They had been on the trade route for three days. Que Zhi’s leg wound had scabbed over, and Xi Yu kept track of the distances between relay stations, noticing that they were drawing closer to the grasslands.
On the evening of the fourth day, they checked into a relay station slightly larger than the previous ones. The courtyard wall was built of piled gravel, and several caravans were already camped inside. Camels and horses were crowded against the base of the wall, and the air was thick with the smoke of burning dung and the toasted aroma of baked flatbread.
The innkeeper was a short, stout middle-aged man who spoke with a heavy Western-region accent, his Han Chinese fragmented and broken. But he was efficient, quickly handing over the room key and arranging for hot water in just a few exchanges.
There was only one room left.
Que Zhi pulled out some silver. Xi Yu stood behind him, and when he heard the word “one,” his fingers unconsciously curled inside his sleeve.
Xi Yu thought of what the bearded merchant had said the night before. He thought of the look in the innkeeper’s wife’s eyes earlier when she’d poured him cold tea in the yard. He thought of Old Zhou in the cold palace saying, Keep that face of yours hidden—don’t let anyone see it. People with ill intentions will cause trouble if they do.
Back then, he’d thought everyone was like that.
But Que Zhi had been looking at that face for nearly a month now. Aside from that one extra beat at the well the first time they met, he’d never done anything out of line.
And that extra beat hadn’t been ill-intentioned either.
The innkeeper’s wife led the way with an oil lamp, the wooden stairs creaking underfoot. She pushed open the door, set the lamp on the windowsill, then pulled two quilts from the cabinet and placed them at the head of the bed, moving as briskly as if she were feeding chickens.
The quilts were made of half-old coarse cotton, washed stiff, but they smelled of sun-dried freshness.
She paused at the door to add that the water cistern was in the yard—they could draw their own—then clattered back down the stairs.
Xi Yu stood in the middle of the room, eyeing the single bed. It wasn’t narrow—plenty of room for two—but it wasn’t wide either. Their shoulders would touch.
He set his bundle at the foot of the bed. “You take the bed. Your leg is injured.”
“I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“The scab has formed.”
“A scab is still an injury.” Xi Yu picked up his bundle from the foot of the bed and moved it to the head, the motion carrying an unreasoned certainty—as if assigning sleeping arrangements was something he was naturally in charge of, not up for debate.
Then he picked up one of the quilts the innkeeper’s wife had left and spread it on the floor beside the bed. He crouched down and smoothed the corners.
The ground was rammed earth with a layer of dried straw on top. It rustled underfoot, and even through the quilt he could feel how hard it was—but it was still far better than the sandy ground of the Gobi.
He’d slept on harder surfaces in the cold palace.
Que Zhi watched him sit down on the quilt, pat the corner where a pillow would go, roll up the single sleeve of his blue robe to use as a cushion, then lie flat and close his eyes.
The whole process took less than the time to brew a cup of tea—so practiced it looked like he’d been sleeping on the ground for eighteen years.
Que Zhi let out a sigh. He walked over, bent down, and scooped up the man and the quilt together in one motion.
One hand supported Xi Yu’s back, the other slipped under his knees. With a firm lift, he hoisted him off the floor entirely.
“Ah! Que Zhi—”
It happened too fast. Xi Yu instinctively grabbed a fistful of fabric at Que Zhi’s shoulder.
His back sank into the bed’s mattress. The coarse cotton quilt cover still carried the faint smell of the innkeeper’s wife’s soap, mingling with the scent of the Gobi night wind.
“You sleep on the bed. I’ll take the floor.”
The oil lamp’s flame flickered on the windowsill. The wick popped with a small burst of sparks, light and shadow shifting across Que Zhi’s face.
It caught the unwavering focus in his eyes as he looked down at Xi Yu—not a request for permission, nor a test of vulnerability. It was a statement. A fact he was conveying.
That same fact had been there that morning on the trade route when he’d pointed into the distance and said the pasture would be greener next year. It had been there when he’d placed his own boots on top of Xi Yu’s camel to keep them from being washed away while crossing the river.
It was the sugar candy wrapped extra in the paper packet when he’d tossed him the mutton bun at the inn entrance.
Those two words were the sum total of all of it—spoken in this narrow room, at the edge of the same bed, to a man who was trying to spread a quilt on the floor.
Xi Yu gripped the corner of the quilt, his cheeks puffing out slightly, his eyes stubborn yet soft, refusing to give an inch.
He craned his neck, his voice urgent and serious, carrying that small stubbornness that Que Zhi had indulged in him:
“No, no way—then… then we’ll both sleep together!”
He paused, afraid the other might not agree, then leaned in closer, adding with righteous indignation, almost like a pout:
“If you won’t sleep on the bed, then I won’t either—we’ll both sleep on the floor together!”
He was someone who dreaded the cold, who’d been clutching the quilt tightly just moments ago for warmth—but now he cast all that aside without a second thought.
At his core was a straightforward, willful petulance that he himself had allowed to flourish—pure-hearted and obstinate, his mind filled with nothing but the injured Que Zhi, unwilling to let him suffer alone.
Even if the floor was cold, he would share it with him. Childish yet sincere, soft yet stubborn—wholly relying on the knowledge that the other would indulge him.
Que Zhi watched the youth’s indignant yet utterly earnest expression, and a faint tenderness spread through his deep-set eyes.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he uttered a single low word from his throat, his voice deep and yielding:
“Fine.”
“Together.”
That simple word caught all of Xi Yu’s childish obstinacy and held it perfectly.
Que Zhi had never feared the night’s chill; he’d always endured wind and frost without complaint. But he couldn’t bear to let the one he held dear suffer even a sliver of discomfort—so he willingly followed the youth’s whim, playing along, accommodating him.
The young master of the royal court had always been hard-edged and sharp, but before Xi Yu, all that edge melted away—gentle, obedient, letting this person take whatever he wanted.
Que Zhi lay on his side on the outside of the bed, keeping a fist’s width of distance between himself and Xi Yu.
He didn’t touch him. He simply rested his hand on top of the quilt, palm down, pressed against the wooden frame of the bed’s edge.
From across the street, camel bells chimed in the night breeze. Downstairs, a porter from one of the caravans was singing a Western-region folk song with a melody that twisted through eighteen turns. The song drifted in through the crack beneath the door, muffled and indistinct.
Xi Yu stared at the ceiling beams.
He felt like he should say something—”Thank you,” or “Your leg hasn’t healed yet,” or “I’m not used to sharing a bed with anyone.”
But nothing came out.
Because he realized he was used to it.
Not used to sharing a bed with someone—but used to having this person beside him.
Used to having Que Zhi within arm’s reach. Used to the sound of his breathing.
Back when they’d camped on the Gobi, he’d slept on the mat across from him, with the campfire between them. His breathing had mingled with the crackle of the firewood, becoming the background noise of his sleep. But back then, there had been the fire, the camel bells, the wind.
Now all those sounds were shut outside the door. The room held only the faint sputter of the oil lamp and the rhythm of another person’s breath.
That breath was less than a fist away, interwoven with his own. The rhythms didn’t match, but at some point, it had stopped startling him awake.
Xi Yu closed his eyes and told himself: It’s just sharing a bed, nothing more. He’s injured. The bed is too narrow. We have to travel again tomorrow.
All perfectly good reasons.
But none of them explained why he reached over and tugged Que Zhi’s quilt corner upward, covering the knuckles of the hand resting on the bed frame, then turned over to face the wall, his voice muffled in the pillow: “Sleep.”
“Sweet dreams.” The voice was very soft, as if afraid to disturb the person in his arms.
Que Zhi gazed at the back of Xi Yu’s neck. The person in his arms had curled into a small ball, his slender shoulders and back slightly tense, soft strands of hair draped loosely over his pale neck, glowing faintly in the dim light.
His arms tightened—he wanted to hold him securely in his embrace. His gaze settled heavily on that fragile, slender neck, his eyes churning with suppressed undercurrents.
The night wind was cold outside. Xi Yu instinctively burrowed deeper into his warm embrace, his back trembling slightly, all his usual composed grace gone, replaced by a soft, flustered vulnerability.
Que Zhi lowered his gaze. His fingertips almost brushed that warm skin, but he stopped himself at the last moment, only pulling the person in his arms closer with greater force, silently shielding him from all the wind and rain outside.
In the middle of the night, Xi Yu had a dream.
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