The snowline hung at the edge of the sky for three days, and every morning the first thing Xi Yu did upon waking was to check if it was still there.
It always was.
On the fourth day, they came upon a river. It wasn’t wide, but the current was swifter than it looked. Likely meltwater from the snow mountains, carrying fine ice chips and gray-white stone powder, it surged down from upstream, carving a curved, deep channel through the gravel flat.
The water was a murky gray-green, too cloudy to see the bottom. All you could hear was the rushing sound—not the tinkling, winding melody of a Jiangnan stream, but a dull, unceasing low roar, like a silent beast sharpening its claws along the riverbed.
Xi Yu stood on the bank, looking at the water, then at the other side.
Beyond the river was still the Gobi, but the terrain was clearly rising—gravel flats gradually transitioning into scree slopes, behind which rose gently swelling foothills, and beyond them, the snowline. After all these days of travel, he’d learned to read the direction of the terrain and to smell how near or far the moisture was in the wind.
He could sense that the mountains were close now, but this river lay before them, flowing unhurriedly, as if asking every person who drew near on behalf of the mountains: Are you sure you want to come?
“Can we cross?” he asked.
Que Zhi dismounted, walked to the riverbank, and crouched down. He reached his hand into the water, his fingers swaying slightly in the current. After a few breaths, he withdrew it. He dried his hand on his robes, stood up, and surveyed upstream and downstream. “Water’s knee-deep. Current’s manageable. Take off your boots and roll up your pant legs.”
Xi Yu also got down from his camel, found a relatively flat rock by the bank, and sat down to remove his boots.
His boots were still the pair he’d changed into when leaving the capital—worn after all this traveling, the soles thinned by a layer, the inner sides rubbed shiny by the camel saddle. He took them off, placed them neatly on the rock, folded his socks and tucked them into the boot shafts, then stood up and rolled up his pant legs.
He rolled them above the knees, revealing two pale, bare calves. His ankles were still thin, the ankle bones slightly prominent, the skin on the tops of his feet so delicate that the faint blue veins beneath were visible. As he stepped onto the pebbles by the river, the stones dug into his feet, and he wrinkled his nose.
“The stones are sharp.”
“We have to cross.”
“I know we have to cross. I’m just saying the stones are sharp.”
Que Zhi didn’t respond. He took off his own boots and placed them on a rock by the bank, hitched his curved blade higher on his waist, then tied the two camels’ reins together and double-checked that the packs on the saddles were secured.
After doing all this, he walked up to Xi Yu, turned his back to him, and bent down.
“Come on up. I’ll carry you across.”
Xi Yu looked at that broad back.
The deep blue coarse cloth robe billowed slightly in the wind, revealing a strip of bronze-tanned nape at the collar, stray hairs brushing against the collar and speckled with Gobi sand. He hesitated for a moment, then tugged his pant legs up a little higher and climbed onto Que Zhi’s back. His arms looped around Que Zhi’s neck, his fingers clasping his own opposite wrist, not touching Que Zhi’s chest.
Que Zhi’s hands came up behind him, supporting him under the knees, and hitched him up a little to settle the weight. Then he took the camels’ reins and stepped into the river.
The water rose to Que Zhi’s calves, then his knees. The icy chill seeped through his skin into his bones, but he walked steadily. Each step, he first probed the riverbed ahead with his toes, checking for hidden hollows or loose stones, then shifted his weight forward.
The camels followed behind him, their hooves making dull plopping sounds in the water, occasionally snorting as if displeased with the freezing snowmelt.
The water roared loudly. Xi Yu lay on Que Zhi’s back, feeling the rise and fall of the muscles in his back with each step—not tensed deliberately, but naturally, bearing weight with every stride. His robe was soaked through, the wet fabric clinging to Xi Yu’s legs, cool to the touch—but beneath the cloth, the warmth of his body radiated through.
In the cold palace, no one had ever carried him on their back.
When he was little, he used to watch other princes being carried by eunuchs across puddles on the palace roads after rain. He’d stand behind the cold palace door and watch through the crack, wondering: What does it feel like to be carried? Later, he stopped wondering.
Now he knew.
Being carried meant being lifted a little farther from the ground, a little farther from the sound of the water—and a little closer to something else. He hadn’t yet figured out exactly what that something was, but his arms loosened slightly around Que Zhi’s neck. He stopped clutching his own opposite wrist and instead let his hands rest loosely on Que Zhi’s shoulders, his fingers brushing against the old scar beside his collarbone.
“What’s this scar on your shoulder?” he asked. His voice was right by Que Zhi’s ear, pitched lower than the roar of the water.
“An arrow wound.”
“When?”
“A long time ago.”
“Why didn’t you dodge?”
Que Zhi’s step faltered for a moment, then he continued forward.
The water was growing shallower. The bank was only a few steps ahead.
He turned his head slightly, and Xi Yu could see his profile. “There was someone behind me. I couldn’t dodge.”
Xi Yu didn’t press further.
He moved his fingers away from the scar and looped his arms back around Que Zhi’s neck—this time a little tighter than before.
After crossing the river, Que Zhi set Xi Yu down on a patch of dry sand. He turned to tend to the camels, letting them shake the sand and stones from their hooves on their own.
Xi Yu stood nearby, barefoot on the sand, his pant legs still rolled up, a few droplets of river water glistening on his calves in the sunlight.
He watched Que Zhi bend down, lift a camel’s front hoof, and pick out the gravel wedged between its cleft with his fingers—movements practiced and patient, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The camel snorted and flicked its tail; he patted its leg and murmured something low, and the camel quieted. The hem of his deep blue robe was still dripping, his boots were still in his hand, his feet covered in sand—yet he’d tended to the camels first.
Xi Yu suddenly said, “Que Zhi, turn around.”
Que Zhi turned.
Xi Yu pulled the cloth towel from the camel saddle, walked up to him, and reached up to wipe the water stains from his face.
The river water, mixed with Gobi sand, had dried into a pale gray streak across his cheekbone—right across that old scar. His fingers pressed through the coarse cloth against that scar, wiping the left side, then the right—and then he stopped.
He realized he was wiping it a second time.
Que Zhi didn’t move. He stood there and let him wipe, his breathing kept deliberately soft.
Xi Yu tucked the towel back onto the camel saddle, lowered his head, and said, “All done.” He turned to put on his boots—his ears were red.
Que Zhi’s ears were red too. Just moments ago, Xi Yu had been on his back, the two of them so close, so very close, close enough that he could almost catch his scent—small, soft, so light that once he’d carried him, he couldn’t bear to put him down.
During that short time crossing the river, his heart had beaten irregularly. Que Zhi knew why.
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