Wen Yifan’s lips were warm and dry, like a brand searing into his skin.
Her breathing was light and shallow, steady and rhythmic, passing over him like a feather. She carried a faint scent of roses, as if it were a spell, spreading around and invading his senses, disturbing his mind.
The distance was so close that when she blinked, her eyelashes brushed against the side of his face. The sensation was barely there, intensifying the unreal feeling, bit by bit, tearing apart his reason.
Sang Yan’s hand involuntarily lifted but quickly stopped in mid-air. He closed his eyes, using all his strength to suppress his desire, his palm gradually clenching as he pulled it back.
He still wanted to be a decent person.
This unresisting behavior was already taking advantage of the situation enough.
During this time, Wen Yifan slowly sat up straight, creating distance between them.
Her face showed no expression, her demeanor as calm as still water, as if the person who had just lowered her head to kiss the corner of his lips wasn’t her. The scene before him returned to how it was a minute ago.
As if nothing had happened.
“Hey, Wen Shuangjiang,” Sang Yan looked up at her, his voice low and hoarse, “You just kissed me.”
“…”
As if time was up.
Wen Yifan stood up and started walking towards her room.
Afraid she might almost bump into the cabinet like before, Sang Yan also stood up. His voice was very soft, as if afraid of waking her: “Are you just going to kiss someone and run?”
Wen Yifan slowly walked forward, stopping for a moment when she passed by his room.
“But I’m not one to be taken advantage of,” Sang Yan leaned against the wall, watching her actions, “So you owe me one.”
“…”
She continued walking towards the master bedroom.
Making sure she wouldn’t bump into anything, Sang Yan stopped, not following her anymore. His gaze was inscrutable as he slowly finished his sentence: “When you’re awake, you’ll have to pay me back.”
–
Due to a severe lack of sleep, Wen Yifan was barely awakened by her alarm at ten o’clock the next morning. She groggily turned off the alarm and lay in bed for a while to fully wake up, before finally sitting up with difficulty.
Her expression was placid as she habitually looked towards the door, quickly averting her gaze as if nothing was amiss.
A few seconds later, Wen Yifan belatedly raised her eyes again, looking at the area in front of the door.
She finally realized that the area was empty, with no sign of the chair. Her eyelids twitched as she suddenly became alert, looking around.
It didn’t take long to discover that the chair was right where it should be, leaning against the dressing table.
As if it had returned to its rightful place, looking perfectly normal.
“…”
Wen Yifan was bewildered.
Was she so tired yesterday that she thought she had moved the chair, but her body didn’t perform this action?
Or did she sleepwalk?
At this moment, Wen Yifan even thought about installing a camera in her room to record what she did while sleepwalking, so she wouldn’t have this feeling of complete uncertainty about what had happened.
If something did happen, at least Wen Yifan would have time to think of something to say in advance. She got up, trying hard to remember if she had moved the chair before going to bed last night while heading to the bathroom to wash up.
But the more she thought about it, the less certain she became.
After getting ready, Wen Yifan left her room. It was already quite late, so she went to the kitchen, planning to grab a sandwich before leaving, but she happened to run into Sang Yan cooking noodles in the kitchen.
She stopped in her tracks.
Sang Yan looked up, glancing at her.
“…”
The atmosphere felt strange somehow.
The oddness that had been placed on her these past few days now seemed to have transferred to Sang Yan. But his expression was devoid of any emotion, and he didn’t say anything on his own, making it seem like it might just be her imagination.
Wen Yifan closed the refrigerator and hesitantly asked: “Yesterday, did I…”
Sang Yan stirred the contents of the pot with chopsticks.
She finished her sentence in a small voice: “…sleepwalk?”
Sang Yan gave a faint “Mm.”
“Then I probably didn’t do anything, right?” Without waiting for his answer, Wen Yifan hurriedly repeated her previous words, “Just do as I said before, when you see me sleepwalking, just treat me like air. If I approach you, try to avoid me if you can.”
Hearing this, Sang Yan turned off the stove: “I haven’t said anything yet, why are you already trying to distance yourself?”
Wen Yifan explained: “I’m not distancing myself, just reminding you.”
Sang Yan picked up the pot and casually asked: “Want some?”
Wen Yifan was about to say “No” since she was running a bit late. But after glancing at the noodles in his pot, she hesitated, feeling it wouldn’t make much difference: “Yes.”
Sang Yan: “Get your bowl.”
Wen Yifan took two bowls from the cabinet, following behind him, continuing to fish for information: “So what exactly did I do last night? Were you not asleep at the time?”
She remembered going to bed at 2 AM last night.
He didn’t look up: “Got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom.”
Wen Yifan sat at the dining table, patiently waiting for him to continue. But seeing him only focused on serving the noodles, with no sign of speaking again, she proactively asked: “Did I, you know, do anything inappropriate yesterday?”
Placing the bowl of noodles in front of her, Sang Yan looked at her with a half-smile: “You last night?”
Wen Yifan: “Mm.”
Sang Yan paused for a few seconds, as if recalling, then said: “You didn’t do what you did before.”
Wen Yifan breathed a sigh of relief.
He added: “But.”
Wen Yifan immediately looked at him.
Sang Yan smiled: “You did something even worse.”
Wen Yifan: “?”
Noticing her expression, Sang Yan raised an eyebrow: “Don’t imagine anything too risqué.”
“…”
She hadn’t even thought in that direction!!!
Wen Yifan calmed herself down, feeling like she was going crazy, but still had to appear extremely calm, as if this wasn’t a big deal at all. She bit her lip and persisted in asking: “So what was it?”
“I won’t go into specifics,” Sang Yan said lazily, “I’m afraid you’ll feel like your world is collapsing after hearing it, unable to believe you have such a side to you.”
“…”
He said in an extremely provoking manner: “I’m just that considerate and tolerant.”
“It’s fine, just tell me,” Wen Yifan said, swallowing her anger. “I can accept anything.”
Sang Yan looked at her, his gaze sliding from her eyes down to a certain spot. His eyes darkened slightly as he lightly bit the corner of his lip. He looked away, his tone casual yet as if he had suffered a great insult: “Forget it, I can’t bring myself to say it.”
Wen Yifan: “…”
With your personality.
You, damn it, actually have, something, you can’t say?
“Let me put it this way.” Sang Yan’s fingertips lightly tapped on the table as he enunciated clearly, “I’ve been in a pretty good mood lately. So I won’t hold these things against you for now.”
“…”
“But in the future, I’ll make you pay back every single debt.”
Wen Yifan didn’t like this feeling of being in debt, and sincerely asked: “Can’t I pay it back now?”
Sang Yan leaned back in his chair: “It’s not time yet.”
Wen Yifan: “Then how should I pay it back?”
Sang Yan didn’t answer.
The current situation reminded Wen Yifan of the first time she went to work at the bar when she accidentally called him “Boss Sang” due to a slip of the tongue. At that time, Sang Yan had mistakenly thought she was there to solicit him.
Now her actions seemed somewhat similar to “soliciting,” but not quite.
She had done something improper, so she should give him some compensation for mental distress.
Is that what he meant?
Wen Yifan couldn’t think of how to repay for her actions, so she could only come up with this most logical solution, hesitantly asking: “Do you want money?”
Sang Yan’s expression froze.
“Um, can I write you an IOU first?” Wen Yifan was still quite poor at the moment, but she’d probably be less humble after getting a permanent position in a while, “Then next time you can just wake me up directly.”
Sang Yan stared at her expressionlessly, not continuing this topic. After a long while, he said impatiently: “Just eat quickly.”
…
The situation seemed to reverse after that.
Wen Yifan had already heard him mention that she had kissed him once while sleepwalking. Plus, several days had passed, and no matter how unbelievable it was, she had long since accepted it.
Although Sang Yan said she had done something even worse this time.
But he always talked like that, and Wen Yifan didn’t believe she could do anything too outrageous.
The last time when she kissed him, it could be explained by him being caught off guard, but now Sang Yan was well aware of her sleepwalking habit. If she had done something excessive, he wouldn’t have just let it happen.
Wen Yifan didn’t take this sleepwalking incident too seriously.
Instead, it was Sang Yan who started acting strange, as if repeating her previous reactions. It was as if he had a delayed reaction, only now belatedly realizing that her kissing him once was particularly hard to accept.
–
By using the chair she placed it in front of her door before sleeping as an indicator.
Wen Yifan roughly determined that her sleepwalking frequency wasn’t very high, only occurring occasionally. Plus, Sang Yan hadn’t mentioned her sleepwalking much, so she gradually let her guard down.
Before they knew it, time approached the end of April.
The news about recruits joining the team that Fu Zhuang had mentioned to Wen Yifan earlier had been delayed without any follow-up. Wen Yifan thought his information might have been incorrect and didn’t pay much attention to it.
Just when she had almost forgotten about it.
Monday afternoon.
When Wen Yifan returned from an interview with Fu Zhuang, she found two unfamiliar faces in the office.
It was a young man and woman, both looking quite young, like college students. Since they had just arrived and no teacher was guiding them, they had nothing much to do at the moment and were sitting at their desks browsing through materials.
Fu Zhuang seemed to know one of them, calling out with a grin as soon as he saw him: “Mu Chengyun.”
Hearing this name, Wen Yifan took another look at the young man’s face and realized he was the one she had given an autograph to before. She turned to Fu Zhuang and casually asked: “You know him?”
“Yeah, he’s my classmate, Mu Chengyun,” Fu Zhuang enthusiastically introduced him. “I mentioned him to you before, the one who asked if our team was still recruiting. He’s quite famous in our department, he’s even made a movie! Super impressive!”
Hearing their conversation, Mu Chengyun stood up and came over to greet them: “Hello, senior. I’m the new intern, Mu Chengyun.”
“You can just call her Sister Yifan or Sister Wen. If you call everyone ‘senior,’ who knows who you’re talking to? Everyone here is your senior,” Fu Zhuang proudly patted his chest. “I’m your senior too.”
Mu Chengyun immediately looked at Wen Yifan, as if seeking her approval.
“Any way is fine,” Wen Yifan said. “We’ve met before, right?”
“Yes,” Mu Chengyun smiled shyly. “I didn’t expect Sister Yifan to be my fan.”
“…”
Fu Zhuang was shocked: “Sis, you’ve watched his movie?”
Wen Yifan was silent for three seconds, then didn’t explain: “Mm.”
The other intern chimed in at this moment. She seemed to have a more lively personality, with a small tiger tooth showing when she smiled: “What movie? Let me hear if I’ve seen it.”
Without waiting for an answer, the girl continued: “Oh right, my name is Fang Li. Senior, can I call you Sister Yifan too from now on?”
Wen Yifan agreed with a “sure,” but didn’t continue talking with them, returning to her seat. She opened her computer and saw Fang Li take out her phone to add Fu Zhuang and Mu Chengyun on WeChat.
After a while.
Wen Yifan had just opened a document when she felt the light beside her dim. She looked up to see Mu Chengyun standing next to her, politely asking: “Sister Yifan, can I add you on WeChat?”
Fang Li also came over, standing nearby waiting.
Wen Yifan paused slightly, then picked up her phone and nodded: “Sure.”
After accepting their friend requests, Wen Yifan browsed through WeChat. She happened to see a message from her current landlord sent not long ago, reminding her about this month’s rent.
Seeing this, Wen Yifan realized it was already time to pay rent.
She tends to forget everything when work gets busy.
Wen Yifan quickly apologized and transferred the money directly through online banking. After the transfer was successful, she found Sang Yan’s WeChat and sent a message: [It’s time to pay this month’s rent.]
Wen Yifan: [You can transfer it to my Alipay.]
Then, Wen Yifan put her phone aside and started writing the news article.
Less than half a minute later.
The screen of her phone beside her lit up.
Wen Yifan looked at her computer while picking up her phone to unlock the screen.
The interface showed Sang Yan’s transfer record.
She casually opened it, intending to confirm the amount.
—Sang Yan transferred 30000 yuan to you.
Exiting Alipay, Wen Yifan opened WeChat, about to reply with a “received” when she felt something wasn’t quite right. She tilted her head, reopened Alipay, and looked at the transfer amount from Sang Yan again.
Wen Yifan silently counted the zeros at the end.
One, two, three, four…
“…”
“?”
Four zeros.
Isn’t that ten thousand?
His monthly rent was three thousand.
Even if he wanted to stay for two or three more months, it wouldn’t be thirty thousand…
Wen Yifan took a screenshot and sent it to him on WeChat: [Why did you transfer so much?]
Sang Yan replied quickly: [What.]
About a minute later.
Sang Yan: [Oh.]
Sang Yan: [Added an extra zero.]
“…”
Wen Yifan thought having money was different.
She felt that if she hadn’t mentioned it, he probably wouldn’t have even noticed.
Wen Yifan: [Then shall I transfer it back to you?]
Sang Yan: [No need.]
Sang Yan: [Keep it for next time.]
Wen Yifan had thought he was only staying for one more month, so she was a bit confused when she saw this. She thought for a moment and still asked: [Roughly until which month are you staying?]
Sang Yan: [?]
Unable to discern his tone from the text, Wen Yifan added: [I’m just confirming.]
Wen Yifan: [So I know when to start looking for a new roommate.]
This time Sang Yan didn’t reply immediately.
After quite a while, he sent a voice message.
Wen Yifan played it.
Sang Yan drawled lazily: “Until you pay back what you owe me.”
“…”
Wen Yifan didn’t understand: [What debt?]
Another message came through.
Sāng Yán added, “What, do you need me to remind you?”
Wēn Yǐfán still hadn’t grasped the meaning.
This time, Sāng Yán switched to typing.
A series of messages came in, striking her mind like a hammer, one after another.
[You]
[In the late night]
[Reason defeated by desire]
[Attempting]
[To possess me]