Que Zhi sat across from him, wiping his curved knife. The blade reflected half his face, and the firelight baked the rarely stirred darkness in his eyes into an inescapable glow—so he turned the knife to wipe the other side.
The wind grew stronger at night. On the grassland, there were no stone houses or wind-eroded rocks—only low grass and a few crooked poplars. The campfire swayed and flickered in the wind, sparks flying up and then falling, disappearing into the damp, cool blades of grass.
Que Zhi took the folded thin blanket beside him and layered it over the one covering Xi Yu. He set his curved knife at his side, lay down facing him on the outside of the blankets, and reached over to straighten his crooked collar. His thumb brushed across the most prominent knob of his collarbone, pressing down firmly for a moment—as if branding that city he had never found the words to speak of into every unwitting beat of his pulse.
Then he said: “We’ve covered two hundred li. One more day’s travel, and we’ll be able to see the direction of the royal court.”
Xi Yu pulled his hand out from under the blanket and placed it on the grass between them.
There was no moonlight tonight, no camel bells—only the rustle of wind through grass and the small patch of darkness between them untouched by the firelight. His fingers moved in that darkness and brushed against Que Zhi’s wrist—the leather edge of his wrist guard still faintly warm from the fire.
Xi Yu wanted to say thank you, wanted to say the royal court is your home, not mine, wanted to say I wasn’t planning to follow you all the way to your doorstep—just wanted to walk a little further, and then a little further still. But nothing came out.
The grassland was silent for a long time.
Then he felt Que Zhi’s wrist turn over. That rough, calloused palm—shaped by ten years of gripping a curved knife—turned upward, pressing against his cold fingers, parting them one by one, fitting between his own. He didn’t grip—just let Xi Yu’s fingers settle into the lines of his palm, like a stream finally flowing into the valley it was meant for.
Through the edge of the wrist guard, his pulse beat fast and heavy, thudding against Xi Yu’s knuckles.
Urgent. Chaotic. Nothing like the steady, stone-like man he usually was.
But his hand did not tremble.
Xi Yu looked down at their interlaced hands.
He lay on the grass, his left hand wrapped in another’s warmth, gazing up at the deep blue night sky. Suddenly, he felt as though the entire grassland was pouring into him through his palm.
The feeling was light—like a birch canopy shuddering in the wind, revealing silver-white undersides of leaves. And yet it was heavy—like those silent wind-eroded rocks at the foot of snow mountains, standing alone for ten thousand years.
After a long while, he didn’t speak into the darkness. He only curled his fingers inward, holding that person’s pulse.
The fire had burned low. The last few flames wavered in the wind and flickered out, leaving only dark red embers glowing and fading in the night.
No one spoke again.
Only the wind. Only the grass. Only two hands, quietly overlapping between blanket and earth, palms locked, pulses questioning and answering each other.
—
—
Xi Yu was woken by a strange sound.
Not camel bells. Not the wind. Not the fine rasp of Gobi sand against the blanket—it was chewing.
Slow, rhythmic, accompanied by occasional snorts of breath—less than a foot above his head.
Xi Yu opened his eyes.
A massive sheep’s head was staring down at him.
The sheep’s pupils were horizontal slits, amber-colored, reflecting his just-awakened face.
The sheep’s mouth was chewing something at a leisurely pace—it was his hair.
Xi Yu sat up abruptly, yanking his hair out of the sheep’s mouth. The damp ends were coated with grass debris and sheep saliva.
The sheep tilted its head and looked at him, its expression so innocent it might as well have been saying you were the one who put your hair in its bowl.
Xi Yu’s long lashes fluttered in panic, his clear eyes filled with alarm and a touch of surprise. He instinctively shrank his neck back, his voice soft and urgent: “Que Zhi—a sheep is eating my hair!”
It wasn’t just one sheep—it was a dozen of them.
Their herder had also arrived—a young man of modest stature in a blue linen robe, ambling slowly down the slope with his flock. The morning light backlit him, revealing a thick mop of fluffy short curls, unruly and soft, clinging to his forehead and the sides of his neck, his silhouette hazy and gentle. His face was round and dark—the healthy wheat-toned complexion forged by long exposure to sun and wind, with a natural rustic flush on his cheeks, his features simple and warm.
Only when he drew closer did Xi Yu notice his eyes—small but very bright, crinkling into two slits when he smiled. He stood before Xi Yu, shooing his sheep away from his feet, and said, “Khalbala. This sheep’s name is Khalbala.”
He pointed at the wool-eater, his Chinese heavily accented but understandable: “Means ‘black face’—see, his face is black, right? He’s just greedy, didn’t mean to bite you.”
He finished with a grin, revealing a row of crooked but very white teeth.
Que Zhi returned from washing up by the stream, droplets of water still clinging to his face. Spotting this uninvited guest, his steps paused for a fraction of a moment. He didn’t reach for the curved knife at his waist—just stood there, sizing up the herder’s staff. The tip was wrapped in iron, worn shiny—but it wasn’t a weapon.
He asked: “Which tribe are you from?”
Before the herder could answer, Xi Yu spoke for him.
Still wringing out the damp lock of hair the sheep had chewed, he looked up at Que Zhi at the question, his tone accusatory: “His name is Khalbala. His sheep ate my hair.”
“Khalbala is probably the sheep’s name,” Que Zhi said.
“I know. But he hasn’t told us his name yet.”
The herder looked left, then right, and laughed again: “Batu. Batu of the Helian tribe.”
He then squatted down naturally, pulled Xi Yu up from the ground, fished a coarse cloth rag from his chest, spat on it, and raised it toward Xi Yu’s head.
Xi Yu stepped back, his back bumping into Que Zhi’s chest. He caught Batu’s wrist and pushed the rag back, jerking his chin toward the stream. “Water,” he said.
—
All three crouched by the stream. Xi Yu washed his hair with great care, tilting his head to soak the ends in the icy water and rubbing them. But after several rubs, that lock of hair still felt greasy.
Que Zhi handed over the cloth he’d washed the night before. “Use this. It’ll clean better than your hands.”
Xi Yu took the cloth but hadn’t started wiping when Batu reached over from the side with his own comb—a crooked wooden thing with a few strands of wool still caught between the teeth—and went straight for his hair.
He combed and chattered: “Sheep saliva is sticky—you need a comb. Just rinsing with water won’t get it out. See, we herders, if a sheep licks our face, we just wipe it off with a grass blade—you Central Plains folk are too particular. But your hair really is nice to touch—finer than cashmere.”
Xi Yu was jostled this way and that by his combing. “Ah! Can you be gentler—that’s my hair, not your grazing grass.”
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