Zhishu · Chat

The night has grown deep. A sliver of light still seeps from the door at the end of the hallway. The shadow of a candlestick has flickered in the door gap all night. You haven't come out. Zhishu waits at the corner. After listening and hearing no sound of movement from that direction, he pushes open another door, light-footed. The room is dark. Moonlight falls in through the window, spreading across the edge of the bed. The bedding is folded neatly, and there's a faint indentation on the pillow—the spot where you sat during the day. A faint smell of ink lingers in the air, along with a trace of warmth carried back from the study's stove. He stands by the bed, looking down for a while. In the moonlight, his ears slowly rise from hanging limp to half-erect, slowly creeping upward. His movements are very light—so light the mattress barely sinks. He curls himself into the blanket, wrapped from his feet to the top of his head, leaving only his two ears outside. His hair is still a little damp; he wiped it repeatedly on the way here, making sure his wrists were warm, making sure there was no smell of cold wind on him. The blanket is pulled up to his chin. In the darkness, he keeps his eyes open, staring at the ceiling, and starts thinking about what to do. According to what the book says—the first step should be "creating accidental contact." He could pretend to be startled awake when you pull back the blanket, then groggily lean toward you and say "so cold" or "you're back." He tried to picture the scene: himself half-opening his eyes, voice hoarse from just waking, shuffling in your direction. He thought about it and figured he probably couldn't say the words "so cold"—because he's been bundled in the blanket for a good while, and his palms are already starting to sweat a little. Then switch to another one. He could pretend to be fast asleep, unaware of anything, and after you lie down, he'd "accidentally" turn over and drape an arm over you. The book says this move is called "unconscious closeness in sleep"—it looks the most natural. He ran the scene through his mind—he turns over, his arm falls across your chest, and then he should keep pretending to sleep, but while pretending to sleep he can't move too often, his breathing has to be even, his lashes can't tremble. He tried closing his eyes to fake sleep; his lashes trembled twice and he gave up. When he closes his eyes, he squeezes them shut without meaning to. He lets out a soft sigh inside the blanket, shifts position, and turns his face toward the pillow, ears pressed against the sheet. He thinks a little longer—maybe he should just do nothing, just lie here and let you discover him yourself. You might ask "what are you doing here," and he'd say "I went to the wrong room," and then you might let him stay, or you might tell him to leave. If it's the latter, he'll figure something out. If it's the former... he doesn't know what the former would even count as. He hasn't decided what he'd say then. He listens to his own breathing, slowly calming down inside the blanket's cocoon. The window isn't shut tight; a thread of wind slips through the gap, stirring the edge of the curtain. The moonlight sways on the sheet for a moment, then settles again. The blurry patch of light on the ceiling shifts an inch, then another inch. His eyelids droop once, and he holds them up. Then they droop again. He blinks, growing drowsy. At the other end of the hallway, a door is pushed open. Candlelight spills through the door gap, spreading a thin, long band of warm yellow across the floor. Your footsteps sound on the wooden boards—steady and light, step by step, in your own rhythm. The door opens without a sound. You stand there, holding up a lamp. The light falls on the edge of the bed, on the small, raised silhouette in the middle of the bedding. The mound isn't large—it's curled up just left of the bed's center, the corners of the blanket tucked in neatly, as if someone wrapped it carefully. From the outside, all you can see is a small tuft of pale golden hair peeking out from the edge of the blanket, and a length of drooping, snow-white ear tip. That ear tip rests quietly against the pillow, unmoving, but its base is slowly seeping from snow-white into a light pink. He doesn't turn, doesn't look up, doesn't even change the rhythm of his breathing—but he's awake. You see the hand resting by the pillow: his knuckles curl slightly, extremely faintly, as if touched by something in a dream. Then they relax again, returning to their original curve. He doesn't move. He's waiting, waiting to see whether you'll pull back the blanket and ask him, or turn and leave. In the candlelight, his ears redden little by little, spreading upward from the base, like ink slowly bleeding across rice paper.