Que Zhi’s hand paused.
He was adding wood to the fire—branches he’d broken that morning from the shrubs, snapping them in two with a crisp crack in his palm.
He fed the piece into the flames, watching the fire lick over it, before he spoke. “I… what?”
“Do you trust me?”
Que Zhi looked up.
Xi Yu wasn’t looking at him. He was drinking his hot water with his head down, lashes lowered, his tone casual as if the question had slipped out.
But his fingers tightened around the bowl, his nails pressing against the rim, leaving a small patch of white.
Que Zhi had seen this kind of studied casualness before, back at the inn by the well—but back then Xi Yu had been distant, gentle, perfectly composed, hiding everything beneath the brim of his hat.
Now the hat was pushed back, his hair neatly combed—with the wooden comb Que Zhi had given him.
He sat by the fire and asked, “Do you trust me?” in a casual tone, yet his fingers blanched against the bowl’s edge.
“Yes,” Que Zhi said.
“Why?”
“When you asked my name, you looked at my eyes. When you asked for fruit, you looked at my pack. When you asked about the lizard, you watched where it ran. When you asked me—you looked at the bowl.”
He said this slowly, as if unwrapping something he’d kept inside for a long time, layer by layer. Then he lowered his head and continued feeding the fire.
The flames crackled higher, catching the old scar on his cheekbone, reducing it to a faint pale line in the firelight’s shadow.
“Then what about you—do you trust me?”
“Of course!” The answer came without a second thought, Xi Yu’s eyes meeting Que Zhi’s. So fast that he startled himself, quickly ducking his head to sip the hot water, not daring to look at Que Zhi again.
“Oh?” Que Zhi looked at him, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly.
Xi Yu fell silent for a few breaths. He set the bowl on his knee and stared at the half-bowl of water left inside—the surface was rippling. Was his hand shaking?
He raised the bowl and drained it in one gulp, stood up, brushed off his robes, and said in a voice slightly higher than usual, “You added too much wood. The fire’s too big. Wasting fuel.” Then he turned to go fetch the camels.
After two steps, he nearly tripped.
Que Zhi sighed. “Watch your step.”
“You mind your own business,” Xi Yu shot back.
Que Zhi didn’t get up. He stayed by the fire, set down the wood in his hand, and watched that one-sleeved silhouette lead the camel by its rope—circling all the way to the other side of camp, even though the camel was already tied right where it was, leading the already-secured rope in a full loop.
There was a sentence inside him, buried since that first evening by the well when he’d seen that face. It had taken root under the Gobi dawn light as Xi Yu looked up at the sky. It had sprouted branches at the oasis, when wet hair hung loose. In the shop, buying the comb, he hadn’t known what it was. Now he knew.
But that person’s fingers were still trembling from a single word—”Yes.” He took the long way around. He nearly tripped. He said, “You mind your own business”—his voice a half-beat higher than usual, its end unstable, floating faintly in the wind.
This wasn’t the time to hold such a truth.
He dampened the fire, pulling half-burned branches from the flames and sticking them into the sand—hiss—extinguishing them.
Then he picked up the comb Xi Yu had left by his blanket, blew the fine sand from between its teeth, and tucked it into his own robe.
During the morning’s ride, Xi Yu was unusually quiet. He didn’t order Que Zhi to fetch his waterskin. Didn’t complain the sun was too hot or the sand too much. Didn’t demand they find fruit today.
He just rode on his camel, staring at the distant snow mountains, occasionally reaching into his sleeve to touch the dagger.
He didn’t know what he was thinking—or rather, he knew, but didn’t want to admit it.
Lizards don’t trust people. He felt like that lizard. Not because he didn’t want to trust—but because he’d never seen what “trust” even looked like.
Xi Yu had lived eighteen years in the cold palace. The only person who’d ever trusted him was Old Zhou, and Old Zhou was dead—but that wasn’t the right comparison. Old Zhou had trusted him—he hadn’t been trusted to death.
He understood these things logically. But between understanding and doing lay a chasm, and he stood on this side of it, looking at Que Zhi on the other.
That man had said “Yes.” One word. One reason. The reason was that the way Xi Yu looked at people was different: when asking for a name, he looked at the eyes; when asking for fruit, he looked at the pack; when asking a question, he looked at the bowl.
These weren’t sweet words. Not vows of eternal love. Not any kind of romantic line he’d ever read in storybooks.
Maybe it wasn’t even romantic at all. But Que Zhi had remembered the exact angle at which Xi Yu had tilted his hat when taking the steamed bun at the inn gate. Remembered what he’d been looking at every time his attention strayed. Remembered that when he was pretending to be casual, what he held in his hands was a bowl.
It was the feeling of being seen. Not this face—everyone looked twice at this face—but the tiny details hidden beneath the hat brim, beneath the distant and gentle mask, beneath every lowered gaze and silence. Details even he himself had never noticed.
Xi Yu had spent most of his life learning how to hide. This man had taken him apart in a matter of days.
Taken him apart—but not opened him up.
He’d simply remembered the face by the well at dusk. Remembered the pause of his hand when he’d touched the candied fruit under the steamed bun wrapper. Remembered the tone of his voice when he sat by the fire and said “Too hot.” And then said “Yes”—as if that word had always been a reason prepared for him.
Xi Yu gently kicked his camel’s belly. The camel quickened its pace, and before he knew it, he was riding side by side with Que Zhi once more.
The man beside him turned his head slightly, a low voice carrying a note of puzzlement, asking what was wrong.
Xi Yu shook his head, then suddenly asked, “What’s beyond the snow mountains?”
“Grasslands.”
“And further west?”
“More grasslands,” Que Zhi said, “all the way to the royal court.”
“What’s on the grasslands?”
“Livestock. Felt tents. Eagles. Poplar forests—much bigger than the oasis ones. There are rivers, blue water that flows down from the snow mountains.”
“Is the water from the snow mountains cold?”
“Very cold. Freezes your feet.”
“Then I’m going to soak in it.”
Que Zhi turned his face and looked at him.
His peach-blossom eyes had regained that unapologetic brightness, as if the person sitting by the fire with trembling fingers pressed against the bowl rim had never existed.
But Que Zhi saw that his fingers were still curled around the reins, their tips slightly pale, the leather cord wrapped twice around his knuckles.
When people were nervous, they unconsciously wrapped something around their hands.
He didn’t call it out. Just as he didn’t call out the lizard’s flight, he wouldn’t call out the lizard’s tentative approach.
“Soak,” he said.
“How far can you see from the top of the snow mountain?”
“Really far. You can see everywhere you’ve ever been.”
“Then I want to go up.”
“It’s too cold. Looking is enough.”
“I want to go up,” Xi Yu lifted his chin, his peach-blossom eyes fixed on him. “I’ll climb myself. Follow or don’t—up to you.”
Que Zhi looked at this person who said, “Follow or don’t—up to you.”
Between his camel and Xi Yu’s was less than half an arm’s length. If he reached out, he could touch his shoulder.
He didn’t reach out. He just slowed his camel a little, keeping exactly that distance, and answered in a low voice toward those snow mountains still far at the edge of the sky: “Follow.”
And added silently in his heart: Follow for a lifetime.
The sun broke through the clouds, lighting up the snowline like a thin, long door opening at the edge of the sky.
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