Shang wiped his brow, flinging the beads of sweat onto the dry sand. He glanced at the kid,
worried. Shang had gone through the Gobi Desert before, and he was accustomed to the heat and
cold, but the kid wouldn’t be.
Once again, Shang slowed down. He could hear the boy’s laboured breaths come out in
short huffs.
One of Shang’s travelling companions waved an arm to catch Shang’s attention, gesturing in
front of him. His words were muffled by the cloth tied over his mouth.
“What?” Shang shouted. The man gave him an exasperated look, and beckoned for him to
catch up. Squinting, he could make out the traders leading their camels a good few leagues away.
“We’ll catch up later,” he called back. From the distance, he could see his partner shrug at
another trader. They couldn’t understand why Shang had to bring Ling along. Ling would be a
burden, a risk they should not take.
But they would never understand. They could never understand.
Ling tried his best to even the loud pounding of his heart. He knew Shang could hear him
huffing. He didn’t want to appear weak. He wouldn’t complain, no matter how tired he was.
Placing one foot after the other, Ling tried to ignore the burning sand underneath him. He
thought of the pattering of raindrops to ward off the suffocating heat.
There was something about the heat that made his mind wander into the clouds. Ling felt his
mind drift away as his feet got used to the steady rhythm.
His thoughts brought him back to the time when he was just a little child, when he was still a
boy without fears and worries, when his mother was still with him.
His mother was a gust of warm, spring wind in the mist of a freezing winter. When she
talked, it was like the song of a nightingale. When she smiled, the world was rid of darkness.
The memories had become blurry throughout the years, yet there were moments that seemed
so vivid, it could have been yesterday. Ling never had a father. He never knew who he was, but
that didn’t matter. He had his mother, and that was enough.
He remembered how his mother would ruffle his hair every morning, calling for him to wake
up softly.
He remembered the way his mother would soothe his scraped knees with tender kisses, telling
him everything would be alright. He remembered her twinkling eyes as his sobs subsided into
quiet hiccups. “Ling, I’m here. Dry your tears, child. I’m here.”
He remembered the nights when he would climb onto his mother’s bed because of nightmares.
His mother never sent him back to bed alone. Sitting him on her lap, his mother would sing soft,
calming folk songs and rock him back and forth until his eyes grew heavier, and heavier. Then
she would carry him to his bed, and tuck him in.
His mother… what he wouldn’t give for his mother to be with him now.
Ling could remember the last time he saw his mother, laying on a kang, sleeping so
peacefully. That picture was immediately ruined when his uncle marched him out of the house.
* * *
* * *
