Que Zhi’s brows drew together slightly, his gaze lingering between Xiyu’s eyes and brows, carrying a trace of daze and tenderness that was not easily noticed.
“Ayu’s eyes are very beautiful. Not just pretty, not just handsome—it’s both combined. That tear mole lifts slightly when you smile, and suddenly nothing in the world feels like a problem. I saw it the first time at the inn entrance.”
Xiyu set the bronze mirror on his lap and spread his hands: “Let me take a look at myself—I haven’t properly looked at myself in a long time.”
He leaned in closer, his fingertip resting on the mirror’s surface beside his own reflection. The mirror showed the thin red at the corners of his eyes and that tear mole, and behind him, Que Zhi’s silent face staring fixedly at the reflection in the glass.
“I thought you’d have gotten used to it by now.”
“On the Gobi, you sat on the camel every morning, tilting your head up to look at the sky. I’d turn back while leading the camel—you were watching the sunrise, but I had something I wanted to watch too. At the oasis, when you came out of your bath, your hair dripping wet. In Liangzhou, you stood at the city gate eating melon, juice running down your chin.
Every time I looked, it was different.
It’s more than just good-looking—that face changes.
On the Gobi, you’d keep your head stubbornly raised even when the sand and wind made you squint. In the snowy mountains, you’d fall and not make a sound.
Before, you’d sit at the inn entrance with your hat brim pulled low, not speaking to anyone.
Now you call my name every morning to have me comb your hair, and at night you lean against me like a pillow and don’t want to move.
Your face has never been just one face—it’s a landscape that changes every single day. A mirror can’t capture that.”
When Que Zhi said this, his voice was even lower than usual—not a confession, not a declaration, but more like stating a fact he’d long since come to terms with.
The more he spoke in that matter-of-fact tone about how Xiyu changed every day, the harder it was for Xiyu to suppress the tremor in his chest.
Xiyu knew he’d long been completely possessed by this man—not when he carried him on his back in the snowy mountains, not when he shielded him from flying stones in the sandstorm, but in every small moment, every time he turned to look at him, every morning he called his name.
Que Zhi wove that possession into every understated sentence, every silent gaze, every bowl of melon he set before him.
Xiyu knelt on the low couch, looking through the bronze mirror at the man behind him.
This man rarely called him beautiful, but he could say in a tone of pure fact that he was a different landscape every single day.
Changes that Xiyu himself hadn’t even noticed—he’d recorded them one by one, like keeping a journal only he could read, every page of it written with the name Xiyu.
He flipped the bronze mirror face-down on his lap, turned around, and looked into Que Zhi’s eyes.
He didn’t say anything, just looked for a long time, then suddenly lifted his hand, swept his loose hair forward over his chest, turned his back to him, and left that impossibly pale stretch of skin at the nape of his neck for him to see.
“Comb my hair for me. I want a braid today, with blue thread at the end—the one from the market the other day. You said the blue flower was pretty last time. Braid it for me, and don’t make it crooked.”
He paused, pressed Que Zhi’s hand against the crown of his own head, and added, “Even if it’s crooked, it’ll still look good.”
The old poplar in the courtyard was gently brushed by the afternoon breeze, its leaves rustling as if someone were sighing or laughing.
Que Zhi pressed the comb teeth back into that pitch-black crown of hair. His hand, the one that held a blade so steadily, moved as if caressing a thin blade fresh from tempering, tucking the stray hairs at Xiyu’s temples behind his ears.
The bronze mirror stood propped against the side of the low couch, its surface reflecting two figures: one with his head bowed, the other combing his hair.
—
Xiyu found himself growing more and more fond of staying in bed.
Before, in the cold palace, he’d wake before dawn.
Not out of diligence—out of cold. The cold palace had no braziers in winter; the chill seeped up through the cracks in the stone floor and burrowed into his bones. Sleeping was more unbearable than being awake.
Later, after leaving the palace, he slept on blankets out on the Gobi—making it to dawn felt like a win, and as soon as he naturally woke, he had to hurry and pack up to keep moving.
After arriving at the royal city, somehow or other, Que Zhi would push the door open and find him still buried under the covers, with only a messy-haired head poking out.
Que Zhi set the food tray on the table and went to pull his blanket away.
Xiyu clutched it tight, revealing only a pair of peach-blossom eyes, still hazy with sleep, the thin red at their corners still blooming.
“Not getting up. It’s cold outside.”
“The beginning of summer has already passed.”
“Still cold.”
Que Zhi scooped him up, blanket and all, and propped him against the headboard, pressed down the stray strands of hair that had stuck up from sleep, and draped his robe over his shoulders from the foot of the bed.
Xiyu’s face rubbed against the hollow below his collarbone. His green robe was only half on, still not fully dressed, and he was wrapped up in the blanket like a little glutinous rice ball just out of the steamer, several locks of hair sticking up from his forehead, the pink flush spreading from the corners of his eyes all the way to his ears.
With his eyes still closed, he asked what was for breakfast.
Que Zhi brought the food tray over and fed him bite by bite.
He’d barely finished rinsing his mouth when Batu arrived, knocking more urgently than usual.
Today he wasn’t here to deliver dried meat or borrow a place to write a letter—the Helian tribe had lost three sheep on the grazing trail, and his father had sent him to ask around the nearby tribes.
He happened to be passing by the palace, so he stopped in to see them first.
He poked his head in for a glance—the thin quilt was still piled on the low couch, unmade, with two bowls sitting side by side on the tray.
He withdrew his head and came to a conclusion: he wouldn’t be coming in the mornings anymore.
As he turned to leave, his mouth kept going, muttering to himself that he’d just go to the market alone tomorrow—it wasn’t like they even ate dried meat anyway.
Xiyu called after him that he did eat it, and to leave the meat at the door—just leave it at the door and don’t come in.
After changing his clothes, Que Zhi sat by the low couch flipping through official documents, while Xiyu lay on the other end of the couch, fiddling with his silver hairpin.
After a while, he put the hairpin down, crawled over to Que Zhi, and leaned his head against his shoulder.
“Tired. What’s so interesting about official documents?”
“Father wants me to review the autumn hunt deployment. A few tribes have changed pastures this year, so the cavalry routes need to be redrawn.”
“Then read it to me. Read it slowly.” He pressed his cheek against the coarse cloth of Que Zhi’s robe at his shoulder, eyes closed but ears perked up.
Que Zhi actually began to read. His voice was low and deep. He read a section about disputes over pasture allocation, then a section about the cavalry’s autumn training arrangements.
After he finished the second section, Xiyu suddenly said there was a repetition—the same thing written twice. The first time it said to divide the left wing, and this time it said the left wing’s boundary again.
He rested his chin on his knees, looked up at Que Zhi, his peach-blossom eyes half-lidded, the thin red at their corners stretched long in the daylight.
It wasn’t coaxing—he really had noticed it.
Que Zhi looked down at the documents in his hand, flipped through two pages, and indeed, it was true.
The document was long; the same tribe’s boundary had been recorded repeatedly across different papers. He’d skimmed through it without noticing, but this person lying on his shoulder, listening with closed eyes, had caught the repetition.
He pulled that document aside and said, from now on, whenever you want to listen, I’ll read it to you.
“Whether it’s repetitive or not, I’ll read it all to you. Some of these documents aren’t clearly written, but the people who submitted them think they’re fine. You can spot what’s wrong just by listening—more useful than a military advisor.” Que Zhi praised him with a smile.
Xiyu’s hand was still resting on Que Zhi’s shoulder. He turned his face sideways from beneath his lashes to look at him. “So you’ve got yourself a clerk now—how are you going to pay my wages?”
Que Zhi spoke softly, his tone firm and scalding:
“How would I dare offer you ordinary wages.”
He raised his hand and gently covered Xiyu’s hand resting on his shoulder, his fingers curling slightly:
“I’ll give you the rest of my life, and a lifetime of peace—is that enough to cover your wages?”
Que Zhi lowered his head and planted the lightest peck diagonally below that tear mole. His dry lips touched and withdrew, as light as a breeze transferring raspberry juice from fingertip to the corner of an eye.
The kiss was so light that Xiyu thought he might have imagined it.
Xiyu froze for a moment, then reached his fingers up to the corner of his eye, touching the spot where he’d just been kissed—still warm with the lingering heat of Que Zhi’s lips.
It was just a touch, and then it was gone—so why was it still burning? he asked himself silently, and then realized it wasn’t really a question at all.
Xiyu picked up the teapot, turned over the tea bowl on Que Zhi’s desk, filled it seven-tenths full, and set it beside the official documents. Then he sat back down at the edge of the low couch, hugging his knees and gazing out the window.
His ears were red, but he said nothing out loud. He simply reached over, took a raspberry from the table, and popped it into his mouth. He chewed. It was sweet.
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