At nearly nine o'clock, Fu Ying and Fu Zhe returned home. Dad Fu was about to finish work, so they had to go back to cook some noodles for him.
When Mom Fu returned and finished her late-night snack, a completely idle Fu Ying was called over by her.
"Have you taken a shower?"
"I'm about to. I'll go straight to sleep after washing up."
"You always shower so late. I've told you time and again not to shower too late, and absolutely not to wash your hair after nine in the evening. You'll get rheumatic headaches when you're older."
Ah, the familiar nagging and routine lines. Fu Ying could only quickly reply, "I'm not washing my hair today, the shower will be quick."
After Fu Ying and her younger brother finished their showers, Dad Fu and Mom Fu prepared for bed as well. The two siblings dashed up to the second floor, their footsteps making a loud clattering sound on the wooden floorboards.
Mom Fu called out from downstairs, "Slow down! Don't run so loudly, or the old landlord will come over to complain again."
The second floor was a partitioned space built of wood by the landlord. There were no separate rooms; you could see the whole space at a glance. On the right and at the front were two 1.2-meter beds that Dad Fu had put together himself, positioned at a right angle. On the left was a clothesline stretching from the stairs to the front window, with clothes hanging on it.
Forget about privacy. In the past, the whole family slept in a single room: Fu Zhe slept on the top bunk, Mom Fu and Fu Ying on the bottom bunk, and Dad Fu slept on a pallet on the floor. Now that they could each have their own bed, Fu Zhe and Fu Ying already felt it was pretty good.
Fu Zhe lay down on the right-hand bed. Fu Ying walked forward; the bed beside the skylight at the front was hers. Any memories of sleeping here were completely gone, and the bedsheets and pillow felt entirely unfamiliar.
Actually, she wasn't used to it. In "real life," she had specially bought a matching four-piece bedding set just so she could comfortably lie in bed at night and play on her phone. Looking at this bed with its poor material, chaotic colors, and messy arrangement, the contrast was painfully huge.
Forcefully ignoring her discomfort, Fu Ying lay down on the bed as well. Days without a phone felt so unnatural. As a heavy novel reader, Fu Ying always made it a habit after every shower to lie in bed and read novels until sleepiness took over and she drifted off.
Fu Ying had no choice but to resort to her old routine for falling asleep: narrating today's events in English. "Today I have a special dream...."
Before she could finish the story, she fell asleep within minutes.
"Fu Ying, Fu Ying, get up later to buy groceries. The money is under the pillow. Buy some bean sprouts to fry, and just reheat the sour soup. Remember to start cooking the rice at ten-thirty."
"Fu Ying, Fu Ying... buy groceries... pillow... ten o'clock..." In her groggy state, Fu Ying only felt someone calling her. She couldn't clearly make out what was said, and drifted right back to sleep.
Her biological clock kicked in, and Fu Ying woke up, instinctively reaching under the pillow for her phone. Fu Ying's internal clock was usually set for nine-forty, though sometimes she would wake up once around seven or eight. She wanted to check what time it was and see if she could squeeze in another round of sleep. Her hand felt nothing under the pillow. With her eyes still closed, she continued to grope within arm's reach, but her hand drooped down instead. Thinking she had slept right to the edge of the bed, she scooted inward. As she scooted and felt around, her hand hit the wall. Fu Ying woke up a bit more. Had she really scooted all the way to the inner side of the bed so fast? She opened both arms to feel both sides, only to find that she couldn't stretch her arms out fully—one side touched the wall, while the other arm hung straight down.
Perplexed, Fu Ying opened her eyes. There was no white ceiling; instead, there was a sloping wooden roof. Turning her head, she saw another bed on the other side of the right angle. Little Black Charcoal was sleeping on it, lying on top of the bamboo sleeping mat Fu Ying hated the most—the kind that could pinch and snap off several hairs the moment you woke up. The space in the middle was empty, and various colored hangers held school uniforms on the clothesline, the short-sleeved shirts clearly washed out of shape.
The exact scene from before she went to sleep yesterday.
Wait, wasn't yesterday just a dream?
Can you keep dreaming inside a dream? Waking up inside a dream, only to keep dreaming?