Dr. Xie, I Can't Sleep

Song Mian hadn't slept through the night in eight years.

She'd taken melatonin until it stopped working, meditated until her ears rang, and spent half a month at a temple. A monk told her, “You have something weighing on your heart, benefactor.”

Of course she knew. But how could she make it go away?

The specialist's appointment cost thirty-one thousand yuan an hour, but the doctor on duty was a young professor. His name badge read “Xie Bo,” and he looked even younger than her.

When she questioned it, he pulled up her medical records. “Eight years of insomnia. Seventeen treatments, all ineffective. Your previous doctor recommended a referral to the psychology department.”

“So you also...”

“I don't recommend it.” He closed the file. “I'll make you a custom sleep audio track. Try it for a week. If it doesn't work, we'll refer you.”

She stared at him. “Are you a sleep doctor or an ASMR creator?”

“Part-time.” He was expressionless.

On the first night of monitoring, she lay there covered in electrodes. He spoke through the intercom. “From now on, picture only one thing. There's a white wall in front of you, with a clock on it. The clock is broken. Keep looking at it, and don't think about anything else.”

Fourteen minutes later, her brain waves entered deep sleep for the first time.

That night, she received an audio file. It had the sound of his breathing, with very faint white noise in the background. The note said: “You fell asleep in fourteen minutes today. Tomorrow's goal: twelve.”

At two in the morning, she woke up and played the audio again.

His breathing was like the tide. As she listened, she fell asleep once more.

Later, a heartbeat was added to the audio.

The rhythm was sixty-three beats per minute. In the note, he wrote: “Sixty-three is already a little fast for me. You don't need to ask why.”

What Song Mian didn't know was that she'd been to this hospital three years ago.

She'd worn a pale yellow sweater and slept for an hour and seventeen minutes on the monitoring bed.

The doctor that day had been Xie Bo. In her file, she'd left two words: “So quiet.”

He'd edited those words into audio file number 000, keeping it for three years.

Until one day, she came across a video by an ASMR creator called “Bo's Voice.”

The heartbeat, breathing, and pauses between page turns were exactly the same.

The next day, she rushed into the consultation room. “You knew it was me all along?”

Xie Bo put down his pen. “I knew the day you walked in wearing that pale yellow sweater.”

“Then why didn't you say so?”

“Because you left without getting better eight years ago, and you haven't had a good night's sleep since.” He looked at her. “This time, I wanted to cure you completely before telling you.”

The final version of her custom audio track was six hours long. It contained the sound of turning pages, rain, a heartbeat, and one thing he said:

“Stop counting. I'm here.”

The first time she listened to it, she slept for seven hours and forty-two minutes.

The next day, she set the words “Stop counting” as her alarm.

Xie Bo wrote in her medical records: “Sleep has improved significantly.”

Beneath that, he added: “Bonus service: my heartbeat, available in unlimited daily supply.”

From that day on, she finally learned how to sleep well.

Because she'd listened to one person's heartbeat for three months. Its rhythm was sixty-three beats per minute, exactly the frequency at which her insomnia ended.

Theme: A heartbeat of sixty-three beats per minute, just right to lull her to sleep.