Saturday.
The glaring sunlight shone through the gauze curtains into the room, directly onto Xu Qingfan's face.
The thick comforter had been kicked to the floor at some unknown time.
In bed, Xu Qingfan slept splayed out in all directions until the sunlight became too much to bear, and he struggled to open his eyes.
After a tiresome yawn, he grabbed the alarm clock from the bedside, it was exactly nine in the morning, early still!
Xu Qingfan unconsciously let go of the alarm clock he was holding and went back to sleep.
Yao Jiping returned from the market and habitually opened the door to Xu Qingfan's bedroom. Seeing the blanket that had been kicked to the floor and her son still sleeping, she felt an inexplicable anger and yelled in Cantonese:
"Lazy boy, it's past eleven o'clock, and you're still in bed? It would have been better to birth a piece of char siu than you!"
Xu Qingfan was startled awake in a sleepy daze, the bedroom door wide open, Yao Jiping already gone.
