The bronze lamp’s flame flickered in the white mist, as if even it had grown tipsy from the steam.
No one knew how long had passed—until Xi Yu could bear no more, and only then did Que Zhi finally stop.
“Husband~ I’m so tired, stop… stop for a while~”
“Good Ah Yu, as you wish.”
Que Zhi’s ragged breaths fell beside Xi Yu’s ear, and he obediently did not continue.
Xi Yu lay sprawled over Que Zhi, still panting lightly, the tears finally ceasing to flow—they had been from being overwhelmed by pleasure.
His soaked underrobe had been folded and set aside behind Que Zhi, his long hair spread across the water’s surface, drifting gently with the ripples.
The two of them were still joined together.
Xi Yu’s cheeks had flushed deeper from the hot spring’s steam—not the wine-flushed crimson from before the bonfire, but a lighter, more even pink that spread from his cheekbones all the way down his body.
His body was covered in mottled marks.
Water droplets trickled down the side of his neck, past the hollow of his collarbone, and paused there, catching the bronze lamplight like a shattered bead of gold.
Que Zhi straightened up and kissed that tear-shaped mole.
His lips pressed against it and lingered for a long time, then moved downward, tracing the natural faint flush at the corner of Xi Yu’s eye all the way to his ear, taking the small patch of skin below his earlobe—warmed by the spring water—between his lips.
Xi Yu’s hands gripped his shoulders tightly.
Tears still streaked his face, his fingers clenching and relaxing, clenching and relaxing, his knuckles pressing through the soaked fabric against the slight curve of Que Zhi’s shoulder blades, as if confirming that he would stay right here.
“This one… is soaked too.”
Xi Yu tugged at his collar, his voice lower than usual, his tone still steady, but the end of his words carried a distinct tremor.
Que Zhi didn’t answer.
Nor did he make any further move. He simply unfastened his soaked underrobe with one hand, the fabric sliding from his shoulders to reveal a body honed by years of wind, sand, and sun.
Across his chest ran an old scar that slanted diagonally from his left ribs—the color had faded considerably, but the stitch marks along its edges remained visible.
Below his right shoulder hollow was a smaller round scar—an arrow wound. It was the same one he’d told Xi Yu about on the Gobi, the one he couldn’t dodge because someone was shielding him, separated from that memory by years of distance.
Something below was impossible to ignore. When Xi Yu reached out, his fingertips still trembling slightly, they brushed the edge of that arrow scar as he asked in a breathy whisper when it had happened.
“A few years ago. On the way back to the royal court from the battlefield, huddled alone in a stone hut during a blizzard. No medicine, no one around.
Back then, I thought every wound would heal on its own, as long as it stopped bleeding.”
Que Zhi lowered his head and looked into his eyes. “Later, you crouched down on that snowy mountain to bandage me, tearing the sleeve of your blue robe. That was when I learned that wounds should be dressed—not left alone to heal by themselves.”
Xi Yu didn’t nod, nor did he say “it’s okay now.” Instead, he moved his hand from the arrow scar on Que Zhi’s right shoulder to the left side of his chest, pressing his palm against the small patch of skin where his heartbeat was most distinct.
“These haven’t healed properly—so many scars. I’ll apply ointment for you every day from now on. Not just ointment—this too.”
His fingerprints weren’t clear, yet they were more easily recognized by the skin than any salve.
“Aren’t you afraid you’ll grow to dislike me?”
“I am afraid. But I also know that Ah Yu won’t.”
Que Zhi took the hand pressed against his heart, lowered his head, and kissed his palm. He traced along his lifeline, moving his lips to the inside of Xi Yu’s wrist, and kissed the pulse there.
Then he sat back up, lifting Xi Yu’s entire body up from his lap.
His arms locked around Xi Yu’s waist like iron hoops, burying his face in the curve of his neck, the tip of his nose brushing against his collarbone. Before Xi Yu could lower his head to respond, Que Zhi pressed him deeper into himself, holding him close.
The pool water churned around them, waves lapping against the crevices of the rock and rebounding. The white mist pressed lower around them, like an impenetrable curtain.
Xi Yu closed his eyes, raised his arms to encircle Que Zhi’s shoulders, his whole body trembling, his legs tightening firmly around Que Zhi’s waist.
For the first time, he felt utterly and completely held.
Not like on the Gobi, when he needed help onto a camel—not on the snowy mountain, when he needed to be carried across the frozen river—but here, in this pool of water warm enough to burn,
Que Zhi gave back to him, with his own body heat, all the warmth he’d lacked, all the wounds that had never quite sealed.
Que Zhi’s fingers traced slowly down his spine, pausing at his waist,
then sinking deeper beneath the surface, tracing lines Xi Yu had never known he could crave so desperately.
Cries, moans, ragged breathing, and low murmurs rose again.
The two of them sank deeper into the mist.
The pool water rose past their collarbones, their shoulders, and over Xi Yu’s hair, spread across the surface.
The bronze lamp’s flame stood distant on the rock wall, flickering behind the rolling white mist, like the deepest breath of the entire hunting grounds.
Xi Yu’s responses grew more urgent, Que Zhi’s kisses more fervent, his movements faster and faster, until Xi Yu wanted to flee once more—
from neck to ear, from brow to lips, to every secret path Xi Yu laid bare before him, Que Zhi used his hands, his lips, piece by piece, kneading eighteen years of longing and reachable fulfillment into this body and soul.
Que Zhi pressed him against his chest, wrapping both arms tightly around him, their bodies overlapping through the thin veil of steam, their pulses seeping into each other’s incomplete contours—
two souls once separated by a thousand miles, intertwined on this night of nothing but white mist, rock walls, and hot spring.
Later, the mist began to thin.
It was no longer an impenetrable fog, but torn by the night wind into wispy veils, drifting diagonally toward the invisible opening above the rock wall.
The bronze lamp’s flame steadied, its halo settling quietly over the water’s surface, illuminating two soaked underrobes draped over the rocks by the pool, their hems still dripping.
Xi Yu leaned back against Que Zhi’s chest, the back of his head resting against his collarbone, eyes closed.
The water came just past his heart. The warm geothermal flow slid from his neck past his ribs and slowly drifted away, as if prolonging the lingering aftershocks of what had just passed.
He reached for Que Zhi’s hand, turned it over, and lowered his head to press a gentle, lingering kiss to the old knife scar at the base of his thumb.
Que Zhi lowered his head, his chin resting on Xi Yu’s crown. He didn’t speak—just held him tighter.
The wind passed through the birch forest, carrying down the last few withered leaves still clinging to the branches. They landed on the low branches by the pool, soon dampened by the rising steam.
Xi Yu suddenly felt that this hot spring would never grow cold.
Warmed by the snowy mountains, wrapped in the thick snow of early winter, marked by the echoes he and Que Zhi had left here, planted with boundary stones for the wounds that had been opened and healed between them—from now on, every snowfall of winter would remember this place.
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