The sharp creak of the oak axle against loose gravel dictated the torturous rhythm of the crossing.
The thick morning haze crushed the valley beyond Qīngshān. The crude wooden cart crossed kilometers of dying sorghum plantations, skirting narrow stretches where the banks gave way to jagged stones and cracked clay veins. Coming from the opposite direction, a small caravan of salt merchants dragged itself southward; the mules foamed at the bits beneath the weight of the load, and the men, drowned in tunics soaked with sour sweat, coughed the dense dust that permeated the air.
Seated at the rear of the Yù family's vehicle, the base of Yù Méi's spine throbbed with every jolt. A thick drop of sweat ran down the girl's nape, descending through the vertebrae until soaking the raw cotton of her newly purchased golden dress. The new, warm fabric prickled her damp skin, clinging to her waist with suffocating stubbornness.
Yù Méi rubbed her forehead stained with yellowish earth with the back of her hand. Her breath came short, tearing her parched throat.
On the driver's seat of the cart, half a meter away, biology obeyed completely different laws.
Zhì Yuǎn guided the horses with millimetric movements of the thick leather reins. The muscles and tendons of the young man's broad arms slid beneath the sleeves of the pearl-gray tunic with the heavy precision of steel cables under tension. The man's massive structure absorbed the impact of the ruined road and nullified any vibration of the vehicle, seated on the wood like a solid marble pillar.
To his right flank, the purest navy-blue silk flowed intact over Yù Qíng's curves. The dark strip tied firmly from the bridge of her nose to her nape isolated the woman's features.
Yù Méi's stomach churned.
The burning rising through the girl's ribs was born purely from the visual abyss. The cloud of earth raised by passing merchants simply altered its route millimeters before touching the couple's clothes ahead. Zhì Yuǎn's skin exhaled immaculate freshness. Yù Qíng's forehead shone perfectly dry. They radiated a clean, untouchable symmetry, organically mocking the burning sun and the miserable limit of the mortal road.
Blood boiled at the base of Yù Méi's abdomen in an instinctive fever.
She supported her sweaty palms on the cart's planks, pushed her own weight backward, and, with a lethargic movement, tugged the hem of the golden skirt upward. The cotton wrinkled, exposing her bare calves and ankles to the hot wind.
The soft skin tingled. Yù Méi's dilated, almond-shaped eyes bored into the side of Zhì Yuǎn's sharp jaw — the only visible fragment of flesh beneath the brim of the silvered hat. The girl's mind imagined that rigid profile turning the axis of his neck, lowering his oppressive gaze to sweep the rear of the vehicle and assess the curves of her legs stretched on the wood. The sound of her own pulse roared in her eardrums before the imminence of that crushing attention.
The territory around the driver's seat, however, possessed insurmountable barriers.
Yù Qíng's head tilted to the left. The young woman rested her temple perfectly against her husband's broad, tense bicep. The maneuver slid velvety, camouflaged beneath a mere adjustment of posture against the jolting of the journey.
The executed possession dictated the territory in a millimetric manner. The curve of the woman's shoulder and the cascade of black hair fused to Zhì Yuǎn's tunic, raising an insurmountable barricade. Any gap of light that would allow her husband to visualize the rear of the cart was summarily strangled. Yù Qíng did not need to exhale an icy aura; the eldest's static hostility was so great that the knuckles of her fingers cracked, almost inaudibly, as they crushed the silk of her own dress, jaw locked while nailing her irises to the horizon.
The breath escaped Yù Méi's lungs in a strangled sigh of pure frustration. Dirty nails sank into her own thigh. Teeth ground. She yanked the golden skirt back over her knees with violence, cheeks aflame as the cart continued grinding the stones beneath the territorial and silent dictatorship erected right ahead.
---
Gravel gave way to dangerous holes excavated by ancient autumn storms and camouflaged beneath thick dust.
The right front wheel suddenly plunged into a deep ditch.
The mechanical impact was brutal. The thick oak axle groaned, cracking loudly beneath the extreme concentration of weight. The cart lurched in a torn jolt, hurling Yù Méi across the floor. The girl's shoulder struck hard against the side edge. A short, choked scream leaked from her lips, nails scratching the rough planks in a desperate attempt to find friction.
A broad arm crossed the wind.
Zhì Yuǎn released the right rein and turned his torso millimetrically. The left arm extended backward like a steel beam. The immense, calloused hand gripped the wooden edge of the cart in mid-air.
The vehicle of dozens of kilos halted its fall in the same fraction of a second.
The raw weight of gravity collided against the isolated force of that grip. The oak creaked in agony, forcing the descent, but the anchor held absolute. The veins of Zhì Yuǎn's forearm bulged thick against his pale skin, tracing the bindings of a predatory force. The shoulder covered by pearl-gray silk aligned, stabilizing the overturned axle without emitting the slightest tremor of effort.
Yù Méi slipped and collapsed to her knees on the bottom of the planks.
Her sweaty face stopped centimeters from his rigid forearm. The air around Zhì Yuǎn's skin exhaled a mild, asphyxiating fever. The rustic smell of the leather reins fused with the throbbing density of that heat, bathing Yù Méi's open nostrils.
The girl drew a short, dragged breath. The physical proximity violently hurled her mind back to the courtyards of childhood, pulling the ancient smell of clean sawdust and the comfort of the young man's giant, warm hand guiding the brush of her childish calligraphy with unstoppable patience.
The cart's axle jumped out of the hole through a single dry pull of Zhì Yuǎn's wrist. The wheels settled in the dust with a dull thud. The broad arm retrieved the leather rein and the silhouette beneath the shadow of the black hat resumed driving with the same heavy, indifferent inertia of a stone monolith.
The nostalgic illusion evaporated beneath the heat of the gravel.
The man who smelled of sawdust and repaired toys rotted in the past, replaced by the naked, raw reality of a divinity forged in heavy marble. Yù Méi's cheeks caught fire. Almond irises slid furtively over his broad back, savoring the unshakeable contour of the tunic.
The ragged pulse between the young woman's legs ignored the blood boundaries of her own sister and the laws of the village. The thirst to belong cemented itself in an organic greed. Yù Méi clenched her fists on her lap, mind devoured by the silent ambition to bend her knees on the same straw mattress and be claimed as the second woman worthy of sharing the insurmountable shelter of that predatory wall.
---
The torturous monotony stretched until the sun began its decline to the west and the road narrowed abruptly at the Cracked Rock Pass.
The reverse impact of the planks threw Yù Méi against the side when Zhì Yuǎn pulled the thick leather reins, locking the cart's axles and making the horses' hooves skid on the loose earth.
Dust rose in a dense veil. Yù Méi rubbed her watering eyes and peeked over the side.
Three thick pine trunks calcined by the sun rested piled transversely in the middle of the road. Behind the dry wood, half a dozen men blocked the route.
Roadside mercenaries. The boiled-leather armors displayed patches of dirty rope, and the chipped iron blades hung tied to their belts. A gust of wind dragged the acidic smell of the escort directly to Yù Méi's nostrils: a repulsive mist of filthy sweat and cheap alcohol fermenting in their stomachs.
The leader of the scum spat muddy saliva on the dust and circled the trunks, marching to the perimeter of the vehicle. The filthy hand rested on the hilt of the sharpened saber, revealing darkened teeth.
"The price of safety and free wheel in this valley rose with the northern wars, travelers," the mercenary's voice rasped in the air, hoarse and loaded with scorn. The man's dirty fingers tapped twice on the cart's oak. "Twenty pieces of pure silver for the trunk to leave the road."
On the driver's seat, the large black hat swallowed the young man's features in absolute shadows. Large hands rested motionless on the thick reins. The funereal silence and the absolute lack of defensive instinct from the driver stoked the band's audacity.
The leader's murky eyes left Yù Qíng's dark veil and slid stickily to the open rear of the cart, boring into Yù Méi's bare ankles and frightened face lying on the planks.
The bandit's smile widened, moistening cracked lips with his own tongue. He took a stealthy step, bringing his dirty boot closer to the rear of the vehicle.
"Peasants' silver tends to dry fast," he hissed. "But the law of the roads accepts barter. The little one in the new dress spends the night warming the firewood at our camp, and we settle the debt."
A sharp, deafening buzz invaded Yù Méi's eardrums. The landscape spun vertiginously, and the acidic taste of bile rose and burned at the base of the adolescent's tongue. The girl's stomach twisted in a sickly spasm, trembling hands scratching the oak floor in an automatic, pathetic retreat that crushed her back against the vehicle's edge.
The mercenary's acidic smell melted any vanity. The feverish fantasy burning inside her sank before the true rustic slaughterhouse of the cultivation world, where unprotected girls were merely exchange meat. Yù Méi widened her almond irises, fleeing the disgusting face to seek help in the motionless line of Zhì Yuǎn's broad back, lungs locked awaiting the cemented strength of that mountain.
---
The hot, rotten breath of the mercenaries' leader corrupted the breeze centimeters from Yù Méi's face. The girl's breath remained trapped at the base of her trachea, bones locked beneath her own weight, following the disgusting shadow advancing over the wood.
The silhouette drowned in the pearl-gray tunic on the driver's seat maintained the static of stone.
Zhì Yuǎn's left fist, still intertwined in the animal leather straps, executed a millimetric twist. The hyper-density of the forged musculature relayed the crushing kinetic weight directly to the fibers of the rein.
Crack.
The whip tore the hot wind in a sharp hiss, the extended tip colliding violently against the mercenary leader's left clavicle with the mass of an anvil in free fall.
The dry snap of bone breaking inward shattered the silence. The colossal inertia of the impact sank the bandit's architecture, driving his filthy knees brutally against the pass's gravel. The sadistic smile drowned in a wet gurgle of saliva and dense blood as the man's shoulder gave way at an impossible angle.
The leader collapsed to the side, fingers gripping the blind earth in short convulsions of agony.
The five outsiders behind the barricade recoiled their shoulders, shock locking calloused hands over rusted hilts.
The silver border of the hat tilted minimally backward. Zhì Yuǎn's abyssal irises swept the barricade. The predatory lethargy of that gaze crushed the oxygen of the stone road. The air around the cart densified instantly, weighing on the band's nostrils like cold mud. The bestial terror rooted in the bandits' marrow screamed the slaughterhouse alarm. They released the sword hilts, turned their heels on the loose earth, and plunged frantically through the low foliage of the embankments, abandoning the dying leader in the dust to escape that annihilating gravity.
Zhì Yuǎn snapped the reins over the backs of the draft beasts.
The animals snorted, dragging the oak axles. The heavy cart advanced close to the slope. The thick right rear oak wheel rolled mercilessly over the fallen leader's shoulder and loose arm, shattering what remained of the man's bones and sinking the mercenary's flesh into the soaked earth. The driver kept his face firmly turned toward the pass exit, surpassing the human speed bump and leaving the wet gurgle to choke until death, vanishing for good swallowed by the noise of crushed gravel.
At the rear of the vehicle, Yù Méi's cold sweat evaporated.
The paralyzing shock receded, and blood pumped thick. The ragged, primitive pulse hammered at the base of the adolescent's abdomen, dragging violently upward until tugging her pale cheeks with a glaring flush.
Yù Qíng's black, abyssal irises slid obliquely and silently from the corner of her eye, boring into her sister's trembling body. The eldest displayed the unattainable calm of one who reigned alone. She rested her head back on her husband's rigid bicep, jade body absorbing the wooden axle's jolting in absolute dominion.
A feverish tremor corroded the youngest's joints. Dirty, possessive fingers dug into the golden fabric until nearly tearing the newly purchased cotton. The creeping terror before the mercenaries was entirely carbonized by a thick, hot, carnivorous hunger. The humiliation of being weak in the world's slaughterhouse rebelled Yù Méi's own blood against her sister's dictatorship.
If the eldest's blood attracted such absolute devotion, Yù Méi possessed the exact same root. The adolescent's teeth ground until the jawbone hurt. She dug dirty nails directly into the cart's plank, breath held while almond eyes devoured the image of that protective monster.
She rejected the idea of being left in the road's dust, her own mind demanding the territorial right to be shielded beneath the heavy shadow of that same wall. In the exact instant of this physical fury, Yù Méi's gaze slid and crossed directly with Yù Qíng's abyssal irises for a fraction of a second. The eldest sustained absolute silence; the woman merely curved her reddened lips in a smile of pure, asphyxiating ice, mocking the foreign ambition, before resting her cheek back on Zhì Yuǎn's tense bicep.
The youngest's blood throbbed at her temples. The silent war for the seat on the driver's bench had just begun.