The day Xi Yu left the city, the weather was clear. He thought it was probably the best weather he’d encountered in all his eighteen years of life.
The snow had stopped.
The sun rose from the eastern ridgeline, gilding the night’s accumulation of snow in gold.
The ox-cart creaked and groaned along the official road outside the city, its wheels crunching over thin ice with a crisp crackling sound—like someone unwrapping candy by his ear.
The old man driving the cart was a local farmer from just outside the city gates, around fifty years old, his face weathered to the color of the earth itself.
He hummed an out-of-tune country ditty under his breath, the hoarse, raspy melody mingling with the crisp, snow-chilled air and seeping through the cart’s curtain.
It wasn’t unpleasant at all—on the contrary, it carried a raw, unpolished vitality.
Xi Yu closed his eyes and took a gentle breath. His nostrils filled with the scent of thawing earth mingled with the haylike smell of the old ox.
It suddenly struck him—this was the smell beyond the palace walls. The smell of the living.
Leaning back in the cart, Xi Yu lifted the curtain a crack.
The wind rushed in, stinging his face, but he didn’t let the curtain fall.
He squinted into the distance, gazing for a long while, until he suddenly realized—he was smiling.
Not the practiced, perfectly calibrated smile he’d perfected in the Cold Palace.
This was a smile that had curved up on its own, one he couldn’t have suppressed even if he’d tried.
Xi Yu raised his hand and touched his own lips with his fingertip. Beneath it, he felt a genuine curve.
This curve did not belong to the forgotten little prince of the Cold Palace. It belonged to Xi Yu.
He let his hand drop and allowed himself to keep smiling. The corners of his eyes lifted slightly, his lashes trembling, the laughter spilling across his gaze—clear and bright. The usual aloofness had faded, leaving only warmth and vivid tenderness in his eyes.
The old ox-cart ambled along for an entire day, skirting the clusters of villages outside the capital, passing by wheat fields that had been plowed and readied for spring planting.
The lingering snow in the fields had mostly melted, revealing dark, rich soil damp with the breath of spring.
By the time the sun began its descent toward the west, dyeing half the sky a brilliant orange-red, the ox-cart finally came to a slow stop at the entrance of a quiet little town.
Xi Yu gathered his things and climbed down from the cart. He pulled the white cloth at his collar up higher to cover his face and set the bamboo hat on his head.
His legs had gone numb from the ride—a sensation he’d never once felt in eighteen years of crouching in the Cold Palace. Yet one day on an ox-cart, and his legs were completely dead.
The town was small, with only a single yellow-earth street laid out along the official road. A few general stores dotted either side at sparse intervals.
At the far end of the street, by the riverbank, stood a lone inn. Its wooden signboard had been weathered bare of paint by the wind, leaving only the faintly legible characters “Yue Lai” (Welcome Inn).
Xi Yu rubbed his tingling legs and made his way slowly down the earth street toward the inn.
He reached up and adjusted the white cloth hanging at his collar, pulling it higher to conceal the lower half of his face.
Then he took the bamboo hat tied to his bundle and settled it gently upon his head.
A thought stirred in his heart, and suddenly he found it amusing.
His brows and eyes slowly relaxed, warmth seeping into his gaze—softened by that simple, unguarded sincerity. The smile on his face was faint, but genuine.
The innkeeper was a round-faced woman. Seeing that he was alone and dressed as a scholar, she ladled an extra scoop of hot soup into his bowl.
Xi Yu sat in the corner with his bowl of soup. It was radish and mutton stew—the radish chopped haphazardly, the mutton still clinging to its tendons, and too much salt added.
He drank it all, spoonful by spoonful, even scooping out the bits of radish left at the bottom.
This was his first meal after leaving the palace. And it tasted better than any meal he’d ever had before.
No exquisite tableware. No intricate seasonings. Just the most ordinary fare from a border town.
But one mouthful of hot food chased away the chill of the long road behind him.
Xi Yu felt that, compared to the perilous delicacies of the deep palace, this humble fare—rich with the scent of smoke and blowing sand—suited his heart best. It was so good it made his chest burn with warmth.
After finishing his meal, Xi Yu asked the innkeeper where he could buy a map.
The innkeeper smiled and shook her head. “A map? This little town of ours is too out-of-the-way—where would we sell maps?
“Keep heading west for another few dozen li. The next town is bigger than ours—there’s an old bookshop there that’s been open for decades. They sell all sorts of storybooks and maps. You might find what you’re looking for there.”
“Head west—that’ll take you to the Western Regions.” The words dropped lightly.
Xi Yu leaned forward slightly, a flicker of quiet wonder spreading across his brows. His gaze softened, brimming with longing. His fingertips unconsciously tightened around his sleeve, and his voice grew a little lighter—his eyes full of eager anticipation for the distant horizons.
“Indeed,” the innkeeper smiled. “If you wish to go, you can join one of the merchant caravans heading west.”
Xi Yu paused, his hand holding his teacup still for a moment. He looked up at the darkening sky beyond the window and said softly:
“I’ve long heard that in the Western Regions, the sky is vast and the land is wide. At dusk, the setting sun sets the entire desert ablaze in red. The long winds roll yellow sand across the endless Gobi, and even heaven and earth seem to echo with the sound. I’ve heard there are great snowy mountains there—their peaks white all year round, like sugar spilled across the world. And tamarisks that stand for thousands of years on the barren plains, still upright even in death.
“When I read about these things in books, I couldn’t help but yearn to see them with my own eyes—to witness what that open, boundless world looks like, so different from the misty rains of Jiangnan and the crimson walls of the Forbidden City.”
The innkeeper laughed heartily at that.
She looked at the young scholar before her—delicate-featured and clear-eyed—and said with a grin: “You’re quite an interesting scholar, aren’t you? Other scholars are scrambling to get to the capital, desperate to pass the exams and become officials. But you—you’d rather leave behind all that promise and head off to the desolate Western Regions.”
“Ah, well—to each his own. The scenery out west is indeed something our Central Plains can’t match. Safe travels to you.”
She teased him a little more, saying that when he returned, he’d have to come back and tell her stories of the Western Regions, then laughed and went off to attend to other guests.
That night, Xi Yu drew half a bucket of water. The water was biting cold, but he dipped a cloth in it and wiped himself down.
He threw away the old clothes he’d brought from the Cold Palace and changed into the new ones from the bundle—also blue, but not faded to white. The cuffs weren’t frayed, and the fabric was coarse but clean.
Xi Yu draped the old cloth over the windowsill and looked up at the sky.
It was fully dark now, and stars were appearing one by one.
He’d seen this same sky from the Cold Palace—but it had been a sky cut into fragments by the window lattice, only trickling in.
Now, the sky above him had no frame. It stretched from east to west, scattered thick with countless stars—some glaringly bright, some faint and flickering, as if someone had cast a handful of silver crumbs across black satin.
Xi Yu lay on the bed, head tilted back, legs swaying gently back and forth. He watched until his neck ached—and only then did he fall asleep.
Leave a Reply