PD Chapter 22: Wake-Up Call

Wen Xunchuan reached out from under the covers to turn off the alarm, yawned sleepily as he got up from bed, and shuffled into the bathroom in his slippers.

After he finished washing up and came out of the bathroom, he absentmindedly glanced toward the window. When he saw the figure sleeping by the window, he froze for a moment, then remembered—it was the “dog sitter” he had hired last night.

He looked up at the wall clock. It was 7:20.

There were only forty minutes left until the scheduled dog-walking time, and there they were, man and dog, squeezed onto a small tatami mat, face-to-face, sleeping soundly.

Wen Xunchuan walked over, lifted a hand, and gave Chun Mei a gentle tap on the forehead. Chun Mei squinted at him with one eye, then closed it again, tucking her head back into He Linzhou’s neck.

He Linzhou leaned his head over and nuzzled her fur, showing no sign of waking up.

Wen Xunchuan raised his hand and tapped He Linzhou’s head, calling, “Hey.”

He Linzhou frowned slightly, impatiently brushing Wen Xunchuan’s hand away, muttering with his eyes closed, “Shush, don’t bother me.”

“He Linzhou.” Wen Xunchuan held back his irritation and called again.

He Linzhou didn’t respond, but Chun Mei, annoyed by the noise, drooped her ears and chose to ignore the wake-up call.

Seeing that trying to wake up these two slackers—man and dog—was a waste of time, Wen Xunchuan turned and went into his bedroom to change clothes. He was mulling over whether he should yank the covers off them when he returned, or, to be gentle, splash a bit of cold water to get the message across.

Once he was dressed and about to go back to forcibly wake them up, he glanced at the person on the bed and paused, then grabbed his keys and headed out.

The loud, upbeat song blared three times before finally dragging He Linzhou out of his blissful dream. The protagonist of his dream had transformed into the face of Yan Xiaoliu. Unable to bear it any longer, he sat up, covering his ears, and howled at the dog below the bed who was enthusiastically howling along with the music. He stumbled around the living room, circling the two floor-standing speakers but couldn’t figure out how to turn off the music. Finally, in frustration, he picked up the landline and called Wen Xunchuan.

As soon as the call connected, Wen Xunchuan’s voice came through, sounding amused, almost gloating: “Yo, had a good sleep?”

Covering one ear and frowning, He Linzhou shouted, “Screw you, Wen Xunchuan! How do I turn this thing off? I can’t find the switch, damn it!”

Standing behind a privacy screen in the clinic, Wen Xunchuan put on his white coat and replied over the speakerphone, “Oh, only I can turn it off with my phone.”

With the dog’s howls harmonizing with the repetitive theme song, He Linzhou was nearly driven mad. Frustrated, he shouted into the phone, “Hurry up and turn it off!”

Wen Xunchuan, unhurriedly dressed, opened an app on his phone and remotely stopped the music. A long sigh of relief echoed from the other end of the line.

Collapsing onto the sofa, He Linzhou cursed weakly, “Wen Xunchuan, I swear, you’re seriously sick.”

“Mm-hmm.” Wen Xunchuan, in a great mood, accepted the “compliment” with a smile. Glancing at his watch, he told He Linzhou, “It’s 8:20.”

He Linzhou had clearly forgotten the arrangement from last night. “Oh, so what?”

Wen Xunchuan didn’t respond, pulling a disinfectant wipe from the drawer to clean the examination table, giving He Linzhou time to piece it together on his own.

“Hey? Why aren’t you saying anything? Cat got your tongue?” He Linzhou, growing impatient, grumbled, “Damn it, if you’re done talking, hang up! Psycho!”

And with that, he hung up the phone.

After about thirty seconds, Wen Xunchuan’s phone rang again.

Through gritted teeth, He Linzhou called out, “Wen Xunchuan!”

“Hmm?” Wen Xunchuan listened, unable to help himself from humming along in his head to the song still playing on the other end: “Come on, bring a pot of good wine! Tell of the years gone by! Rarely do we find such friends, clever yet foolish, loves and longings, a tug on the heart…”

“Turn off the music! I’m going deaf here!”

After humming along to the last verse in his head, Wen Xunchuan finally switched to the music app and reluctantly turned it off.

After the change in music, he spoke up, “I suggest you take a moment to think about if there’s something you’re supposed to…”

Before he could finish, He Linzhou, annoyed, cut him off, “All I did was use your bathtub! Do you have to be so petty?”

Wen Xunchuan’s previously amused expression turned stern, his tone deep as he repeated, “The bathtub?”

Thinking back to last night, He Linzhou finally remembered. “Oh, right! Walking the dog. You could have just said it outright, instead of dragging it out. So annoying! I’m going now, bye.”

Not giving Wen Xunchuan a chance to retort, he hung up again.

Thirty seconds later, Wen Xunchuan’s phone rang once more.

This time, Wen Xunchuan purposefully counted to ten in his head before picking up. With a lazy tone, he answered, “Hello?”

On the other end, He Linzhou took a deep breath, his lowered voice barely containing his frustration, “Brother Chuan, I was wrong. Please turn off the music? I’ll go clean the bathtub right away.”

This time, Wen Xunchuan promptly turned off the music.

However, He Linzhou, still on edge, asked cautiously, “Are you sure it won’t turn on again, please? …Why are you laughing?”

“Laughing at how dumb you are,” Wen Xunchuan replied.

He found his assessment of He Linzhou more accurate than ever. It was as if the guy wore a label across his forehead that read “Useless.” And to top it off, he was the kind of “useless” who couldn’t find the speaker switch or think to pull the plug.

He Linzhou frowned, dissatisfied, just about to retort when Wen Xunchuan spoke again.

“By the way, I’m adding another term to our agreement.”

“Another one?”

“Mm-hmm.” Wen Xunchuan rubbed his temples, trying to erase the image from this morning that kept creeping back into his mind. Yet the picture only grew more vivid—

The morning light filtered through the white linen curtains, spilling across He Linzhou’s taut, bronzed skin. His sharp-profiled face lay nestled in the long fur of the dog’s back. The blanket had half slipped to the floor, with just one corner barely covering his waist, revealing defined abdominal muscles and a smooth, flat lower belly, partly concealed under the blanket…

“Add what?”

He Linzhou’s disgruntled voice snapped him back to the present. Feeling oddly flustered, Wen Xunchuan cleared his throat and said, “No sleeping naked.”

“…I didn’t have a change of clothes,” He Linzhou replied, glancing down at his boxers, thinking, I’m not even naked?

Wen Xunchuan sighed. “Check my wardrobe; take whatever fits.”

“Oh.”

“Alright, hanging up. Don’t forget to walk the dog.”

Just as Wen Xunchuan was about to hang up, He Linzhou called out, “Hey, wait!”

“What now?”

He Linzhou chuckled cheekily. “Did you sneak a peek at me while I was sleeping?”

“…You’re insane.”

After hanging up, He Linzhou got up from the sofa and strolled toward Wen Xunchuan’s bedroom, speaking to Chun Mei beside him, “You think your daddy’s kinda cute? Wanted me to go into his room but had to make me jump through all these hoops.”

Standing before Wen Xunchuan’s full-length mirror, he admired the solid abs he had worked hard to sculpt. Clicking his tongue, he opened Wen Xunchuan’s wardrobe and grabbed a loose sweater and a pair of casual pants, patting Chun Mei on the head, “Be good. In a few days, you’ll have to start sleeping alone. You’re grown up now; it’s time you learned to sleep on your own.”

Chun Mei looked up at him, her big, round eyes sparkling. “Woof!”