Batter My Heart,Mr Xi (Book 2)

Chapter XXXIX

The town was called Qingshi and it smelled like steamed buns and river clay and the particular kind of old that settled into stone streets over centuries.

The cruise had docked mid-morning for a three hour stop - long enough to explore, short enough that nobody could get seriously lost - and the group had dispersed from the dock with the loose energy of people who'd been on a ship long enough to want solid ground under their feet.

They drifted in ones and twos, following whatever caught their attention first.

Yang Zhilan caught Xi Jinwei's hand and pulled him toward a street market she'd spotted from the dock, stalls crowded with clay pottery and dried goods and small handmade things that served no purpose except to be charming. He came without resistance and was in a better mood than yesterday. Xi Jinwei in a complicated mood required at least three seconds of subtle hesitation before following her anywhere.

"You're going to buy something unnecessary," he said.

"Obviously."

"Something that will take up space."

"That's what things do, Jinwei. They take up space."

He looked at her with the expression that meant he found her exhausting. She grinned and pulled him further into the market.

---

Shen Hui had not intended to end up walking with Quan Fumin again.

It had simply - happened. The group had spread out, Xi Jun had gone off somewhere with Song Jieli trailing behind him looking like she was being asked to do community service, and Shen Hui had been in the middle of deciding which direction to go when Quan Fumin had materialized beside her going the same direction and neither of them had said anything about it so they had simply - continued.

In the same direction.

Together.

And she didn't expect him to keep going in her direction, so it was a delightful surprise.

Qingshi's old street was narrow and uneven underfoot, the kind of street that had been walked by enough people over enough years that the stones had developed a slight tilt to them. Shen Hui navigated it without difficulty because she had walked runways in heels that made this look like a leisure activity. Quan Fumin walked beside her with his hands in his pockets, looking at the shop fronts with an unhurried attention.

"You've been here before?" she asked, because the silence was fine and she was choosing to fill it, not because she wanted to make conversation.

"Once. A few years ago." He glanced at a pottery stall without stopping. "Smaller than I remembered."

"Towns usually are."

He looked at her briefly. "You travel a lot right?"

"For work." She kept her eyes forward. "It stops feeling like travel eventually."

"Does it stop feeling like anything?"

She considered that for a moment longer than she'd intended to. "Sometimes."

He didn't push it. She found that - annoying. He never pushed to see or know more about her while she wished he would. And she was too proud to tell him to.

They passed a stall selling silk scarves, another selling river stones carved into animals, a small shop with its doors open that exhaled the smell of incense and old wood. Shen Hui paused at a jewelry display without quite meaning to - small pieces, locally made, not particularly refined but with a kind of character that mass production couldn't replicate.