This sleep, Li Zhiyuan slept very deeply, without dreaming, without waking up in the night, and not even changing his sleeping position. It was as simple as closing his eyelids and then opening them, and the long night had ended.
He turned his head out of habit, and without surprise, the girl was sitting on the chair by the door.
But very quickly, Li Zhiyuan noticed something was off because the girl hadn’t changed her clothes.
She was still wearing the black practice outfit from yesterday, with stains from rushing work, still clearly visible.
This meant that the girl had not gone back to her room in the east wing to sleep last night. She had been sitting here the entire night.
Li Zhiyuan roughly guessed why the girl would do this, because yesterday, he had been too depleted of energy, and she was worried that he might suddenly die in his sleep.
To outsiders, this reason might be hard to understand, but it was the girl’s purest and simplest idea.
Even though she hadn’t spoken to him since their first meeting, Li Zhiyuan found himself increasingly able to understand her.
He got up from the bed and walked towards the girl.
The girl’s face remained delicate, showing no trace of tiredness.
Perhaps, she was used to staying up all night, and in her world, the concept of day and night had long since blurred.
Otherwise, Liu Yumei wouldn’t keep reminding him to coax Alii back to the east wing to sleep every night.
The girl lifted her head, eyes meeting his.
In her eyes, Li Zhiyuan saw an almost complete reflection of himself.
He had analyzed why the girl acted so differently around him.
It all started from the night the old cat demon came, when the girl stood on the dam, looking up at him standing on the second-floor balcony.
He must have been the first person to enter her dreams.
It couldn’t have been a pleasant dream because her eyes could see the terrifying underside of this world.
At ten years old... no, probably even earlier and younger, she had already been this way.
It is unimaginable, how a young child just learning to talk, faced such an environment where all around her was endless ugliness and filth.
She must have cried, been scared, and screamed, but the world did not change because of her emotions. In the end, she chose to change herself and to completely isolate herself.
Autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, aphasia, and so forth, these symptoms were just the outward manifestations. The real cause was her rejection of any contact with the outside world.
Although a bit embarrassing to admit, it is true, his appearance that night was like a beam of light suddenly piercing through her long years of darkness.
He was like a balcony sealed with glass windows. She stood on the balcony, carefully touching and perceiving the outside world through him.
Maybe he was just the temporary carrier of all her passion and expectations for the world at that moment.
But at the same time, wasn’t she the same for him?
His mother already detested him, his father couldn’t bear this family any longer, and neither Grandpa Nan nor Grandpa Bei had him as their only grandson.
But at least for the girl before his eyes, her gaze was filled entirely with him.
Li Zhiyuan reached out to tidy up Alii’s slightly disheveled hair by her ear, but the girl reached out first, wrapping her arms around his neck, and then pressed her face against his chest.
Ever since she saw him make this gesture to Li Sanjiang that day, she had remembered it and had grown fond of this motion.
She had been secretly imitating it, clumsy yet adorable.
Li Zhiyuan could only pat her head and continued to recite the line:
"Whatever Alii wants, I’ll buy for you, I have money, plenty of money."
Although the line was somewhat out of context, the girl was very satisfied.
She moved away from his chest, her eyes brightly looking at him.
Li Zhiyuan knew that she had just been expressing a kind of joy, celebrating his "initial recovery from a serious illness".
Yes, the extremely tired him from yesterday, in her eyes, was like being sick.
Li Zhiyuan smiled at Alii, thinking in his heart:
"Actually, we are both seriously ill."
Today, they got up later than usual, and everyone else had already had breakfast.
When Li Zhiyuan led Alii downstairs, Liu Yumei was on the dam with her head lowered, drinking tea.
Li Zhiyuan didn’t dare to look closely at Grandma Liu’s expression; it surely wasn’t too pleasant.
Aunt Liu set the breakfast and came over, her gaze suggestive.
Li Zhiyuan caught the hint and said to Alii: "Go and wash up and take a bath with Aunt Liu. If you are sleepy, go back to sleep."
Alii obediently turned around and walked towards the east wing, with Aunt Liu following and closing the door behind them.
Li Zhiyuan sat down and began to have breakfast.
While eating, Li Sanjiang came back from the back of the house where the bathroom was, came over, bent down to take a closer look, and said: "Little Yuanhou, you look a lot better today than yesterday."
"Grandmaster, please sit down. I have something to tell you. I was too tired yesterday and didn’t get the chance to say it."
"Need some pocket money?" Li Sanjiang reached into his pocket and produced a denomination that virtually never appears in a village child’s allowance, placing it next to Li Zhiyuan’s porridge bowl, "If you ever need money, just tell your Grandmaster. I have plenty of money."
Li Zhiyuan did not rush to take the money but said:
"Grandmaster, the night before last at Old Zhao Family’s banquet, you were not drinking alone; you were drinking with two people. One is called Brother Leopard, the owner of the video hall that was checked by the police three days ago; he has died. The other is named Zhao Xing; you didn’t notice him under the dim light. He is the son of the Zhao family, and the funeral the day before was for him. They are not living people; they came to drink with you to ask for your help..."