Que Zhi did not answer.
He suddenly swung off his camel, strode over to Xi Yu’s mount, pulled a waterskin from his own camel’s pack, and rummaged out the thickest blanket. He stuffed them both into the side pouch of Xi Yu’s saddle.
His movements were quick, but every step carried a methodical urgency—not panic, but a shortage of time.
“Get down,” he said, his voice lower than usual. “Tether the camel to the largest rock. Wrap the blanket tight. Hold the waterskin against your chest. Find a hollow and lie flat—as low as you can.”
“You’re—”
“It’s a sandstorm.”
Xi Yu asked no more questions.
He swung down from the camel, boots landing on the sand, and felt a strange low-frequency vibration through the soles of his feet.
He walked to the nearest wind-eroded rock and crouched down, wrapping himself in the blanket Que Zhi had given him. The blanket was thick, its coarse wool scratching his chin raw, but he still felt he hadn’t wrapped it tight enough. He pulled all the fabric at his collar up over his mouth and nose, leaving only his eyes exposed.
Then he craned his neck to look for Que Zhi—the man was still standing by the camels, tying their reins to the rock with leather ropes. The wind was returning. Not the gentle ground-hugging breeze from before, but a howling gale from the west, roaring with a dull fury. Sand whipped up and stung Xi Yu’s face. He squinted and saw Que Zhi crouch down in front of him.
His body was like a wall blocking the windward side. Sand lashed against his broad back with a sharp crackling sound. His gray coarse-fiber robe flapped violently in the wind, the old dust stains quickly buried under fresh layers of grit—he looked like a rock that had been weathered for a thousand years.
He crouched down, his amber eyes very close to Xi Yu’s. Despite the raging wind, he seemed completely unruffled in front of him—as if the sandstorm were just another task to handle, not a life-threatening crisis. He reached out and tugged the edge of the blanket over Xi Yu’s head a little lower, covering his sand-scoured forehead.
“Don’t be afraid.”
His voice cut through the wind and sand—low, but steady. “The storm will pass soon. Don’t let go of the blanket. Hold the waterskin tight. No matter what happens, don’t come out. Understood?”
Xi Yu nodded. Then the world went dark.
Not the gradual darkening of night—a darkness that swallowed everything in an instant.
The sandstorm slammed into them like a wall. Every trace of light between heaven and earth was devoured, leaving only sand.
The wind was no longer a moan—it was a beast’s roar, the earth’s howl, the shrill shriek of ten thousand blades drawn at once. Sand pelted the blanket in rapid, dense thwacks, the impact so forceful it felt like someone was hurling stones at him.
Xi Yu buried his face between his knees, curling into a ball under the blanket. One hand gripped the blanket’s edge in a death grip, the other clutched the waterskin.
Sand seeped through the gaps, pouring into his collar, his cuffs, his boots, even between his teeth. He bit his lip and tasted sand—salty, metallic, like rust. Sand lashed against the hand clutching the blanket, stinging sharply.
His mind drifted to the cold palace. On stormy nights there, the broken windows would rattle and bang, rain pouring through the gaps in the tiles. He would huddle in the one corner that didn’t leak, wrapped in that threadbare cotton quilt, listening to the distant panicked shouts of eunuchs and maids scrambling to take in their belongings.
No one ever came for him back then. He sat alone in the darkness, listening to the wind and rain, feeling like he was the only person in that entire palace who existed in no one’s eyes.
But not now.
Que Zhi was out there.
He had told him to wait.
He’d said, “When the storm passes, I’ll come find you.”
He had said it in a tone of absolute certainty—not a promise, but a statement of fact. The sun sets. The wind stops. After a sandstorm, he would come. These were all facts, not things that required belief.
And that man’s body was still shielding him from the front. Through the blanket, he couldn’t see him—but he could feel that the brunt of the wind and sand was blocked by something solid.
Xi Yu clutched the waterskin even tighter. It was warm—Que Zhi had left it on his camel’s back all morning before tucking it into his arms.
He buried his face in the gap between the waterskin and his chest, closed his eyes, and told himself: He’s not Old Zhou. He won’t die.
He didn’t know how long the sandstorm lasted. Maybe half an hour, maybe longer. Time lost all meaning inside the storm—there was only sound and pressure, only sand hammering ceaselessly against the blanket, as if trying to grind down everything exposed.
Curled beneath the blanket, Xi Yu counted his heartbeats, using them as his only measure of time. After about three thousand beats, the wind began to subside.
Sand was still flying, but no longer thick enough to blot out the sky. The darkness faded to a murky yellow. A few hundred beats more, and the wind stopped entirely.
He heard a camel snort—that dull, nasal sound was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard.
“Xi Yu.”
Que Zhi’s voice came from outside the blanket.
That low, steady voice, as unyielding as the stones of the Gobi, sounded at that moment like the most melodious sound in the world to Xi Yu’s ears.
He poked his head out from the blanket.
Que Zhi was crouched before him. He was coated head to toe in yellow sand—his hair matted gray with grit, sand clinging to his brows, his lips cracked, and the thin scar on his cheekbone filled with sand, now a pale yellow line.
He looked utterly battered, but those amber eyes were fixed on him, unwavering—like the one fixed point in a desert swept into chaos.
“The storm’s passed,” Que Zhi said. “Are you hurt?”
Xi Yu shook his head.
He wanted to say “I’m fine,” to say “I didn’t lose the waterskin,” to say “How can you still be thinking about me at a time like this?”—but his throat was too dry. No words came out.
He swallowed, looked down, and saw that his fingers, still gripping the edge of the blanket, had gone stiff from holding on too long. His knuckles were white, and the backs of his hands were covered in red welts from the sand.
He tried to release his grip, but his fingers wouldn’t obey—they remained curled in that same clutching position, trembling slightly.
Que Zhi glanced at him, reached out, and took his hands. With his own rough thumb, he brushed away the grains of sand from the backs of Xi Yu’s hands, one by one.
His movements were slow, as if afraid to graze those red marks.
When he finished one hand, he moved to the other.
His touch was so gentle it seemed like he could do this for a lifetime.
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