Mom

"Mom, I'm home," Chen Xie said as he swiped his apartments room card on the door before entering.

Removing his shoes and placing them on the shoe rack on the left side of the door Chen Xie put on his home slippers before heading inward.

"Hey kiddo, how was school?" a woman's voice came from the kitchen.

The voice belonged to a woman in her late thirties, she had a few strands of white hair, but for the most part her hair was jet black and tied into a bun on her head.

"What is your show going to cover today mom?" Chen Xie asked.

"Today's show is going to be on Taiwanese ice fluff," His mom replied.

Her name was Feng Qingmei and almost everyone knew her name because of her culinary skills. She was the chef on Food Networks most popular show, Ancient Desserts, and it covered the recipes for various desserts from across the world like various Indian ladoos, Rasmalai, Gulab Jamun all the way till the age of soft serves, ice creams, sorbets and frozen yogurts to dippin' dots, nitrogen cereal, rolled, ice fluff, and on and on.

Beep beep!

The electric cameras began turning on as Chen Xie stepped into the study room which was lined with television screens, each broadcasting a different corner of his mother's kitchen. Because most shows were live shows these days, it was necessary to have a multiple camera set up and have someone controlling which cameras' image should be going on the network at the time. With years of practice, Chen Xie was a live broadcasting master.

"Lights, Camera, Action!" Chen Xie said into the mic.

"Good Evening everyone! I'm Feng Qingmei, and thank you for tuning into my show. Today, I will be going over cutting techniques on how to use the syrup we prepared yesterday and turn it into Taiwanese Snow Fluff..." The show began.

…

"Hey mom, have you heard anything from dad yet?" Chen Xie asked as the mother and son began closing the covers on the cameras so that dust wouldn't get into the lenses.

"Unfortunately, I haven't," his mother sighed as her eyes became downcast.

Chen Xie's father was almost as unreliable as Chen Xie himself when it came to sleep control. However, because he was older, his Legendary Sleep Domain was a lot more powerful. One time, because he fell asleep in his office, the power went out and everyone got locked into their soundproof rooms to prevent anyone from being able to cause a disturbance. Even the communications failed and everyone in the building almost died from suffocation by the time Chen Xie's dad awoke so that everything could return to normal.

If this was all, it wouldn't be that troublesome since no one would be able to attribute the power and communications failure on Chen Xie's dad. It was just that ever since his 39th birthday two years ago, he would sometimes fall asleep for days on end. Recently, he had been gone for almost a month, however neither Chen Xie nor his mom wanted to even attempt to get near him, because most likely they would suffer some catastrophic accident if they got close with the intentions of waking him up.

"It's okay mom. At least we know that he's safe since it's impossible for anything to wake him up with the kind of power his Legendary Sleep Domain has," Chen Xie tried to reassure his mom after seeing her fallen mood.

Crash!

A dish fell from Feng Qingmei's hands and shattered on the floor.

"MOM, are you okay?" Chen Xie turned and dropped to the floor attempting to pick up the pieces of the broken dish at his mom's feet.

"Xiao Xie, just because you have the Legendary Sleep Domain you can't start thinking that you are invincible," Liu Qingmei's tone became solemn.

Sensing the seriousness of the situation Chen Xie looked up at his mom, "What exactly is capable of breaking through the Legendary Sleep Domain mom?"

"Come with me," without explaining further Liu Qingmei walked out of the kitchen.

Is mom okay? Chen Xie thought. Even when something serious was being discussed, his mom was totally a nazi about maintaining cleanliness and order. That's why the entire house had no room that was unorganized, no shelf that was dustless or any bed that wasn't made. So why was his mom walking away leaving a broken dish on the floor? Even if she wanted to tell him about something that could get past his Legendary Sleep Domain, she could do it after cleaning this mess, no?

Despite his misgivings, Chen Xie obediently followed his mom to his parents' room. When he walked in however, he was absolutely astounded.

The entire room was different from how he remembered it. Only the bed and the side cabinets were the same but the carpeted floor was clearly all tile and where the walls should have been, there were none! The room seemed to have became eight times bigger and the room he remembered was only a fraction of it.

"The room you used to see was part of an augmented reality system which served to cover this place. The walls didn't exist, you could only feel them because you thought they did," Liu Qingmei explained.

"Mom… are you some kind of government secret agent?" Chen Xie asked suspiciously.

"Yes, surprised?" Liu Qingmei asked.

"Not really. Basically every spy I have ever seen on television has their base of operations in there own house. I guess I've seen it so many times that I don't feel like pretending to be astonished or anything. Besides, its kind of exciting because I always wanted to have spy parents that had a secret love affair and secret identities," Chen Xie said smiling.

Liu Qingmei sighed. Indeed one's actions and thoughts were shaped by the media. Seeing so many spy movies made her own son completely unsurprised when she revealed her identity. How… anticlimactic??

"So, what exactly can get past my Legendary Sleep Domain and how to protect myself?" Chen Xie inquired. After concluding that his mom was a secret agent he instantly increased her credibility about these topics.

"Calamities," Liu Qingmei said, "Massive, world shattering calamities".

"Wait," Chen Xie interrupted.

"What is it?" Liu Qingmei asked.

"If you're a secret agent, then does that mean I have a secret identity too? And what about dad, who or what is he? What are we, exactly? And how did you meet dad? You didn't really meet in college did you?" Chen Xie fired off. Suddenly he opened his eyes so wide as if they were saucers, "Could it be that you were sent to assassinate dad because his Legendary Sleep Domain was so powerful so you disguised yourself as a student. While on your job you found something which could get passed the Legendary Sleep Domain and when you were about to kill him you realized you loved him and so you ran away to have me? Are you not a government employee but rather a fugitive?"

"Er… how the hell did you guess that?" Liu Qingmei was now genuinely shocked. Just what kind of shows did her kid watch that he managed to guess her history just by seeing this room? Was this even logical?

"Ahem… although dad is about as smart as a log, neither his father or you are that stupid. I must have got the super intelligence genes along with the Legendary Sleep Domain!" Chen Xie said while patting his chest proudly. "Seriously mom, I sleep all day in school but still get fantastic test scores, that just goes to show that I can learn much faster than the teachers can teach which is proof of my great intelligence!"

"That… actually makes sense," Liu Qingmei said almost to herself. Indeed, this ability to teach herself from books without teachers is precisely why she was able to become a secret agent before entering high school. She really should stop treating her son like he was as stupid as his father.