Chapter 293: A Little Heat

Zeyu kept his hand on the throttle while the narrow boat came around the wreck.

The man in its bow had to crouch when a wave caught them sideways, and the woman rowing behind him swore as one oar lifted clear of the water.

There were only two of them, although bags and a folded tarp filled most of the space around their feet.

"Have you got it burning?" the man shouted, pointing toward the saucepan again. "We’ve got wood, but our lighter’s soaked. Don’t put that out."

Zeyu glanced toward Hanchuan, who had moved between the stranger and Zhiyi.

Shichen remained crouched over the saucepan, trying to coax a flame from the wood they had recovered.

Smoke drifted past his face, making his eyes water, but the little red patch was still there whenever he lifted his hand.

"Stay where you are," Hanchuan called. He waited until the woman stopped rowing before continuing. "Show us what you’ve got. We’re not bringing the boats together."

The man looked down at the widening stretch of water, then toward the burning wreck behind him.

Whatever he had meant to say was interrupted by a creak from inside the cabin. Zeyu watched its roof shift as the stern settled farther, pulling the open doorway beneath the surface.

The woman reached past her companion and dragged a sack out from under the tarp.

"Furniture legs," she called, pulling one free. "We cut them up before we left. They’re dry inside."

She held up a short piece of wood with a splintered end. Zeyu could see dark varnish along its sides, but the broken middle was pale.

He thought of the tools spread across their seat and the screwdriver he could use to split smaller pieces.

It would take work, and they couldn’t burn it loose on the deck, but it was more than they had now.

The man took the wood from her and held it against his chest.

"We’re not giving you the sack. You’ve got an engine. Once you’ve taken it, you can leave us with nothing."

Hanchuan looked toward Shichen before answering. Shichen bent close to the saucepan and blew gently, watching the glow brighten and then fade.

"Throw us one piece," Hanchuan told the man. "We’ll get it burning and give half back. If you want more fire than that, you’ll have to feed it yourself."

Zeyu waited through the argument that followed in the other boat. The woman kept her voice low, but the man’s carried across the water whenever he turned toward them.

He wanted them closer.

He wanted the saucepan passed over.

Eventually, the woman snatched the wood from him and threw it herself.

It struck their rail and dropped inside. Jingwei caught it before it rolled toward the open hatch, then passed it to Shichen.

Zeyu left the engine idling while he crouched beside them. The piece was thick enough to burn for a while, but too much for the little ember they had.

"Give me some room," Zeyu said, reaching for the screwdriver. "We need shavings first. If we smother it with that, neither of us is getting anything."

Shichen steadied the wood against the bottom of the empty storage box while Zeyu worked at the broken end.

His hands hurt almost as soon as he began.

He had spent hours gripping the wheel and forcing stiff pump fittings apart, and now the screwdriver kept slipping in his damp palm.

Zhiyi knelt beside him and gathered the curls as they fell. She kept them sheltered beneath her cupped hand until he had enough, then moved closer to Shichen.

"Put the thin ones near the red part," she said, separating them with a fingertip. "Leave room around them. It keeps going out when the smoke can’t get away."

Zeyu watched her arrange the shavings without touching the hot wood.

She was concentrating hard enough that a strand of hair had caught between her lips, and he reached over to free it before returning to the furniture leg.

She looked up at him briefly, her mouth curving, and his hand lingered against her cheek.

"I’ll find you something better than wood shavings for lunch," Zeyu murmured. "Although you might have to give me a little longer than usual."

Zhiyi leaned into his palm before looking back at the saucepan. "I caught the fish. You can cook it."

The answer made him smile despite the ache in his hands.

He had cooked for her often enough that it should have been an ordinary request, but he wanted badly to do it now.

He wanted to watch her eat something warm and stop holding her shoulders so tightly against the cold.

A small flame caught beneath the shavings. Shichen shielded it while Zeyu worked faster, cutting more curls from the pale center.

By the time they had a steady flame, the man in the other boat was calling to them again.

Hanchuan picked up one of the longer splinters with the pliers and held its end in the fire.

"What are you putting this in?" he asked.

The woman lifted a battered metal cooking pot from beneath the tarp. It already held small pieces of split wood, and she pushed them aside to make space.

Hanchuan waited until Jingwei had tied the unburned end of the stick to the recovered cord, then lowered it toward the water between them.

The man complained about having to reach for it, but Hanchuan kept their boat out of his grasp.

When the woman finally caught the cord with her oar, she drew the burning stick in carefully and lowered it into the pot.

Zeyu watched her bend over it. The man had stopped talking and was holding his jacket open to block the wind.

They didn’t throw another piece of wood.

Hanchuan retrieved the cord while Zeyu returned to the helm.

He hadn’t expected gratitude, but he still looked at the sack beneath the woman’s knee before turning away.

They had enough to get a small fire started. Whatever came after that would be their own problem.

The wreck groaned behind them as Zeyu eased forward. Through the windshield, he saw the loose metal drawer rising beside a patch of foam, still close enough to reach.

"Shichen, I want that drawer before it sinks," Zeyu said, bringing them around slowly. "We can’t cook anything while the only saucepan we own is holding the fire."

Shichen reached for the rope, and Jingwei moved beside him.

Between them, they caught the drawer and dragged it aboard, spilling filthy water across the bow. One corner had bent inward, but the bottom held when Shichen pressed against it.

Zeyu turned back toward the open water while the others cleared a place to set it.

Behind him, Zhiyi asked Qinghe to bring the fish closer, and for the first time since they had escaped the tower, there was work underway that might end with a meal.

Then the engine stumbled beneath his feet.

Zeyu’s smile faded as he checked the gauge.

The needle had been moving with the boat all morning, but now it stayed low through the rise of the next wave.

He eased back on the throttle and listened as the engine caught again, keeping his hand on the wheel while Hanchuan came to stand beside him.