83 Plans for Tomorrow

That night, Xiao Ying told Ming Cheng of what he was planning to do.

Lan Chang lay there, completely dead to the world as she clutched the blankets around Ming Cheng tight to her chest, with Ming Cheng looking outwards to where Xiao Ying was stood, leaning against the door.

The soft sighs of shallow breathing came from Lan Chang as she nuzzled closer to the blankets where Xiao Ying could only presume was warmer.

He had no sense of temperature to verify if it was true or not.

He could no longer sleep to feel whether it was true or not.

Ming Cheng's eyes were wide despite the long day of work that he had gone through, the ever present and overflowing energy of his youth still there, keeping him going through his new circumstances of living and life.

To Xiao Ying's statement and reasoning of," I'll be there to gather more information on the other officials of the palace for you,", Ming Cheng had only nodded without commenting at all.

He kept on looking at Xiao Ying even as the one sided conversation had died down and Ming Cheng looked increasingly more and more tired, more and more sleepy.

Xiao Ying envied him.

He really did.

A slow itching and niggling in the corner of his mind, carving itself a path out in his brain, had begun to take hold, and Xiao Ying wondered whether he would be permitted to die again, just like he had previously done back when he had been in that room, looking at his world from behind the screen that divorced him from the reality of being here.

The isolation had been a special hell of its own, the madness of it gripping and nothing like Xiao Ying had only ever experienced.

He had cried.

He couldn't honestly remember the last time that he had cried.

He remember crying when he had been younger, but, at the same time, now, it almost felt as if he had been looking upon somebody else completely different and not at all representative of who he was now, who he had become.

It was better to forget the world that he had come from.

He was never particularly close to his mother, his father even less.

His neighbours that he had moved away from were the most tangible connection to his community, and, well, he had moved away from them, removing himself from their lives.

They were all old anyway, and they had probably forgotten about him anyway.

He knew that he was forgettable, and that was maybe that was another reason explaining why his novel hadn't succeeded, even after he had put in so much time.

"Are you alright, Ming Cheng?" Xiao Ying decided to ask, not at all bridging the distance between them.

Ming Cheng, predictably, just blinked and did nothing else.

The boy was really tired and did need his sleep.

"If anything bad happens, tell me, and I'll help you as best I can."