Sun Xi posted that Moments message looking for a disco ball because he had been unable to sleep for two consecutive days.

At the time, he wore light gray loungewear, sitting barefoot on the living room floor by the window. His messy loose hair vaguely covered his eyelashes, yet his eyes didn’t blink at all. He just watched the stars shift and day turn to night outside the window, watching time pass unhurriedly second by second before his eyes. Propping up his legs, hunching his back—clearly broad, firm shoulders, yet twisted into a powerless, desperate posture.

Actually, when the sun first rose, his head was dizzy and eyes heavy—squinting, he had a good chance of sleeping a bit. But suddenly a postal delivery call came, saying there was a document package placed in the storage locker downstairs.

Sun Xi made an acknowledgment sound, hung up the phone, and then that tiny bit of remaining sleepiness also disappeared. Outside the window, the sky brightened fully, no haze or fog—a rare Beijing winter sunny day.

He exhaled tiredly. It would be a long time before darkness came again.

He’d frequently suffered from insomnia these past years. His highest record was three days and four nights with barely any sleep. Relying on his young, healthy body, it hadn’t affected his energy much. But this time was different—perhaps because he’d just had a severe cold and drank heavily for several meals in a row, his whole person suddenly collapsed.

He hadn’t actually fallen asleep at all on the long-distance car ride back. Obviously exhausted to death, his mind was full of those frustrating matters. Unwilling to entangle further with anything from that city behind him, he turned on the backseat car TV and watched more than a dozen episodes of “Empresses in the Palace” straight through, enduring until Beijing.

After returning, he first made a round at the hotel. He operated a four-story standalone themed hotel located between several universities on the west side of Haidian. Customer flow was very stable, reputation quite good—much higher class than chain hotels like Ziroom or 7 Days, though it couldn’t compare with the Hilton and Xiyuan Hotel two streets away. He checked the past few days’ revenue flow, communicated with the manager about sales strategies for the double holidays and Spring Festival period. He’d originally wanted to take some colleagues out for lunch, but suddenly couldn’t speak.

It was that kind of slowness where he’d just opened his mouth but forgot what he was going to say—like an idiot.

He had no appetite whatsoever, didn’t even want to drink water. He thought if he was too lazy to deal with himself, socializing would be even more exhausting. He simply left his car at the hotel, took a taxi home, drew all the blackout curtains tight, took sleep aid medication, adjusted the heating to the most comfortable temperature, and buried his head to sleep.

But he didn’t sleep for even one second, muddled and confused, suffering until the next morning.

He’d thought living peacefully as if dead could get him through most of life’s hardships, but suddenly he couldn’t take it anymore—defeated by the body’s most instinctive survival needs.

He sat on the floor by the window, lowering his eyes to stare at sunlight moving inch by inch into the room. Darkness gradually yielded to light. When the shadows completely disappeared, he felt he would probably melt into a puddle of mud.

Then he began recalling when he’d last truly fallen asleep, why, and whether there was any experience or technique he could reference. Tracing back through time, it didn’t take long to find the answer.

Very ironic—it was actually in that KTV room in Shi City.

That night waiting for Xiao Fu, he’d lain back on the sofa looking at that garish colorful lamp rotating in the air. While comparing the quantity of each color, he’d actually fallen asleep. Even with people singing war songs beside him, it hadn’t affected him briefly falling into deep sleep—he’d accumulated enough energy to deal with the oncoming cold.

He needed to find this disco ball.

He needed to sleep.

Without waiting a moment, after searching for an almost identical image, he immediately posted it to Moments. When posting, he blocked people from Shi City as usual. There weren’t many from Shi City on his friends list, but every time he added someone new, he’d drag them into that single unnamed group, blocking them forever.

It wasn’t a vindictive, emotional retaliation mindset. As an ominous thing rejected by his hometown, someone who’d repeatedly slunk away in bastard fashion, he simply didn’t want to obstruct others’ eyes. His uncle and aunt, Tingting were all in this category.

But this didn’t include Yu Jiuqi.

Yu Jiuqi.

Sun Xi calmly held his phone, allowing himself to sink into the spreading brightness. It seemed that just thinking of this name made the sunlight less glaring than before.

Then the phone rang.

“Romeo, come out. I’m almost at your building.”

“Where to?”

“Where do you want to go?”

Sun Xi had no energy to deal with his nonsense: “Can I take two more days off, boss?”

“Hurry up.” Chen Mulin’s voice was as loud as ever. “Taking you to find a disco ball.”

That kind of huge but very plastic-feeling disco ball Sun Xi had in his Moments wasn’t common in Beijing. Chen Mulin thought he just wanted a concept image to get the idea across. He directly drove him to the furniture and home appliance city on East Fifth Ring Road to browse. They spent a full two hours looking at high, medium, and low-grade decorative disco balls—he didn’t choose a single one.

Chen Mulin’s patience ran out. Thinking he just wanted to decorate the hotel for a festive atmosphere, he didn’t need to be so particular. Just close his eyes and pick one randomly.

Only then did Sun Xi unhurriedly tell the truth to this wealthy idle person several years his senior, the real controlling boss of his hotel, and also his best friend in Beijing. He said he only wanted that kind of exaggerated, tacky, dazzlingly bright when rotating 90s-style huge disco ball—couldn’t differ even a bit, because essentially it was medicine for treating his insomnia.

Chen Mulin laughed: “Then just find a Northeast-style KTV.”

“Where is there one?”

Chen Mulin frowned, about to ask rhetorically how you as a Northeasterner are asking me, a Southerner, where there are Northeast KTVs? But he swallowed it back. Even asking would be pointless—except for looking like a Northerner, Sun Xi showed no Northeast traces in accent or lifestyle habits. Even after all these years, this was the first time he’d seen him return to his hometown.

Chen Mulin often felt he seemed to be deliberately erasing something. Except for Yu Jiuqi who’d viciously played him three years ago, he’d never seen anything from the past appear in Sun Xi’s life.

Thinking of Yu Jiuqi, he scanned up and down this person who couldn’t sleep and was going crazy looking for disco balls, asking with implication: “You’ve had this insomnia for three years now, right?”

He paused, only saying: “Haven’t counted.”

“Come with me. You’re treating later.”

Sun Xi followed Chen Mulin to a KTV in Tongzhou. This place was close to where he lived, and there was also one of his invested same-brand hotels nearby—this one larger, managed by Chen Mulin himself. Sun Xi saw him walk into the KTV with practiced familiarity, say a few words to the front desk, then go directly to a room called “Mohe Dance Hall,” and knew he came here often.

Chen Mulin’s family did manufacturing in the free-shipping region, very famous—the kind that had squeezed into the Global Fortune 500. However, he withdrew from the family business a few years ago, exchanged some money, did business in Beijing according to his preferences. His greatest hobby in life was making friends and playing.

But Sun Xi was different. Sun Xi was a friend but never played with him. Chen Mulin and Sun Xi’s friendship began with a conspiracy that nearly cost him his life. In a sense, Sun Xi was his lifesaver.

Chen Mulin turned off the room lights, pressed a small independent switch by the door twice, then pointed at the rotating, sparkling disco ball overhead and asked: “Is this one similar?”

About seventy percent similar—not enough red and gold lights on the ball, material not rough enough, rotation not wild enough. Yet Sun Xi nodded: “Pretty similar.”

He really couldn’t walk anymore. He lay flat on the sofa, long legs crossed, one arm pillowed under the back of his head, staring at that mechanically rolling thing overhead that was actually quite pleasing to the eye. His angular face rose and fell in brilliant patterns under the dazzling light—sometimes cold-toned silver, sometimes rich gold. In the light and dark, those deep eyes sank a few degrees deeper.

Chen Mulin saw how anxious he looked and finally couldn’t hold back, sitting beside him to gossip: “Did you see Juliet when you went back?”

Sun Xi stiffly reacted: “Saw her.”

“Did you contact her?”

“Yes.”

“What did you say?”

“Borrowed money.” He stared at the disco ball without expression. “I borrowed money from her.”

“Are you sick?” Chen Mulin’s face was full of question marks. “You’re that short on money, borrowing from an ex-girlfriend? How much?”

He slowly exhaled, leisurely turning his slow brain to calculate: “Five thousand… one thousand… three thousand… nine thousand total. Almost bankrupted her.”

“You’re absolutely sick! Making repeated trips to borrow this petty cash—aren’t you doing it on purpose? Purposely disgusting her? You’re really something! Did you pay it back?”

“No.”

Chen Mulin glared at him with disgust, cursed even more harshly, but also knew this probably wasn’t Sun Xi’s original intention. After all these years, Chen Mulin understood him somewhat—that fierce-looking face was like a bastard mask, underneath covering up the cards he didn’t want to show people.

Better to be hated than pitied.

“You think by deliberately doing this, deliberately being the bad guy, she’ll… take it for granted?”

Chen Mulin originally wanted to expose his cards a bit, but still took the words back some. What he’d wanted to say was: she’ll naturally have sufficient reason to blame you, deny you, tell you to get lost, instead of racking her brains to end things peacefully like three years ago, which nearly cost two lives.

Sun Xi didn’t respond, only switched to the other arm pillowed under his head. His expression remained calm, still without a trace of sleepiness.

“There’s something I’ve never quite understood.” Chen Mulin took out cigarettes, offered one to Sun Xi. Sun Xi shook his head, so he lit one himself. “I don’t understand—what era is this, that people still make things hard for themselves because of the previous generation’s issues? You should rebel, struggle, or worst case to hell with it, whoever, live your own lives!”

Sun Xi moved his eyelids, looking at him with pitch-black eyes. Chen Mulin understood this look—meaning it’s not as simple as you say, shut up now.

But Chen Mulin was his boss after all—he still had courage to face difficulties: “I think you’re not even as good as Romeo and Juliet. At least they could break through family shackles, rebel for freedom. How cool, how awesome—no wonder they’re a classic!”

“Yes, right.” His tone was flat and waveless, even somewhat joking. “But Romeo and Juliet don’t have a good ending.”

“Your ending is good!” Chen Mulin glanced around this “Mohe Dance Hall” room. “Running to a KTV to find disco balls, can’t sleep without disco balls—your ending is good! You’re going crazy!”

Sun Xi said nothing more.

Before long, Chen Mulin received a call—seemed like someone asked him to play ball. He agreed, finished the remaining two puffs of his cigarette, said he was leaving first. Before leaving, he hesitated a while, leaving behind two final sentences—the conclusion from spending half a day accompanying Sun Xi’s nonsense treatment for sleep, and also his heartfelt words as a friend.

He said: “I’ve known you six or seven years now. To say something sentimental, your best time really was that one year. You’ve forgotten what you were like then, haven’t you?”

He also said: “People should be more selfish. Both of you should be more selfish.”

After Chen Mulin left, the entire large room instantly felt empty and desolate. Sun Xi remembered someone singing beside him that night at the Shi City KTV. He thought perhaps he needed some noise to fall asleep. He randomly selected several popular war songs on the karaoke system, lay back down, and waited calmly and hopelessly.

The war songs cycled through once. His body felt heavy and drowsy, but his mind grew increasingly clear. He clearly recalled the nonsense Chen Mulin had just said, snorting lightly—did he not understand? Or had he not tried?

He’d also paid a heavy price to understand that life wasn’t as simple as the war songs on screen sang about. It wasn’t something you could hack through obstacles with just passion and hot blood. It was even more impossible to be loved simply because you were brave alone.

That sentence from Chen Mulin made him quite curious—what was he like at that time, that year? He really didn’t remember. It seemed that over all these years, he’d only retained embarrassment and scars.

Subconsciously he turned that plain ring on his index finger. Applying slight force, it seemed to still ache faintly. He simply pressed hard against it, then forcefully rolled it against his skin. After the scar was roughly ground, it stirred up a stimulating pain that drilled into his brain along his nerves. Then suddenly, following this trail, he remembered a past event.

He remembered that year celebrating New Year’s under the Sanlitun screen, following the crowd behind Yu Jiuqi. He’d lowered his head to ask if she was cold, but she turned back, smiling under the New Year’s bells to ask him another question. She said, Sun Xi, what number New Year is this that we’ve celebrated together?

Sun Xi at the time didn’t even think: “The fifth. From that world’s end year to today, the fifth.”

Light rippled in her eyes, even more brilliant and bright than the artificial starry river on the overhead screen. Her long eyelashes fluttered slightly, waves of light stirring: “Then we’ve known each other so many years.”

He thought of something: “Actually longer.”

She immediately understood: “Including when we were seven?”

“Yes.”

“Aren’t you happy?”

Several young people wearing New Year’s headbands ran past them noisily, nearly bumping into Yu Jiuqi. Sun Xi took a big step forward, his arm sweeping around her waist to scoop her up, bringing her to a small elevated spot nearby. It could barely fit two people standing close together, so he didn’t let her go—his hand tightened on her slender waist.

She let him lead her, hold her, only raised her head staring at his face, still asking: “Aren’t you happy, Sun Xi?”

Sun Xi lowered his head, eyes colliding with hers: “No.”

“Then why aren’t you smiling?” She kept smiling—when she smiled, two small dimples appeared and disappeared.

“Why must I smile?” He noticed those two small dimples had vanished.

“Because I like watching you smile.” She tilted her head, dimples reappearing.

Sun Xi avoided her gaze, took some effort, pursed his lips and curved the corners of his mouth slightly to humor her, wanting her to let him off. He wasn’t someone who liked smiling—that was the biggest smile he could manage at the time.

“Not like that, don’t fool me.” She simply reached out her hand, palm against his face, gently lifting the facial skin upward, leaving a trail of cool, smooth sensation. “Smile like this—laugh big, laugh happily, laugh hard, not just a superficial smile.”

Sun Xi lowered his head looking at her for a while, watching her concentrate intently on pulling out a smile she was satisfied with on his face, like an unwilling novice gambler, also like a naughty, willful child. Until her smooth fingers fumbled randomly to his eyes, Sun Xi finally couldn’t hold back. He lowered his eyes—brain nerves pulling facial muscle groups—suddenly uncontrollably the corners of his mouth lifted, eyes curved, revealing a row of teeth. He even laughed out loud softly.

But he suddenly felt embarrassed, shy, as if this kind of instinctive smile was inappropriate, undeserved, terrible. He quickly tried hard to dodge her hand, turning his head to the side.

But Yu Jiuqi stubbornly straightened his head back, face full of pleasant surprise, as if seeing some miracle: “Don’t you know? When you smile, you look especially good, especially adorable, warm, a bit innocent, quite cute.”

She added: “I haven’t seen you smile like this in many years. It’s really nice.”

Sun Xi couldn’t stand her talking like this, couldn’t stand these adjectives, even more couldn’t stand her gazing at him this way. He felt Yu Jiuqi was like a highly skilled witch, using strange and cruel torture to torment him to death. But the smile on his face seemed under her spell, unstoppable—futile and vexed.

He had no choice. He released the hand on her waist, wanting to escape again. But as soon as he let go, she lost balance and fell backward.

Yu Jiuqi looked down, lightly exclaimed, then felt the strength return to her waist, heavier this time. She looked up and saw the bottom of his eyes full of burning brilliance.

Sun Xi didn’t even think. No escape now. One hand scooped her back into his embrace, the other hand gripped her chin to steady her, and kissed her.

That kiss under the Milky Way screen at Sanlitun, in the bustling, cheerful crowd, among many couples celebrating the New Year like them—oblivious to others, frank and fearless, kissing in lingering circles, deep and shallow, long and drawn out.

Then he finally smiled openly, looking at her unrestrained and smiling for a while, asking why she wasn’t blushing this time.

She said, because I’m wearing too little, too cold.

He held her, in the crowded early morning of the New Year’s first day, wrapping her tightly in his arms.

…

Sun Xi fell asleep, sleeping for four hours.

He hadn’t had such a long period of deep sleep in a very long time. When he woke up, he saw four missed calls on his phone—he amazingly hadn’t heard any of them. Looking, the calls were from a strange number, the area belonging to his home province—eighty percent likely unimportant sales advertising. He didn’t bother with it.

He went to the front desk to settle the bill. Preparing to leave, the phone rang again—still that number. Sufficient sleep made his temper much better. He swiped to answer.

It was a girl’s voice: “Is this Sun Xi?”

“Yes.”

“Great, you finally answered the phone!” Her tone was extremely excited. “Let me introduce myself. I’m an internet celebrity blogger from our Shi City. You can search me—my account is called ‘Forget Her I’ll Raise You with Fried Chicken Racks.’ Can I shoot a work with you? Online is fine.”

Sun Xi didn’t understand a single word, frowning: “Look for me for what? Why look for me?”

She was straightforward: “Just shoot a Douyin work, talk about your situation.”

“Talk about what situation of mine?”

“Your dad’s situation.”

“My dad?”

“Isn’t your dad Sun Yuwen? I have a premonition that after tonight he’ll blow up in Shi City—it’s a good opportunity to gain followers!”

Sun Xi had just stepped out of the KTV entrance. The sky had already turned completely dark. The chilly night wind made him instantly extremely alert and vigilant.

“Where did you get my phone number?”

“Your sister, Tingting—she’s my friend!”

Sun Xi stood in Beijing’s winter night. The commercial district’s neon lights cast a blue glow on his face. Flickering on and off, the blue light changed to red. He immersed himself in the space between red and blue for a moment, suddenly remembering something.

He remembered on the highway leaving Shi City, he’d called Tingting. After he simply finished explaining family matters, Tingting cried. Crying, she said something. At the time he was too tired and didn’t pay attention. But now, fully rested, Sun Xi remembered it all.

At the time, Tingting had cried and said: “Brother, that bathhouse family is too much of a bully! I won’t let them off. Brother, you wait—I won’t let them off!”