Chi Cheng felt as if he was standing in a sea of fire, every inch of his body burning with excruciating pain. As he struggled, he gazed into the distance where, at the other end of the scorched ruins, lay a peaceful ocean. Xun Xun stood in the shallow waters, hearing his call, she turned back with a gentle frown and smile, her dimples barely visible. He desperately wanted to rush to her side but discovered one of his legs was completely engulfed in flames. Her figure and smile grew increasingly distant.
He awoke from his desperate cry to find himself no longer lying on wet wild grass. There was no painful sleet hitting his face, no biting mountain wind… Though the sensation of pain remained vivid, he quickly realized he had escaped danger.
Using his one movable hand to slightly prop himself up, he discovered he wasn’t in a hospital or hotel, but rather in a simple village house. Although daylight was visible through the window, the cramped room was dark, with black-mottled walls exuding the distinctive musty smell of old houses. He lay on a wooden bed covered with cotton padding, with a broken bamboo chair being the only furniture in sight.
Chi Cheng suspected he was dreaming again and explored his body with one hand. The bandaids on his face had been replaced with gauze, and his left hand was similarly wrapped in thick bandages. When he tried to sit up, his leg erupted in unbearable pain. He fearfully lifted the blanket; fortunately, both legs were still there, though one was fitted with a makeshift splint.
The old clothes he wore were ill-fitting, not only tight but adorned with horrifying little flowers… Chi Cheng tugged at the clothes while looking around, but Xun Xun wasn’t by his side. The only thought in his mind was to call out her name loudly, but when he opened his mouth, his throat burned as if scorched by hot coals, and his intended shout came out as merely a weak whisper.
Chi Cheng suddenly had a bizarre thought – had he traveled through time to some strange era? Fortunately, his eyes caught sight of the orange mountaineering jacket covering the blanket, and his heart finally settled somewhat. That was someone’s ultimate gear; as long as the clothes were here, she must be nearby, even if they had traveled back to primitive times.
Just then, the wooden door of the room creaked open from the outside, and Xun Xun entered carrying a pile of clothes, followed by a middle-aged woman wearing a headscarf. The woman was holding a bowl, and upon seeing him awake, she smiled and spoke in a dialect he barely understood.
Chi Cheng couldn’t make sense of the situation at all and could only foolishly follow Xun Xun with his eyes. After the woman set down the bowl and made a few gestures while speaking, she closed the door and left, leaving only Xun Xun and him in the room.
Xun Xun placed what she was carrying on Chi Cheng’s blanket. Looking at them, he saw they were his original clothes – even folded, he could see several large tears in the jacket, and the jeans were also damaged, though everything had been washed clean.
He was pushed back onto the bed by Xun Xun, who pulled up his blanket.
“Don’t catch a cold on top of everything else. I don’t have the energy to take care of you anymore,” Xun Xun said.
It turned out they had been discovered by mountain patrollers after spending nearly four hours at the bottom of the cliff. In the pitch darkness, what had attracted people was the light from Xun Xun’s flashlight. The patroller was a villager from a nearby settlement who immediately returned to the village to find help, and together they rescued the pair. They were now in the house of the patroller who had found them, and the woman who had just brought in the bowl was his wife.
Chi Cheng learned that he had slept for a day and a night, meaning it was now noon on the second day of the Lunar New Year. He incredulously asked Xun Xun why she hadn’t taken him to a hospital down the mountain.
Xun Xun told him that just to find a doctor, the male house owner had already braved the sleet overnight, crossing a mountain peak to desperately fetch someone from the health clinic in the neighboring natural village. Now his wounds had been treated – besides external injuries, he had a fractured tibia in his left leg, which was already fortunate given the circumstances. The weather had been terrible these past few days, with freezing rain falling on the mountain for two straight days. The roads were basically iced over, and the mountain paths were treacherous and slippery, making vehicle transport impossible. They couldn’t possibly carry him down the mountain on a stretcher.
“They told me it’s always like this during this time of year. Besides those photography enthusiasts prepared for a long stay on the mountain, basically no one chooses to come up during this period. Are you saying you really didn’t know this beforehand?” Xun Xun said, sitting sideways on the edge of the bed.
Chi Cheng’s face darkened uncertainly, and after a while, he muttered, “How was I supposed to know I’d be so unlucky?”
Xun Xun smiled bitterly, knowing that his “unlucky” surely referred to not anticipating the fall down the mountain. In his original plan, he must have hoped for the rain and snow to seal off the mountain – that way, even if she had been wronged, she wouldn’t be able to leave and would have to stay at the hotel at his mercy. But man proposes, God disposes – this was karma!
Chi Cheng pushed aside the dried clothes and questioned Xun Xun about the “little flowers” he was wearing.
“What kind of thing am I wearing?”
The room’s dim light made it impossible for him to see Xun Xun’s expression clearly, only that she had turned her face away.
“Those are my clothes. You were completely soaked through – how could you not change? We were afraid you wouldn’t wear the male owner’s clothes and would find fault with me later! Besides… my nightgown is quite loose.”
“You mean I’ve been wearing this ever since they brought me back?” Chi Cheng thought about being treated and having a splint put on while wearing a floral nightgown, not knowing who else had come in and out of the room to see him, and immediately wished he had died in the fall.
Xun Xun’s voice sounded like she was holding back laughter. “It doesn’t look that bad. The sister just said you look prettier than the village girls.”
Chi Cheng snapped, “You think I’m an idiot? You can understand their dialect?”
“Maybe one sentence out of ten,” Xun Xun said.
“And of course you understood the one making fun of me! Since I’m in this state anyway, go ahead and laugh!” He angrily tried to remove the clothes with one hand, wanting to change back into his original clothes, but being one-armed wasn’t so simple. His wounds were still fresh, and any large movement caused his face to contort in pain.
“What are you laughing at? Seeing this, why don’t you help me?” Chi Cheng said angrily.
Xun Xun took his hand away from the clothes and advised, “Just bear with it. With your leg injured like this, who would dare put pants on it? If it leaves lasting effects…”
“Afraid I’ll be lame and you’ll have to take care of me for life?” Chi Cheng interrupted.
“Who’s going to spend a lifetime with you?”
Chi Cheng was stunned by this response, then thought about it and laughed coldly. “Right, you calculate everything so carefully. Why settle for an expired meal ticket, especially one with a torn corner?”
Xun Xun held back her anger. “You know best what’s between us. Even if you were completely paralyzed, it would have nothing to do with me. I don’t want to bring up what happened before – I’m only taking care of you out of pity!”
“Who needs your pity?” Chi Cheng’s expression changed as he looked under the pillow and blanket everywhere, then said to Xun Xun, “Give me my phone. I’ll find someone to take me down the mountain right now.”
Xun Xun found his phone at the foot of the bed and wordlessly threw it beside his hand.
Sure enough, the first number he dialed was Zhou Ruisheng’s, but after holding the phone to his ear for a long time, presumably unable to get through, he remembered what that guy had done and figured he had probably already fled with the money. He then remembered he still had his car parked at the bottom of the mountain. He called the parking lot duty office at the scenic area and waited quite a while before getting a response: his car wasn’t there at all – Zhou Ruisheng had driven it away the same day he dropped them off at the mountain.
Chi Cheng’s eyes blazed with anger. “That bastard had to screw me over too.”
He scrolled through his phone contacts – a long list of numbers including his father, company colleagues, clients, and all sorts of fair-weather friends. After going through the entire list from top to bottom, who among them would brave the snow and rain, risk danger to pick him up and take care of him? Not a single one! He sadly realized that in this situation, besides that shameless scoundrel Zhou Ruisheng who would do anything for profit, the only person he could think of was the one standing beside him, watching coldly. In other words, he couldn’t count on anyone now.
In front of Xun Xun, he threw his phone to the foot of the bed and fell back heavily. Underestimating the hardness of the wooden bed, he let out a loud cry of pain.
Xun Xun stood with her back to him at the foot of the bed, organizing the dried clothes. She thought he had fallen asleep or passed out. After a long silence, she heard him say quietly under the blanket, “I need to use the bathroom.”
“What?” Xun Xun turned back uncertainly.
“I said… I need to pee!” He raised his voice, though completely lacking his usual domineering manner. Seeing Xun Xun still motionless, he reluctantly propped himself up and said word by word, “Please help me go to the bathroom!”
Xun Xun silently took out what appeared to be a bedpan from under the bed.
“What?” He expressed his strong protest in a “you must be joking” tone.
Xun Xun told him plainly: “You’ve already used it when you were semiconscious. Until you can get out of bed, this is the only solution for that particular need.”
Chi Cheng stared at her intently until he was sure this was real, then said dejectedly, “You go out first.”
“Are you sure you can aim accurately?”
“Zhao Xun Xun…”
Xun Xun said expressionlessly: “I’ve done everything since we got here anyway. Even for you, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about at this point.”
After taking care of the matter, Xun Xun helped Chi Cheng lie back down. She walked to the other side of the bed and propped open a small wooden window. Chi Cheng was shocked to see the white mountains outside – the legendary Guyang Mountain mist pines had finally appeared, though he had never imagined he would be watching them with her under these circumstances.
The mountain patroller who rescued Chi Cheng and Xun Xun had the surname “Gun,” a unique surname among the Dong ethnic people in the mountains. Chi Cheng followed Xun Xun in calling them “Brother Gun” and “Sister-in-law Gun,” feeling awkward at first but getting used to it after several times.
The Gun couple were kind-hearted, simple people. Brother Gun not only sought medical help everywhere for Chi Cheng’s wounds but also readily took them in to stay at his home until Chi Cheng’s injuries improved or the weather got better. He even got some wild Tianqi herb from his fellow villagers and made soup with wild boar bones, said to have special healing effects for bone injuries. Sister-in-law Gun was a typical local Dong woman who couldn’t speak much Mandarin, communicating with Xun Xun and them mostly through gestures. She took meticulous care of their daily needs, almost insisting on serving meals to the bedside.
Xun Xun knew the Gun couple didn’t live an easy life. Their son was working away from home and hadn’t returned, yet despite it being New Year, they served their best food at every meal. Feeling that she had troubled them greatly, besides caring for Chi Cheng, she helped Sister-in-law Gun whenever she could with whatever tasks she was capable of.
Since Brother Gun’s house only had two habitable rooms, and because Chi Cheng and Xun Xun were found huddled together, they were naturally assumed to be a young couple who had met with misfortune while traveling together. Xun Xun didn’t know how to explain her relationship with Chi Cheng, sometimes not even understanding it herself, so she didn’t bother to clarify to avoid causing others trouble. Thus, at night she slept with Chi Cheng in Gun’s son’s room, which also made it convenient to care for the injured person. Chi Cheng didn’t express any opinion about this arrangement.
At night, they shared the same bed. Although they had recently shared each other’s most intimate physical pleasures, now with their concerns weighing on their minds, sharing a blanket felt particularly awkward. On the first night after Chi Cheng regained consciousness, Xun Xun finished all her tasks and, seeing him asleep, carefully lay down on the inner side of the bed. Chi Cheng may or may not have been awakened, but with his injuries, he lay sprawled out, taking up almost half the bed. Xun Xun couldn’t complain and had to practically press against the wall.
Before Chi Cheng regained consciousness, she had been busy helping the clinic doctor, neglecting her minor injuries. Then, not wanting to trouble Sister-in-law Gun, she washed their changed clothes herself and dried them by hand near the fire basin. After Chi Cheng woke up, she hadn’t rested for a moment. Now, as soon as her body touched the bed, she felt exhausted all over. Despite the unfamiliar environment being hard to adjust to, she soon fell into a drowsy sleep.
Though the farmhouse’s cotton quilt looked thick, it wasn’t very snug. In the middle of the night, Xun Xun woke once, feeling a chill on her shoulders as wind seeped through the gap between them.
Chi Cheng was asleep, breathing heavily. Xun Xun knew how difficult his injuries were to bear given the poor medical conditions in the mountains. After falling, he had also caught a chill – when she held him later, there was a period when she could barely feel his body temperature. The clinic doctor had said that if Chi Cheng hadn’t been in good physical condition, he might have lost half his life already. Thinking of this, Xun Xun moved the quilt toward him, tucking in his shoulders, and laid both their jackets over him.
After seemingly drifting off again, Xun Xun’s hands and feet were ice-cold, yet dawn was still far off. She curled up her body, but the quilt wasn’t big enough – this change in position left parts of her body exposed to the nearly freezing air. Chi Cheng seemed to be awakened and moved irritably, causing the mountaineering jacket covering him to fall onto Xun Xun. After she covered him again, he impatiently threw back the quilt.
“Will you let me sleep or not? Can’t you stay still?”
Xun Xun remained silent, and he continued pressing his advantage: “The bed’s only so big – you trying to shrink to the edge of the sky? Who cares anyway, it’s not like we haven’t slept together before.”
Xun Xun kept her eyes closed, pretending to be asleep. He lay back down, and after a long while muttered: “I can’t move over. You come closer a bit, but don’t press on my leg. If you freeze to death, who’s going to take care of me?”
“I didn’t say I was cold,” Xun Xun said stubbornly.
Chi Cheng snapped, “Well, I’m cold!”
He waited quietly for a while, almost losing patience when Xun Xun finally moved closer to him. As she adjusted her position, she seemed to accidentally kick Chi Cheng’s splinted leg. Knowing it must have hurt badly, she wanted to apologize, but surprisingly, he didn’t make a sound.
Human body warmth has an irreplaceable comfort, and their proximity made the quilt seem more spacious. Xun Xun turned her face, trying for the first time to make out his facial features with eyes adjusted to the darkness. She seemed to have never looked at him so closely and consciously while lying beside him so quietly. Stripped of the stormy passion of desire and the calculations of gain and loss, they both seemed somewhat more fragile and vulnerable. Though she couldn’t make out his expression or features, his presence grew stronger, their mutual warmth and dependence feeling so real and important. She closed her eyes, feeling his warm breath on her neck.
For a woman, what is so-called stability? Besides material considerations, perhaps it’s nothing more than a long breath beside you at midnight. He doesn’t need to do anything – his mere presence, within arm’s reach, makes one feel less alone.
Before long, they both fell into deep sleep again. Xun Xun seemed to have a dream, but upon waking couldn’t remember what it was about. Yet she felt an inexplicable reluctance to let it go, certain that something very, very good had been lost in that dream.