Life after marriage passed like it had been soaked in honey—half a month slipped by before they even noticed.
In the royal court, autumn had reached its deepest point. The old poplar leaves had turned from golden to caramel brown, rustling down at the slightest breeze, carpeting the courtyard in a thick layer.
Every morning when Xi Yu woke up, he could see the scattered gold outside through the gaps in the window lattice.
He found himself less and less willing to get out of bed.
Not because he was lazy—but because the low couch was too comfortable, the white wolf pelt too soft, and Que Zhi’s arms too warm.
On the day marking one full month of marriage, Helü Xiong showed up at their door with two jars of liquor.
Not mare’s milk wine, not fruit wine.
It was a strong liquor he’d aged for ten years, brewed from wild berries and highland barley at the foot of the snowy mountains. When he’d sealed the jars, his daughter had just learned to walk—and now she could ride horses and herd sheep.
He set the two jars on the stone table and slapped open the clay seal with one palm. The rich, potent aroma shot straight up to the rafters.
“According to Shuo Kingdom custom, on the one-month anniversary of marriage, the newlyweds must drink three bowls of liquor offered by an elder. When your father married your mother, it was my father who offered the liquor. Your mother couldn’t drink, so your father took all three bowls for her—and ended up passed out on horseback being carried home.”
Helü Xiong filled the coarse earthenware bowls to the brim and pushed one toward Xi Yu. “Ah Yu, you’re one of us now.
But since you can’t hold your liquor, just take a sniff for the gesture—let that kid drink it for you.”
Xi Yu looked down at the amber liquid in the bowl, picked it up, and sniffed it.
It was much stronger than fruit wine—just the fumes alone made him squint.
He turned to look at Que Zhi—Que Zhi was about to take the bowl from his hand, but Xi Yu dodged away.
“I want to try it. I’ve never had it before. Just one sip, okay?” Xi Yu looked at him with expectant eyes.
Xi Yu cupped the bowl in both hands, said “Thank you, Uncle” to Helü Xiong,
and then took a big gulp.
The moment the liquor hit his throat, he regretted it—it was so strong his eyes went red, burning all the way down from his throat to his stomach.
Xi Yu covered his mouth and coughed twice, a thin sheen of tears forming at the corners of his eyes from the sting.
Que Zhi took the bowl from him and drank the remaining half.
Helü Xiong poured him two more bowls, and Que Zhi downed them both.
“Good lad, you can hold your liquor way better than your father ever could! Hahaha!” He clapped Que Zhi on the shoulder.
Helü Xiong then poured Xi Yu half a bowl of fruit wine—diluted with half water—and began telling stories about Que Zhi as a child.
How at seven or eight, he’d secretly drunk mare’s milk wine, gotten drunk, climbed a poplar tree, and couldn’t get down. The old Khan had shouted at him from below for half an hour, while he’d clung to a branch insisting he’d sleep up there.
And how the first time he’d ridden a horse, he’d picked the wildest stallion of them all, gotten thrown off with half his face bruised, and his first words upon getting up were “Again.”
Xi Yu leaned against Que Zhi’s shoulder, cradling his burning cheek with one hand while turning Que Zhi’s hand over with the other, absently rubbing his thumb across the old knife scar at the base of Que Zhi’s thumb.
He said, “So even you did silly things as a kid,” his voice carrying a soft, honeyed drawl loosened by the strong liquor—not fully drunk yet, but just enough to lower his guard.
He held Que Zhi’s hand on his knee and studied it for a moment, seriously comparing the lengths of their palm bones, then threaded his own fingers through Que Zhi’s, laced them tight, and held them up to the oil lamp on the stone table to look at.
By the time Helü Xiong left, the moon was already high overhead. He’d poured himself a few more bowls during their conversation and swayed unsteadily on his way back.
Xi Yu stood up to see him off, his steps unsteady and his speech slow: “Take care, Uncle. Be careful on the way.”
Helü Xiong patted him on the shoulder and said, “You can’t compete with Que Zhi when it comes to drinking, but you’re way better than your father.”
“No worries, no worries! Haha!”
Then he strode out of the courtyard carrying the empty wine jars, the poplar leaves rustling in the moonlight for a while before falling silent once more.
Xi Yu turned around, dizzy and unsteady.
The moment he crossed the threshold, his whole body went limp like a puddle of mud.
He threw himself onto Que Zhi, arms looped around his neck, forehead pressed against his collarbone, mumbling his name in a slurred voice: “Que Zhi—the room is spinning. Make the room stop.”
Que Zhi scooped him up in his arms and carried him inside.
He kicked off his boots, laid him down on the low couch, and turned to get the hangover remedy.
But the moment he stood up, his sleeve was tugged.
The person lying on the couch held onto his sleeve stubbornly, his eyes fixed on him, his tone sounding like he was stating an extremely important fact: “Don’t go.”
“You said you wouldn’t leave last time too—that time at the hunting grounds when you had fruit wine. Come back.”
He realized his wording was starting to fail him, frowned as if trying to correct it, but couldn’t manage, so he gave up and simply repeated that Que Zhi needed to come back.
Que Zhi crouched down, brushed the damp, wine-dampened strands of hair from Xi Yu’s forehead, and said softly:
“I’m right here. Just going to get the hangover remedy.”
Que Zhi helped him lean back against himself, laying him down on the couch, then sat down at the edge and fed the hangover remedy to Xi Yu.
Xi Yu took a sip, wrinkled his nose at the bitterness, and pushed the bowl away.
“So hard to drink. I want osmanthus cake~~” (﹃)
Que Zhi said there was no osmanthus cake, and told him to take another sip.
Xi Yu shook his head, his peach-blossom eyes hazy with a layer of moisture, staring straight at him. Suddenly he blurted out two words: “You feed me.”
Que Zhi looked down at the dark brown medicinal broth in the bowl, then back at Xi Yu.
He was drunk enough that the faint flush at the corners of his eyes had spread all the way up past his cheekbones, strands of hair clinging to his damp temples, the tear-shaped mole at his eye like a tiny grain of sand at the edge of a sunset glow.
Without a word, Que Zhi took a mouthful of the broth himself, leaned down, and pressed his lips to Xi Yu’s.
The medicinal liquid passed through the seam of their lips. Xi Yu let out a muffled grunt, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed the bitter hangover remedy.
He pushed the bowl away, then tugged at Que Zhi’s collar and pulled him closer—not just one kiss, but several, each landing in a different spot: the corner of his lips, his cheek, the tip of his nose, that little patch of skin on his jaw that had been rubbed raw by stubble.
With each kiss he said one thing—this makes up for the time you owed me, the time you fed me flatbread without kissing me, the time you combed my hair this morning and didn’t kiss me.
Wait, and one more—last night you fell asleep before kissing me before bed, even though we said we’d do it every night from now on.
He paused to catch his breath, still clutching Que Zhi’s collar. His voice, which had been boldly “demanding payment” just a moment ago, suddenly grew very soft,
so soft it was almost afraid of breaking something, muffled and still slurred: “I’ve always wanted to ask you—what do you even like about me?
I have nothing. No family background, no martial arts skills, no money. I can’t even ride a camel without you holding me up. When I’m cold, I need you to warm my hands. When I don’t want to comb my hair, I need you to do it. When I don’t like a dish, I push it onto your plate. I kick off the blankets at night and you cover me back up. When I wake up, I need you to brush my hair. When I’m drunk, I need you to feed me the remedy.”
Que Zhi’s thumb pressed gently against the tear-shaped mole at the corner of his eye.
“That first time I saw you, you were sitting there so quietly. I couldn’t look away from the very first glance.”
His voice was lower than the dying embers of a bonfire, sinking down, then rising back up, as if confirming a fact to himself.
“From that moment on, I wanted to keep you by my side. I didn’t want you to suffer the slightest grievance, didn’t want to see you alone. Ah Yu is the best, the very best.”
His thumb slid down, brushing across Xi Yu’s wine-flushed cheek. The rough warmth of his fingertip paused at the corner of his lips, as if wiping away a stain of medicine that wasn’t really there.
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