Half an hour later.
Inside the cab, the little lamb lying at Wen Shiqing’s feet looked gratefully at the two of them. One of its hind legs had been fitted with a small wooden splint, secured with hemp rope.
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Xie Yucheng’s lips twitched. He let out a cold little laugh. “You’d better pray it doesn’t shit all over my car. Otherwise, I’ll throw both of you out.”
“It won’t, Brother. I promise.”
“What are you going to guarantee with? Can you plug its ass so it can’t shit?”
Wen Shiqing lowered her eyes and blinked at the little lamb, seemingly reassuring it not to be afraid.
Xie Yucheng brushed some wool from his clothes. It had probably gotten stuck on him when they were tending to the lamb earlier. He looked thoroughly displeased, and the entire cab was filled with the unpleasant smell of sheep.
Wen Shiqing gently stroked the soft, snow-white wool along the lamb’s back. “Brother, this lamb is really pretty.”
“Yeah. The meat must be tender.”
“It feels so soft, and its eyes are so bright and watery. Isn’t it adorable?”
“Skin it and roast it. Stew would work too.”
“Xie Yucheng!”
“What?” A smile played at the corner of his mouth, but his gaze was deep and serious. “A sheep is born with the fate of being eaten. Whether it’s steamed, boiled, roasted, or fried, it’s only the cooking method that’s different.”
Wen Shiqing glanced at the little lamb curled up by her feet. Her feelings were complicated, and she fell silent.
“Our little princess can’t bear to hear that?” Xie Yucheng curled his lips and continued, “Just like Ali. Didn’t she end up on the dinner table too? This world is all about survival of the fittest. Nobody cares about them. It’s the same as eating chicken, duck, or fish. When you eat braised chicken, do you ever think of Ali and decide not to eat it?”
“These animals are weak and ordinary. From the moment they’re born, their fate is already decided. It’s only because Ali is your chicken, and you’ve cared for and cherished her, that she seems so precious. In truth, she’s just an ordinary chicken. She only became special because she met someone who loved and cared for her.”
“This little lamb has its own fate. You happened to meet it and save it. That’s a connection between the two of you. As for what happens afterward, you can’t control everything.”
Wen Shiqing rubbed the lamb’s soft, woolly rump with the back of her foot, lowering her head in thought.
Her long hair fluttered gently in the wind as she said softly, “Brother, let’s try to find it a good home. It’s still so little…”
His gaze lingered on the lamb beneath her feet. After a long while, he said, “Okay.”
By the time they reached Qiangzhou, the scenery outside the window had changed from green to yellow. Vast stretches of Gobi desert extended as far as the eye could see.
Xie Yucheng stopped to refuel once along the way. As darkness began to fall, they stopped at a small town nearby for the night.
Wen Shiqing held the little lamb in her arms and waited outside the restaurant while Xie Yucheng went to park the car nearby.
A blond foreign man with a Fujifilm camera hanging around his neck happened to pass by. The moment he saw Wen Shiqing standing by the roadside, his eyes lit up.
He approached her politely and struck up a conversation. His Chinese was clumsy and awkward, but she understood that he wanted to take her photograph.
Wen Shiqing spoke with him in English and learned that he was a professional photographer who had come to the countryside to capture local scenery and culture. She agreed.
At first, Shiqing’s English was somewhat halting. She kept searching her memory for words she had memorized. But after exchanging a few sentences, she gradually relaxed, and the more they talked, the more fluent she became.
The two stood by the roadside chatting and laughing, attracting a large crowd of onlookers.
It was unusual to see a foreigner in such a remote little town. Quite a few people gathered around. When they heard Wen Shiqing speaking fluent English and chatting animatedly with the foreigner, they couldn’t help but admire and envy her.
With a flower crown on her head and a little lamb in her arms, she stood beneath the evening glow and smiled sweetly at the camera. Her eyes were pure, clear, and lively, untouched by a trace of dust. The camera captured that beautiful moment, freezing eighteen-year-old Wen Shiqing in time.
When Xie Yucheng arrived, the man was taking out a notebook and asking Wen Shiqing for her address, saying that he would have the photographs developed and mailed to her later.
Wen Shiqing quickly introduced him in English. “This is my older brother.”
A passerby gave her a thumbs-up. “Girl, your foreign language is really good! You could become a translator in the future.”
Xie Yucheng casually held a cigarette between his lips, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. There was a deeply hidden pride in his eyes. “This is my little sister.”
He took the pen and wrote down their home address in the foreigner’s notebook, putting his own name down as the recipient. “Send it here.” He pointed to the address.
The little lamb was tied to a utility pole beside the restaurant. While eating, Wen Shiqing noticed a boy of seven or eight approaching it. He carefully stroked the lamb and even bent down to talk to it.
An adult came over to pull him away, but the boy refused to leave and insisted on hugging the lamb.
“Do you like it?” Wen Shiqing asked.
“I do.” The little boy wrapped his arms around the lamb’s neck and rubbed his cheek against it.
The adult beside him said, “This kid just loves little lambs and puppies…”
“Then I’ll give it to you. I found this lamb on the road. Its hind leg was broken, so it’s a little disabled. If you like it, you can take it home.”
“How could we?” A little lamb was worth quite a bit of money. Nobody would simply give one away, so the adult assumed she was joking.
“Compared to sending it to a slaughterhouse, I’d rather give it to this child.”
That night, they stayed at a private inn and took two rooms next to each other.
Xie Yucheng came over and knocked on her door. As soon as he entered, he tossed the clothes he’d changed out of that day onto Shiqing’s head.
“They’re covered in the smell of sheep droppings, and there’s wool everywhere. Wash them clean for me.”
Wen Shiqing pulled the clothes off her head and gave him a long, unimpressed look. “Fine. I’ll wash them.”
She carried a basin to the shared bathroom, rubbed soap all over his clothes, and stomped on them with her feet several times.
A strong wind picked up during the night. The doors and windows rattled loudly, while the howling northwest wind mixed with eerie, mournful cries. It was frightening.
At one in the morning, there was a loud bang, bang, bang at Xie Yucheng’s door.
“Who is it?” His voice was hoarse and heavy with sleep.
“Brother, it’s me.”
Xie Yucheng rubbed his hair and opened the door. The girl stood outside, hugging her arms and hunching her shoulders against the cold, her eyes filled with fear and panic.
“You…”
“Brother, the wind is so strong. It sounds like ghosts wailing and wolves howling. I’m really scared.”
“So?” He blocked the doorway, making no move to let her in.
“Can I sleep here with you?”
“No!” The man refused without hesitation.
Wen Shiqing pouted. Under her long sleeves, she dug her fingers hard into her palm, tears gathering in her eyes. She took a step forward and whispered,
“Brother, someone knocked on my door just now. I don’t know who it was. When I opened the door, there was a cigarette butt outside…”
Xie Yucheng’s brows twitched sharply. He grabbed her and pulled her inside.
“You sleep on the inside.”
“Okay.”
In the darkened room, the two of them shared the same thin quilt.
There was a huge temperature difference between day and night in the northwest. When the wind howled, cold air seeped through the cracks around the windows, leaving the room chilly.
Xie Yucheng had spent the entire day concentrating on driving, and exhaustion crashed over him like a heavy hammer.
Before long, Wen Shiqing heard the steady, deep breathing of the man beside her. She slowly moved a few inches closer to the warm stove behind her.
At first, she lay with her back to Xie Yucheng. Once she realized he was asleep, she turned around to face him.
In the darkness, her slender, pale fingers traced the hard lines of his face in the air. She whispered admiringly, “How can you be so handsome?”
After playing around for a while, she burrowed her head into his arms. Breathing in his familiar scent, she peacefully drifted off to sleep.
Toward dawn, the wind died down. When Xie Yucheng woke up, he discovered that he was holding something soft and warm in his arms.
The girl was resting her head on his arm, one slender arm pressed against his chest, one delicate leg nestled between his. Her soft hair and faint breathing told him that this was real—not another dream. It was exactly like the countless scenes he had imagined in his dreams.
His body went rigid as a drawn bow. He took several deep breaths, doing everything he could to suppress the thoughts stirring inside him.
Xie Yucheng tried to quietly pull his arm free. But the moment he moved, the girl in his arms instinctively wrapped her arms around his waist and snuggled even closer to him. Her soft body pressed against his, and she murmured something indistinctly in her sleep.
His eyelids twitched. He swallowed with difficulty, then stared up at the ceiling and let out a long, heavy breath.
Last night, they’d gone to sleep on opposite sides of the bed, with an invisible line between them like the boundary between the Chu and Han armies. So how had they ended up holding each other this morning?
Could it be that he’d crossed the line in his sleep and pulled her into his arms?
He knew all too well what kind of person he became in his dreams. He had acted out all sorts of shameless fantasies involving her countless times in the dead of night, only to wake up afterward and viciously slap himself several times in disgust.