Liuxian lay still for another long moment, staring at the ceiling, letting the ache in his back settle into something he could ignore well enough to function.
Getting up meant facing the day properly, and he wasn't ready for that yet, not with Guiying's door closed just a few feet away and no idea what waited behind it now that morning had actually arrived. He pushed himself upright anyway, wincing at the pull along his spine, and reached for his phone on the side table.
Six missed notifications waited on the screen, most of them work, one from Zhang Wei flagged urgent. He scrolled past all of them first, needing a moment before he let the day's actual demands back into his head.
