Amateur talent show? Top mentors are my students.

He Xu's statement, "What's there to be afraid of?" was so confident that he was taught a harsh lesson by reality that very night.

The first thing that comes to mind is the time difference.

He woke up around six o'clock in the evening.

To be precise, he was awakened by thirst.

As the evening sun streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows of Los Angeles, it bathed the entire room in a warm amber hue.

He Xu squinted and reached for the water glass on the bedside table. He poured half a glass of cold water, then sat against the headboard for about two minutes before realizing something—

His body is in a state of disrepair.

My head feels foggy, like a sponge that's been soaking in warm water for too long.

Every nerve in my body is telling me to "sleep a little longer," but the outside world doesn't hesitate to tell me it's about time to wake up.

The commands to wake up and sleep were fighting inside his body, making his temples throb.

He almost knelt on the ground when he got out of bed.

dizziness.

The edges of his vision seemed to have been blurred by software. He stood against the wall for ten seconds before he regained his balance.

"……Hold."

Damn time difference.

He Xu stood against the wall for about two minutes until the dizzying sensation finally subsided before slowly letting go.

A vague, indescribable discomfort churned in my stomach. It wasn't painful, but it felt dull and heavy, like something was stuck inside.

He looked down at his wrinkled T-shirt, then at the deep orange sky outside the window, and decided to go downstairs to get some water.

The second-floor corridor is paved with light-colored wooden flooring, which has a slight springy feel when you step on it.

The light in the living room was a bit dimmer than upstairs.

The sky outside the floor-to-ceiling windows was transitioning from orange to grayish-blue, and the lights by the pool had not yet been turned on. The whole house was shrouded in a quiet, half-lit twilight.

He Xu found the water dispenser in the kitchen.

He turned on the tap, poured himself a glass of warm water, leaned against the counter, slowly drank it, and then stood there, staring blankly at the gradually darkening sky outside the window.

The dull feeling in my stomach hasn't gone away yet.

He reached out and pressed his upper abdomen, trying to relieve the bloating with the warmth of his palm, but the effect was not obvious.

Just as he was considering whether to rummage through the refrigerator for something to eat, he heard footsteps behind him.

He Xu turned his head away.

Marco stood in the kitchen doorway, wearing a light blue shirt that was perfectly pressed without a single wrinkle.

He was holding a neatly folded white rag and looking at him with concern.

"Mr. He, are you alright? You look a bit pale."

He Xu understood.

He took about two seconds to react, then mentally reviewed the English sentence to make sure he hadn't misunderstood before slowly saying, "...I'm okay. Just...jet lag."

After he finished speaking, he cursed himself in his heart.

When the word "jet lag" came out of his mouth, the syllables sounded as if they had been chewed up before being spat out, so stiff that even he felt embarrassed.

Marco's expression didn't change, but he took a step forward, his gaze falling on He Xu's hand pressed against his stomach: "You have a stomachache?"

He Xu glanced down at his hands, then put them down: "...A little. Maybe...food?"

This was the longest English sentence he could come up with.

Marco nodded, turned and walked into the kitchen, opening the refrigerator door.

He heard him rummage around inside for a while, then bring out a food storage container containing several sliced ​​sandwiches.

The classic combination of ham, lettuce, and cheese looks refreshing and clean.

Here, have some. It's light.

As He Xu took it, Marco added, "There's ginger tea too, if your stomach's still upset."

He Xu understood "ginger tea" and "stomach".

He paused for a second, then nodded: "...Thanks."

Marco smiled and turned to boil water.

The sandwich was indeed very bland.

He Xu sat on the sofa in the living room and finished eating two sandwiches while looking out at the completely dark sky.

Marco promptly brought over a steaming cup of ginger tea, placed it on the coffee table in front of him, and then quietly retreated back to the kitchen.

He Xu picked up the cup of tea and took a sip.

The spiciness of the ginger slid down my throat, and the bloating in my stomach subsided a little.

He leaned back on the sofa, staring at the outline of the mountains swallowed by the night outside the floor-to-ceiling window.

My phone vibrated in my pocket.

He pulled it out and glanced at it—a message from Jiang Yanbai: "Awake?"

"Um."

"Have you got a meal yet?"

"sandwich."

"Was it made by Marco?"

"Um."

"That's fine then. I'm still busy here, you should rest first."

He Xu replied with an "okay" and put his phone back in his pocket.

On the first night, He Xu thought the fastest way to get over jet lag was to tough it out until late at night before going to sleep.

But as it turns out, the human biological clock is much more stubborn than willpower.

At 10 p.m., he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, his mind as clear as if he had just drunk three cups of espresso.

At one o'clock in the morning, he turned over for the seventeenth time, rolled the blanket into a ball and then unfolded it again, and changed the angle of the pillow three times, finally realizing that none of the angles were right.

He gave up at three in the morning.

He went downstairs, poured himself a glass of water, and stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window in the living room, looking at the swimming pool in the backyard, which was illuminated by the moonlight and turned into a silvery-white mirror.

The distant mountain range was reduced to a blurry shadow in the night, silently stretching across the edge of the horizon.

"Tsk." He Xu, holding his water glass, looked at his reflection in the windowpane and said, "...You were supposed to be a good sleeper, weren't you?"

The reflection did not answer.

He paced around the living room twice, then sat back on the sofa, picked up his phone and glanced at it—it was 7 p.m. in China, and there were already dozens of messages in the group chat.

In NOVA's group chat, Li Bufan posted a selfie of himself sprawled on the floor after training, with the caption, "After Brother He Xu left, the training intensity didn't drop at all (crying)."

Yang Sheng replied below, "You didn't do that wave properly again yesterday."

Jiang Yang sent a crying cat emoji.

He Xu looked at the messages, a slight smile curving his lips, but he didn't reply.

He put his phone on the coffee table, sat for a while, and then went upstairs to his room.

He finally fell asleep at five in the morning.

Then at seven in the morning, he was awakened by the California sunlight streaming through the gaps in the curtains.

The moment I woke up, it felt like someone was hitting my temples from the inside out with a hammer. My head was dizzy, and my limbs felt like they were filled with lead.

He glanced at his phone, then buried his face back in the pillow, trying to fall back asleep.

But the sunlight was too bright; it was so bright that he could feel the warm white light shimmering even through his eyelids.

He Xu turned over, pulled the blanket over his head, and curled up into a ball.

"Grass……"

He lay there in that position for about ten minutes, then lifted the blanket and sat up, feeling as if the whole world was swaying slightly at some unstable frequency.

He sat on the edge of the bed for about half a minute to recover, then stood up and walked towards the bathroom, supporting himself against the wall.

While washing up, he stared at his face in the mirror for several seconds—a faint bluish-black ring under his eyes, a slightly dry lip, and he looked as if something had hollowed him out.

"...Jet lag, fuck your jet lag." He muttered to himself in front of the mirror, then splashed cold water on his face.