Evening Stars Chapter 32 (Part 1)
Translated by Q the Panda (ko-fi)
Chapter 32.1
Sonam Tsomo's husband was also in the small kitchen. The couple were busy around the stove.
The locals here used dried yak dung for fuel and heat. The kitchen boiler was connected through pipes to two classrooms. It wasn't large enough to extend the heating to the dormitory and office upstairs. But even if the pipes were long enough, the heat wouldn't be sufficient.
When Xu Nanheng entered the small kitchen, Sonam Tsomo's husband was carrying out a large iron tray of ash from the burned yak dung. The two ran into each other. Xu Nanheng didn't recognize him. Dolkar came out too, holding a small box of ash, and called out, “Teacher Xu, this is my dad. He's home for the holidays!”
“Oh!” Xu Nanheng instinctively reached out for a handshake, but seeing that the man's hands were full with the tray, he pulled back and scratched his head instead. “Hello.”
“Hello, teacher.” The man glanced down at the ash in his hands and smiled. “Sorry for the trouble my Dolkar's caused you. I work in Wuhan and only get to come home three or four times a year.”
Xu Nanheng replied politely, “Not at all. Dolkar is a good kid. You work hard too.”
Among the locals, it was customary to throw the ash from the stove outside the yard. When Xu Nanheng stepped inside, Teacher Sonam was scrubbing the inside of the stove with a brush dipped in water.
Seeing him come in, Sonam Tsomo smiled. “You're back. I really didn't expect you to put off fixing the door for so long.”
“Hahaha……” Xu Nanheng laughed a little awkwardly. “Just being lazy, I guess. You're cleaning up? Is there anything I can help with?”
Sonam Tsomo didn't decline. “Could you go to Diki's place and carry back the yak dung? Diki's uncle already packed them up.”
“Oh! Sure.”
“Yak dung is actually clean,” Teacher Sonam added.
The dung was packed in fertilizer bags. In fact, carrying yak dung was the cleanest task on the day's list. Since yaks were herbivores, their droppings barely smelled, and the ash they produced was fine and soft.
Xu Nanheng knew where Diki's house was. His family raised many yaks. When he arrived, Diki and his younger sister were in the yard picking up yak dung, filling another bag, which was for their own household use.
“Teacher!” Diki waved at him, and his sister followed suit.
Diki said, “Let me help you!”
“No need.” Xu Nanheng stepped into the yard. “You think I can't handle a little weight? Who are you looking down on here?”
He said it as a joke, but Diki took him seriously for a second before realizing it and breaking into a squinting grin. “I was just worried you might get altitude sickness again, but it's okay, Dr. Fang's back this week!”
So Fang Shiyou had apparently become his personal guardian now. Xu Nanheng gave Diki a complicated look, decided not to pursue that topic, and glanced toward the corner. “Which bag's for the school?”
There were four or five large tied-up bags of yak dung on the ground.
Diki: “All of them.”
“……” Xu Nanheng paused for a moment. “Alright.”
The temperature dropped early this year, and everyone needed to prepare their winter supplies ahead of time. Fuel for heating was the priority. Heavy snow in winter could crush power facilities, and signal towers also suffered from the cold temperatures and snowfall.
Then there was drinking water. The pipes froze every year. Unlike in the city, where people could wrap pipes in insulation, here a single layer of padding wasn't enough. After tying up the bags of yak dung, Diki told his sister to stay inside the house and not to light the stove herself, then picked up two buckets to fetch spring water from the mountain.
On his second trip, Xu Nanheng still felt strong. Diki's little sister was leaning on the window sill, watching him with two round, curious eyes.
Her older brother must have told her he was from the city. She had never seen a city person before.
By the third trip, he was starting to feel the strain. He braced a hand on his knee. Beside him was a yak calmly chewing hay, observing him leisurely. A Tibetan mastiff was tied up in the yard too, looking elderly and sluggish, also watching Xu Nanheng.
Just as he set off with the fourth load, Diki came back on a motorcycle, with the two buckets of water tied behind him. He carried the water inside, lit the stove for his sister, and started boiling a kettle of hot water. At that moment, their grandmother returned, carrying a bundle of vegetables.
By then, Xu Nanheng's face was ashen. His good-quality coat was covered in dust and ash. That was fine, but the problem was he couldn't straighten his back anymore. He was also quite certain that some fine particles had slipped down his collar into his shirt.
He knew that yak dung was very clean, but no matter what science said, how many people could psychologically accept that idea in their hearts…… When he finally finished the last trip, Xu Nanheng carried his coat and trudged into the small hospital.
Fang Shiyou looked up. “Teacher Xu.”
“I need…… to take a shower.” Xu Nanheng clenched his molars. “Some…… yak dung fell inside my clothes.”
Fang Shiyou had come back a day early. The small hospital was quiet today. The tunnel workers hadn't resumed work yet, and the outreach missions hadn't started either. He stood up with a smile. “From that look on your face, it's not a shower you need, it's an emergency decontamination.”
“Got one?” Xu Nanheng asked.
“Not here.”
Xu Nanheng scrubbed himself so hard it was a miracle he didn't peel off three layers of skin. When he finally came out, he went to sit in Fang Shiyou's on-call room to catch his breath. Even the skin on his fingertips had wrinkled from soaking too long.
Fang Shiyou came in with a bottle of juice, handed it to him, and teased, “You took so long. Three Alaskan Malamutes could have been bathed and blow-dried by now.”
“……” Xu Nanheng didn't have the strength to banter. After hauling yak dung five times back and forth, his hands were trembling. He couldn't twist the cap open, so he handed the bottle back. “Open it for me.”
Fang Shiyou opened it for him. Xu Nanheng sat at the edge of the bed, wearing only a long-sleeved T-shirt and sweatpants, his body radiating steam and the strong scent of body wash.
The body wash had a fruity woodsy scent leaning toward a tea break fragrance. Because he'd washed himself over and over, the scent clung to him so thoroughly that sitting there, he almost smelled like a chachong.
Fang Shiyou twisted the cap off and stepped closer. He was standing, while Xu Nanheng was sitting. Xu Nanheng truly couldn't lift his arms. His muscles ached and his joints felt weak. So Fang Shiyou brought the bottle to his lips and tilted it gently.
A surgeon's hands could stitch a beating heart, and they could also feed sweet and tangy juice into a teacher's mouth.
Xu Nanheng's throat moved in steady swallows. After three or four gulps, Fang Shiyou pulled the bottle away. His hand was steady, and Teacher Xu was very cooperative. Not a single drop spilled. This interaction far surpassed what normally occured between friends. Or rather, even if a regular friend couldn't lift their arm, this wouldn't be the way to help them drink.
At the very least, it wouldn't be this silent, nor with these looks.
Fang Shiyou's gaze lowered, while Xu Nanheng's fingers twisted the bedsheet. The small room felt like it had been injected with resin and turned into amber. Xu Nanheng felt like he couldn't breathe or move. The idea that thin air makes one naturally calm and still was completely false. He was anything but calm. Right now, a million soldiers were doing the Yangko dance in his head, and those few sips of juice didn't seem to go to his stomach but straight to his brain, pouring over the dancing soldiers from head to toe.
In short, it was a mess.
“You'll need a medicated patch, or your back won't straighten tomorrow.” Fang Shiyou spoke as calmly as ever. He twisted the bottle cap back on, set it on the table, and pulled a pain relief patch from the backpack leaning against the chair.
It was something he often used during outreach missions. The terrain in Tibet was rugged, and whether herding, digging for caterpillar fungus, or farming, the locals all suffered from back, shoulder, and neck pain.
Fang Shiyou tore open a patch, turned to him, and asked, “Want me to put it on for you?”
Dressed in his white coat, the question sounded perfectly natural and reasonable. The patch was already open, and its sharp herbal scent reached Xu Nanheng's nose, mixing in the air with the fruity-woody scent on his skin.
Fang Shiyou walked over, his expression calm, yet conveying an intention not to be refused.
Xu Nanheng nodded.
Xu Nanheng stood up, lifting the hem of his T-shirt, revealing his trim and lean waist. He had lost a little more weight in Tibet recently. He was fair-skinned, with the soft, delicate paleness of a young master.
Fang Shiyou stepped to his side, his palm holding the medicated patch as he pressed it to the center of Xu Nanheng's lower back. His skin was still warm from the shower, and the moment Dr. Fang's hand covered the patch, it didn't feel like a plaster at all. It felt like a piece of hot charcoal against his skin.
“How many……” Before he could finish the question, Xu Nanheng let go of his T-shirt and tried to turn. Suddenly, his legs gave out.
Fortunately, Fang Shiyou's hand was still on his back. He caught him instantly. To steady him, he pulled Xu Nanheng closer, bracing him against his chest.
He said, “Your knees are overworked today. I suggest you rest here. Otherwise, you might have to crawl for the last few steps up to the second floor.”
Uniforms had a way of inspiring a certain kind of conditional trust. And when Dr. Fang said that in his white coat, it felt like a man committing mischief in a tailored suit.
At twenty-five, Xu Nanheng prided himself on knowing the difference between genuine care and flirtation, and this doctor was absolutely wicked.
With nowhere to retreat, Xu Nanheng simply sat back down, tilted his head up, and smiled. That smile completely turned the tables. If Fang Shiyou had looked like the main villain a moment ago, then Xu Nanheng now looked like the white moonlight who had blackened.
Xu Nanheng: “Sure. What are you suggesting? Sleep together?”
‘Flirting, huh? Two can play that game,’ he thought. ‘If you're going to disregard my discomfort, then I'll disregard yours.’ He even patted the bed beside him. “It's pretty soft.”
It was a narrow bed, so narrow that if two people actually lay down, one would have to end up in the other's arms.
Oh, this whole situation was clearly a game of high-stakes bravado. Xu Nanheng shot Fang Shiyou a look that bordered on challenge. It seemed to say, ‘What? We're both men. What's wrong with sharing a bed? Straight guys have nothing to fear.’
Yes. Xu Nanheng swallowed, eyes fixed on Fang Shiyou.
Straight guys had nothing to fear. A straight guy might just rip his clothes off and crash right there.
“I'm on duty tonight.” Fang Shiyou slipped his hands into the pockets of his white coat and took a step back. “You sleep first.”