Page 6 of From Beijing, With Love

“Right.” Yang took one last wistful look at the chairlifts and led the way toward the stone steps.

CHAPTER FOURDaniel

Daniel was sweating through every layer of clothes he had on. He’d grown up in Canada (the land of eternal winter) and moved to the Netherlands (the land of eternal rain). He’d simply not been built for heat and humidity like this.

His white undershirt clung tightly to his torso in a wet-T-shirt-contest kind of way, unbefitting of the historical monument that he was on. Well, almost on. If he could just muster the strength to finish this last stretch up the mountain. For someone who went to the gym six days a week, this hike was getting embarrassingly close to kicking his ass. He blamed the stifling heat and the jet lag.

Beside him, Yang was the picture of ease in his white linen shirt that billowed in the breeze, like a walking advertisement for summer. Though he was still wearing that stony expression.

This was Daniel’s first extended interaction with a local since his arrival. He was clearly not doing a good job of being a gracious visitor. He knew Yang would have rather taken the chairlift, but he just … couldn’t. He wasn’t going to be trapped midair on a rickety bench where the only possible escape involved falling a hundred floors and getting impaled by a tree.

“Water?” Yang took a bottle out of his canvas messenger bag. Daniel shook his head, because there was no way he was going to drink water and risk going to that washroom again. The last trip there had made him want to sanitize his hands, the bottoms of his shoes, and his brain.

Yang lifted his brows but didn’t push it. Raising the bottle to his own lips, he took a long swig. Daniel’s brain was clearly too dehydrated to function, as he fixated on the graceful curvature of Yang’s neck and the way Yang’s muscles ebbed and flowed as he swallowed. Snapping his eyes away, Daniel planted his ass squarely down on a granite block.

“How’s leg day treating you?” Yang asked with a smile. No, a smirk. When Yang held his hand out to pull Daniel up, Daniel didn’t take it. His hands were embarrassingly sweaty.

“It’s great. I’m living for it.” Daniel rose to his feet with a hopefully convincing enthusiasm. The only thing missing from this charade was a thumbs-up à la Tony the Tiger. It was a bad idea to take this hike before they took the actual hike. He knew it. Yang knew it. Like someone insisting on ordering the odd item on the menu after being told it was a bad idea, the least Daniel could do was to … well, eat it with a smile on his face.

As they continued the hike, Yang’s face faltered just a little as a bead of sweat rolled down his forehead. Daniel felt smug for all of two seconds before he flipped back to feeling guilty again (his factory default).

It took another twenty minutes for them to reach the top. Between the foliage, gray granite peaked out. For the first time today, Daniel was intrigued. Taking the last flight of the stairs two at a time, he found himself at the foot of a massive watchtower. It loomed over him with its crenulated roof, imposing walls stretching out on both sides.

He took a deep breath to quiet his racing heart before stepping into the watchtower. Sunlight, pale yellow, spilled through the arched doorways and square windows. His footsteps echoed in the empty space, reverberating against the exposed stone bricks.

Breathing in the musty air, he was acutely aware that he was standing on a piece of history. His thoughts went to the soldiers who had been stationed in this very tower hundreds of years ago.

“Was it lonely for them? The soldiers?” Daniel regretted the question as it left his mouth. It was a stupid thing to ask, but it was all he could think about. The lonesome figures in the middle of this nothingness, away from their families and everything they knew, with nothing but a faded letter from home.

Yang’s brows rose, but he seemed to consider the question. “The soldiers were hardly alone. During the Ming dynasty, upwards of a million soldiers were garrisoned on the wall. If we were to do the math, that averaged out to a couple hundred men per kilometer. And given that Mutianyu was one of the most strategic sections, probably even more.”

“Yeah, that’s a lot,” Daniel offered lamely.

“It is, but being alone and being lonely aren’t the same thing. So, I suppose you could be right.” Yang shrugged, his brows softening.

Yang had somehow put exactly what Daniel was feeling into words. Daniel thought about when he’d moved from Toronto to Amsterdam at fifteen. His Dutch, though better than his Mandarin (anything was better than nothing), wasn’t cutting it at school. For someone who’d never felt either Chinese or Dutch enough, having to go to international school in the city his mother was born in sucked. Before Poppy popped into his life, he’d had precisely zero friends—lonely, despite never being alone.

“Wait until you see the actual wall, but first, drink some water.” Yang offered Daniel a smile that didn’t look forced, and Daniel felt like he just accomplished something great. Yes, the bar was that low.

“No, thanks. I’m good,” Daniel lied. The mere mention of water made his mouth feel like the Sahara Desert. But the only way he’d go back to that washroom was with a hazmat suit, and peeing in the forest surrounding the Great Wall felt borderline criminal.

“That was not a suggestion.” Yang held out the bottle between them like a command. “Drink this, or we are not continuing. It’d be a real shame to come all this way and never set foot on the wall.”

“This is blackmail.” Daniel rolled his eyes because he was very mature, grabbed the bottle, and took a sip. As the cold liquid graced his lips, his annoyance evaporated. He was so thirsty that he downed the rest of the bottle in two gulps.

“Well done.” Yang awarded Daniel another smile, like he was a petulant child who was finally behaving. Daniel didn’t entirely hate it (problematic). Then he worried about ending up in that filthy washroom again because he’d drunk too much water (also problematic). Yang gestured toward the arched doorway. “After you.”

The knowing smile hanging on Yang’s lips filled Daniel with two parts excitement and one part worry. Then he stepped through the doorway into the bright light.

Holy shit.

The Great Wall of China stretched before him like a gray dragon swimming through a lush green sea. The notched battlements stood like two sets of dorsal fins, framing a walkway that undulated along the curves of the terrain. From where he stood, the wall meandered ahead for miles upon miles, only disappearing when the mountaintop took a dip.

Daniel had known what the Great Wall looked like. He had looked at the photo of his dad standing on the wall enough times to have memorized every detail. How young his dad looked, his unruly black hair, the unfiltered joy on his face, with the winding wall beneath his feet. But that long-held image in his head was nothing compared to being here, riding on the dragon’s back, surrounded by a sea of green wilderness. He couldn’t quite believe that he, of all people, was here. As much as he hated to admit it, Poppy had been right about coming here.

“This is … It’s something,” Daniel said when he remembered what words were. Eloquence, never heard of it.

Yang’s brows crinkled for a moment, long enough for Daniel’s stomach to drop. Had he said something stupid (again)? Then Yang let out a laugh—pleasant, melodic. Daniel was fifty-fifty on whether Yang was laughing at him or with him, but he didn’t care.