I turned reality into a romantic comedy.

"Actually, I've always been knitting, but I've mostly given them to my sister."

When it comes to giving gifts, Chen Junqian doesn't tend to be overly polite or try to please everyone, like knitting six identical scarves for each person. Instead, he's both spontaneous and tactful in his approach to differentiate gifts. So, after hearing Chen Junqian's reply, Lin Mu simply nodded and said "Oh," before continuing to examine her own scarf.

It was a ginger-yellow scarf with fine stitches and solid material. In the winter sun, its color was as warm as freshly baked honey bread, and just looking at it made you feel warm.

"Mumu, don't move yet. Let me tie it for you and see if it looks good."

Due to the significant height difference between the two, Chen Junqian slightly bent his knees and leaned down towards her as he spoke. His tall shadow instantly loomed over her, shielding Lin Mu from the wind blowing in front of her. The girl, who was already used to being dressed up, stood there obediently, looking ahead in a daze. Her gaze passed over Chen Junqian's broad shoulders and met the lowered eyes of her childhood sweetheart. Her small figure was reflected in his dark pupils, making people unconsciously tilt their heads and stare at him for a while.

With his slender fingers holding one end of the scarf, Chen Junqian gently wrapped it around Lin Mu's neck.

One circle, two circles... until the scarf he had knitted himself covered most of Lin Mu's face, leaving only her round eyes and a slightly red nose exposed, he stopped for a moment with satisfaction. Instead of tying it, he went around to Lin Mu's back, gently lifted the long hair that fell over her shoulders and ears, and began to patiently gather the soft strands of hair in his palm. Then, with very light movements, he tucked them little by little into the gap between the scarf and her neck.

As all of Lin Mu's hair was tucked inside the scarf, the back of the scarf, which had been lying flat, bulged slightly with the hair. The fluffy hair wrapped in the ginger-yellow yarn made the back of Lin Mu's head look round and full. Combined with her slightly pouting face due to the pressure of the scarf, she instantly looked like a freshly fermented, warm, fluffy dumpling.

Chen Junqian took a half step back, straightened up, and created some distance. Only then did he look down at his masterpiece. His childhood sweetheart only showed half of her face and a pair of big, wet eyes. The back of her head looked round and soft because her hair was wrapped up, making her look both clumsy and incredibly cute.

Sunlight shone on Lin Mu's fine downy hair, giving her a fluffy golden edge, making Yue Chen Junqian want to pick her up and spin her around a couple of times.

"Is it nice?"

"So cute, what do you think, Mu Mu?"

"It's probably because it's very warm. I'll be wearing this one all winter."

After the girl, wrapped in a scarf and a cotton-padded coat, smiled happily, she immediately began to worry again:

"However, exercising in winter is too troublesome. With so many clothes on, it's inconvenient to jump rope, and my throat easily starts to hurt when I run."

"There's nothing we can do about it. Mu Mu can temporarily reduce the frequency of outdoor exercise and exercise more indoors."

"Hmm, so is this scarf that Qianqian gave me considered a Christmas present?"

Reminded by Lin Mu, Chen Junqian belatedly realized that Christmas was approaching again. It felt like only yesterday that Xu Youwei confessed to him, saying, "I want to be with you from this lifetime to the next." He couldn't believe that even the next lifetime (14) was almost over, and there were less than half a month left until the arrival of 2015.

"You could say that, why?"

"Hmm, that's it. If Qianqian's scarf counts as a Christmas gift, of course I'd like to give him a return gift. After all, I've only ever given him a card before... Should I add something this year?"

"I personally think that greeting cards are fine."

"We will definitely continue to send greeting cards to Qianqian. I mean, not just greeting cards. Is there anything Qianqian particularly wants?"

"Can I have Mumu come and wake me up every morning?"

"Um... well, I can record a lot of voice messages for Qianqian to wake up, one for each day of the week, and that will count as waking Qianqian up too, how about that?"

Hearing Lin Mu mention voice recordings, Chen Junqian also remembered the equipment he had bought last month to record lullabies for Shen Nianqiu. However, before he could say anything, the girl in front of him had already brought it up herself.

“I remember Qianqian bought a lot of this kind of equipment, right here in the company’s recording studio.”

Well, all I can say is that he's a childhood sweetheart and the Crown Princess. Lin Mu doesn't even need to ask about his actions at home or in the company; someone will tell her. However, Lin Mu herself doesn't try to meddle because of this. Otherwise, she wouldn't have just casually mentioned it in her chat with him today.

"Mumu can use it if she wants. It's just sitting there anyway. I bought it to record two trigger sounds for my sister."

Although Lin Mu hasn't asked yet, Chen Junqian brought it up first.

What is a trigger sound?

"It's ASMR, which stands for Spontaneous Sensory Meridian Response. To put it simply, it's like this—"

As he spoke, Chen Junqian suddenly leaned close to Lin Mu's ear and gently blew a breath into her earlobe. She flinched involuntarily, like a little rabbit, before covering her ear and taking two steps back.

Why is Qianqian suddenly so scary?

"Because that's what trigger sounds are like. Blowing is just the most basic one. There are also sounds of knocking, rubbing, combing various objects, or whispering in someone's ear. Some people can fall asleep when they hear these sounds."

"...Won't it get more and more energized the more you listen?

Automatically ignoring the other sounds in Chen Junqian's words, Lin Mu, who had just been suddenly attacked by him, only heard the phrase "whispering in one's ear," so he subconsciously made that comment.

"It depends on the person. Even if it makes you feel more awake, it can be used as a wake-up sound."

After pondering over a mysterious achievement he had made with rapid progress during this period, Chen Junqian felt he didn't have the confidence to refute Lin Mu's criticism. Moreover, ASMR had indeed quickly become the kind of thing that "gets more and more energetic the more you listen" in some places after its birth, and eventually it was wiped out along with the entire online live streaming platform, which can be considered a bumpy road.

Of course, although she said that, Lin Mu still planned to take some time in a couple of days to go to the company's recording studio to record a few voice messages for Chen Junqian to wake up. After all, waking someone up is also a required course in the "childhood sweetheart study". And unlike the time when she was the only one who cared about taking a bath, Chen Junqian's obsession with this matter can be said to have started several years ago. Lin Mu really wanted to fulfill his wish.

With this in mind, on the last weekend before Christmas, Lin Mu also sneaked into the company's recording studio. However, unlike Chen Junqian, who knew how to use the equipment, she was a complete novice and had to call a professional over to teach her how to use it to record an audio clip.

After the woman who was instructing her helped her start the equipment and left, Lin Mu awkwardly climbed onto the ergonomic chair. The chair was adjusted by Chen Junqian, and it was a bit too high for her, so she had to swing her legs like a child.

He carefully picked up the enormous monitoring headphones. The earcups were so big they felt like they could cover half his face. The moment he put them on, the world went silent. Then, Lin Mu pressed the button labeled "Monitor."

boom--

An extremely unfamiliar feeling instantly rushed into my mind.

This wasn't silence; it was reality magnified countless times. She heard the rustling of her clothes against the chair back, as loud as thunder, and she could hear her own slightly rapid breathing echoing in her ears. Most frighteningly, when she accidentally bumped into the corner of the table, a loud thud came through her headphones, startling her so much that she jerked her hand back and her shoulders trembled.

"Is it...that sensitive?"

Lin Mu sat up stiffly, not daring to move. She looked at the gray headset in front of her and suddenly felt as if it had come to life. After a while, she tentatively stretched out a finger and hovered it in the air next to her left ear. Before she even touched it, the sound of her finger cutting through the air created a breeze in her left earphone.

The feeling was so strange—even though it was my own hand moving, it felt like an invisible person was breathing in my ear.

"So, Qianqian used this to record voice messages for Sister Shen before?"

As he thought this, Lin Mu began to try interacting, his movements still awkward and cautious.

The girl extended her index finger and touched the dummy head's cold cheek very slowly.

Hey.

The sound was crisp, but devoid of warmth.

"So hard."

This muttering sound was also faithfully transmitted back through the microphone by the device, sounding as if she were whispering to herself. The shame of talking to herself made Lin Mu blush and subconsciously cover her mouth.

"Be gentle...be gentle..."

The girl silently recited it in her heart.

"Blow...blow..."

She tried to bring her mouth closer, this time to the right fake ear. Because she couldn't get the distance right, the tip of her nose accidentally brushed against the silicone earlobe.

Huff...

A loud scraping sound came from the headphones; it was the sound of breath hitting the microphone.

Startled again, Lin Mu had to readjust his posture, imagining Chen Junqian doing these things. He turned his face slightly to avoid the airflow from the microphone's core area, cleared his throat, and tried to speak as usual:

"Qianqian, wake up!"

This time, she deliberately lowered her voice and even used a breathy tone. Although her breath control was not as steady as Chen Junqian's, and the end of her voice was a little shaky, the sound coming back from her earphones was no longer noise, but a soft whisper with the unique sweetness of a young girl.

That initial awkwardness is slowly fading, replaced by a sense of control.

Lin Mu gradually discovered that as long as the movements were slow enough, the machine would reward him with extremely delicate sound textures, making him unconsciously smile.

Especially after imagining it as Qianqian himself.

Reaching out, Lin Mu gently placed his fingertips on the top of the headset. This time, it wasn't a tentative touch, but rather a rhythmic, gentle scratch, like petting a cat—something Lin Mu had always wanted to do.

rustle……

The sound made her scalp tingle, and she felt so comfortable that she wanted to squint her eyes.

Her previously stiff shoulders relaxed, and Lin Mu stopped worrying about whether her breathy voice was standard. She simply leaned on the table, rested her chin on her arm, and moved closer to the microphone, as if she were whispering in Chen Junqian's ear.

"Hey, Qianqian."

This time, the sound was much more natural, without the tension and deliberate effort from before, only full of affection.

"It's time to wake up."

Lin Mu didn't know when it started, but she also closed her eyes. Of course, she had never tried to wake Chen Junqian up by putting her mouth close to his ear and whispering in his ear, but after experiencing it today... maybe she didn't dislike it. After all, it was a fake ear in front of her, so even if the sound in the earphone was incredibly realistic, it would still be the same.

If only I could actually do what he wanted and wake him up every day. That was exactly what Qianqian thought from the beginning, but he only switched to Xiaoxi after I had no other choice.

Thinking of this, Lin Mu felt a little melancholy, along with a kind of compensatory thought. After all, since there was no way to make her happy in reality these past few years, she could make her happy through this kind of voice. Qianqian must have been thinking the same way when he specially recorded this voice message for Sister Shen.

After diligently recording seven different lines for different times of the week, Lin Mu suddenly remembered a scene from a novel by Zhu Wenyun that he had read before: the male protagonist would gently lean closer to the female protagonist, whose earlobes were blushing with embarrassment…

When Lin Mu came to his senses again, the sound in the earphones was sticky and gooey. It was the sound of water droplets caused by the tip of his tongue rolling over the silicone texture of the fake ear. It was extremely clear and extremely moist. Under the capture of this equipment worth tens of thousands of yuan, this subtle sound of saliva was amplified into a sticky sound full of implications.

The sound was so vivid, full of a liquid texture and an intimate feeling that made one blush. The sound in the headphones seemed to be more than just auditory; it directly transformed into a tactile sensation. Lin Mu even felt his ears getting wet.

She actually licked it just now.

Could it be that she actually had such thoughts about Qianqian's ears?

"……Alas!"

Upon realizing this, Lin Mu instantly sprang away as if he had been electrocuted.

She covered her ear with her headphones on, listening intently as if the wet sound from the headphones was still echoing. She held her breath for a long while before she came to her senses.

I only licked the fake ear; I didn't actually do anything shameful to Qianqian in real life, so there was nothing wrong with it.

Moreover, it's a voice message bar that's meant to wake people up.

This kind of thing should definitely make people feel more and more energized the more they listen...

P.S.: Thank you for reading and subscribing.

Chapter 32: Then Brother, why don't you sleep a little longer? (Part 2)

It turns out that getting up in winter and getting up in summer are completely different things. Unlike the latter, where you can simply get out of bed and declare that you're awake, getting up in winter is often a very tedious task, such as putting on all those heavy clothes on your bedside table.

However, Chen Xi herself had already gotten used to this season, or rather, winter was better for her than summer. The bulky clothes and heavy bedding not only gave her a reason to convince herself to get closer to Chen Junqian, but also made her unconsciously recall and even crave the warmth and comfort they provided, just like the reunion and trivial moments she would spend with him every winter when she was a child.

So much so that even at this time when winter vacation is no longer exclusively her time, Chen Xi still has a preconceived fondness for the winter season.

However, this good mood ended a little too early today.

Chen Junqian's sleeping posture was always very still, especially in winter. With a thick quilt covering him, it was difficult to move around even if he wanted to. Therefore, all Chen Xi could see was most of his face. Chen Xi walked to the bedside and reached out, wanting to poke the other's nose from a distance as before, but the movement quickly stopped in mid-air.

The younger sister's gaze was focused on Chen Junqian's right ear, which was sticking out from under the covers. Unlike usual, today her brother had a black in-ear noise-canceling earphone tightly plugged into his ear. Following the earphone wire, the wire meandered past the pillow and finally connected to the phone on the bedside table. It wasn't the Apple model that Chen Junqian used for work, but the one that Zhu Wenyun had given him a long time ago. Although the screen was black, the program was obviously still running in the background.

"Sleeping with headphones on... Did you fall asleep on the phone with Zhu Wenyun last night? Or did you two agree to stay up on the phone together like this until you fell asleep?"

Chen Xi frowned subconsciously and quickly came to this thought. She knew that Zhu Wenyun would call her brother every night, so she immediately suspected the other party.

Out of curiosity, and also to wake up Chen Junqian in front of her, Chen Xi reached out her fingers, gently pinched one corner of the earphone, and then pulled it outward with a little force.

With a soft 'pop', the silicone earplug came out of the ear canal.