Luqing was actually very tired, but her mood was elated, so she occasionally felt her state the whole morning was quite split. But all of that was cast behind her the moment she got home.

The second time was easier than the first.

Yan Luqing completely repeated the previous steps, pulling Gu Ci into his room, using exactly the same methods as before.

Smoothly reaching the eye contact stage, she began reciting her lines to help him relax. While reciting, her thoughts jumped away: could she hypnotize herself? Or should she also find someone to hypnotize her, so she could finally sleep well?

Just as she thought this, her steady voice was suddenly interrupted—

Gu Ci suddenly asked: “What did you eat for lunch?”

“…Ah?” Yan Luqing was abruptly cut off, the words she was supposed to say hung suspended, and she hadn’t even reacted to the answer to that question. Her mind went briefly blank—countless words flitted past, but she couldn’t catch a single one.

She stared blankly into those pure black, beautiful eyes before her. In that instant, it was as if everything else in her vision blurred, leaving only those eyes—so deep that the more she looked, the more it felt like she was being pulled in, the more she looked, the sleepier she became. In her ears it seemed some voice was sounding, gentle and patient.

All at once, the weariness that had been piling up for five days crashed down upon her.

……

Half an hour later, Gu Ci looked at the supine Yan Luqing and asked softly: “What nightmare did you have?”

Yan Luqing could only recount a little at a time, because her memory was unstable, her current state unstable, and the memory of the dream even more unstable.

From those fragments, he pieced together roughly what her dreamscape was like.

Yan Luqing had not always been as carefree as she appeared on the surface.

She was probably good at disguising herself, disguising so well she even fooled herself. And that scene in the movie had triggered all the fears and worries she had kept pressed down inside, which was why she had nightmares for several nights, why she had that kind of dream, and even… why she sleepwalked.

That night she had clung to his arm and cried for a while. Gu Ci didn’t know much about sleepwalking. He had wanted to touch her, but feared that if she woke she would only be more frightened.

But Yan Luqing didn’t cry for long. After voicing those two complaints, she followed her original path back, and Gu Ci simply followed quietly behind her. He only stopped after watching her enter her room, lie back down on the bed.

After planting a psychological suggestion, the nightmares would not return—but as for the sleepwalking, even he could not be sure.

Gu Ci still remembered her reaction to the refrigerator while sleepwalking, but hadn’t gotten any answer.

He looked at her sleeping face for a while. The bluish tint beneath her eyes could no longer be concealed—she really did look like a panda.

Gu Ci’s voice sounded in the room, unusually gentle, as if soothing some easily frightened little creature.

“Yan Luqing, listen carefully.”

“The nightmares you have are all fake.”

“The movie you watched is also fake.”

The last sentence.

When he spoke it, his voice carried a warmth even he himself did not notice.

——“Don’t be afraid.”

Yan Luqing awoke once again, surrounded by pitch-black darkness.

Her whole body felt comfortable, and even the head that had been clouded for five days was now exceptionally clear. Every cell in her body was proclaiming: Finally, I’ve had enough sleep.

She sat up, found the switch for the bedside lamp, and at once the room lit up. She stretched long and hard.

After enjoying the comfort, she grew silent, looking at the furnishings around her.

——This was her own room.

When had she fallen asleep?

What had she been doing before she slept?

Yan Luqing’s mind spun rapidly, one event after another flashing back—

In the morning, Princess Ci, looking weary, had told her he hadn’t been sleeping well, and asked her to help.

She had gone back from school brimming with excitement, brought him to his room, and started the same hypnosis steps as before, then… then…

Then she suddenly ended up in her own room asleep???

What kind of paranormal event was this???

Yan Luqing practically bounced up from the bed, frantically searching until she found her phone on the bedside table.

It was ten o’clock at night.

After returning home at one in the afternoon, her memory of all subsequent time was gone.

With trembling fingers, Yan Luqing found the old man’s WeChat and tremblingly dialed a video call.

The other side connected after five seconds. The old man was smoking, his voice gentle amid the drifting haze: “I told you, no need to pay, young lady, don’t be so insistent…”

“Grandpa! Grandpa, wait, listen to me first—” Yan Luqing interrupted him. “Didn’t I tell you before that I successfully hypnotized my friend?”

“Mm.”

“Today he said he couldn’t sleep, so I hypnotized him again, I followed exactly what you taught me…” Yan Luqing described in detail, then her eyes widened, her voice nearly breaking: “Why! Afterwards! Was it me who fell asleep?! And I slept a full nine hours?!”

The bedroom fell into a deathly silence.

On the screen, the old man stayed motionless for a long while before he moved again.

“Ah…” The hand holding his cigarette trembled slightly. “Girl, this… this we all call counter-hypnosis.”

“?”

Yan Luqing: “????”