How to… comfort.

…

Lin Zhexia sat in the chair by the window. The moment she heard these words, her brain temporarily stopped functioning.

After quite a while, she finally found her voice: “Can’t you sleep by yourself? You’ve grown this big and still don’t know how to sleep?”

“What can I do?” Chi Yao said. “I can’t sleep today, so I don’t know how.”

Lin Zhexia felt that the atmosphere now was even stranger than before.

Summer in the north should be relatively cool, but she now felt a bit hot.

“Why don’t you lie down and try hard yourself?”

She paused and then added, “Or how about this? I’ll play you some sleep-inducing BGM, so you can lie in bed, close your eyes, and with this distinguished background music in the room, it should help you.”

“…”

Chi Yao was amused by her two terrible suggestions.

The young man barely visibly tugged at the corner of his mouth in a smile: “So this is how you comfort someone.”

Lin Zhexia was silent for a moment: “Then, shall I count ducks for you?”

Chi Yao didn’t make any further comments on her suggestion. He rarely showed such an obedient side. He reached out and pressed the switch next to the bedside table. The light in the room went out, leaving only weak rays filtering in from outside the window.

Then Lin Zhexia heard a rustling sound.

It was Chi Yao lifting the blanket and getting into bed.

The darkness effectively concealed the emotions between them.

Just as Lin Zhexia cleared her throat, preparing to say “one duck,” the person on the bed spoke: “Don’t want to hear about ducks, count something else.”

“What do you want to hear then?”

Lin Zhexia thought for a moment, “Count sheep? Count…”

Her examples were interrupted before she could continue: “Count rabbits.”

“…”

“Why count rabbits?” Lin Zhexia struggled, “Isn’t counting sheep good enough?”

However, the attitude from the other side was resolute: “What do you think?”

“What’s wrong with counting sheep?”

This time, the other side clicked his tongue: “Is this your attitude when comforting someone to sleep?”

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to count; it was just that mentioning rabbits made her think of Little Rabbit Xia Xia.

And the day they caught dolls, the lucky doll they saw together.

The word rabbit had become special because of these shared experiences between them.

So special that her heartbeat would unconsciously skip a beat when she said it: “Fine, if it’s rabbits, then rabbits it is. One rabbit.”

“Two rabbits.”

“Three rabbits.”

The girl deliberately lowered her voice, afraid of disturbing his sleep, softly counting downward.

“Nineteen rabbits.”

“Twenty rabbits…”

Chi Yao lay on his side, half his face sunk into the cotton-like pillow, his hair scattered messily.

Through the dim light, one could only glimpse a bit of his sharp chin, and below that, the smooth contours of his neck.

Listening to this voice, sleepiness gradually overtook him.

He wasn’t asleep yet, but it felt like he had fallen into a dream.

He seemed to hear another voice, very similar to the present one, suddenly resounding in his ears through the long period and space.

—”If I don’t have a dream for now, does protecting someone else’s dream count as a dream?”

Back then, Lin Zhexia’s voice was still quite childish.

She was troubled about her essay, lying on the desk, drawing a bunch of oddly-shaped people on her draft paper, even numbering them.

At that time, he was about to say disdainfully, “What kind of dream is that?”

But before these words could leave his mouth, the person lying down suddenly sat up, turned her head to look at him: “Then my dream will be to protect your dream.”

The afternoon sunlight was dazzling.

It also brightened her eyes: “Anyway, I don’t have a dream right now. I hope you can fulfill your dream, that’s my dream, then.”

…

Lin Zhexia counted for about ten minutes, heard Chi Yao’s slowed breathing, guessed that he was probably asleep, so she stopped and experimentally called his name: “Chi Yao?”

After calling, she waited a moment, then spoke again: “Chi Yao is a dog.”

“No, Chi Yao is worse than a dog.”

…

After these two sentences, his breathing remained steady.

“Asleep, huh?” Lin Zhexia said softly, “Clearly so tired, yet still fighting not to sleep.”

She tapped her phone screen, saw that the time displayed was already 12:30.

After confirming that Chi Yao was asleep, she tiptoed from the chair, walked to the door, turned the knob as slowly as possible. Standing at the doorway, she softly added, “Hope your competition goes well tomorrow.”

Lin Zhexia had checked out the articles Old Xu forwarded, which included the competition schedule.

Before bed, she confirmed the competition entry time once more, then calculated backward, setting a relatively safe alarm.

She was afraid that if Chi Yao couldn’t get up tomorrow, she would need to go wake him up early.

Chi Yao slept very deeply this time.

He only woke up when Lin Zhexia made her third call.

“Wake-up service,” at around eight o’clock the next morning, Lin Zhexia shouted on the phone, “you should get up now.”

The sounds from Chi Yao’s end were quite messy.

She heard a series of rustling and very soft sounds, which sounded like the young man not wanting to get up, burying his face deeper into the pillow.

Sure enough, the next second, Chi Yao’s voice was both hoarse and muffled: “What time is it?”

“Eight fifteen.”

“Hang up, call me again at eight twenty.”

“…”

Lin Zhexia found it amusing: “How are you still sleeping in?”

“Then you sleep for five more minutes,” she finally said, “I’ll come knock on your door in five minutes.”

Five minutes later, Chi Yao opened the door for her with messy hair, looking lazy and not fully awake. Lin Zhexia often saw him in this state when she visited his home on weekends, but now, being alone in a room, perhaps because the location was too unfamiliar, she rarely felt a sense of restraint.

She looked away: “Do you usually eat breakfast at the hotel, or order takeout?”

Chi Yao looked like someone with morning grumpiness, but still answered her question, opening the bathroom door: “Takeout.”

Lin Zhexia made an “oh” sound: “Then I’ll open the takeout app and have a look.”

After browsing for a while, she directly placed an order.

Just as Chi Yao knew her taste, she also didn’t need to ask what this person ate or didn’t eat.

Even though this person’s taste was quite picky.

After placing the order, the water sound from the bathroom also stopped.

Chi Yao finished washing up, opened the door, and walked out, his hair slightly dampened by water. He squatted down to rummage through his suitcase and said two words to her: “Get out.”

“?”

“I just placed the order, and you’re chasing me away,” Lin Zhexia complained, “how can you be so ungrateful?”

Chi Yao held a set of school uniforms in his hand and said coolly, “I need to change clothes.”

After a while, he added: “If you insist on watching, that’s fine too.”

…

Who wants to watch?

Lin Zhexia stood up from the chair: “I’m leaving.”

After Lin Zhexia went out, she returned to her room, waiting for the takeout to arrive before bringing it over. However, when she pushed open the door to go in this time, she heard that there seemed to be another person in the room, and that person immediately said, “Oh my.”

Xu Ting looked at her in surprise: “Young Lin?”

“…”

Lin Zhexia put down the takeout: “Surprised to see me?”

Xu Ting: “Very surprised, what are you doing here?”

In front of anyone except Chi Yao, Lin Zhexia could remain calm: “Oh, the pressure of studying has been too much lately, I’m feeling a bit desperate, so I came specially to Haicheng City to jump into the sea.”

Xu Ting: “…???”

Lin Zhexia: “But at the last moment, the desire to live overcame the thought of jumping into the sea. I feel that life is still beautiful, and I should continue to live on strongly.”

This statement was too impactful, and Xu Ting carefully said, “I can’t tell that you… have such great pressure.”

Lin Zhexia glanced at him: “You believed that? With your intelligence, are you sure you’ll be okay participating in today’s competition?”

Xu Ting: “……”

This person, Young Lin.

How could she be as annoying as Chi Yao?

Xu Ting changed the subject: “Have you both ordered takeout? I want to eat too.”

Chi Yao also glanced at him, with almost the same look as when Lin Zhexia glanced at him: “Don’t you have a phone?”

“…”

“I’m leaving,” Xu Ting said, standing up. “farewell, you two truly deserve to be childhood sweethearts, your destructive power doubles when you unite against others. I can’t stay in this room for another moment.”

After finishing the meal, when it was time to assemble, the competition team had to gather in the lobby downstairs.

The participating teams needed to take a car to the competition venue an hour in advance.

From buying the train ticket until now, Lin Zhexia felt that this day had been quite surreal.

She returned to her room, put the ID card left on the table into her shoulder bag, and felt something she had forgotten in her bag.

Red string, a lucky pouch.

Lin Zhexia was stunned for a moment before remembering that she had forgotten to give him the lucky charm she had gotten.

She looked at the time, with less than two minutes left until assembly, she clutched the lucky pouch in her palm and ran out without thinking.

Through the hotel’s long corridor.

Past the scattered pedestrians in the corridor.

She didn’t know if she could make it in time, but at this moment, she had no other thoughts, her mind filled only with: Find him before they assemble.

She didn’t have time to wait for the elevator, directly pushed open the emergency exit door and ran down from the eighth floor.

Running to the first floor, standing at the emergency exit, she just happened to see Cheng’an’s competition team walking out of the elevator.

Old Liu led the team, walking ahead with the team members behind him, while reminding them: “Don’t be nervous later, just perform normally—our main opponent this time is still Lianyun No.1 High School.”

A team of six people, all wearing Cheng’an’s school uniforms.

Chi Yao walked at the back.

The young man wore a coat over his school uniform, a black windbreaker with the hem hanging down to his wrists. Perhaps because of sleeping last night, his hair was still slightly messy. Xu Ting walked in front of him, occasionally talking to him, and he occasionally deigned to give him a few words in response.

Lin Zhexia’s current position was closer to the lobby; the competition team would pass by her emergency exit as they walked through the long corridor. She leaned her back against the wall, hiding herself, not wanting to publicly stop Chi Yao in front of so many people.

The footsteps and Old Liu’s voice were getting closer—

“But as long as we’re well-prepared, Lianyun No.1 High School is nothing to fear.”

People passed by one by one.

Lin Zhexia hid behind the door, and at the moment when that figure in the black windbreaker appeared, she decisively reached out her hand to grab Chi Yao’s wrist.

Chi Yao felt a force pulling at him, his footsteps faltered slightly, and he turned his head slightly to see a slender, fair hand extending from behind the emergency exit door.

Knowing who it was, he didn’t struggle, almost submissively allowing her to pull him in.

Old Liu was still speaking passionately, no one noticed that a person was missing from the end of the team: “I believe in you, and you should believe in yourselves!”

In a hidden and narrow corner behind the door.

Lin Zhexia and Chi Yao looked at each other.

She only then realized how close the two were.

“I, um,” Lin Zhexia wanted to step back, but her back was already against the wall, so she could only raise her hand, lifting the lucky pouch, also using this to create distance between them, “I forgot to give you something.”

The lucky pouch was a small one, along with the girl’s hand holding it, crashing into his sight.

“When you arrived that day, I went out to play with Chen Lin and the others, and got this for you along the way. They say it’s very effective and can bring good luck.”

Lin Zhexia knew that given Chi Yao’s personality, he might mock her for being superstitious, so she added: “Although with your ability, you probably don’t need it, but better safe than sorry, right? Why don’t you carry it and see if it works?”

However, Chi Yao didn’t say anything, just took the lucky pouch from her hand.

That bright red lucky pouch looked even smaller in his hand.

“Got it.”

He said as he took it, “I’ll give you face and reluctantly try carrying it.”

Lin Zhexia was speechless: “Thank you very much.”

Chi Yao still had that annoying tone: “You’re welcome.”

After that, the atmosphere quieted down again.

The strange feeling brought by the excessive closeness and the cramped, narrow space surged toward her again.

Soon she discovered that this strange feeling might also stem from the person in front of her.

This person was too tall, with an aura that seemed to wrap around people; when he looked down at her, there was an intangible sense of pressure—

She was the one who had pulled him over, yet now it felt as if she had been the one pulled in.

Before Lin Zhexia could bear it no longer and wanted to escape, Chi Yao raised his hand and patted her head.

“Thanks to a certain coward, I slept well last night,” that hand said lightly as it rested on top of her head, “getting first place today shouldn’t be a problem.”