(1)
Pale moonlight spilled onto An Jing’s plain, clean little face. Her long eyelashes trembled slightly, as if a gentle breeze had stirred the heartstrings lost in her dreams.
At some point, Zhu Ying had kicked off a corner of the blanket. Her nightgown was rumpled, revealing an even larger expanse of fair skin.
An Jing didn’t feel the blanket that should have been covering her. She couldn’t help shivering, then bumped lightly against the cold wall beside her. The slight pain woke her from her dream, and she groggily rubbed her eyes.
During the evening, she had been forced into a pillow fight with Zhu Ying. Now, all four pillows in the room were scattered messily around, having completely failed to serve their purpose of supporting their heads.
She covered her mouth with her hand and let out a big yawn, then gently shook her head. ‘How did I even fall asleep last night…?’ It seemed like there was no actual process of falling asleep—after playing the pillow fight until they were tired, they just lay down on the bed and drifted straight into dreamland.
“Xiao Ying really… she’s always so fond of causing a ruckus.” she muttered softly, her gaze landing on Zhu Ying’s collarbone, bathed in the bright moonlight. She couldn’t help licking her lips lightly.
She leaned down bit by bit, her lips getting closer and closer to Zhu Ying’s collarbone. A captivating milky scent entered her nostrils, and a gentle breeze teasingly brushed the hair hanging by her cheek, making her face feel a little itchy.
If she had just been in a daze from not being fully awake before, now she was actually wide awake.
She knew what she was doing.
But she still couldn’t restrain her impulse, wanting to leave the imprint of her lips on that delicate collarbone.
Those few seconds felt especially long now. Under the gaze of the moonlight outside the window, she slowly pressed her lips against it.
As if by instinct, she lightly sucked, leaving a shallow lip print, then frantically lifted her head, using her small hand to cover her blushing cheeks, as if hiding from the moonlight, and fled into the shadows of the room.
Zhu Ying was still dreaming, not awake.
This helped her breathe a little easier.
“Usually, she’s the one doing bad things. It should be okay if I occasionally do something bad too…” An Jing muttered, slipping on her slippers and slowly backing out of the room.
She was the type of person who, if she woke up in the middle of the night, couldn’t go back to sleep without going to the bathroom once.
And after using the bathroom in the silent house, she felt her now-empty stomach let out a “gurgle, gurgle” sound.
She seemed a little hungry…
And the more she thought about it, the hungrier she felt. To the point where she stood with her hand on the doorknob for a long time, and eventually decided to turn around and go downstairs to find something to eat.
The sound of her slippers on the marble steps was both dull and somewhat crisp.
The moonlight outside the window was bright, letting her see the path on the stairs without turning on a light.
At that moment, she felt this sensation was quite beautiful.
It was like walking in a dream.
But this was clearly not a dream; otherwise, she would have flown high into the sky by now, soaring through the nighttime sea of clouds.
Just as she reached the first floor, the heavy grandfather clock let out a “dong dong” chime.
It rang twice in a row, meaning it was now two o’clock in the morning.
At this hour, the entire village was sunk in slumber. It seemed like she was the only one still awake.
She turned on the living room light and searched around the coffee table for a while, only finding a few pieces of coarse cookies that looked like they had gotten damp.
There was a large unopened carton of milk. An Jing struggled a bit, using her not-very-long nails to cut open a bit of the tape, then forcibly tore off the cardboard box and pulled out a carton of milk.
If there were no snacks, then this milk was better than nothing.
“I wonder if there are any leftovers in the kitchen…” An Jing muttered, pushing open door after door, from the living room through the spare dining room, from the dining room to the ventilated hallway, and from the hallway into the kitchen at the back.
She gently opened the cupboard, but only saw a pile of clean dishes and utensils. The only small bag inside contained a packet of brown sugar…
Opening the double-door refrigerator, which looked quite out of place with the rustic style of the house, it was filled with ingredients that needed to be cooked, along with some refrigerated condiments like honey and jam.
“No food… if only there was bread. Bread with honey…” An Jing couldn’t help licking her lips. “Sister Huihui usually buys a lot and keeps it in the fridge, but unfortunately, Grandpa and Grandma don’t have that habit…”
She stubbornly continued searching, even looking around the earthen stove, but found nothing except a slightly smoke-blackened matchbox with a beautiful woman on the cover.
Click. Suddenly, the incandescent light bulb on the ceiling lit up, flooding the entire kitchen with brilliant light, as if even shadows had to hide from the dazzling brightness.
“So that’s what’s going on. Turns out it’s a little greedy cat?” “Ah… Sister Huihui.”
“What’s wrong? Searching through the kitchen in the middle of the night?” Yu Minghui gently swept aside her bangs, walked over with a very gentle smile, and vigorously rubbed An Jing’s head.
“My stomach’s a little hungry… cough.”
“You could have held out a bit longer; it’s almost breakfast time.”
“The main thing is, I can’t sleep right now—and I want to sleep in tomorrow…”
“Eating at night will make you fat, you know?”
“It’s just a rare treat, not every day, cough…”
“Alright, then let me see—what do you want to eat?”
“Just a little snack. If it’s too much, I won’t be able to sleep.”
“How about a fried egg?”
“Great! But isn’t that too little?”
“Pfft,” wasn’t it you who wanted a small amount?”
“Ugh… cough, I’m just afraid it won’t satisfy my cravings…”
“Fried egg, and then a glass of milk.” Yu Minghui’s gaze fell on the milk carton An Jing was holding. “How about I heat it up with some honey for you?”
“Yes—!”
“Then Xiao Jing, help me light the fire? We don’t have any eggs in the house. I’ll go to the henhouse out back and find one for you.”
“That’s a bit of a hassle… how about forget it?”
“It’s fine. I happen to want to eat something too.”
“What does Sister Huihui want to eat?”
“A warm rice wine with an egg~”
(2)
For An Jing, who had grown up in the countryside, lighting a fire was practically an instinct ingrained in her body. Even though she was yawning nonstop, she was still able to skillfully start a fire in the stove.
From the henhouse behind the kitchen, the faint sound of hens “clucking clucking” came. After a short while, Yu Minghui stepped on the shadow of the night and slipped back into the room.
“She laid three eggs. I brought them all.”
“Then I want to eat two!”
“What a greedy little cat.”
“Hehe… isn’t Sister Huihui the same? Getting up to eat in the middle of the night.”
“Actually, I used to get up to eat something often in the middle of the night.”
“Oh?”
“Back then, Feifei always had disagreements with her parents. She would often get up in the middle of the night and go outside to look at the stars.”
“Ah…? I didn’t know that.”
“Of course not. Xiao Jing was sleeping so soundly.”
“So you secretly cooked some food on the stove for Sister Fei?”
“Yes. I would listen to her talk about her worries, and drink warm rice wine on the side. She would talk for a while and then take a small bite of the late-night snack I made for her. Sometimes it was roasted corn, sometimes roasted sweet potato, sometimes a fried egg, sometimes stir-fried peas or boiled edamame—anyway, they were all very simple foods.”
“At night, having someone willing to make you something to eat is really a happy thing…” An Jing started swaying gently, moving her stool away from the stove fire, then wiped the fine, pearl-like beads of sweat from her forehead. “Are you starting to cook?”
“Let me wash the eggs first, so I don’t get dirt from the shell on the food when I crack them.”
“Okay~” An Jing continued swaying, making the stool go “clack clack.”
“Hmm…”
A somewhat plaintive sound of breathing came from outside the door, making her instinctively turn her head. Then she saw a petite girl with a bit of baby fat standing at the kitchen door.
“Hey, Xiao Ying, how come you’re awake?”
“You say that! In the middle of the night, I found no one to hug, so I woke up. I went to the bathroom and couldn’t find you either, so I just went downstairs—I saw the kitchen light was on, so I came to check.” Zhu Ying pouted and snorted softly. “So what are you doing? Having a secret snack?”
“Cough, I just came down to find something to eat because I was hungry…” An Jing frantically waved her hands, but Zhu Ying had already walked over and directly sat down on her lap, vigorously rubbing the back of her head against her cheek.
“There happen to be three eggs. Does Xiao Ying want one too?”
“Eggs?”
“Yeah, fried eggs. Want one?”
“Fried eggs…” Zhu Ying blinked. “They feel so greasy.”
“Then how about poached eggs?”
“Poached eggs? That works. Thanks, Sister Huihui~”
“Hey—can you get up? You’re so heavy—”
“Where am I heavy!” Zhu Ying glanced sideways at An Jing. “Xiao Jing can’t leave me out next time if she gets up to eat at night.”
“I saw you sleeping so soundly…”
“No way. The moment Xiao Jing gets up, I wake up.”
“Then what do you do when you sleep alone…”
“It’s different at times like that!”
“That’s right.” Yu Minghui smiled with pursed lips, reached out to test the temperature of the pan, then squeezed some salad oil from the squeeze bottle. “Especially when you get used to having another person by your side, it becomes hard to fall asleep alone.”
“That person by your side gets more and more important, to the point where you absolutely can’t let go.”
“Yeah.”
“Xiao Jing.”
“What…” An Jing sniffed her nose, which was itchy from Zhu Ying’s hair, and couldn’t help sneezing. “Ah-choo!”
“We’re that kind of relationship too.”
“…Huh?”
“Tch, playing dumb!”
“Hey, stop rubbing, my nose is so itchy.”
“Hehe—I will rub, I will rub~”
“Xiao Jing’s fried egg is ready. It’s sunny-side up.”
“Is the milk hot yet?”
“Mm, it’s heated up.”
“Sister Huihui, unfair! Why does Xiao Jing get warm milk!”
“Then go get another carton of milk, and I’ll heat you up a cup of honey milk too.”
“I want this cup now! Xiao Jing can go get another carton.”
“Hey, hey, what a domineering woman! That’s mine!”
“Xiao Jing’s is mine too.”
“Then is yours mine too?” An Jing pouted.
“Mm—of course it is. Well then—how about I feed it to you with my mouth?”
“I-I’ll just go get another carton! Geez, little demon!”