You Are Irreplaceable

Dusk blanketed the entire valley, and the purplish-black mist had retreated to the far horizon, like an old veil torn thin by the wind hanging at the junction of heaven and earth, no longer surging or churning.

Yun Jingheng lay on his back outside the circle, his limbs spread out on the dark purple soil, like a tattered rag that had been carelessly thrown on the ground.

His chest heaved rapidly, each inhalation accompanied by a faint, straining sound deep in his throat. It was as if some residual dark particles were still rolling in the airflow deep within his lungs, and the exhaled air carried a faint gray wisp of smoke that dispersed and dissipated before him.

His left arm hung limply at his side. The purplish-black line on the outside of his forearm was still there, but the color had faded a lot, turning from charcoal black to light gray, like an old ink line that had been washed repeatedly.

The pain from the five burns on his back had changed from sharp stabs to a persistent dull heat, like five heated stones pressed against both sides of his spine, not very hot but never subsiding.

His trouser legs were covered in mud, and a piece of cloth on the outside of his left knee was torn, revealing abraded skin underneath, the edges of which were covered with a mixture of dried scabs and mud.

The soreness and numbness in my right ankle had spread from the ankle joint all the way down to my calf. My entire right calf felt like a piece of wood soaking in warm water—heavy and devoid of feeling.

There was a thin cut at the corner of his mouth, which he had bitten during one of the rolls earlier. The blood trailed in an arc down his cheek and dried into a dark brown scab.

His gaze was fixed on the sky.

The sky was orange-red, and from the western ridgeline upwards, the color gradually faded, from orange-red to tangerine, from tangerine to light gold, from light gold to grayish-white, and finally overhead it turned into that quiet blue-purple unique to dusk, somewhere between day and night.

A few wisps of very pale clouds lay across the western sky, their edges tinged red by the last rays of the setting sun, like thin silk that had been scorched.

He heard footsteps.

The footsteps were light, each step evenly spaced, with a pace that was neither too fast nor too slow.

Yun Jingheng opened his eyes, his eyelids felt heavy. He felt as if his eyelids were two thick cloths soaked in water, and it was difficult to lift them. When he lifted them halfway, the orange-red light of the sky and the backlit figure rushed into his field of vision at the same time.

The figure crouched down.

I couldn't make out his features in the backlight, but his eyes looked familiar.

Ye Xinglan.

Yun Jingheng's lips moved slightly, with dried blood and saliva sticking between them. When they parted, they made a very soft sound, like a thin piece of paper being torn.

He didn't say anything.

The dark granule was still in his throat, blocking his vocal cords, preventing his airflow from rising, so he could only close his lips again.

Ye Xinglan did not urge him to speak.

She crouched to the right of his head, her knees almost touching his shoulders, her right elbow resting on her right knee, and her left hand pulling a neatly folded handkerchief from her sleeve.

The handkerchief was white, with a small light blue flower embroidered on the edge. The petals were delicate, and it was impossible to tell what kind of flower it was.

She unfolded the handkerchief, pinched one corner with her fingertips, and folded one side of the handkerchief with her other hand to create a soft surface, then bent down.

The handkerchief was cool when it touched his forehead. The surface of the handkerchief absorbed the fine sweat on his forehead, and the coolness seeped into his pores, causing a slight shiver to run through his burning skin.

Ye Xinglan moved slowly, the handkerchief sliding from the center of his forehead toward his left temple. It paused above his brow bone, pressed gently for two seconds, softening the dried scab on the edge of the shallow cut on his brow bone.

Then she changed to the clean side of the handkerchief and started wiping his face from his left cheekbone down to his cheek, wiping over the bloodstain on his cheekbone where he had bitten his lip. The bloodstain was rolled away by the handkerchief, and a small rust-red flower bloomed on the white handkerchief.

Yun Jingheng's eyelashes trembled slightly.

His gaze gradually found focus from the backlit silhouette, and he saw Ye Xinglan's hair falling down from her ear, a few strands brushing against his chin, tickling him.

As she bent down to wipe him, her breathing was shallow. Her breath fell on the wound on the outside of his left collarbone, where a palm strike had made. The airflow carried a slight warmth as it brushed against the torn flesh, causing the edge of the wound to involuntarily twitch.

The handkerchief wiped his mouth.

The small blue flower embroidered on the handkerchief had a small dark stain on it, and most of the petals were covered by bloodstains, making the original pattern difficult to see.

Ye Xinglan glanced at the flower on the handkerchief, her expression blank. She simply turned it over, folded it again, and with the clean side facing out, began to wipe down his jawline, reaching the junction of his neck and collarbone, gently wiping away the thin blood seeping from the edge of the wound.

She flicked her left wrist in front of him, and her sleeve slipped down, revealing a small patch of bare skin on the inside of her wrist.

There was a thin, old mark on that patch of skin, curved like a mark left after being pressed by the edge of a blunt object, and its color was lighter than the surrounding skin.

Yun Jingheng's gaze lingered on that old mark for a moment.

At that moment, Ye Xinglan seemed to sense his gaze. Her hand did not stop, but her wrist turned slightly downwards, and her sleeve slid down again to cover the mark.

The handkerchief was removed from the edge of the wound above his left collarbone.

Ye Xinglan took the handkerchief back, folded it twice in her palm, making it a Xiao Fang about the size of her palm, with the blood-stained sides folded inside.

Then she tucked the handkerchief back into her sleeve, and with the tip of her right finger gently pressed against the outermost part of his forehead, as if checking the temperature there.

Yun Jingheng's throat finally relaxed a little.

He coughed, a muffled cough that seemed to throb inside his chest before finally being expelled. After he coughed, the metallic taste in his mouth became even stronger.

He tilted his head slightly, turning it less than two inches away from Ye Xinglan, the soil he was using as a pillow pressing a shallow indentation into the hollow of his neck.

"... Why are you here?" he said.

His voice was hoarse; the three words sounded like three pieces of broken tile scraping across the ground, the last syllable stuck in his throat and cut off.

Ye Xinglan's hand stopped on the outside of his forehead, her fingertips still warm from his skin.

She heard him speak, so she moved her gaze from his forehead to his eyes, and their eyes met briefly in mid-air.

The curve of her lips wasn't large, but the angle was recognizable—light, soft, like the last rays of twilight falling on a mountain ridge, neither hurried nor steep.

"I'm here to call you to dinner."

She said, her voice not loud, but the last syllable of each word landed firmly on the ground, "I'm so hungry I have no strength left, what am I going to do tomorrow?"

She remained in the same squatting position, but pulled her right hand back from his forehead and placed it on her knee.

A tiny bit of dirt from his forehead was stuck to her fingertip, but she didn't wipe it off.

The wind blew from the western ridge, carrying the scent of distant vegetation steamed by the sun all day. It was dry and warm, and as it blew over him, it dispersed the purplish-black smoke from the burns on his back.

The sky was a degree darker than before, and the orange-red had mostly receded from the west, leaving a narrow strip of orange-yellow above the ridgeline, like it had been cut by a razor blade.

Yun Jingheng stared blankly at her, suddenly realizing that this person who had accompanied him throughout his youth was irreplaceable.

Ye Xinglan chuckled, "What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

She lifted her right hand from her knee and reached back into her sleeve to pull out the folded handkerchief.

The handkerchief was stained with blood in several places, and half of the light blue flower was covered by dark red marks, but a small patch of clean white remained at the edge.

She turned the handkerchief to that corner, pinched the edge of the white cloth with her fingertips, leaned down, and brought her face close to his.

This time, her movements were even gentler than before.

The handkerchief first landed on his brow, and as the Sisi touch touched him, she gently brushed aside the few strands of hair stuck to Yun Jingheng's forehead with her fingertips. The moment the hair was peeled away from his forehead, it brought a tingling sensation.

She slowly slid the handkerchief down from his brow to the bridge of his nose, pausing briefly at the middle of his nasal bone to wipe away the dark purple mud stains clinging to the sides of his nose.

The mud spots were quite dry. When she applied the cloth, it didn't immediately pick them up. Instead, she gently pressed it twice to moisten the dry mud with the warmth of the cloth. Once the mud particles softened, she wiped them away.

She rubbed his entire face inch by inch, from his forehead to the tip of his nose, from the tip of his nose to the cheekbones on both sides, from the cheekbones to the curve of his jaw, and then from his jaw to the abrasion behind his ear.

The handkerchief lingered longer on the cut behind the right ear than on other places; very faint serum, clear and bright, was seeping from the edges of that wound, mixed with tiny specks of red.

She wiped with great focus, her lips slightly pursed, her gaze fixed on the skin behind his ear. As her breath brushed against his earlobe, a small red blush unconsciously rose to the tip of his ear, barely noticeable in the backlit twilight.

"You've made such a mess of things."

The orange light of dusk narrowed into a thin line behind her, framing her entire body with a warm glow. The ends of her hair, the contours of her shoulders, and the edges of her ears were all tinged with a gentle, golden-orange hue.

She lowered her eyes to look at him. The slight curve of her lips was still there, but it was flatter than before. Beneath that flattened curve lay something more substantial, like roots buried in the soil—unseen, but you could feel them there.

"Shall I carry you back for dinner?" she said.

The voice softened, and the last syllable didn't rise; instead, it fell flatly above his ear, like a leaf drifting down from a height, landing straight and steadily on his shoulder without any wind.

The stray hairs on her forehead moved slightly, the ends brushing against the edge of her brow bone, making her squint slightly.

Yun Jingheng's chin twitched slightly.

His entire cervical spine, from the back of his head to the seventh spinous process, was still aching, and his head could only turn very limitedly, but he could still nod.

The movement was slight; the chin tucked in less than two fingers' width towards the chest, and the muscles on the side of the neck made a barely audible sound as they contracted.

Ye Xinglan saw that he nodded, so she didn't say anything more.

She reached out with both hands, one hand grabbing his right armpit, and the other hand slipping under his left shoulder, her fingers clasping behind his back.

Her back was straight, the outline of her shoulder blades pressed against his chest, the edges of the two bones beneath her clothes hard and warm.

When she lifted him off the ground, the moment his back left the soil, the five burns felt a sudden chill in the air, causing him to hiss in pain, the sound escaping through his teeth in a thin, guttural voice.

Ye Xinglan felt his back tense up, and her movements paused for a moment. Only after he finished his breath and relaxed a little did she continue to lift him up.

Then, supporting him, I slowly turned him around and gently carried him on my back.

His chest pressed against her back, his chin rested in the hollow of her right shoulder, and the tip of his nose brushed against the stray hairs on the back of her neck. Her hair had a very faint scent, like the clean, slightly astringent smell of sun-dried hay mixed with a hint of soap.

After she had secured him on her back, she didn't rush to leave. First, she weighed him in her arms and readjusted the angle of her grip on his thighs to make sure he wouldn't slip off her back.

Then she took the first step.

They took small steps and walked very slowly.

The purplish-black mud made a slight, muffled sound as she stepped on it, each step accompanied by a "plop," before being caught by the soft bounce of the mud when she lifted her foot.

Yun Jingheng lay on her back, his chin resting on her shoulder without moving.

His entire left arm hung down from the outside of her left shoulder, his fingertips swaying with the rhythm of her walking, the light gray line on the outside of his forearm faintly visible in the twilight.

His right arm was wrapped around her chest, his palm loosely resting below her right collarbone, his knuckles occasionally tapping lightly on her collarbone with the rise and fall of her steps, as if unconsciously tapping out an extremely slow rhythm.

The wind is blowing again.

The wind was cooler than before, and the last layer of orange on the ridgeline had been mostly swallowed up by the sky, leaving only a narrow strip transitioning from bright orange to dark orange.

The wind brushed past her shoulders and neck, flicking the ends of her hair against his face, a few strands clinging to the edge of the narrow slit at the corner of his mouth.

His lips moved, as if he wanted to blow away the few strands of hair, but there was no air in his mouth, and all he could blow out was a very faint warmth, and the few strands of hair remained stuck to him without moving an inch.

After taking a dozen or so steps, Ye Xinglan tilted her head slightly, turning her right ear back. Her voice came from beside him, softer than before, as if afraid of startling something. "Does it hurt?"

Yun Jingheng's chin moved slightly in the hollow of her shoulder.

He neither said it hurt nor that it didn't; he just nuzzled against her shoulder, like a cat that had been soaked in the rain and then found a warm, dry spot to stay put.

His nose peeked out from between the stray hairs on the back of her neck, touching the small patch of bare skin on the side of her neck, where the temperature was slightly higher than on his own face, and the heat seeped into his skin little by little along the tip of his nose.

Ye Xinglan felt him brush against her, and the corners of her mouth curved slightly, but she didn't say anything.