Chapter 38: Waiting to be Summoned

Am I really just going to give up like this?

Cheng Yuan glared at Jun Nanye in frustration. Suddenly, she seized his arm and bit down hard.

Caught completely off guard, Jun Nanye yelped. “Are you a dog?!”

The moment he opened his eyes, he found himself back in his own room. Gazing around at the familiar surroundings, he lowered his head to examine the bite. A neat row of deep teeth marks stood out starkly on his arm—a clear sign of her determination.

“So vicious! Who would dare marry you now?” he muttered, glaring at the wound, equal parts annoyed and impressed.

He jumped out of bed and rushed to his computer, quickly pulling up the surveillance footage. Watching intently, he rewound to the moment Tao An left. Just as he had suspected, the figure on the bed vanished without warning—an eerie, horror movie–like scene.

He checked the timestamps carefully. From the moment he entered the Black Room to the time he returned, it had lasted under twenty minutes.

Again and again, he replayed the footage of his disappearance, then the clip of his sudden reappearance. If he hadn’t experienced it firsthand, he never would have believed it. Without hesitation, he dismantled the expensive security cameras he’d installed just that day and submerged the hard drive in water, destroying everything.

No evidence could be allowed to fall into the wrong hands.

He’d explain it to Tao An later—make it clear that under no circumstances should he enter his room while he was asleep.

Jun Nanye lay back in bed, clutching the Dragon-Phoenix Pendant. He closed his eyes and repeated silently, Enter the Black Room. But no matter how many times he tried, it didn’t work.

He dripped blood onto the pendant. Nothing happened—the blood slid off without a trace.

After trying several methods with no success, he finally tossed it aside in frustration. “Useless pendant,” he muttered. “Was I tricked?”

No.

Jun Nanye touched his face confidently. He knew he hadn’t been deceived.

That left only one possibility: the pendant wasn’t useless—it was simply waiting for a summons.

He narrowed his eyes at the jade pendant, staring it down like he could force it to respond. His desire to see Cheng Yuan again only grew stronger.

Meanwhile, in the Cheng household…

“Dad, Xiaolin told me her stepmother keeps going into her room. She wants to buy a lock but doesn’t know which kind to get,” Cheng Yuan said casually as she helped string chives onto skewers that afternoon.

“The shop by the bridge has good ones. I’ll buy two tomorrow—one for her, one for your room,” Cheng Huaien replied without hesitation. He figured his daughter was growing up and valued her privacy. After the Wu Chongguang incident, he trusted her to make sensible choices.

“Dad, I…” Cheng Yuan hesitated, struggling to explain. If he ever found out she had disappeared in her sleep, he’d panic.

“Yuanyuan, I plan to get one for my room too,” Cheng Huaien said with a chuckle, smoothing over her anxiety. “We’re not as poor as we used to be. It’s time we started locking things up. Oh, and I heard Simmons mattresses are good. Want to get one?”

Though the wooden bed frame remained, he was intent on buying his daughter a quality mattress to help her sleep better.

“No need,” Cheng Yuan replied. “I’ll be moving out when I get into Hai University anyway.” She used to resent their small, old home. But now, having lived through worse, she knew what truly mattered.

“Alright. I left two hundred yuan on the table for snacks.”

Cheng Yuan raised an eyebrow as she continued skewering the chives. “Dad, I don’t need that much.”

Two hundred yuan a week—eight hundred a month—was a generous allowance in 1996.

“Take it. A girl should always have some money on hand. Buy clothes, hair clips, anything you like,” he said gently. “And if you need more, just ask.”

“I wear my school uniform every day, Dad. There’s no point buying new clothes,” Cheng Yuan replied. Her senior year was packed, and she was studying around the clock with the materials Tao An had given her. Getting into Hai University was her one goal.

Even on weekends, while helping her father with prep work, she squeezed in study time whenever she could.

Yu Qing, meanwhile, was helping Aunt Yu sell clothes at the market.

Sure enough, by evening, Yu Qing brought back good news. The clothes were selling fast. That night, both families gathered, their spirits high.

“Cheng Yuan, thank you,” Yu Qing said earnestly. Without her help, his family’s situation wouldn’t have improved. If his mother had stayed at the factory, her health would’ve deteriorated further.

“You’re welcome. Aunt Yu has helped us a lot too,” Cheng Yuan replied with a warm smile. After they left, she returned to her room and picked up the study materials Tao An had given her. The more she reviewed them, the more convinced she became: Tao An really might be a top scorer on the college entrance exam. The materials were concise, focused, and highly effective.

That night, as midnight approached, Cheng Yuan turned off the lights and went to bed on time. She gripped the jade pendant firmly in her hand.

Sleep was crucial—there was no room for insomnia.

Hai City.

Jun Nanye lay in bed, a stack of math practice exams in his arms. As the familiar drowsiness crept in, he didn’t resist.

When Cheng Yuan appeared in the Black Room again, her eyes lit up. “Wow, you brought more exams!”

She immediately snatched the papers, torn between diving into the problems and waking him up. In the end, she chose to wake him.

“Tao An, thanks for the exam paper,” she said. “I shouldn’t have bitten you yesterday—but seriously, you shouldn’t have kept your eyes shut like that.”

Her gaze dropped to his arm. The bite marks were still there. Guilt flickered in her eyes.

Jun Nanye spoke bluntly. “Classmate Cheng, let’s make a deal. You have insomnia too, don’t you?”

Cheng Yuan didn’t answer, just stared at him.

“If you didn’t, why would you keep showing up here and waking me up?”

“What if I said no?” Cheng Yuan smiled as she studied his face. Seriously, how is this fair? she thought. Why give someone such a handsome face and such a brilliant mind? Couldn’t he be just a little stupid?

Handsome, intelligent, and clearly wealthy—he was the real-life male lead of a romance novel.

“I’ll keep supplying you with gaokao prep materials—as long as you sleep here,” Jun Nanye said confidently. “Deal?”

“No.” Cheng Yuan shook her head firmly. “A man and a woman alone in a room—how is that appropriate?”