Li Yu wakes with a start.
He pants, panicked, and leaps right out of bed. He isn't thinking and he has no idea how he got into the room he occupies. He has no idea whose bed on which he rests. The room is spacious, candle-lit with incense wafting in the air. If he had the mind to glance at the time indicated on the incense stick then he would have known the hour.
It's already late into the night.
But Li Yu is mindless and scrambles to his feet. Did he complete those twenty laps? He cannot remember. He has to show for his lashes. If he refuses punishment then what's to come after will only be worse.
However, his body locks, muscles too sore to even move. It causes him to make an awkward step, legs giving out under him like those of a newborn lamb.
Embarrassingly, he falls.
Even worse, something scuttles across the room, fabric fluttering. A pair of arms catch him before he can hit the ground.
