Guangzhou.
Sunac Indoor Ski Resort.
The last flight from Guangzhou to Zhangjiakou departs at 23:30, connecting through Xi’an, and arrives in Zhangjiakou at 08:55 the next morning.
08:55. Strictly speaking, when his flight lands, Jiang Ran probably hasn’t even woken up yet. Actually, that’s not a bad time at all.
Sitting on a chair in the waiting area, Beijiao hesitates with his finger hovering over the button to confirm the ticket purchase—not because he finds it troublesome or anything like that, mainly because he’s unsure whether Jiang Ran would be angry if he suddenly followed her there.
Earlier, his tentative probing didn’t seem to reveal her true attitude…
Damn.
So worried.
After a moment’s hesitation, he sighs deeply, temporarily exiting the ticket purchase interface. He stuffs his phone into his pocket and can’t help muttering about how unfathomable women’s hearts are.
The black-haired young man leans back against the chair, slumping like a boneless hide draped there.
It’s precisely the time when Guangzhou Sunac’s night session begins.
The ski equipment hall is bustling with many office workers just off work. Most of those who frequently ski know Beijiao—Guangzhou Sunac is considered a famous carving expert… At present, seeing the expert glaring at the ceiling with an expressionless face, his handsome face clearly displaying a “keep away” vibe.
They instinctively tiptoe past him, afraid of disturbing the expert’s mental carving, contemplating skiing techniques.
However, they don’t know that the expert isn’t thinking about skiing at all. He’s just lovesick.
…I miss her so much.
Hands clasped peacefully over his chest, Beijiao thinks expressionlessly. Why does every second feel so unbearable after Jiang Ran left six hours ago? Did she slip him some kind of love potion? He managed two whole years before, right?
…I miss her so much, I miss her so much, I miss her so much.
Unknowingly, he has already evolved into full-on love-struck mode. Sighing, Beijiao turns over. At this moment, the middle-aged man sitting next to him—today’s student—reaches out and tugs at him: “There are two absolute beginners who want to take a lesson with you. Teach them?”
Beijiao lazily turns his head slightly: “Hmm?”
He hasn’t taught absolute beginners in a long time.
Ever since the last time he taught a girl who wanted to hold hands while changing edges, and Jiang Ran happened to catch it, she retaliated by sending him a two-day package of a cute boy idol pushing him down the slope. Since then, he hasn’t taken any absolute beginner classes again… For those wobbling and changing edges, he only chooses those whose profile pictures clearly indicate they’re burly men.
After all, there are plenty of people booking his lessons, so he can be picky.
Hearing “absolute beginners” now, he isn’t particularly enthusiastic. He raises his eyebrows, thinking about how to politely decline, when the middle-aged man shows him a screen on his phone: “See this before you answer me.”
No wonder the middle-aged man is so confident. In the center of the screen are two young, lively, naturally pretty and smiling girls in a photo.
Beijiao thinks, oh, they are indeed quite pretty.
Then he says, “Not interested.”
Middle-aged man: “…”
For a moment, he wants to ask if Beijiao has something wrong, but thinking better of it for the sake of respecting the teacher, he holds back.
Middle-aged man: “Why not? They’re pretty girls. They’re willing to pay 1,200 yuan per hour, two people together.”
“I’ve been teaching absolute beginners for almost two and a half years. It’s time to progress. I can’t keep teaching beginners,” Beijiao sits up a bit, saying expressionlessly, “Besides, my family is quite strict. Guangzhou Sunac is full of her spies. If she finds out I’m pushing girls over 14 and under 40 down slopes again, I’m done for.”
Middle-aged man: “…”
Middle-aged man: “You’re not single?”
Beijiao: “Single.”
Middle-aged man: “?”
Beijiao’s face falls: “She went off to work, leaving me behind. These three days, I’m single.”
He looks like a discarded dog, the middle-aged man thinks. Just moments before talking about his girlfriend, he was so proud and cold, like a wolf of Guangzhou Sunac.
The middle-aged man doesn’t know what to say, so he just compliments him: “You two have such a great relationship.”
“Not great.” Beijiao tilts his head, leaning back against the chair, sighing longingly, “If our relationship were good, she would’ve taken me to Zhangjiakou.”
“Isn’t Zhangjiakou closed off? Wait, is she an Olympic Village staff member for the Winter Olympics?”
He thinks about it, and it’s more or less the case, so he just says, “Yeah.”
The middle-aged man’s eyes widen: “Wow, impressive?”
Beijiao smiles, “You’re about to ask, ‘How did she end up with you?’ right? Yeah, I don’t know either.”
Looking at the handsome, muscular young man in front of him, the middle-aged man actually doesn’t feel like asking that question—
Isn’t it obvious? Half of Beijiao’s short video account comments are from technique fans like himself, who genuinely admire his skiing style and want to learn from him;
The other half, and the majority, are girls who don’t really care how well Beijiao skis. Even if he posts something as mundane as a stray dog on the street, they can still praise it in all sorts of creative ways…
This guy is practically surrounded by stars and moonlight.
How come he’s feeling insecure?
…
However, the culprit behind Beijiao’s insecurity has no conscience at all.
As if unaware of the intense longing from a certain dog in distant Guangzhou, Jiang Ran sleeps soundly in her Olympic Village room in Chongli on the first night.
The next morning, she doesn’t even feel groggy when her alarm rings.
Carrying her stiff boots and hugging her race board, she heads toward the meeting place she agreed with Nie Xin. Along the way, Jiang Ran looks left and right, finding everything around her extremely fascinating—
Since she started regularly skiing domestically, she’s basically been hiding with the club members in Jilin. Songbei Ski Resort is her home base, where she has her own place and connections. Every ski run is so familiar that she can ski them blindfolded.
She rarely comes to Chongli, maybe only a few days each season when she wants some quiet time to practice alone, she’ll sneak in with her board.
When she comes to Chongli, she chooses accommodations near the nearest Summit Ski Resort, never going to other resorts.
The venue for the Beijing Winter Olympics is another resort next to the Summit Ski Resort, called Mi Yuan Yunding Ski Resort, commonly known as “Yunding.”
Yunding Ski Resort is connected with Summit Ski Resort. If you have an all-mountain pass, you can directly ski from one resort to the other on your snowboard.
Like a country bumpkin entering a grand mansion, Jiang Ran’s first time at this resort naturally makes everything seem fresh to her.
Passing through the entire equipment hall, Jiang Ran always feels like she’s been transported back to a foreign ski resort—
The equipment hall isn’t crowded; it’s still early, and small groups of people stand sparsely in various corners.
No longer are they the usual Chinese-speaking skiers chatting and laughing noisily at domestic resorts, nor are there any clumsy newbies wearing snow boots and struggling to move forward with their turtle and banana backpacks…
Passersby are all unfamiliar foreign faces.
Various hair and skin colors mix together, and different languages accompany each group passing by her ears.
The world’s top snow sports athletes have gathered here. They wear national team uniforms sponsored by their home country’s sports brands, clearly and proudly displaying their national flags on sleeves or backs.
Jiang Ran passes a hurriedly moving fellow countryman. In a crowd of Caucasians, yellow skin and black hair always easily catch her attention—
His red-dominant jacket is particularly eye-catching.
This person might be an athlete from another event; Jiang Ran doesn’t recognize him. Her gaze briefly skims over his face before stopping on the prominent five-star red flag emblem on his chest.
Jiang Ran stares at it intensely for a long time.
Her mind is full of: The national flag is so beautiful, indeed, it looks great anywhere… especially under the sunlight and wind on the flagpole in front of the stadium… and even better on the uniform of national team athletes, wow, how envious, how much she wants one!! !!!!!!
Only after the fellow countryman has long disappeared from sight does Jiang Ran reluctantly shift her gaze.
Occasionally, skiers pass by her.
Their snowboards are plastered with various brand logos…
In Songbei Ski Resort, sometimes when she sees someone with a fully stickered board, she can’t always tell before they start skiing whether the person is just playing around or actually has many sponsors—
But it’s different at the Olympics.
If a passerby has even a single Red Bull sticker—the brand that symbolizes the pinnacle of extreme sports sponsorships—then there’s no question about it: they’re a god-tier skier backed by Red Bull.
Jiang Ran walks out of the equipment hall, looking back every few steps. If it weren’t for having important business to attend to, she feels she could sit in the equipment hall like a country bumpkin watching the comings and goings all day without getting tired.
When she gets on the lift, she notices that Yunding Ski Resort’s lifts also have seat heating. She doesn’t know whether it’s specially prepared for the Winter Olympics.
Nie Xin is waiting for her at the summit.
When Jiang Ran arrives with her board, he’s chatting with someone nearby—that person looks surprisingly young, probably around thirty, with a scruffy beard.
Single eyelids, high nose bridge, fair skin. At first glance, he’s quite handsome, though with a three-white eye and a shy demeanor, making him look somewhat gloomy.
While Jiang Ran is still wondering who this person is, Nie Xin waves at her and introduces, pointing at the gloomy middle-aged man: “Come here, let me introduce—this is Wang Jiaming, one of the national team coaches for snowboarding. You can call him Mr. Wang or Director Wang, but I’ve recently taken to calling him ‘Mr. Doom.'”
…
Wang Jiaming is Nie Xin’s longtime friend and also the matchmaker who is preparing to invite Jiang Ran into the national team.
He is kind-hearted, speaks in a mild and somewhat listless manner. Nie Xin is right—he indeed looks gloomy all over—
But it’s understandable.
The parallel giant slalom team was completely eliminated before the quarterfinals. This result isn’t unexpected, and no one from the upper management is planning to hold anyone accountable. However, for those who have invested effort and hope into this event, everyone wishes for a miracle, but unfortunately, Lady Luck didn’t smile on them in the end.
This is undoubtedly a significant blow to the entire project team, so it’s hard to look cheerful at a time like this.
Moreover, everyone usually sits in the same office, and the neighbor from the snowboard big air event, Wang Xin, is about to hang a gold medal in the office!
What a difference!
So Wang Jiaming hasn’t been in a good mood lately. The only thing that has given him a bit of hope recently was when Nie Xin sent him a video of Jiang Ran competing in the Parallel Giant Slalom World Cup Finland leg a week before the Winter Olympics and told him that this girl had only trained at the provincial team for less than half a year…
Wang Jiaming was overjoyed at the time and immediately submitted the video and basic information for approval.
That’s why he got the pass and immediately summoned her over.
As of today, the temporary single or double board events for the parallel giant slalom have all concluded, leaving the venue empty.
It’s not a competition day, the venue is empty, and it’s still early. Except for a few foreign athletes who haven’t adjusted their jet lag and can’t sleep, coming to play around, the wide ski slopes are sparsely populated.
Yet Wang Jiaming has turned on all the cameras and timing devices, clearly preparing specifically for Jiang Ran.
Jiang Ran feels more nervous here than she did in Finland.
“It’s okay,” Wang Jiaming says with his hands in his pockets, his eyebrows still drooping. “I’m just taking a look. Just fly straight out—”
Nie Xin: “Bullshit!”
Wang Jiaming slowly finishes his sentence: “It doesn’t matter.”
He pauses, then lifts his hand to take Jiang Ran’s board, checking its condition.
After thinking for a moment, without lifting his head, he says: “Anyway, I’ve seen your competition footage from the World Cup Finland leg. After all, you made it through on your own, right? Do you remember that 32-to-16 elimination match? Your opponent then—”
Jiang Ran goes, “Ah,” that match was against that Icelandic girl. She was quite upset because she was looked down upon before the match, so she skied extra hard during the competition.
Nie Xin asks, “What about that match?”
Wang Jiaming chuckles slightly, ambiguously saying, “That match was great.”
He hands the board back to Jiang Ran.
Jiang Ran is puzzled.
Nie Xin curses beside him: “Do you have a problem, Wang Jiaming? Why do you always speak in half-sentences? Listen, I’m bringing you the princess of my Heilongjiang team for a political marriage. If you keep being sarcastic like this, there are at least a hundred people from my provincial team waiting to beat you up—”
Wang Jiaming completely ignores him.
He explains to Jiang Ran the issues during her World Cup run—the center of gravity was too central, and occasionally due to indecisiveness in route selection, secondary exertion caused delayed pressure application—
Each point he makes is spot-on.
Jiang Ran, hugging her board, feels that this person speaks in a strange, cryptic way, but he seems quite capable, definitely has some skill.
He’s like a broom-sweeping monk in front of a temple, completely different from Nie Xin’s loud and boisterous personality. She can’t figure out how these two became friends.
After finishing his explanation, he pats Jiang Ran’s shoulder, “Go ahead. The cameras are all on, and there’s no one else. Just ski your own race.”
Jiang Ran puts on her board, turns back once more. Wang Jiaming and Nie Xin have already left the summit starting platform and are sitting in the nearby viewing area.
She hasn’t worn stiff boots for half a month. Putting on her board, she takes a couple of runs to quickly get familiar with the gate spacing and slope steepness—
It was indeed similar to the last time at the Tonghua ski field.
She gained a bit of confidence, and half an hour later, standing on the mountain, she gestured to the two coaches on the viewing stand. Ni Xin stood up;
Wang Jiaming folded his hands in front of his body, as if entering a meditative state.
Jiang Ran glanced at the timer beside her. The timer’s preparation light flickered, and suddenly her mind became a mess—
She was on the Winter Olympics venue.
This slope had been skied by countless top skiers from around the world.
So nervous.
Chongli.
What day is it today?
It’s a bit cold, is it going to snow?
That national team uniform looks so good, she wished she could wear it and become the most eye-catching figure at Songbei ski field.
What if she fell later?
What was Beijiao doing right now? Could he be leisurely having breakfast? Was he tired of living?
A “gulps” sound echoed in her eardrum, and at the same time, the timer beeped. Jiang Ran, leaning on the starting platform, her hand veins bulged—
A puff of white mist spilled from her mouth. With a gentle push, she shot forward like an arrow.
…
Beside the track, a lift slowly carried athletes up to the competition area.
Inside the elevator stood several foreign faces—pale skin almost translucent with visible bluish veins, light-colored eyes, and various rough, unmanageable hair colors typical of Germanic features.
Judging from the insignias on their snowboard sleeves, these were a group of snowboarders from Iceland competing in the parallel giant slalom event.
Their competition had ended two days ago. Considering the charter flight costs, they still had to wait for other athletes before returning to Iceland…
They had wandered around the area yesterday and, with nothing much to do today, decided to come back to the competition venue for a few runs.
Originally, they were chatting and laughing.
But as the elevator ascended, a loud sound from the snow below caught their attention—the sharp edge grip of a snowboard carving fiercely into the snow.
Technical riders seemed to instinctively sense this sound. The elevator suddenly fell silent. Looking down, they noticed that the competition venue, empty at this time yesterday, now had someone on it—
She wasn’t wearing any national team uniform, just regular ski overalls with a pink AK series jacket from Burton layered over.
Her long hair was braided thickly and hung down her back.
The white ski helmet bore no sponsor logos.
As she sped down the slope, her braid soared high in the air—
She was fast.
From above, the people in the elevator only had a clear view of her face and pale lips for a split second as the elevator passed her on its way up and she flew down.
Soon, she became a blurred figure disappearing into the snow dust.
[Asian.]
[Wow, she’s so fast! Did you see her board? I don’t think anyone can carve any sharper than that.]
[Who is she? I don’t recall seeing such a riding style during the competition. Her stance seems more open, a combination of general JSBA riding and racing stance… quite different from ours.]
[Kim Suyoung? I thought the Koreans left yesterday after their competition.]
[Shimashima Mayumi? Honda Akiko? Not them. They aren’t that fast.]
Icelandic belongs to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic language family. It has absorbed elements from various languages. Its ancient vocabulary and complex grammar made their conversations sound like coded messages, allowing them to speak freely at international competitions—
Right now, they clustered together, surprised and discussing who that fast Asian girl was who had just passed them.
The young girl standing at the edge of the elevator remained silent until the elevator reached the top and the door opened. She stepped out with her snowboard, expressionless, and said, [Stop guessing. She’s Chinese.]
Behind her, a brief silence fell, and one of the girls with short black hair widened her eyes.
[Oh, Ainovira, are you sure your eyesight’s okay? That couldn’t possibly be a Chinese rider.]
[Don’t say that, Iden,] another girl playfully nudged the black-haired one, [Ainovira lost to a Chinese rider back in Finland. You forgot? She nearly lost her Olympic spot to her!]
[That was just luck!] the black-haired girl said, [In the end, Ainovira almost got third place—she was fourth! And no Chinese even made it to the round of sixteen!]
[I don’t know why she didn’t participate in the Winter Olympics.]
Ainovira pointed at the timer below the track, [Now the competition is over, yet she shows up here again.]
Everyone followed her finger and saw the red digital display on the timer below showing “41.01.”
The previously chattering girls fell into a brief silence.
What did 41 seconds mean? Although the knockout rounds used a group elimination system and no longer published timing results—
But if someone had this speed during the official competition two days ago, the entire top five rankings might have to be…
…slightly adjusted.
Author’s Note:
The data is made up within a reasonable range. 41 seconds is roughly the speed of around 10th place in the men’s Winter Olympics qualifying rounds.
After the qualifiers, it seems they no longer timed, so I can only make wild guesses.
But that’s okay. As long as I admit it’s all made up, you can’t scold me for being unreasonable (。
Except for that 0.01-second eliminated Korean rider, who actually exists, everything else in this article is fictional. No references, no implications, no hidden meanings. Please don’t associate anything in this text with real Winter Olympics-related people or events.
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