“Although we’ve run into sandstorms and blizzards, I’ve always felt like someone’s been watching over us. I used to… someone once told me that when people die, they become stars, watching from the sky. I never believed it before. Now I think I might, a little.”
He reached up and touched the small tear-shaped mole beneath the outer corner of his right eye, and smiled.
Que Zhi looked up at him. The firelight flickered in those amber eyes. He didn’t ask where that “before” was, or who that “someone” was.
His thin lips parted slightly. “I used to hate snow. Marching in snow was too cold, and blood wouldn’t dry easily. Now it’s not so bad.”
“Why now?”
“Because you look warm in the snow.”
Xi Yu pulled the heavy cloak up a little higher, hiding the corner of his mouth.
He’d noticed that Que Zhi had been saying things like this more and more often lately—still in that same even tone, still looking down and going back to work right after, as if he’d just been commenting on the weather.
But Xi Yu had learned to read the temperature in those “weather reports”—like the rough, calloused fingers rubbing dried grapes together by a Gobi campfire, hot without knowing it.
—
As they shared their dry rations, wind gusted through the doorway, carrying snowflakes and the distant howl of the mountain ridges.
Xi Yu took a bite of his hardtack, then suddenly let out a laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“I was thinking about that time you took shelter here alone in the snow. Did you sit by the fire eating hardtack just like this?”
“Yes.”
“Then I was right. Back then, when you were eating that hardtack, did you ever think that one day someone would be here with you in the same broken-down shack, eating hardtack too?”
Que Zhi chewed his mouthful of hardtack, swallowed, and then looked up.
The firelight softened his expression, and the old scar on his cheekbone faded to a pale white line in the shadows. A single tiny snowflake had caught on his eyelashes, melting into a droplet that glistened at the edge of his eyelid.
He looked at the figure across from him—bundled in two heavy cloaks, snow still clinging to his hair, cheeks stuffed full of hardtack—and thought:
That time, huddled alone in the straw, the fire burned out, the snow kept falling, and all he could see through the doorway was a white blur of wind and snow. He’d never once imagined that one day there would be another person in this stone hut asking him that question.
“Back then, eating that hardtack,” he said, “I never thought about that. But now I don’t know anymore—in the future, when I eat hardtack alone again, will it feel too quiet? Quiet enough to be unbearable?”
Xi Yu stopped chewing.
His cheeks were still puffed out, his lips slightly parted, his peach-blossom eyes wider than usual in the firelight.
Que Zhi looked away and picked up his hardtack again.
The fire crackled. On the stone wall, their two shadows swayed closer and farther apart, occasionally overlapping, then separating.
—
In the night, the snow stopped.
Moonlight poured through the doorway of the stone hut, cool and clear, turning the straw on the ground to silver-white.
Xi Yu curled up inside the two heavy cloaks, his head resting on his bundle. Just as he was about to fall asleep, he heard a very faint, very low sound.
Not wind, not snow—it was a human breath shaped into a melody.
A humming—no words, just a deep, low tune rising from the throat. Like a grassland long-song, vast and boundless, with no beginning and no end. But here, in this tiny room, it was kept very, very low, as if afraid to wake someone.
Xi Yu didn’t open his eyes. He just slowly adjusted his breathing to match the rhythm of that tune, and said in his heart—Old Zhou, I’ve met someone. He used to hate snow too, but now he says it’s not so bad. He’s really good to me. Don’t worry about me.
Then he buried his face in the collar of the heavy cloak and fell into a deep sleep, carried away by Que Zhi’s tuneless humming.
The snow had stopped all night, and the next day dawned clear and bright—a rare cloudless sky.
Xi Yu was woken by sunlight.
A shaft of light cut diagonally through the doorway, turning the straw on the stone floor a brilliant gold. He rubbed his eyes and sat up. One of the two heavy cloaks slid off him; the other still hung on his shoulder, the collar warm and dry from his body heat.
Que Zhi hadn’t used a cloak at all. He was leaning against the stone wall, eyes closed, curved saber resting on his knees, breathing steady and long.
Sunlight seeped in from the edge of the doorway, tracing a faint golden line across the old scar on his cheekbone. The light trembled with each rise and fall of his breath, softening the pale, aged mark that had crossed his face for years.
Xi Yu crept quietly to his feet and stepped outside. The snow had stopped. From the pass, everything below was blanketed in white—the trade route buried under a faint, barely visible depression, the distant ridges glowing pale blue in the morning light. A few eagles circled high above, wings motionless, riding the updrafts.
He didn’t wake Que Zhi. He turned back into the stone hut, crouched by the dying embers, arranged the few remaining sticks of kindling, and picked up the flint.
He struck twice—nothing. The flint felt clumsy and stubborn in his hands. On the third strike, a spark landed on the dry grass shavings, and with a soft puff, a small flame leapt up, licked the edge of the kindling, and steadied itself, trembling.
He crouched there watching that flame until it burned steadily, casting light once more on the old smoke stains blackening the stone walls. Then he let out a quiet breath, stood up, and set the waterskin over the fire. He rummaged through his bundle for the hardtack and broke it into two pieces—one large, one small.
He placed the larger piece on the stone beside Que Zhi’s knee, and held the smaller one over the fire, turning it back and forth. He roasted it until both sides were golden and crisp, blew on the hot edges, and held it in his hands without eating.
—
Que Zhi woke to the smell of toasted bread.
He opened his eyes and saw Xi Yu crouched by the fire, poking a piece of hardtack with a stick and turning it over the flames. His technique was clumsy but focused, stray hair falling across half his face.
His empty sleeve had been tied up with a strip of cloth, the cuff gathered into a knot that wasn’t quite neat—like half a folded wing.
He finished roasting one piece, set it on a stone to cool, and started on a second. His lips were pressed together, his expression serious, as if he were doing something terribly important.
“The sun must be rising from the west,” Que Zhi said, the corner of his eye lifting with meaning.
Xi Yu turned around. There was a smudge of charcoal ash on his face, a pale gray streak across his cheekbone. “You’re awake? I made a fire—see? I started it myself.”
His tone was flat, but the end of his sentence lifted.
Que Zhi wiped the ash off his face and said he saw it. Then he picked up the waterskin and poured some water—the temperature was just right, not too hot.
Xi Yu handed him the first piece he’d roasted—the one that had turned out best, golden and crisp on one side, slightly overdone on the other with dark brown scorch marks.
Que Zhi took it, bit into it, chewed, and said nothing. He simply turned the burnt side up and kept eating, as if this over-roasted hardtack was just as natural as that mutton bun at the inn.
Xi Yu watched him finish it, then said, “You don’t have to get my rations for me today. And you don’t have to roast them for me anymore, either. I already know how. My timing’s still a little off, but I’ll get better at it.”
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