Chapter 181: Hibernation

After entering December, Sike Academy was about to welcome the final exams that symbolized "liberation." Many courses had entered the review stage; the elective courses of shooting and fencing would hold their final assessments on Wednesday. The shooting course had AR virtual technology provided by the Academy, which could simulate a gunfight scene, while fencing seemed relatively simpler, consisting of two rounds of PK.

As Ling Wu's deskmate, Chu Yi also discovered that with the arrival of winter, Ling Wu was like a small animal entering hibernation, with the time he spent sleeping in class growing longer and longer, his waking hours short, and the scent of citrus that accompanied him growing heavier.

The whole person was as if he had been soaked in citrus water and then fished out.

Had Ling Wu been smoking a lot?

Was he in a bad mood recently?

Chu Yi analyzed it all carefully, but Ling Wu was a cautious hunter who would not let his prey detect even the slightest bit of his thoughts.

The subject teachers knew Ling Wu slept in class, but they never said anything to him; after all, if you could get first place every time, then you too could enjoy the privilege of sleeping in class.

Someone had opened the window in Class A, and the whistling cold wind rushed in, blowing the pages of books and making the tips of noses turn slightly red.

Seeing Ling Wu move, Chu Yi walked over and closed the window.

When Chu Yi returned, he saw Ling Wu sitting up, propping his chin with his hand and looking out the window, his body slightly turned to the side; he was very quiet, and the fluffy hair on his right side was pressed flat, which neutralized the coldness about him very well, making him look quite casual.

Chu Yi couldn't help but ask: "Ling Wu, is your Chinese zodiac sign the snake?"

"No." Ling Wu didn't catch the teasing tone in his words and answered earnestly: "My sign is the sheep."

Chu Yi smoothed down his upright hair and said just as earnestly: "I wanted to ask, why do you always sleep when winter comes? Is it insomnia at night?"

"You were like this since the summer, and it's getting more and more serious lately, plus the increasingly heavy citrus scent on you..."

He looked at Ling Wu for a long while; the other's eyes were focused and bright, seemingly listening to him very seriously.

All of Chu Yi's thousands of words converged into one concerned sentence: "Smoking often is bad for your health."

Smoke a little less.

Ling Wu said: "I know."

He lowered his head, the light in his eyes dimming for a moment; the doors and windows were tightly shut, yet he still felt the bone-chilling cold wind drilling into his bone marrow, shivering from the cold; he would stop smoking soon... very soon.

Ming Tan had returned to Sike Academy to attend school; after class, the three of them went to the cafeteria together, the two of them acting like bodyguards as they flanked Ling Wu, each carrying things for him; the winter sunlight spilled down, but the brilliance of youth had only briefly descended after the age of 20.

Ling Wu was supposed to live in the Academy's apartment, but he was forcibly called back by a phone call from Xi Huaizhi.

As soon as he entered the door, he saw the psychologist sitting on the sofa; Dr. Li was his attending physician in the Federation, and Ling Wu hadn't expected Xi Huaizhi to go to such great lengths to call him over.

"Dr. Li."

Dr. Li nodded at him: "Director, it has been a long time; you have grown thin again."

"Ah Wu is back." Xi Huaizhi ran down from upstairs with a clatter, pressed Ling Wu down onto the sofa to sit, and said: "You, Li, hurry up and examine him! You don't know, but he finished a six-month supply of medicine in just two months."

Dr. Li considered Ling Wu the most difficult patient he had ever dealt with; he had studied psychology and could skillfully avoid many questions, speaking in one set of arguments after another; if you weren't careful, you would step right into his trap, and he would even ask you a few professional questions in return, so trying to get a straight answer out of him was like fighting a war...

Well, even harder than that.

But the expected obstacles did not occur; Ling Wu called Dr. Li into a separate room, the two talked for a long time, and finally, he got straight to the point: "My condition hasn't been good lately; I have severe insomnia and have started to experience hallucinations."

"Prescribe me three months of strong medication, and don't tell anyone. Dr. Li, don't be in such a hurry to refuse; compared to Xi Huaizhi and my senior brother, you know better than anyone that the person you truly cannot afford to offend right now is me."

Dr. Li swallowed hard: "Director, don't be in such a hurry to threaten me; in your situation, you should immediately return to the Federation for secondary memory hypnosis."

Ling Wu: "Is avoidance useful?"

"Dr. Li, do as I say."

Dr. Li opened his lips as if to say something, but was interrupted by the ringing of Ling Wu's phone; he felt his heart crawl with fear under that gaze and could only nod in agreement.

Ling Wu went out to answer a call.

"Beep—"

Pei Ziying's voice came from across the ocean, steady and with a hint of natural authority: "I heard Dr. Li was invited over by your people?"

Ling Wu: "Yes."

Pei Ziying clearly knew his physical condition; the all-powerful Chairman on the other end of the line seemed to sigh low, his voice somewhat calm, yet one could inexplicably hear the heartache: "Junior brother, come back to the Federation. The Intelligence Bureau reported to me what you did in the Empire; what you want to do is too dangerous."

"You are provoking the authority of the Empire."

Ling Wu buried his face in his scarf, denied his words, and stubbornly insisted: "Senior brother, it is they who are provoking my character and trampling on my dignity."