Chapter 50
A doctor’s voice came through the receiver.
“Yuewei? Lin Yuewei?”
But no one answered anymore. With one hand pressing down on Gu Yanqiu’s shoulder to keep her from moving any closer and her mouth completely sealed shut, Lin Yuewei caught sight of her phone on the floor beside the sofa out of the corner of her eye and reached for it to hang up.
She had no interest in doing a voice livestream.
“Gu—”
“Gu Yan—”
“...”
After several futile attempts to break free, every word she tried to say was forced back down. Lin Yuewei gave up struggling. Gu Yanqiu’s lips seemed to have taken root on her mouth; she wasn’t doing anything else, just keeping her from speaking.
At first Lin Yuewei had been shocked and afraid, but now she had settled down. In fact, she even felt a little like laughing.
Gu Yanqiu clung to her like a child throwing a tantrum, touching the back of her neck for a while, then pinching her hand. There was a little flesh on the back of Lin Yuewei’s hand; it felt soft, and Gu Yanqiu kept holding on to it while mumbling under her breath.
It was all jumbled and incoherent; Lin Yuewei couldn’t make out most of it, but she did catch the last word.
“Mom...”
Lin Yuewei: “...”
She curled her fingers and stopped them an inch from Gu Yanqiu’s forehead, thinking that her mind wasn’t clear right now and she shouldn’t take advantage of her. In the end, she could only shake her head helplessly and let it go. Fortunately, Gu Yanqiu showed no sign of trying to pull her clothes off. Lin Yuewei was only wearing a tank top and shorts; if Gu Yanqiu really started tugging, they would come off easily enough.
After muttering for a while, Gu Yanqiu fell asleep lying across Lin Yuewei’s lap.
Hearing her even breathing, Lin Yuewei lifted the hair from her forehead with her fingertips and found that those half-open eyes had finally closed. The weight in her chest eased at last.
She looked at Gu Yanqiu quietly for a while with a tenderness even she herself hadn’t noticed, then carefully pushed her off and laid her flat on the sofa.
Asleep, Gu Yanqiu was very quiet. Her long lashes drooped docilely over her eyes; every inch of her seemed to spell out the words well-behaved.
Lin Yuewei touched her full lips with her finger, rubbing them lightly; then she suddenly bent down and placed a feather-light kiss there.
“Fair enough,” Lin Yuewei whispered.
Even though Gu Yanqiu was already asleep, she still couldn’t stop her heartbeat from gradually quickening.
Lin Yuewei covered her with a blanket and sat on the sofa beside her, watching her while waiting for her restless heart to calm down. Judging by the way things looked, Gu Yanqiu was going to sleep until morning. Lin Yuewei thought about it, then lifted the blanket, slid one arm under her knees and the other around her shoulders, and carried Gu Yanqiu upstairs to put her on the bed.
The rope knot was loosely secured to both sides of the bed frame. Lin Yuewei put everything back exactly as it had been and slipped out on tiptoe, not forgetting to lock the bedroom door twice with the key before leaving.
Sleepwalking could be mild or severe, and everyone’s symptoms were different. Lin Yuewei didn’t know why Gu Yanqiu had tied herself to the bed, but she guessed there were two possible reasons. First, Gu Yanqiu might have done something while sleepwalking that she didn’t want to happen again, so she chose to bind herself. Second, she didn’t want Lin Yuewei to find out she had this problem. Based on what she had just seen, Lin Yuewei leaned more toward the second guess; Gu Yanqiu didn’t want her to know.
Lin Yuewei wasn’t the kind of person who liked prying into other people’s privacy. If Gu Yanqiu was willing to talk, she was willing to listen; if the other woman didn’t want to say, then she would pretend not to know. Since Gu Yanqiu would rather tie herself up, she must really not want her to know.
Tomorrow she’d find a way to probe her a little.
As for now...
In any case, Lin Yuewei wasn’t going to sleep. She wiped her phone screen clean and called the doctor back. The doctor had been startled by her unexpected “mmph mmph mmph” earlier; after Lin Yuewei settled Gu Yanqiu on the sofa, she had sent him another message telling him to wait a moment.
When she heard the doctor’s voice again, Lin Yuewei felt a little embarrassed.
The doctor hadn’t understood her properly over WeChat, so he now asked with scientific seriousness, “What exactly happened just now? Why did you suddenly hang up?”
“She hung up on me. It’s my first time seeing sleepwalking symptoms that can even hang up a call.” Lin Yuewei was talking nonsense; not only was it her first time seeing sleepwalking hang up a call, it was her first time even seeing a sleepwalker.
“...”
The doctor had guessed a few things, but if Lin Yuewei wouldn’t say it, there was nothing he could do. “Sleepwalking is generally more common in children aged six to twelve...” He gave her a basic explanation of several reasons adults might develop sleepwalking and asked whether her friend had recently experienced anything unusual.
Lin Yuewei said, “Yes. Her mother passed away a few months ago.”
“Ah, that could certainly be a factor, then...”
Before he could finish, Lin Yuewei added, “Her dad remarried, and there’s also an illegitimate son.”
“...”
Lin Yuewei went on, “And that illegitimate son seems to be fighting her for the inheritance. Her family situation is, well, pretty messy. I’ve been to her house once; the whole place felt gloomy and eerie.”
“Ah. Then it’s probably psychological stress.” The doctor paused. “But has she ever sleepwalked before?”
“I don’t know. I only met her a few months ago.”
“...”
In the end, the doctor told Lin Yuewei to persuade her friend to see a doctor as soon as possible.
Lin Yuewei gave a dry, reluctant “Okay.”
Even Lin Yuewei herself didn’t know why she had ended up talking to the doctor for so long about mostly useless things. After hanging up, she still felt a lingering emptiness. She could no longer hear the creak of the bed frame from next door; the doctor had said sleepwalking mostly happened within the first two or three hours after falling asleep, and there shouldn’t be any further issues in the second half of the night, so she could sleep in peace.
Lin Yuewei stayed awake until five in the morning before finally collapsing into sleep.
When Gu Yanqiu opened her eyes, the ceiling before her was the familiar one. The ropes on both sides were tied properly, so it seemed she hadn’t gone downstairs to sleep on the sofa in the middle of the night. It took her a while to free both hands, rub her sore wrists, and deliberately change into a long-sleeved top that could cover the marks.
Gu Yanqiu didn’t sleepwalk every night. When she was alone at home, she didn’t tie herself up; only when staying elsewhere would she choose to bind her hands, usually only one hand. That was how it had been at the Lin residence last time.
Last night Lin Yuewei had come over, so to be safe, Gu Yanqiu had tied both hands.
Gu Yanqiu made breakfast and went upstairs to knock on Lin Yuewei’s bedroom door.
Lin Yuewei opened it with dark circles under her eyes; one look was enough to tell she hadn’t slept all night.
“Didn’t sleep well last night?” Gu Yanqiu asked with concern.
Lin Yuewei leaned weakly against the door, her throat feeling as though it were full of sand as she rasped, “Mm.”
Gu Yanqiu reached out a hand to help her. Lin Yuewei jumped; Gu Yanqiu’s pouncing posture from last night was still deeply imprinted in her mind, and she straightened up against the door at once, almost as if she were standing at attention as punishment.
Gu Yanqiu: “???”
Lin Yuewei: “I can do it myself.”
Gu Yanqiu withdrew her hand awkwardly. “I made congee. Do you want breakfast?”
“Yes.” Lin Yuewei had spent quite a bit of energy the night before, and when she woke in the morning she was already hungry. Even though she was still sleepy now, her growling stomach won.
When Gu Yanqiu lifted her arm, the sleeve slipped down a little. Her skin was pale, so the bruises left by the rope on her wrist looked even more shocking.
Lin Yuewei pretended to be startled and blurted out, “Your hand...”
Gu Yanqiu had already quickly pulled her wrist back into her sleeve. “I accidentally bumped it just now.”
Her expression was calm; everything she said sounded as though it were true. If Lin Yuewei hadn’t seen her last night sitting up and being yanked back down by the rope over and over, she might have believed her.
Lin Yuewei hurriedly asked, “Do you have medicine at home?”
Gu Yanqiu hadn’t expected her to press the issue and froze for a moment, but she quickly hid her surprise and said, “I already put some on. It’s fine.”
Lin Yuewei nodded. “That’s good. I’ll wash up first.”
Gu Yanqiu nodded and went downstairs first.
Lin Yuewei had quite a few clothes left here. When she went downstairs, she changed her tank top into a black-and-white graffiti T-shirt and put on a pair of classic-cut shorts. The outfit was simple and stylish and suited her temperament well.
Gu Yanqiu thought the matter of her wrist had already passed, but when Lin Yuewei walked past the dining table, she suddenly asked Gu Yanqiu, who was serving the congee, “What was it that bumped into you just now?”
Gu Yanqiu pointed casually at the corner of the table.
Lin Yuewei reached out and slapped the table once. “Bad table.”
Gu Yanqiu blinked, then couldn’t help laughing; the corners of her mouth lifted.
The two of them sat facing each other and drank congee. Gu Yanqiu’s right wrist was hidden by the prayer beads, and her left hand held the bowl, while her sleeves firmly covered the bruise on her wrist.
Lin Yuewei still looked sluggish. She brought it up as if casually, “Gu Yanqiu, I heard a strange noise in the middle of the night last night. Did you hear it?”
“What noise?” Gu Yanqiu paused and looked up at her.
“Creaking, something like that. I couldn’t tell what it was; it was kind of creepy.”
Gu Yanqiu fell into thought, and at the same time her gaze flicked over Lin Yuewei’s face for an instant, as if she were trying to read something there. Lin Yuewei drank her congee as if nothing were wrong and occasionally picked up a bite or two of side dish; she was confident Gu Yanqiu wouldn’t be able to see through her so easily.
Just when Gu Yanqiu was starting to suspect that Lin Yuewei might have discovered something, Lin Yuewei herself offered a guess: “Do you think maybe I had a nightmare last night?”
“Possibly,” Gu Yanqiu said. “Look at those dark circles under your eyes.”
“I don’t even know why I’d have a nightmare,” Lin Yuewei complained. “I still have to go to the company tomorrow; if they don’t disappear today...”
“They will. Go take a nap later.”
“Fine.” Lin Yuewei drank the cooled congee in her bowl in just a few mouthfuls and, still unsteady on her feet, made her way upstairs while holding the railing. From behind, she still looked like her usual sleep-deprived, listless self.
But once her back was turned to Gu Yanqiu, her expression was alert and clear.
Everything she needed to say, she had said. With Gu Yanqiu’s meticulous nature, she ought to notice that Lin Yuewei knew a few clues. Whether she chose to say anything or not was up to her; Lin Yuewei wouldn’t force it.
Lin Yuewei touched the pillow and was asleep in no time.
Gu Yanqiu absentmindedly spooned congee into her mouth one mouthful at a time. After cleaning up the kitchen, she walked to the sofa facing the TV, sat down, and opened the drawer of the coffee table in front of her.
Because she had once discovered that she would lie on the sofa after waking up in the morning, Gu Yanqiu didn’t sleep there every day. Sometimes she would circle the living room and go back to the bedroom to sleep. So before going to bed each night, Gu Yanqiu would deliberately pay attention to the arrangement of the living room, especially the little things she tended to handle during sleepwalking—the Rubik’s Cube, which her mother had taught her to twist when she was a child, and the other small object she had bought in college and simply kept carrying around. That one wasn’t very important; sometimes she would play with other things instead.
Gu Yanqiu took out the Rubik’s Cube and compared it with the photo she had taken on her phone yesterday, her gaze sharpening as she discovered it had been turned.
And the blanket on the sofa; the direction of the pattern was different too. Last night she had gone upstairs with Lin Yuewei. Before sleeping, she hadn’t heard the sound of Lin Yuewei opening the door in the next room, so there were only two possibilities. Either last night, after Gu Yanqiu had gone to sleep, Lin Yuewei deliberately came downstairs, turned her Rubik’s Cube, and moved the blanket; that possibility was almost zero. Then only one other possibility remained: she had sleepwalked again last night. She didn’t know exactly what had happened in between, but Lin Yuewei definitely knew about it, or else she wouldn’t have hinted at it just now. Gu Yanqiu carefully recalled how the ropes had been tied this morning; it seemed different from last night as well.
Gu Yanqiu put the drawer back in order, then sank into the sofa as though all the strength had been drained out of her, letting out a sigh.
She slid the prayer beads off her wrist and silently recited scriptures with her eyes closed.
After a long while, she opened her eyes, frowning. Could Lin Yuewei’s overreaction this morning have been because of something she had done last night?
Gu Yanqiu’s thoughts were in complete disarray; for a moment, she even forgot the scriptures she usually recited by heart.
***
Lin Yuewei had no idea how conflicted Gu Yanqiu was. She slept straight through noon; if her mother hadn’t called, she could have slept until afternoon.
Lin Yuewei squinted at the caller ID, rubbed her face, and answered, “Mom.”
Lin Mama gave a soft “Oh?” “You’re awake?”
“I wasn’t awake,” Lin Yuewei said groggily, her face still pressed into the pillow. “I’m sleepy. What do you want?”
“Wow, that bad?”
“...” Lin Yuewei was truly awake now. “Mom, if you keep talking nonsense, I’m not coming home today.”
“Not coming home is even better. Stay over at the Gu family daughter’s place; for a year or two—no, even three to five months without coming home is still fine.”
“I’m hanging up.”
“Don’t hang up, it’s serious.” Lin Mama instantly turned solemn.
“Say it.” Lin Yuewei rolled over. After being teased by her mother for two sentences, there was no point trying to sleep anymore, so she simply sat up and walked toward the door while still on the phone.
Gu Yanqiu was sitting on the sofa in a meditative pose; Lin Yuewei had no idea how long she had been there. Hearing footsteps from upstairs and voices, she turned her head and looked over. Lin Yuewei nodded at her in greeting. “Have you had lunch?”
“I have.”
“I haven’t.”
Lin Yuewei’s mother on the phone and Gu Yanqiu outside the phone answered at the same time.
Lin Yuewei: “...”
Covering the receiver, she whispered to Gu Yanqiu, “I’m talking to my mom.”
“I know. Bye-bye.”
Lin Yuewei ended the call and looked at Gu Yanqiu, who was still standing there, and dutifully reported, “My mom said there’s something wrong with her phone and asked me to go back and help her check it.”
Gu Yanqiu gave a soft mm and looked at Lin Yuewei as though she wanted to say something but wasn’t sure how.
Lin Yuewei sat down on the sofa to her left. “What is it?”
Gu Yanqiu rubbed the prayer beads, her eyes lowered.
Lin Yuewei felt she had probably guessed it, but what she had guessed and what Gu Yanqiu truly meant were slightly off. With an encouraging tone, she said, “If you have something to say, just say it. Don’t worry; I definitely won’t tell anyone.”
As soon as she said that, Gu Yanqiu was certain she had really seen something.
But she still didn’t confess on her own; instead, she turned the tables and threw the question back at Lin Yuewei. “What did you see last night?”
“Last night I slept very lightly and heard some noise from your room...” Without overthinking it, Lin Yuewei recounted everything from the previous night. When she reached the final part, she hesitated for a beat; Gu Yanqiu’s eyes fixed on hers instantly.
Lin Yuewei panicked for a moment, then quickly steadied herself. “After you rushed over, you hit me twice; once on the shoulder, once on the face. You hit pretty hard.”
Gu Yanqiu said immediately, “I’m sorry.”
Lin Yuewei waved it off. “It’s fine.” Then she adopted an attentive posture, palm up, making a small inviting gesture. “Your turn. What’s going on with you? Have you always had this problem?”
Gu Yanqiu shook her head.
“When I was studying abroad, I lived with a roommate. She never noticed that I had sleepwalking issues..."
Gu Yanqiu had barely started when Lin Yuewei cut in, getting to the bottom of it with relentless curiosity. “A roommate? Like sharing an apartment? Did you sleep in the same bed or in separate rooms?”
Gu Yanqiu was speechless.
Lin Yuewei knew she was getting excited, but she reacted quickly and laid out her reasoning point by point. “If you were sleeping in the same bed, it’d be easier to notice when you got up in the night; of course, that still doesn’t rule out the possibility that the other person slept like a pig. If you were in separate rooms, then there’s even less chance of anyone finding out. And I heard the doctor say that some people who sleepwalk can look exactly the same as when they’re awake, and can even have brief conversations with other people. In your situation last night, if I hadn’t looked into your eyes, I might have thought you’d just gotten up and come downstairs to sit for a while.”
A trace of amusement tugged at the corner of Gu Yanqiu’s mouth; she quickly suppressed it, lowering her head to cough softly and hide the smile. Then she said seriously, “For safety’s sake, we installed cameras at the entrance, in the living room, and in other places. I never found myself going out of the bedroom while unconscious.”
“Ha, I see.” Lin Yuewei gave two dry laughs. “That’s good, that’s good.”
To salvage her dignity, she solemnly summarized for her: “So this problem only started after you came back to China?”
Gu Yanqiu nodded.
“Have you seen a doctor?”
“I have. They said I was under too much psychological stress.”
“Did they prescribe medicine?”
Gu Yanqiu nodded again.
Lin Yuewei already knew it hadn’t helped.
Gu Yanqiu said, “I don’t sleepwalk every night. The frequency is about four or five times a week; it’s still pretty frequent. When I first started taking the medication, it worked for two days, and after that it just...” She paused. “And sedatives always have some side effects, so I stopped taking them later.”
“A psychologist?”
“I went once or twice, but after that I was too busy, so I stopped.”
“How can you stop?” Lin Yuewei said anxiously.
“When I was studying abroad, I took psychology courses. I know where the root cause is. You know what my family situation is like. Until I solve it, I’ll never be able to pull it out at the root.”
“Isn’t your family just that cheap stepmother and her son? What’s more important than your own health?” Lin Yuewei didn’t know the details of the Gu family and thought Gu Yanqiu was only talking about fighting over the inheritance.
Gu Yanqiu shook her head and didn’t want to talk about it further.
Seeing how unyielding she was, Lin Yuewei grew anxious like an ant on a hot pan. She had never seen a sleepwalker before; Gu Yanqiu was the first, and last night’s appearance had frightened her. In her eyes, nothing was more important than health. Money could be earned again; an inheritance could be taken back again; and a gentleman could still take revenge ten years later. To ruin one’s own mental health and end up sleepwalking at night just to fight over an estate was not worth it.
“Do you have anything on this afternoon?”
Gu Yanqiu blinked; her lashes fluttered as she wondered why Lin Yuewei was asking.
Lin Yuewei snapped, “I’m asking you a proper question. Why are you acting cute?”
Gu Yanqiu: “...”
She wasn’t acting cute.
With a hint of grievance, Gu Yanqiu answered, “No.”
Lin Yuewei ordered her in a firm tone, “Change your clothes. I’m taking you to see a doctor.”
Gu Yanqiu instinctively wanted to blink in confusion, but thinking of Lin Yuewei’s anger just now, she stopped before she could do it and silently went upstairs to change.
She found that she actually quite liked it when Lin Yuewei ordered her around; there was an electrifying thrill in it.
Gu Yanqiu clenched her fist in front of her, resisting the urge to hurry upstairs.
Watching her sullen back, Lin Yuewei couldn’t help reflecting: had she been too fierce just now?
Lin Yuewei changed clothes too. Just before they were about to leave, she suddenly remembered that she and Gu Yanqiu were different; she was a public figure, and if they were photographed, even ten mouths wouldn’t be enough to explain it.
So Lin Yuewei simply called the doctor over to the house.
The doctor was in his forties or fifties, with a kindly and amiable face. Lin Yuewei had met him by chance years ago; the two of them were friends across generations, and if that hadn’t been the case, Lin Yuewei wouldn’t have kept calling him in the middle of the night again and again. The moment the doctor saw Gu Yanqiu, he said to Lin Yuewei, “This is your friend?”
“Yes.”
“The one from last night..."
“Just hurry up and look at her.” Lin Yuewei was afraid he’d say something that conflicted with what she had just told Gu Yanqiu, so she hurried him along.
The doctor spread his hands helplessly. “But I’m not a psychologist.”
Lin Yuewei: “...If you’re not a psychologist, then why are you here?”
The doctor snorted. “Because you called me here in a panic, didn’t you? I wasn’t even supposed to be working today.”
Lin Yuewei froze for a moment, then gave up on that line of thought. “Fine, whatever kind of doctor you are, just take a look at her.”
Doctor: “..."
He rolled up his sleeves and said, “Fine. I do psychology on the side anyway; I have a license. In this day and age, who makes a living without being multifaceted?”
Lin Yuewei: “..."
Gu Yanqiu was trying very hard not to laugh and nearly lost it, managing only with great effort to keep her expression calm.
Lin Yuewei looked uncertainly at her friend. “You don’t have a veterinary certificate, do you?”
The doctor made as if to leave. “I really do have a certificate. A proper one for psychology. If you don’t believe me, I’ll have my daughter take a picture of it for you. Keep making that face and I won’t treat her. I really won’t.”
Lin Yuewei quickly coaxed him back. “Treat her, treat her. I was just joking.”
She turned to look at Gu Yanqiu and saw that Gu Yanqiu had her back to her, one hand braced on the sofa and the other on her waist, her shoulders trembling slightly. Lin Yuewei asked in confusion, “What’s wrong?”
Gu Yanqiu coughed a few times, then turned around and said, “My waist isn’t feeling very good.”
That happened to be the doctor’s specialty. He rushed over at once. “Oh dear, let me have a look. You’re so young and already having trouble with your waist? Don’t tell me you’ve been overindulging. You need to know restraint.” As he spoke, his gaze swept meaningfully back and forth between Lin Yuewei and Gu Yanqiu.
“!!!”
This time Gu Yanqiu coughed so hard it sounded earthshaking.
The doctor shook his head, tsked, and said with obvious delight, “Actually, I heard everything last night..."
With a ferocious expression, Lin Yuewei lunged at him. “Shut your mouth right now!”
Author’s Note: Lin Yuewei (lifelessly): Bringing this doctor here was the worst decision I’ve made in my twenty-two years of life
Gu Yanqiu (coughing nonstop): What exactly happened last night? [shocked]
Doctor: I don’t have a name, but that won’t stop my matchmaking instincts ¬_¬