Xi Yu took down the blue robe that had been drying on the tamarisk branches, folded it, and placed it into the pack.
The river water had washed the color out of the fabric, and the mended cuff still bore those crooked stitches. He ran his fingertip over them, then stood up and walked to the windward side of the camp. He knelt down, placed the pale purple flower he’d picked that morning on a flat stone in front of him, and piled a few pebbles into a small cairn to weigh down the petals so the wind wouldn’t carry them away.
He knelt before the stone pile, lowered his eyes, and said in his heart: Old Zhou, I’m doing well. I’m not dead. I’ve reached the Gobi, crossed a river, seen the snow mountains. You don’t have to worry about me. He paused.
Then he added silently—There’s someone who carried me across the river.
He stood up, brushed the sand from his knees, and turned around.
Que Zhi was replacing the camel’s saddle pad—the old one had worn through, and he was patching a new leather pad, a leather cord clamped between his teeth as he pulled it tight with his fingers, tying a firm knot.
He kept his head down, his hair slipping from his shoulder and half-veiling his face, sunlight gilding the back of his hand.
Xi Yu watched him and suddenly thought: if Old Zhou could see this, he’d probably be at ease too.
“Stop staring,” Que Zhi said, the leather cord still between his teeth, his words muffled. “Come here. Hold this end of the rope for me.”
He walked over, crouched in front of Que Zhi, and pressed down on the leather cord end that Que Zhi handed him, watching as Que Zhi looped the cord twice with his other hand and pulled it taut with a sharp jerk, his knuckles whitening.
Close enough now to see the texture of the old scar on the web of his thumb—like the dry riverbeds of the Gobi, splitting into fine, rough branches.
“Que Zhi.”
“Mm.”
“Your country—what’s it called?”
Que Zhi took the leather cord from his mouth and looked up at him. The morning light fell across his face, washing his amber pupils into a lighter shade, as if rinsed by sunlight.
He paused his work. “Beishuo. The Central Plains call us Shuo Kingdom. But the people of the royal court never call it that.”
“Then what do they call it?”
“The grasslands have no name. Herdsmen just say ‘the Khan’s tent’—east or west, everything is measured from the Khan’s tent. ‘Shuo Kingdom’ is what you Central Plains people came up with, written in your documents. It doesn’t sound right no matter which way you say it.”
He knotted the leather cord around the saddle pad and gave it a firm tug. “The Que clan is the royal surname in the court. Every Khan throughout the generations has been a Que.”
“Beishuo.” Xi Yu turned the two syllables over in his mind.
He had read many books. There were a few tattered volumes of geographical records in the cold palace that he’d pored over countless times. The text said that Shuo Kingdom lay west of Jincheng, requiring months of travel beyond the pass—a neighboring state of Great Liang.
Less than a hundred words had dismissed an entire Western Regions empire. But the Beishuo in Que Zhi’s words had livestock and felt tents, eagles and poplar forests, blue rivers flowing down from snow mountains, and blue flowers blooming by the snowmelt. Less than a hundred words had covered only its location and vassal status—and left everything else unsaid.
“And you?”
“Great Liang.”
“Great Liang.” Que Zhi repeated it, his tone flat, as if speaking two meaningless syllables.
Xi Yu was silent for a while. He thought of that country—Great Liang.
He had been a prince of Great Liang. Now he wasn’t.
He had never set foot in the main palace hall, never appeared at the New Year’s Eve banquet, never met any of his siblings.
But the cold palace that had burned to ruins lay within Great Liang’s imperial grounds. His former name was recorded in Great Liang’s imperial genealogy. His title—Prince of Great Liang—had died in that heavy snow on the winter solstice. And the man before him was the heir to Beishuo.
Two countries.
He looked down at the leather cord he was holding—thick, with worn marks on it, made of the same material as the cord wrapped around Que Zhi’s scabbard. He had thought he was just not a blacksmith. It turned out he wasn’t just a Westerner either.
He looked up at Que Zhi. Que Zhi was looking back at him—not with probing curiosity, not with any need to explain, just looking at him, the same way he’d looked back from every hilltop along the way, waiting patiently and quietly for him, without needing a reason.
A rumor he’d once heard suddenly came to mind. “You Northern Shuo people—do you take wives by force?”
The moment he asked, he regretted it. He dropped the leather cord end into Que Zhi’s hand, stood up, and turned to walk away. “I’ll go get the blanket.”
He went to get the blanket. Halfway there, he realized he was walking toward the camel instead, turned back, and in his haste brushed past Que Zhi—his boot slipping on the sand, his shoulder grazing Que Zhi’s arm.
Que Zhi reached out and steadied him by the elbow, saying, “Slow down.”
He didn’t look at Que Zhi, only mumbled a vague “Mm” in reply.
He crouched by the blanket with his head down, his loose hair hiding his face—the tips of his ears and the back of his neck bright red.
The blanket was old, its edges frayed, making the blue robe seem faded beside it. But crouched there, bathed in the morning light, he looked like the only thing on this Gobi that could bloom.
“We don’t,” Que Zhi said. “Northern Shuo people take wives by asking. A hundred sheep, fifty bolts of cloth, kneeling at the door of the future father-in-law—your Central Plains call it a betrothal proposal. Livestock for a beauty. Fair trade.”
Xi Yu picked up the blanket, shook off the sand, turned it over, and began folding the other corner, his voice muffled behind the blanket in his arms. “So have you ever knelt?”
“Not for anyone.”
“Why not?”
“Because I didn’t—” He bit off the last two syllables.
Xi Yu placed the folded blanket back on the camel saddle without turning around.
The wind blew across the river, stirring his loose hair and veiling his brows, leaving only his lightly pressed lips and the clean, taut line of his jaw visible.
He stood by the camel, his fingers absently working the leather buckle on the saddle—undoing it, fastening it, undoing it again.
He knew Que Zhi was watching him.
He also knew that what he’d just asked wasn’t really about sheep and cloth. But he didn’t dare turn around.
Behind him stood the heir of Beishuo. Before him stretched the dry riverbed thick with sand. Above him was this small patch of sky that Great Liang and Beishuo shared.
And he was a prince of Great Liang—someone who should have already died in that cold palace fire.
The closer they drew to the mountains, the nearer to the royal court, the farther from Great Liang. Yet the farther from Great Liang, the clearer his identity as a prince became—like a birthmark that was usually invisible but burned whenever it needed to be seen.
He had no hundred sheep, no fifty bolts of cloth—only a false identity, two old robes, a dagger, and a line of Western Regions script he couldn’t read.
“Que Zhi, your country and Great Liang are not the same. The men of Great Liang’s imperial clan—when they marry, they need three matchmakers, six betrothal gifts, and an imperial decree granting the match.”
He crouched there holding the blanket, seemingly absorbed in studying the saddle buckle, a small section of his wrist resting against the camel saddle.
Que Zhi stood up, walked over beside Xi Yu, crouched down, took the buckle that Xi Yu had already fastened and unfastened three times, and snapped it firmly shut.
He turned his head and looked into Xi Yu’s downcast eyes. “Beishuo has no three matchmakers, no six betrothal gifts, no imperial decree. You just said ‘your country’—not ‘my country.’ You came from Great Liang. You’re not planning to go back. If you don’t go back, then you don’t have to follow Great Liang’s rules.”
He straightened up, rubbed his hands on his robe, and reached out to Xi Yu. That hand was the same as by the well—an old scar on the web of the thumb, a rough but measured palm, fingers slightly curled as they gently took Xi Yu’s hand.
Que Zhi lowered his eyes, his long lashes casting a deep shadow. His knuckles lightly clasped Xi Yu’s cool wrist, and his voice carried the slow, gentle depth of the desert wind.
“In Beishuo, no one cares where you came from.”
His gaze was as deep and boundless as the Gobi, stripped of its usual fierce pride, leaving only a tender, fitting compassion. His fingertips were impossibly light, as if afraid of startling the person before him.
“We who grew up on the grasslands—our hearts are shaped by the open wind and vast wilderness. We can’t breed the narrow, petty thoughts of the Central Plains.”
He leaned in slightly, his breath low and warm, his gaze locked firmly on the one before him—earnest and stubborn, as if drawing that person into his embrace.
“If you don’t want to go back, then you never have to. From now on, the long winds of Beishuo and the ten thousand miles of the royal court will all be your home.”
Xi Yu’s long lashes drooped, a faint blush spreading across his fair, delicate cheeks, his shoulders trembling slightly.
He was held close at Que Zhi’s side, his slender frame drawing nearer, his fingertips lightly gripping a corner of Que Zhi’s robe. His voice was soft and fragile, carrying a restrained quiver.
After a long silence, he slowly lifted his eyes—their clear depths brimming with soft, scattered light. Looking at the man before him, who bore all the harshness of the desert yet showed him only tenderness, he gave a tiny nod and answered in a voice as faint as a mosquito’s hum:
“Alright.”
Que Zhi heard it.
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