(1)
The sky outside the window was tinged with a faint purple. An Jing and Zhu Ying, wrapped in bathrobes, sat at the low table by the stove, holding steaming cups of milk that they gulped down noisily.
“Fuum…” Zhu Ying’s plump little face immediately relaxed. “Warm and cozy… it feels so good…”
“The honey is sweet and fragrant.” An Jing nodded slightly, stirring her cup with a teaspoon. “Yeah, when you get hungry in the middle of the night, you should eat something like this—”
“Here, Xiao Jing, your fried egg.”
“Huihui Jie, poached egg! Poached egg!” Zhu Ying swung her fair, rosy feet up and down. “I’m hungry! I’m hungry!”
“Does Xiao Ying want sweet or savory?”
“Huh? There’s a sweet version?”
“Mm, for sweet I add brown sugar or white sugar, and for savory I add salt.”
“Then—let me try sweet! I want white sugar!”
“The same soft-boiled egg as Xiao Jing?”
“Yes!”
Whether it was fried eggs or poached eggs, they only took a moment to make. The firewood was still burning brightly, so Yu Minghui, not wanting to waste it, picked up a few potatoes and tossed them into the fire.
“A sweet poached egg… I’ve never had one before.”
“How is it?”
“Hmm—it’s different from what I imagined, but it’s still pretty good.” Zhu Ying poked the semi-liquid yolk with her spoon, watching it slowly spread through the glass cup, then scooped up a spoonful and brought it to An Jing’s lips. “Xiao Jing, want a taste?”
“I know this taste. I eat it a lot. Sometimes when I want something at home late at night but I’m too lazy to turn on the stove, I just boil a kettle of water, pour it straight into a cup, and poach the egg that way.”
“Feifei taught you that, didn’t she?”
“Yeah, Fei Jie is the type who cuts corners whenever she can when it comes to making food.”
“I taught her that too.”
“Then—was the scallion and salt soup also taught to you by Huihui Jie?”
“Yeah, it’s good for satisfying cravings, and it’s fragrant and convenient.”
“Huihui Jie seems to know everything.” Zhu Ying leaned over to An Jing’s plate, pursed her lips, and sucked up a mouthful of the warm, semi-liquid yolk, then stuck out her pink tongue and licked her lips vigorously. “Whether it’s complicated or simple—”
“I just used to like studying things on my own. I didn’t like bothering other people.”
“I remember when I was little… I used to think Huihui Jie was kind of aloof. She didn’t like playing with others much. It seemed like only Cousin Rong Hua could get her to go out.” An Jing gently scratched her cheek with her finger. “And even then, he had to drag her out, and it didn’t always work.”
“Huh? Huihui Jie used to be like that?”
“Mm, back then I just thought the things everyone else played weren’t interesting. I preferred to play by myself.”
“Later on, she seemed to become more outgoing…”
“That was because I started finding it boring to study alone, so I wanted to drag others along.”
“Right! When we were in elementary school, Fei Jie said you always liked to pull her into making new dishes—even if she just stood there and watched, you wouldn’t let her leave.”
“Ooh~! Huihui Jie, you had such a domineering side!”
“It’s not as domineering as Feifei makes it sound. I just wanted her to keep me company and chat in the kitchen.”
Zhu Ying lifted her cup and took a big gulp of milk, her lips stained white with the milky residue. “Suddenly, I think getting up in the middle of the night for a drink and then going back to sleep isn’t so bad. How about we get up for a midnight snack every day?”
“Why would you get up in the middle of the night if you can sleep straight through till morning…?” An Jing rolled her eyes in exasperation.
“But it feels so relaxing to eat something and chat at a time like this.”
“It’s mainly because it’s usually so quiet at this hour—but if we did it every day, it wouldn’t feel special anymore.”
“That’s true…”
An Jing listened quietly to the two of them chatting, tilted her head back, and downed the milk in one gulp. Then she stuffed the last bit of fried egg into her mouth, raised her arms, and stretched widely.
The bathrobe, not tied tightly enough, began to slip off her smooth, egg-like skin. She only snapped out of it after she finished yawning, panicked, and grabbed it.
“It almost slipped down past your chest~” Zhu Ying said with a wicked grin. “Is Xiao Jing not putting her bathrobe on properly just so she can pretend it’s an accident and let it slide off to seduce me?”
“I just felt too hot…!” An Jing awkwardly adjusted her bathrobe, this time tying the sash above her chest, unlike before.
This thing actually had sleeves. If worn normally, there was usually no risk of wardrobe malfunctions.
“Too hot? Hmm—how about we go back to the room? Xiao Jing doesn’t even have to wear it at all, right?”
“Th-That’s… I’ll pass…”
“Now that I think about it, when I woke up, the blanket was almost under the bed. So it really was Xiao Jing who kicked it off, huh?”
“Hey, hey, what are you talking about! You were the one who kicked the blanket off! I was the one who woke up freezing!”
“But I was definitely cold!” Zhu Ying put her hands on her hips, looking righteous. “Xiao Jing was hot, so—it must have been Xiao Jing who kicked the blanket off!”
“You’re the one crying thief! I was hot because of the firewood burning!”
“Huihui Jie, you need to control Xiao Jing. Her sleeping posture is terrible. If she sleeps with me, she’ll give me a cold!”
“Hey!!”
(2)
After washing up again, the two of them returned to bed. It was already past three in the morning.
If they stayed up much longer, the sun would probably be coming out.
“Fuu…” Zhu Ying used An Jing’s chest as a pillow, adjusting her sleeping position at an angle. “Xiao Jing, are you asleep yet?”
“No.”
“It’s almost four.”
“Yeah…”
“How about we just don’t sleep and wait until dawn?”
“Not sleep… can you handle it…?” An Jing yawned and mumbled quietly. “I’m pretty sleepy, but for some reason, I just can’t fall asleep even with my eyes closed.”
“Your mind is still awake? What are you thinking about?”
“All kinds of random things. Just a moment ago, I was wondering if the clothes are dry yet.”
“If they are, what then?”
“Maybe put them on and go watch the sunrise?”
“Oh~! Good idea!”
“But they’re probably not dry, right?”
“You never know. The washing machine spins them pretty dry, and with the cold night wind blowing—maybe they’re ready to put on by now?”
“I feel like they’d still be a little damp…”
Zhu Ying rolled over and straddled An Jing. “But we can see the sunrise! The beach is just a few steps away, isn’t it?”
“Walking to the actual beach would probably take half an hour. It’s only close by car.” An Jing shook her head. “If you want to see the sunrise, you have to go to the Village Committee Building. The view is more open there, and it’s higher up.”
“Let’s go! Let’s go watch the sunrise!!”
“Are we really going?” An Jing let out two yawns in a row. “I’m actually still a bit sleepy…”
“Then let’s sleep for another hour. If we fall asleep, we’ll just sleep until we wake up naturally. If we can’t, we’ll go watch the sunrise. How about that?”
“An hour… that would be a little after four… Hmm… I guess that works, but I feel like I’ll be asleep by then.”
“Then I’ll bite your ear and keep you from sleeping!”
“Are you a dog or something…?” An Jing’s eyelids drooped, but Zhu Ying had already brought her little face close to her ear, opened her fine, white teeth, and gently bit down.
“Eek!?”
An Jing instinctively clamped her legs together, lifted her neck, and tried to push Zhu Ying away, but she felt like she had no strength.
“Hehe, I found Xiao Jing’s switch. As long as I bite your earlobe, you’ll obediently do whatever I want~!”
“Wh-When did you figure that out…”
“Naturally—by trying it!”
“Aiya, don’t bite—mmph!!”
(3)
At four o’clock in the summer, the sky was already starting to turn a faint white. An Jing and Zhu Ying had been messing around for almost an hour, and now they were starting to get sleepy.
“Fuu… How about we don’t go see the sunrise?” Zhu Ying rubbed her eyes, mumbling indistinctly as she sprawled out on the bed.
“No way! At a time like this, you still want to sleep? Why didn’t you sleep earlier!”
“I wasn’t sleepy then…”
“Get up, get up—” An Jing tugged hard on Zhu Ying’s arm, wobbling as she dragged her off the bed. “You caused such a ruckus earlier, so I’m definitely not letting you sleep now!”
“Wah—mean Xiao Jing, I want to sleep…”
“Who was it that was keeping me from sleeping earlier?” An Jing yelled in exasperation. “Now that you’re tired from playing, you want to sleep? There’s no such easy way out in the world!”
“I’m sleepy—”
“Get up—!”
“Boo-hoo—mean Xiao Jing—I’m telling Huihui Jie on you!”
“Even if you tell Huihui Jie, it won’t help! Today, I’m definitely dragging you to see the sunrise!”
“But there’s no good spot, and we can’t go to the beach…”
“Then let’s go near the Village Committee Building!”
“The view there isn’t open enough.”
“Even if we can’t see the exact moment the sun rises above the horizon, we can still see the sunrise!”
“If we can’t see the sun rising at the moment, it’s meaningless…”
“Then why were you messing with me earlier!”
“I wasn’t sleepy then…”
“Don’t sleep!”
“Mean Xiao Jing—”
(4)
The area in front of the Village Committee Building was completely empty. Not a single car was parked, making the painted yellow parking lines look rather lonely.
At the vending machine, An Jing had just inserted a coin when Zhu Ying next to her pressed the button in perfect sync.
The can of coffee rolled down with a clunk.
“Huh, it’s not hot.”
“It’s summer. It’s perfectly normal for there to be no hot coffee…” An Jing took the coffee Zhu Ying handed her, pulled open the tab, and downed more than half of it in one go. “I still feel like my clothes are a bit damp.”
“It’s just your imagination.” Zhu Ying held her coffee, stretched under the dim yellow streetlight, and looked back at the long, sloping road behind her.
From here, there was almost no obstruction in sight. It was the best spot in the entire village to watch the sunrise.
“You don’t feel it?”
“Nope, it’s pretty dry.” Zhu Ying lifted the hem of her shirt slightly and fanned it vigorously. “How much longer until the sun comes out?”
“Should be soon. Look over there, the sky is getting brighter and brighter.”
“The sky is a blue-violet color—”
“The two sides aren’t the same shade either. The area around the moon still seems like it’s deep in the night.”
“Yeah. We should be able to see the sun and the moon hanging in the sky together in a bit, right?”
“As long as the moon isn’t blocked by the clouds, it should be fine.”
“Xiao Jing, should we go sit on that bench over there and wait?”
“That spot? I think we should go up a bit further, over there.”
“But there’s no bench over there!”
“Sitting on that big stone block should be about the same, right?”
“Hmm—Okay, let’s go sit there then.” As Zhu Ying spoke, she yawned again. “The coffee didn’t help at all. I’m still so sleepy…”
“It doesn’t work that fast…”