After a short rest, they continued along the riverbank upstream.
The vegetation on the banks gradually grew thicker—no longer just bare gravel and withered shrubs, but low meadows and scattered wildflowers beginning to appear.
The flowers were pale purple, tiny, hugging the ground as they bloomed, with gray-green leaves that looked as though the wind and sand had worn away all excess color, leaving only that stubborn hint of purple.
Xi Yu bent down and picked one, holding it in his palm to examine it. The petals were only the size of a fingernail, their edges slightly withered, but they were still blooming properly.
He thought of the moss that grew in the cracks of the cold palace walls. Back then, he’d thought that anything that could survive was remarkable. This flower was no different. He tucked it into his sleeve.
Que Zhi had seen it from ahead. He stopped his camel and asked, “You picked it?”
“Picked it.”
“Don’t you think it’s ugly?”
“Who said it’s ugly?” Xi Yu said. “It blooms here—that makes it more beautiful than every flower in the imperial garden.”
He realized he’d slipped up as soon as the words left his mouth, and quickly added, “The imperial garden—I’ve only heard about it. I’ve never been.”
He really hadn’t.
Que Zhi glanced at him but didn’t press. He turned back and continued forward, walking a few steps before saying, “There’s a flower in the royal court—blue, grows by the snowmelt. Prettier than this one.”
He paused. “I’ll take you to see it.”
Xi Yu followed behind, wanting to ask “when” that “I’ll take you” meant—but he didn’t say it out loud.
Because he realized he’d already started making a mental list for “later”: see the snow mountains, soak in snowmelt water, cross the snow mountains to see the grasslands, see the blue flowers, carve a horizontal line on the snow mountain peak.
All these things shared one prerequisite: Que Zhi being there.
That evening, they made camp by a bend in the river.
The water curved here, washing out a small flat sandbar, on which grew a few clumps of tamarisk with fine branches rustling in the evening breeze.
Que Zhi went upstream to fetch water, while Xi Yu crouched by the riverbank to sort through their packs. He shook out his blue robe—the one with only one sleeve—and found that the frayed edge at the tear had grown fuzzy, with several threads coming loose. In a few more days, the whole sleeve would probably fall apart. He could still sew it and wear it.
He dug out the needle and thread from his pack—the needle was Old Zhou’s, the thread from the innkeeper’s wife. As he took them out, his fingertip paused on the rust at the needle’s eye. Old Zhou had said: when you’re out on the road, if your clothes tear, there’s no one to mend them for you.
What Xi Yu hadn’t said out loud was: Old Zhou, I found someone.
He spread the blue robe over his knees, threaded the needle, and began stitching the frayed edge of the sleeve cuff.
Que Zhi returned with water and saw him from afar, sitting by the sandbar, bent over with a needle in his hand, mending the cuff of his blue robe. He sewed slowly, with fine, even stitches—clearly someone who’d done this many times before.
His long hair slipped down from his shoulder, half-covering his face, leaving only the tip of his nose and his slightly pursed lips visible.
The setting sun reflected off the river, casting a flowing layer of gold over him. The empty sleeve gap shone translucent in the light, like a small window.
Xi Yu paused after a few stitches, looped the thread around his fingertip into a knot, bit it off, then held up the robe to inspect it. Unsatisfied, he picked up the needle and kept sewing.
His hands were nimble—he sewed better than most. But what he was sewing was his own clothes. He was mending his own clothes.
He must have done this countless times—sitting somewhere alone, head down, patching up what was torn, biting off the thread, folding the garment neatly.
No one helped him. Xi Yu didn’t think he needed help.
But now there was someone beside him.
Que Zhi set the waterskin down on the sand and sat down next to Xi Yu. He didn’t speak, just turned sideways, took the other sleeve of the blue robe from Xi Yu’s knees, turned it over to inspect the wear at the cuff, and pulled the needle from Xi Yu’s hand. His fingers were thick, looking clumsy gripping that thin little needle. He squinted one eye as he tried to thread it, missing twice before finally getting it through.
Xi Yu watched him—a man who had walked the Western Regions Gobi countless times, whose hands had held curved blades, fire strikers, waterskins, coarse leather ropes, and strong liquor—now pinching a tiny needle, using the same hand that wielded a blade to mend his sleeve cuff.
In the stillness of night, the man who seemed so fierce and sharp-edged by daylight, radiating an untamed harshness, had shed all his stern ferocity in the quiet hours. He sat obediently beside his wife, mending her clothes with his own hands.
The stitches were crooked and uneven—just as unattractive as the characters he carved into rock walls. But he sewed with utter seriousness, each stitch thrust deep, then pulled tight, as if this mattered more than his curved blade.
When he finished, he lowered his head, bit the thread off with his teeth, and handed the blue robe back.
“Done. It’s a bit ugly, but it won’t come apart.”
Xi Yu took the robe and looked down at the mended cuff. He seemed amused by the clumsy stitching, and then a bright, radiant smile broke across his face.
“Haha, hahaha—”
The stitches were indeed ugly—crooked and uneven, a few of them gone astray. Compared to his own fine, orderly stitches, they were like two different scripts: one the carefully copied court style, the other the rough Western Regions script scratched into stone.
But every one of those crooked stitches had been driven in with force, every thread pulled as tight as it could go.
Xi Yu folded the robe neatly over his knees, then turned his head and gently patted the cuff Que Zhi had sewn.
“It is pretty ugly. But I don’t mind.” His tone still carried a smile that sweetly touched the heart.
Que Zhi gazed fixedly at Xi Yu beside him, his dark eyes sinking with the surging emotions held within. The usual sharp, fierce aura around him had largely faded away.
His Adam’s apple rolled slightly, his voice roughened and deepened by the night as he pressed his thin lips together for a moment, then let out an extremely soft, heavy response from his throat—his voice hoarse and tender, carrying a suppressed gentleness, and he answered in a low murmur: “Mm.”
Night fell, and the river ran swifter.
Xi Yu lay in his blanket, listening to the water, the little pale purple flower clutched in his hand. The petals had wilted a bit, but they still lay quietly in his palm; the broken end of the stem was still faintly damp, its sap on his fingertip.
Moss in the cold palace. Wildflowers in the Gobi. Both living where they shouldn’t be able to live. He felt he was the same. He placed the flower beside his pillow and turned over to face the other side.
As usual, Que Zhi was leaning against the riverbank slope, his curved blade across his knee, still awake.
The firelight flickered across his face. His eyes were half-open, not looking at the fire—but in this direction.
Xi Yu closed his eyes, hearing the water still rushing, hearing the camel flick its tail, hearing the rustle of the blanket as the man across from him turned over—then silence.
“Que Zhi.”
“Mm.”
“Good night. You carried me well today.”
A two-second pause. Then a low, muffled voice came from the other side—like something scraped from the depths of a throat: “Good night.”
Xi Yu pulled his blanket up a little higher, covering the corners of his mouth.
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