The Dawn of University Slumber

An ancient poem once declared, “Spring slumber knows no dawn.”

In truth, this adage has long been outdated. The common saying about spring drowsiness, autumn fatigue, summer naps, and the inability to wake during winter’s coldest days—it all fades once you enter university.

As a perpetual night owl, burning the midnight oil, one could easily sleep through any season’s dawn.

Yawning rather ungracefully, I trailed helplessly behind Senior Sister Xiao Ru. She led the way, storming through halls and rooms until we arrived downstairs at the male dormitory building, 322.

Without a word, she strode inside.

The gatekeeper, witnessing her formidable presence, merely peeked timidly from his guard room. He then quickly retreated, not daring to utter a single sound, let alone stop her to demand registration or student IDs.

Every time I witnessed this scene, a surge of irritation would well up within me. Had I not been with Senior Sister Xiao Ru, that old man—a master of bullying the weak and discerning power—would undoubtedly have put me through the entire tedious process of signing in and showing my student ID.

We ascended to the third floor, turning at the corridor to reach room 322, situated near the hallway window. Senior Sister Xiao Ru spun around, facing the door, one hand on her hip, the other pounding the door panel with earth-shattering force.

“Wake up, wake up! Everyone up! Guo kid, are you planning to skip ‘The Art of Dragon-Subduing Palms’ again? Only five people chose this course. Old Man Hong doesn’t even need to call roll to know who’s here and who isn’t. Last time, only I and Yelü Qing showed up!

I’m warning you, the old man declared today that anyone absent will have twenty points deducted from their final grade! Yang kid’s ‘Introduction to Toad Skill’ is also the first two periods, isn’t it? Get up, everyone! If we’re any later, I won’t be able to buy the black rice porridge from the first cafeteria!” As she hammered the door, she rambled on, her incessant chatter making even me, standing behind her, feel sleepy.

If I was feeling this way, one could only imagine the state of the three brothers inside.

Once Senior Sister Xiao Ru finally grew tired of knocking and stood aside to catch her breath, I, bored, pressed my ear to the dorm door, listening for any movement within.

“Murong Fan, take this!”

That was Big Brother Guo, talking in his sleep. It seemed he was once again battling that Murong fellow in his dreams.

“[Unintelligible name], don’t…”

This was Yang Laoer. I used ‘[Unintelligible name]’ because I couldn’t discern which of the twenty-three girls’ names he was mumbling. Of course, from a developmental perspective, we couldn’t rule out the possibility of a twenty-fourth girl either.

“Fourth Brother…”

‘Hmm, this is… What the heck, Linghu Ruoxu, you can sleep, but why are you calling me in your dreams? It makes it sound like we have some illicit relationship…’

“Dongfang, are they awake? Did you hear anything?” Senior Sister Xiao Ru seemed to have recovered her energy, asking me this.

“Ah… it seems, it seems they’re still asleep…” I replied truthfully, feeling a little embarrassed from being called out by Linghu Ruoxu in his dream just now.

“These little rascals, they’re sleeping like the dead! Dongfang, step aside, let me keep knocking!” Senior Sister Xiao Ru fumed, rolling up her sleeves, ready to resume her assault.

No sooner had she spoken than Big Brother Guo’s dream talk suddenly took a turn.

“Senior Sister Xiao Ru… thank you for saving me… you… you really are… a good person… yes, a very, very good girl…”

If my memory served me right, that last phrase was their Guo family’s famous line for flirting. It was said that his ancestor, Great Hero Guo Jing, used precisely that line to win over the daughter of the Eastern Heretic’s Peach Blossom Island Department Head!

However, the middle part of Big Brother Guo’s words, likely the phrase “…a good person…”, seemed to have been heard by the groggy Yang Laoer. If my guess was correct, this phrase was practically a nightmare for Yang Laoer.

Immediately, there was a loud crash from inside the dorm, shaking the floor. The sound made the back of my head ache, and then I faintly heard Yang Laoer’s dazed words: “[Unintelligible name], no, don’t leave me!”

****

Fortunately, Big Brother and Linghu Ruoxu were instantly startled awake by the commotion. They promptly opened the dorm door, and everyone scrambled to help Yang Laoer, who had been dragging himself across the floor in his dream, trying to hold onto the ‘unintelligible name’, and had subsequently fallen out of bed.

Some rushed to channel true qi to him, others applied bandages. Luckily, this fellow’s habitually lewd and despicable behavior meant that injuries from being beaten for his ‘wandering hands’ were commonplace. He had also developed a body of steel bones and a head and backside of copper, which thankfully prevented this accident from becoming fatal.

Despite this, such an early start was practically a death sentence for us four “special needs students” who stayed up all night playing games and reading novels. Thus, after the first two classes ended and the four of us reunited, we moved to the lecture hall in the first teaching building for the university-wide compulsory freshman course, ‘Principles of Serving the Nation and People’.

Looking across the row, all four of us were sprawled on our desks, fast asleep, especially Big Brother Guo, who was even softly snoring. This scene of utter decadence was witnessed by the substitute lecturer, an old bald monk from the Shaolin National Laboratory, who gnashed his teeth in frustration.

According to a classmate who attended the same lecture: “Judging by that old bald monk’s expression, if not for the Shaolin disciples’ dietary restrictions against meat, he probably would have devoured you four publicly sleeping rascals alive!”

Nevertheless, despite his immense anger, the Shaolin master found it difficult to interrupt such a large lecture, with hundreds of students present, solely to reprimand us four for sleeping. This allowed us to slip through unnoticed and safely catch up on our sleep.

These days of hardship, with insufficient sleep, had continued ever since these three troublemakers were discharged from the hospital. The reason, it seemed, was that Senior Sister Xiao Ru had, uninvited, inserted herself into the daily lives of room 322 in building 322.

Every morning, she would knock on the door to wake them up, catch them when they were late or skipped class, and even offer pointers on their martial arts. Their once lazy and carefree university life had, against all odds, begun to feel like the intense final year of high school.

Fortunately, due to the distinction between genders, no matter how strict Senior Sister Xiao Ru was during the day, she could not interfere with their nightlife. Furthermore, she held various positions in the Five Absolutes Academy’s student council, making her incredibly busy with official duties. It was typically during the evenings, when there were no classes and it was suitable for meetings and discussions, that we four, who had toiled for eighteen years only to return to the pre-college grind, finally found a bit of respite. It was truly a blessing from the heavens, Amitābha!

****

As for the nature of my relationship with the three brothers of room 322, Senior Sister Xiao Ru had, of course, questioned me in detail after the hospital incident. However, by then, I had already prepared my excuse and managed to deflect her inquiries.