Mommy's good boy, mommy's little hound.

The scene before him was entirely blurred. Where on earth was this? Xiaoming rubbed his eyes, discovering that everything around him was utterly illusory and ethereal. Yet, he did not dwell on it too much. What am I doing? A massive question mark blanketed his chaotic mind.

"Gouer, look at the ball!" Someone shouted, and a familiar figure appeared directly in front of him.

Ah, it was Xiaoguang. He still remembered his childhood nickname.

"Kick it over, don't just stand there like a fool, pass the ball over right now!"

Xiaoming looked at the ball at his feet. Despite feeling rather drowsy, he still mustered all his strength. Just as his right foot was struggling to make contact with the football,

driven by some unknown resistance, Xiaoming woke up...

Xiaoming's mindset had also gradually shifted from initial curiosity and excitement to a touch of hesitation, bewilderment, and unease.

Soaked in sweat, he instinctively blurted out, "Mom, I'm sweating." No one answered. Xiaoming grew a bit anxious. Just as he was about to shout louder, his mother had already walked to the head of his bed holding a dry towel. Taking advantage of the gap while Xiaoming undressed to wipe away the sweat, she retrieved a fresh set of clothes to change into, and then, taking Xiaoming's sweat-drenched garments, she silently walked out of his bedroom once again. She left without a single word or a glance, departing entirely quietly.

Xiaoming changed into fresh underwear, lay back down, and with thoughts of his impending marriage on his mind, drifted off to sleep once more before he knew it.

"Gouer, let's go to the bathhouse together!" It was that same familiar voice of Xiaoguang.

Behind him stood a group of people, all teammates from the same football team.

Xiaoming smiled. "I won't go. I can wash up at home."

"Then we're heading off first."

Just as Xiaoming turned around to walk home, he heard a wave of giggling and laughter. "So old and still bathing with his mom..."

"Seems he thinks public bathhouses aren't hygienic. His mom is so particular."

"Yeah, he even saves money on back-scrubbing and massages."

...Haha, another burst of laughter drifted over.

Xiaoming ignored them, though he truly felt extremely annoyed inside...

Still, he pretended not to hear and walked home on his own.

Another dream, and another cold sweat-soaked body.

Xiaoming went online to search for the causes of night sweats. The netizens' replies were quite colorful and diverse.

Scrolling further down, all sorts of theories and overwhelming explanations appeared before him, as if he were facing a multiple-choice question where every single option seemed equally persuasive.

Xiaoming closed his phone in disappointment.

Covered in sweat, his subconscious impulse was to call out for his mom again. But remembering that he was about to get married, he wondered if doing so would be inappropriate. He tried to muster up the courage to fetch a change of underwear himself, but in the south, the biting winter cold pierced like ice picks, shattering any courage he had to stretch his hands out from beneath the covers.

Xiaoming lay in bed in agony, enveloped by damp sweat. The few times he felt the urge to get out of bed, he was thwarted by the environmental factors. To call it sheer cowardice might not be entirely accurate, but let's just make do with that term for now.

Would he remain exactly the same even after marriage? Would his fiancée, Xiaozhi, look down on him for lacking a shred of masculinity? *Sigh, I'll change after getting married!* But would he be able to overcome it after marriage? Previously, his mother had bustled about taking care of all his daily needs—food, clothing, housing, and travel—right up until he met Xiaozhi during his very last blind date.

Although their conversations were barely satisfactory, their ages no longer permitted them to be overly picky!

Marrying and having children quickly—this was the final timeline for people in their thirties like Xiaoming and Xiaozhi to complete their tasks.

Even though Xiaoming did not know who had set these rules, he would still obey his mother's words.

He had no idea how long he wrestled with these thoughts before the sweat on his body was basically dried by his own body heat. Gradually, Xiaoming drifted off to sleep once more.

This time, the dream seemed much clearer, yet Xiaoming's consciousness remained confined to the dream's setting—a loser youth in his final year of senior high school.

Xiaoming's first love had occurred during his senior year. Back then, the college entrance examination was fast approaching with only a few months left—a crucial sprint for every senior student. Yet Xiaoming, whose grades had always been quite good, inexplicably fell for a junior girl in the grade below, who happened to be a classmate of his younger sister.

Whenever Xiaoming looked back on that past, his heart was still filled with regret. He had encountered that first love purely by chance when he went to his sister's school to borrow a book. It was during the evening self-study session, and Xiaoming was hiding in a corner diagonally across from his sister's classroom, sending several text messages that received no reply at all. Agitated and restless, and having confirmed that there were no teachers in the classroom, Xiaoming helplessly dialed his sister's mobile phone.

Just as he was nervously and anxiously waiting for the call to connect, a beautiful girl tapped him on the shoulder and smiled at him. Xiaoming froze on the spot; the girl before him was simply too breathtaking. With every blink and smile, a hundred charms bloomed.

"I'm looking at Xiaoxiao. Are you her classmate?" Xiaoming tried his best to appear composed.

"Oh, you knew already?!" Xiaoming's mouth twitched unnaturally. "Thank you!"

For a considerable length of time afterward, that girl's every frown and smile kept surfacing in Xiaoming's mind, bordering on obsession.

However, when he learned that numerous suitors had become his competitors, Xiaoming fell into despair. Right up until graduation, he never even learned her name. Coupled with his unsatisfactory performance in the college entrance exam, Xiaoming suffered a double defeat in both love and tests. Thus, this brief, unrequited crush drew to a close.

Xiaoming woke up once again, though he could no longer clearly distinguish whether the recent experience was a memory or a dream. He only knew that his entire body was once again engulfed in sweat.

Whether dream or memory, Xiaoming was tormented in agony.

His mother was startled for a moment, and then, with practiced ease, she helped Xiaoming change into fresh underwear once more.

"Silly child, you're a grown adult now, how can you be so willful?" "Come, lie down on the bed, Mom will talk some sense into you..."

Cuddled against his mother's chest, breathing in that familiar scent, Xiaoming could not help but recall the night a burglar broke into their house when he was four years old.

Xiaoming had slept between his parents. Back then, his father was still very young, and everything still resembled a home. His parents had promised to stay by his side forever, while Xiaoming silently prayed in his heart never to grow up...

That had been a very ordinary night, with nothing special about it other than a thief breaking in and stealing five yuan.

And at this moment, Xiaoming curled up beneath his mother's covers like a pitiful little dog. As for the matter of marriage, surely that was something adults ought to worry about! Thinking this, Gouer quietly drifted off to dreamland, and everything returned to "normal."