Chapter 39: Is This a Cheat Code?

“Hmph.”

Jun Nanye smirked coldly. “Classmate Cheng, I can barely keep my eyes open—what could I possibly do to you? On the other hand, you’ve been biting me and taking advantage of me. I’m clearly the one getting the short end of the stick here.”

Cheng Yuan rubbed her nose guiltily. Now that he mentioned it… she was getting quite the deal—sleeping next to such a handsome guy?

Her eyes darted playfully. “I have to wake up at 5:30 tomorrow morning, but I don’t have an alarm clock. What if I oversleep?”

“Don’t worry, I brought one.” He pulled a small alarm clock from his pocket. Clearly, he’d thought this through for the sake of a good night’s sleep.

“Also, we should set a specific time for these visits,” Jun Nanye reminded her. “If I suddenly disappear during the day, it’ll cause chaos. And if you vanish in the middle of class…”

“You’re right, we do need a fixed time.” Cheng Yuan nodded quickly. She had only considered the risk of her own sudden disappearance. If she vanished without warning, she’d definitely be dragged off for research.

She hadn’t noticed at all that she was always the one initiating these visits—it was never the other way around.

“You need time to study in your senior year, and I need proper sleep. How about midnight every night?” Jun Nanye suggested. It was the current time, and Cheng Yuan didn’t see anything wrong with it—until she did. “Wait a minute, isn’t that unfair to me?”

“I could be sleeping peacefully in my own bed. Why do I have to sleep here?” she muttered. A deep voice replied calmly, “If I don’t open my eyes, can you even leave?”

“I have as many gaokao prep materials as you could ever want. Are you sure you don’t need them?” he coaxed.

Clutching the materials tightly, Cheng Yuan huffed, “Fine, maybe I’ll just go grab a pillow. I can’t sleep without one.”

“Bring it tomorrow,” Jun Nanye said flatly. He wasn’t letting her leave now. Who knew if she’d come back?

From past experience, he figured she’d return just to wake him up again—so she wouldn’t be the only one losing sleep. He wasn’t that dumb.

Cheng Yuan glanced from the study materials to the man beside her. After weighing the pros and cons, she figured she wasn’t really losing out. She lay down on her side, her hand brushing the icy jade bed. It was smooth, cool, and oddly soothing.

To be precise—it was made of jade. And sleeping on it felt even better than her bed at home.

“Hey Yuanyuan, why’d you bring your Walkman today?” Bei Xiaolin grinned as she pulled hers out of her drawer. “We’re totally on the same wavelength! I brought mine too.”

“To listen to music,” Cheng Yuan said with a whisper. She wasn’t worried about failing English, so she’d brought some music tapes for fun.

Bei Xiaolin: “……”

Everyone else uses theirs for English tapes, and you’re listening to music?

How infuriating!

She reached for the tapes, but Cheng Yuan slapped her hand away. “You need at least a hundred on your English exam, right? It’s out of one-fifty.”

“I can’t even get that…” Bei Xiaolin wailed internally. Scoring seventy or eighty would already be a miracle—one hundred? Impossible.

“Then listen to English tapes,” Cheng Yuan said cheerfully, patting her shoulder. “I’ll give you these once you hit a hundred.”

Bei Xiaolin: “……”

Is money really the issue here?

Neither of them noticed the jealous gaze from the front row. Even if she had, Bei Xiaolin would have pretended not to see it.

Lin Juan’s eyes locked onto the Walkmans both girls carried, especially Cheng Yuan’s silver one—sleek, delicate, and absolutely beautiful.

Jealousy twisted in her chest. Her father was a schoolteacher with a modest salary, barely enough to make ends meet, especially with her grandparents needing financial help. A Walkman costing hundreds—let alone a thousand yuan—was out of reach. Her allowance was usually five or ten yuan, at most.

“Yuanyuan, I’m planning to go to Hai City over the holiday to take the art entrance exam,” Bei Xiaolin said. She’d been looking into the schedule and found the exam lined up with their break.

“That’s great!” Cheng Yuan beamed. “If you pass the art exam, the cultural score requirement will be lower. Keep working hard, and you’ll definitely get into Hai City’s Academy of Performing Arts.”

The Academy of Performing Arts was a prestigious national university.

“Mhm, mhm.” Bei Xiaolin nodded enthusiastically, then gave her a hopeful look. “Will you come with me? I’m a little nervous to go alone.”

“Sure,” Cheng Yuan agreed without hesitation. She also shared the materials Tao An had given her. “Xiaolin, you really should study these. They’re excellent.”

“……”

Bei Xiaolin stared at the pile, unsure if she should accept.

That night.

Cheng Yuan finished her practice test, grabbed her pillow, and entered the Black Room. True to their agreement, she and Tao An kept a strict distance.

She lay on the jade bed, silently reviewing the formulas she’d just memorized. Strangely, they seemed to become clearer and easier to recall.

At first, she assumed it was just good memory. But when she could also perfectly recall a stammered history lesson from earlier that day, she realized—this wasn’t normal.

Could this jade bed actually enhance memory?

To test her theory, she grabbed the history notes Tao An had given her. They were neatly organized by dates and events. Normally, she struggled with rote memorization, but lying here, the information flowed effortlessly into her mind.

If she didn’t forget it all tomorrow…

Would this count as a cheat?

Cheng Yuan’s heart skipped a beat. Memorizing was her least favorite part of studying—especially in humanities, where the content was endless.

After a long wave of excitement, drowsiness finally overtook her, and she drifted off into a deep sleep.

At 5:30 a.m., the alarm rang right on time.

Jun Nanye opened his eyes and found himself back in his own room, sunlight already streaming in. He stretched, savoring the feeling of a truly restful night.

“Brother Nan, you’ve been sleeping well lately,” Tao An commented curiously. “How’d you cure your insomnia? Doctor Su said severe cases like yours are nearly impossible to treat.”

“Did you bring the college entrance exam materials I asked for?” Jun Nanye replied, ignoring the question.

Tao An quickly placed a stack of documents on his desk. “Brother Nan, you’re not taking the exam, and no one else here is either. What do you need these for?”

He paused, puzzled. “Oh, and where did the materials I brought the other day go? Did you give them to someone?”

Jun Nanye ignored the rambling. “What’s Su Wei’s situation now?”

“Oh, right—Doctor Su’s father passed away today,” Tao An said suddenly.

Jun Nanye, halfway through a bite of breakfast, froze. “When? How?”

Tao An rubbed his nose, sounding a little guilty. “We just got the news. Sudden death. They said he couldn’t handle the shock.”

After all, the entire Su family enterprise had collapsed.