After dinner, they returned to the wooden cabin. The little kids had played all day and were so tired they could barely keep their eyes open, sleeping soundly on their respective fathers’ backs… Except for Beichi, who seemingly inherited boundless energy from someone, was still jumping around, walking back to the cabin on his own little legs, then tugging at Jiang Ran’s hand demanding a bath.
The cabin’s window was a bit drafty, and the wind was strong at night; the woolen felt covering it would often flap open. Worried her son might catch a chill, Jiang Ran asked Beijiao to act as a human windbreak, standing by the window holding down the felt to block the wind.
“How come you’re not worried I might get cold?”
“If you’re cold, wear your ski jacket. It’s wind and waterproof.”
“…”
In the bathroom, Jiang Ran turned on the water. The sound of running water was accompanied by her son’s cheerful play, making the bathroom quite lively.
Leaning against the window, Beijiao was absentmindedly playing with his phone. From the bathroom came the sound of the unscrupulous woman engaging in parent-child interaction with her son in a high-pitched, exaggerated voice:
“Beiao had a long day, are you tired? Was it fun? You didn’t nap at all this afternoon. Look, Yangyang and Nianian both took a nap.”
Beijiao wanted to snort at this. Now she suddenly remembered to worry about her son? This afternoon, he’d been busy all day taking Beichi up and down the slopes, and she hadn’t even peeked out once to check on him, not even for a second. Yet the pile of snacks she brought were almost all devoured by them!
“It was fun, not tired!”
That was Beichi’s clear voice.
When no one else was around, Beichi could still accept his mother speaking to him like this. At the moment, he didn’t even expose her voice that sounded like it had been pinched by Donald Duck. He stretched out his short, wet arms and hugged Jiang Ran’s neck.
“Beichi wasn’t that tired, but now I’m a little sleepy, so I want Mama.”
He wanted Mama to give him a bath.
Jiang Ran had already gotten used to her son’s disorganized and often missing words during this phase of language development. While soothing Beichi softly, she used the disposable sponge she brought to wash his arms.
Under the comfortable water temperature, Beichi was being scrubbed into a drowsy state, his eyelids drooping heavily, when he suddenly said something shocking: “Daddy is tired too. Mama should help Daddy.”
Inside the bathroom, the woman’s gentle voice abruptly stopped.
Outside the bathroom, the man leaning against the window, previously bored and playing with his phone, froze his fingers mid-air. The phone’s glow illuminated his handsome face as the corner of his lips silently curved upward.
Beijiao snorted softly, murmuring in approval: “That’s my son.”
The sound, neither loud nor quiet, reached Jiang Ran’s ears. She originally felt the bathroom temperature was just right, but now, his smile made her heartbeat quicken, and inexplicably, her nose began to sweat.
She pursed her lips without responding to her son’s comment. However, the dog standing guard outside refused to let it go.
“What’s going on, Jiang Ran? Our son is talking to you. Are you mute?” The dog provocatively barked.
Such a hooligan.
Her son was just innocently speaking, but what was on his mind? What nonsense!
Feeling slightly warm, she took off her coat, leaving only the thin T-shirt underneath. When she spoke, her voice remained steady: “Is Daddy tired too? Mama doesn’t think Daddy is tired. Was Beiao playing happily with Daddy this afternoon?”
Sitting on a small stool, Beichi opened his mouth in a wide yawn and rubbed his eyes, then nodded sleepily.
“Was skiing fun?”
“Fun.”
“Want to do it again tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” Jiang Ran said. “Then tomorrow, Beichi will go skiing with Daddy again. Tomorrow we’re going to an even bigger ski resort. Isn’t that great?”
Under Jiang Ran’s deceptive and coaxing persuasion, the person outside the bathroom fell silent for a moment.
He never expected her sinister plot to be waiting for him like this—
Originally, he was planning that once they reached the ski resort tomorrow, at least he and her could play rock-paper-scissors to decide who would take care of the kids and who would get some freedom…
Now, rock-paper-scissors had become an unnecessary struggle, one he could skip.
Inside the bathroom, Beichi was already nodding enthusiastically. Today had been so much fun with Daddy. Usually, Daddy was so busy with work that he could only spend time with him after work and on weekends. Now that he had the chance to be with Daddy all day long, Beichi certainly wouldn’t miss out!
“Mama is the best. Thank you, Mama!”
Inside, the sound of splashing water came again. If she wasn’t mistaken, there might even have been a rare moment when her son leaned close to give her cheek a kiss…
Who knew why her son was being so affectionate?
The one doing all the hard work was his dear old dad, yet he turned around to thank his mother with gratitude… It seemed like it was high time to send him to kindergarten. How could his logical thinking already be so messed up from such a young age!
Standing outside the bathroom, Beijiao was mentally adding layers to the drama, waiting for quite a while until the mother and son’s parent-child interaction was finally done. When Jiang Ran wrapped Beichi in a towel and walked out, she glanced at his slim arms and legs and instinctively reached out to take the heavy son from him.
At this point, Beichi was already dozing off. As soon as his head touched the pillow and he rolled over once, he let out a long, soft breathing sound.
Jiang Ran lifted her son’s head and placed his favorite small pillow under it, carefully tucking him in… When she looked up, under the dim light, there was a black-eyed dog by the bed, staring at her with his tail wagging.
“?”
“Time for a bath,” the man said lazily. “Didn’t you promise our son?”
“When did I promise that?”
“Just now.” He paused. “Not saying no means saying yes.”
Jiang Ran reached out and pinched his nose, but he didn’t dodge. The corner of his face, usually an icy mask in front of others, softened at the edges, his eyes slightly narrowing as he leaned in and gently rubbed his lips against her palm—
Her hand still smelled of the body wash, and he stuck out his tongue to taste it.
Jiang Ran let out a hiss and quickly pulled her hand back, hearing him say in a low, almost nasal tone: “So, where do we start? With taking off the clothes?”
“Your hands broken?”
“Broken.”
He let out a low, rumbling sound from deep in his throat, pulling her arm and dragging her from the middle of the bed to the edge—
Jiang Ran swayed, nearly falling off the bed but instead landing steadily in his arms.
The man by the bed tightened his arm around her shoulder, gently rubbing his tall, straight nose against her hairline, making a soft, rustling sound. His intentions were clear without needing to be spoken.
Jiang Ran turned her head sideways: “What are you doing? We just did it this afternoon—”
“Not enough,” he whispered in her ear, softly and coaxingly. “Just a little while ago. I want more.”
She gently rubbed her fingers against his tense Adam’s apple, hearing him let out a soft hiss and a low chuckle.
Outside, the snow had unknowingly stopped falling, leaving only the howling wind of the early winter night brushing past the eaves.
Inside, the room was warm and cozy, illuminated only by a single, old, dim light bulb hanging in the center of the wooden cabin.
…
The next day, on the bus to the ski resort, everyone finalized their work assignments for the day.
In short, the group that had been drinking tea and eating sunflower seeds yesterday would now take the single, young girl Xunyue to the Wolf Valley for off-piste skiing, while those who had taken care of the kids yesterday would continue doing so today.
Beijiao looked at the ancestors sitting at the back chatting and laughing, feeling some hesitation about the arrangement.
This anxiety was successfully passed on to Jiang Ran. As the leader of the tea-drinking and sunflower seed-eating team, she lazily lifted her eyelids and glanced at him: “Any thoughts?”
“Uneasy,” Beijiao honestly said.
“At the time when all these sisters here were already dominating the slopes, you were still handing out flyers at the university gate,” Jiang Ran, acting like a female hooligan, reached out and hooked his chin. “What are you so uneasy about?”
“In front of us, Li Xingnan, with her long legs crossed, said, ‘What we’re uneasy about is that we hope you ski well and don’t suddenly come back with a bunch of younger brothers at dinner tonight, telling us you heroically helped someone with low blood sugar by giving them a chocolate bar this afternoon.'”
Jiang Ran was momentarily stunned, her eyes rolling around as if considering how likely that scenario might be.
Qiu Nian chuckled softly.
Shan Chong tugged on his eldest daughter’s braid, reminding her to watch her mother—among the tea-drinking and sunflower seed-eating team, Wei Zhi looked the most honest, but in reality, due to her profession, she had the most elaborate and wild ideas…
Now that there were two practical people, it finally brought her ideals into reality.
“Don’t worry about nonsense like that. Are you out of your mind!” Jiang Ran kicked Beijiao’s leg. “Instead of worrying about that, worry about how to take care of your kids. If even a single hair of my son goes missing, just wait and see if I don’t kill you.”
Beijiao emotionlessly pulled his leg back: “Domestic violence is illegal.”
“Three grown men can’t even take care of three kids averaging three years old, then none of you deserve to live,” Li Xingnan said casually. “Just take care of yourselves, and we’ll bring back three future Winter Olympic champions.”
She sounded very confident.
For a brief moment, Jiang Ran actually believed in their nonsense.
When they arrived at the ski resort, they took the cable car together and parted ways at the summit.
Jiang Ran had been the most sarcastic and teasing on the way up, but when it was time to separate, she couldn’t help looking back repeatedly.
She had already walked five meters away when she turned back again, crouching down beside Beijiao, who was “clinking” sounds while putting the skis on Beichi, and said after a moment’s thought: “I’ll come back as soon as possible.”
Beijiao waved his hand casually and calmly said “Bye-bye” to her.
Looking at his expression, Jiang Ran still felt a bit uneasy—probably due to some psychological shadow. After all, the first time they came to Xinjiang, Beijiao had pulled off too many stunts. “Don’t cause any trouble, got it?”
She bent down and flicked his nose.
“I know,” Beijiao drawled. “Go on.”
…
The skiing scene was at least normal for the first half, reminiscent of the first season, second episode of “Where Are We Going, Dad?”
At the ski resort, the three gentlemen—who resembled a dazzling male idol group wherever they went—had an incredibly high head-turning rate. According to female passersby: setting aside their already top-tier looks, they perfectly embodied the ideal mix of a fatherly older man, an aloof young pup, and a domineering CEO who only has eyes for you—there was always a type to suit every preference.
And the miniature versions of themselves sitting on their arms directly reduced their chances of being approached for flirtation to zero.
Unless there were a couple of male fans approaching Shan Chong for autographs, they were just steadily pushing the slopes, videos of them hand-in-hand with their kids changing edges filling every corner of the ski groups.
So much so that Jiang Ran didn’t even need to ask Beijiao about his work progress because she could see what he was doing just by opening any group.
Everything was going normally and conventionally until Beichi learned to switch edges. On the flat, gentle slopes below, everything was fine, but once they moved to the advanced slopes, switching from back edge to front edge always made him a bit hesitant. He couldn’t help turning his head to look, and then his body would twist, causing him to fall.
At first, Beijiao was still patient enough to pick him up each time, brushing off the snow from him. But after several falls, he started walking behind him with his hands behind his back, patiently waiting for him to get up on his own.
Fear of steep slopes wouldn’t do.
Among the three of them, the only one who had successfully taught kids to ski was Shan Chong. Beijiao had to go to him for advice on how Shan Chong had handled the situation when his son Shan Xunyue was young. Shan Chong thought for a moment and said that back then, Shan Xunyue couldn’t even switch edges, and was taken by his apprentice to the U-pool.
After flying in the U-pool, Shan Xunyue seemed to feel like he could take a helicopter to the Alps and then jump down and slide.
He finished speaking, paused, and was about to add the sentence, “But if caught, he would definitely get scolded,” when he looked up and saw Beijiao already dragging his son toward the park.
Coincidentally, to promote the new slogan “Three hundred million people on ice and snow, starting from the children,” this year Altay had newly built a small park for children to play in. It had jumps and small U-shaped pools similar to skateboard parks, slightly higher. Although the old hands like Shan Chong and others looked down on it, it was just perfect for beginners or kids.
The slope wasn’t as steep as the drop from the edge of the U-shaped bowl to the bottom. As soon as Beijiao stood by the U-shaped pool with Beichi, the boy hugged his father’s legs and refused to let go.
But Beijiao was cunning and had many tricks and tactics.
He tricked his son into letting go by saying, “Dad will demonstrate for you.” For this kind of U-shaped pool, he could play with his eyes closed—
In recent years, playing with Shan Chong quite frequently, he had inadvertently received some guidance. Outdoors, a young man capable of performing a double cork 1440° purely based on park skills, stepped onto his board and slid out from the edge of the bowl—
His snowboard flew extremely high. To those who knew what they were looking at, the height was enough even for performing tricks, but he landed steadily in the middle of the entire U-shaped bowl, his snowboard making a sharp “slap” as it touched down.
Standing on the other side, Shan Chong raised an eyebrow, not yet figuring out what that dog was trying to do.
Then he saw the dog squatting in the middle of the bowl, expressionless, saying: “Afraid of heights, can’t come back.”
Shan Chong: “?”
Li Xingnan: “?”
The two men hadn’t yet decided whether to tell their teammate to stop acting up or to go rescue this sudden soft-legged chicken, when Beijiao clapped his hands and called out to his son, who was still dazed at the edge of the bowl on the other side: “Bei Aoao, come save Daddy.”
Just like the other two uncles, Bei Aoao was stunned, never expecting that the task of “saving Daddy” would fall on him.
He looked down at the cliff under his feet, which seemed so high and steep to him, then looked at his father, who was isolated and helpless at a distant high point a few meters away.
Silence.
And at this moment, everyone understood what that dog was trying to do.
Standing behind Bei Aoao, Shan Chong said, “I advise you not to do it. If Jiang Ran finds out, you might not survive—”
Li Xingnan: “Seconded. I’ve already tried to talk him out of it.”
Beijiao blinked his eyes, “It’s fine. I slid into a ravine and messed around all afternoon. It’s not even lunchtime yet. Even if she’s a goddess, there’s no way she could be back by now, right?”
Beiao didn’t understand what the adults were talking about. He was simply confused why none of the many grown-ups present could go save his dad.
Standing on his snowboard, he realized he had become the only one capable of “saving Dad.”
But he was scared of heights.
Scared of getting hurt from falling.
Scared of tumbling straight off the cliff edge.
But his dad still needed saving—this was his dad, after all.
Under Beijiao’s silent gaze and repeated calls of his son’s name, Bei Chong gritted his teeth, clenched his jaw, and cautiously edged half a board past the cliff edge—
“Dad, I’m scared!”
The little kid’s voice, soft and whiny, made Shan Chong instinctively reach out and grab the back of his hat, fearing he might lose his nerve and tumble down.
Shan Chong followed closely behind the tightly-pursed-lipped Bei Chong, calmly giving instructions—keep your weight on the front foot, don’t sway around…
Bei Chong nodded messily. To save Dad, he steeled himself, gritted his teeth, and slid down—
And didn’t fall.
…At least not in the first half.
As he screamed in alarm, his snowboard smoothly skimmed along the left cliff wall and swung up onto the opposite cliff. The little kid stretched out his arms, displaying surprisingly good balance. He remembered what Shan Chong said—keep your weight on the front foot, don’t sway—and his small body tensed like a drawn bowstring—
Instinctively executing the most important part of the lesson: “locking in the core.”
But when he reached the other cliff wall, his strength and skill were naturally insufficient. Unlike Beijiao, who could swing high, he only slid halfway up before starting to fall—
Amidst his chaotic screams and rising snow dust, he rolled backward in a somersault and landed at the bottom of the cliff.
Beijiao, leaning forward from the cliff’s edge trying to grab him but missing, saw his son fall and instinctively lifted his butt—
Wanting to go down and help him up, but Shan Chong was faster. He gestured for Beijiao not to rush and smoothly slid down, picking up the curled-up little ball from the ground.
Shan Chong first checked the boy’s condition. Seeing that he was only frightened, his face flushed red and on the verge of tears but otherwise unharmed, he looked up at Beijiao high above and said, “Aoao has talent.”
Beijiao, lying on the cliff’s edge, stared at his son for a while, “A real man should play in the park. Back then, I stupidly took the wrong path and got into carving. When I wanted to switch to the park, they wouldn’t let me—”
Shan Chong: “I’m taking him as my apprentice.”
Beijiao: “Then teach him a bit more.”
Shan Chong: “Again?!”
Beijiao: “He didn’t cry.”
When men raise kids, the goal is simply to keep them alive.
So Bei Aoao was lifted high by Shan Chong and placed back at the starting point by Li Xingnan, who stretched out a hand filled with despair. Bei Aoao pouted his mouth, lifting his head in confusion to look at his dad nearby, feeling something was off.
But he couldn’t quite figure it out.
Therefore, when Beijiao raised his eyebrows at him and said, “Dad is scared,” the boy, eyes brimming with tears, once again ignored his inner fear for his dear father, and rushed down again and again—
Each time getting a little closer to Beijiao than the last.
In this repeated process, he completely forgot his initial fear of the steep slope. In his eyes, there was only his “princess dad,” waiting for him like a hero to charge up and rescue—
Even though he rolled all over the place countless times, rolling so much that Li Nian and Shan Yang looked at each other in disbelief, tugging Li Xingnan’s pants and asking what exactly was going on, while Bei Aoao seemed on the verge of tears.
Shan Chong placed a hand on his daughter’s shoulder: “If Dad was also stuck with Uncle Dog, would you come save me?”
“?” Shan Yang looked at the height of the U-pool below, without hesitation: “No way. Can’t you just come down yourself? If you can’t, call 110.”
“…”
A modern filial daughter.
As they talked, they saw Bei Chong rush again, “whooshing” down. This time he went higher, but probably too eager to grab his dad’s outstretched hand, he couldn’t keep his balance—
His whole body tumbled backward off the cliff. Even though he was wearing thick clothes and protective gear, he rolled like a ball for several rotations!
Hearing the crashing sounds of his fall, Beijiao panicked a little, finally lifting his butt, just about to slide down to pick up his beloved son-in-law, when he saw the boy quickly get up by himself, seemingly embarrassed.
Standing at the bottom of the cliff, seeing him stand, seemingly unharmed, he let out a sigh of relief.
Just about to ask Bei Chong if it hurt, he saw his son, whose pride was bigger than the sky, get angry at himself for falling, take off his snowboard, hold his breath, and suddenly burst into tears.
At this point, saving Dad didn’t seem that important anymore. The little kid, covered in snow from rolling so much, cried while still remembering to bend down and pick up his snowboard, hugging it while sobbing and hiccupping, and still trying to climb up the other cliff edge—
Stumbling and staggering, hugging a snowboard almost as tall as himself, tears all over his little face, his short legs wobbling as he walked.
“This damn dog really has a heart of stone,” Li Xingnan said. “Jiang Ran will come and twist his head off when she sees this.”
Shan Chong calmly covered Shan Yang’s eyes with his hand and said, “I want to leave. I don’t want to get scolded along with him—”
But the dog didn’t seem scared at all.
Standing at the other cliff edge, hands on his waist, he was still shouting: “Be a real man! What are you being so emotional for? Stop crying. Mom isn’t here anyway. Dad is waiting for you!”
Bei Chong cried uncontrollably, hugging his snowboard with his short arms, stumbling forward while crying, crying so hard he even shouted, “Mommy, it hurts! Save Dad!”
He shouted a few times.
On the other cliff edge, Beijiao, who had been provocatively shouting, thought to himself, this line sounds off—his son rarely just randomly calls for his mom.
So he squatted down, lowered his body, and stretched out his upper body to see what was happening to his son on the other side—
But as soon as he looked down, he saw his son throwing his snowboard aside and stumbling toward the woman standing at the far end of the U-pool entrance. She bent down, picked him up, then looked up, meeting his gaze from four or five meters away with a blank expression.
Beijiao: “…”
Jiang Ran wiped her son’s tears and gently asked the crying mess in her arms, “Sweetheart, what do you mean ‘save Dad’?”
Beijiao seriously thought about whether he had said anything he shouldn’t have just now.
Well.
He had said everything he shouldn’t have.
…Help.
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