Chapter 112

Chapter 112

Qin Song said, “We’ll see. I’m going upstairs first.”

Jingjing said nothing else. She just quietly watched him from behind.

Qin Song went upstairs and sat on the bed for a while.

After thinking it over, he decided there was no downside to changing hotels. Maybe he could even get a single room.

He was afraid that once night fell, he would start overthinking things again the moment he saw that empty bed.

Qin Song got to his feet, packed up his things, and used the bathroom.

Then he went downstairs, checked out, and walked out of the hotel – only to find Jingjing was still sitting on the steps.

Qin Song called out to her tentatively, “Jingjing, why are you still here?”

Jingjing turned her head and snapped, “My name isn’t Jingjing! That psycho’s daughter is the one named Jingjing. She calls everyone Jingjing whenever she sees them!”

Qin Song said, “Oh.”

She didn’t say what her name actually was, and Qin Song had no intention of asking.

Jingjing looked at Qin Song’s backpack and suitcase. “Moving out?”

Qin Song nodded.

Jingjing grabbed his suitcase. “I’ll help you.”

She pulled the suitcase ahead of him, walking quickly, while Qin Song followed behind with his backpack.

When they reached a hotel diagonally across the street, Jingjing handed the suitcase back to Qin Song. “Go on.”

Qin Song said, “Thanks,” and went inside.

There was no young woman at the front desk, only a bald middle-aged man playing a game on an iPad. Qin Song figured he was probably the owner.

Qin Song walked up and asked, “Hello, do you have any single rooms? The kind with just one bed.”

The owner tapped a few more times on the iPad before finally looking up to answer him. “A single room? Yeah, we do.”

The owner was Chinese. Qin Song could hear a Northeastern accent.

On top of that, Qin Song noticed that the owner’s eyes were very large.

Qin Song took his ID out of his pocket and handed it over.

The owner worked on the computer for a while, then handed him a key card. “302. Enjoy your stay.”

Qin Song didn’t take the card. He frowned. “Give me another room.”

The owner gave him an odd once-over, put the card back, clicked around on the screen a few more times, and handed him a new key card. “204.”

Only then did Qin Song take the key card and go upstairs.

The moment he entered the room, he regretted it a little. This hotel was clearly not as good as the last one. The room smelled like damp mixed with cigarette smoke, the lighting was dim, and the ventilation was poor.

But since he was already here, Qin Song decided to make the best of it and stay.

There was only one bed here, and the room was relatively small. He felt much safer.

He washed up, took two melatonin tablets, left the light on, and went to sleep.

That night, he slept fairly soundly and didn’t wake up in the middle of the night.

Even so, he still had a nightmare.

He dreamed he was hiding under a hotel bed, as if he were hiding from someone, or maybe from something.

What was he hiding from? He couldn’t quite remember. He only felt that the world was no longer safe, and that the only way to feel secure and at ease was to hide under the bed, far away from everyone.

From beneath the bed, he stuck his head out and looked around. Two beds, a small round table, a little sofa, and a dark carpet patterned with crisscrossing white lines – this was the layout of the previous hotel.

He understood then. He was hiding in 416.
At first, he lay quietly under the bed.

The door creaked open, and someone came in. They didn’t seem to have any luggage; Qin Song didn’t hear the sound of suitcase wheels.

The person walked into the room, their footsteps uneven – one heavy, one light.

Qin Song lay under the bed and listened carefully. It sounded like the person had a limp, each step falling at a different depth.

There were two beds in the room. The person stopped, as if thinking, judging which bed to sleep in.

Qin Song silently prayed that they wouldn’t choose the bed directly above him.

But the more he feared something, the more likely it was to happen. The person started moving again, one heavy step and one light step, then climbed onto the bed over Qin Song’s head.

After lying down, they stopped moving. Qin Song didn’t even hear the rustle of them pulling back the blanket or turning over.

Qin Song lay on the floor and waited for a long, long time. The person above him seemed to have vanished. There was no snoring, no grinding of teeth.

Qin Song had always thought everyone lying in bed would check their phone or scroll through short videos, but the person above him didn’t even look at a phone.

His neck twisted until it hurt. Grimacing, Qin Song struggled to turn over beneath the bed, changing his position so he was lying on his back.

The wooden board under the bed smelled moldy. Qin Song’s high, straight nose was almost pressed against it, making his nasal passages feel terribly uncomfortable.

He lay there like that for a very, very long time. Outside, the sky had already gone dark.

Finally, Qin Song couldn’t take it anymore. The more still he lay, the more his hands and feet wanted to twitch. It felt as if ten thousand insects were crawling back and forth inside the bones of his calves.

He remembered He Qian once telling him this was an interesting mechanism of the body – if you stayed motionless for too long, your body tried to determine whether you were still alive.

He figured the person on the bed must have already fallen sound asleep. Otherwise, there was no way they could have gone so long without making a sound.

So he carefully crawled out from under the bed, intending to bend low and sneak out the door.

Before he left, however, he suddenly grew a little curious about what that silent traveler looked like.

So he turned back.

He had no idea this would be a decision he would regret.

By the dim glow of the streetlamp outside the window, he glanced at the bed – and nearly jumped out of his skin.

The person on the bed had one leg bent and the other stretched out straight.

Qin Song’s gaze slowly moved upward. In the darkness, Huang Yuanrui sat with her head tilted, staring silently at him.

…

When Qin Song woke from the nightmare drenched in sweat, it was five in the morning.

At times like this in the past, he would have found a cigarette to smoke. Now he couldn’t smoke anymore, and he didn’t know what he was supposed to do.

He pulled open the curtains and stood by the window to get some air.

Although he had dreamed last night, at least he had slept for six or seven hours. He felt much better mentally.

He no longer hoped for the kind of steady, sweet sleep he used to have. If he had nightmares, so be it. As long as he could fall asleep, that was enough.

He opened his phone and checked the calendar. It was now his third day in Singapore.

Standing by the window, Qin Song murmured to himself, “Only three days? It feels like it’s been almost three weeks…”