Beijiao only snapped out of his daze while washing dishes later—he had actually achieved a temporary victory over Jiang Ran.
…That woman, who was like a demon, actually said “I’m sorry” to him.
Tsk!
Staring at the greasy pot in the sink, holding the dishcloth covered in detergent, he genuinely felt like bursting into tears.
To confirm whether he was dreaming, he turned and left the kitchen—his hands still full of foam. Standing by the counter, he glanced toward the living room and saw Jiang Ran sitting cross-legged on the sofa, pressing the remote control with one hand while crunching loudly on newly bought black-colored potato chips, a brand he had never seen before.
As if sensing his gaze, Jiang Ran slowly turned her head and saw the teenager leaning against the doorway, eyes sparkling as he stared at her.
She paused, naturally having no idea what was wrong with him this time.
After a while, she could only glance down at the half-eaten chip in her hand, then nodded to herself as if understanding, and waved him over.
Seeing him hesitate slightly, swaying at a distance as if debating whether to approach, she waited until he finally shuffled over slowly, standing behind the sofa, looking at her with an expression full of unspoken words.
Jiang Ran popped the half-eaten chip into her mouth, then picked up a new one from the bag, stretching her arm high behind her, trying to offer it to the person standing behind.
Beijiao, naturally puzzled and unsure what she was up to, inhaled deeply and suddenly noticed a new change in her familiar scent—previously it had been a spicy sweetness…
Now, from the tips of her fingers, came a rich chocolate aroma.
“Want some?”
Seeing him standing stiffly, his neck straight like a statue, Jiang Ran blinked in confusion. She thought he might not like it, unsure whether kids these days even liked sweets—
Just as she was beginning to feel her arm getting sore, hesitating whether to pull the snack back, the teenager suddenly bent forward and bit down on the chip!
His movement was like a canine lunging out of a cave to attack its prey—fast and precise. He misjudged the distance; the soft lips, warm breath, brushed entirely against her fingertips.
As if her fingers had caught fire, her heart momentarily went numb. Jiang Ran quickly pulled her hand back.
This nervous reaction caused him to raise his eyebrows in confusion.
“It’s nothing.”
She casually rubbed her fingertip, attempting to erase the soft, warm sensation from the previous moment with rough rubbing. Maintaining a blank expression, she asked, “Tastes good?”
Only then did Beijiao tilt his head back and crunch the entire chip in his mouth—
To his surprise, it tasted like chocolate!
It should have sounded like a regular potato chip!
Still puzzled about this bizarre inhuman snack, Beijiao didn’t notice the foam on his hands, and with a “plop,” a drop landed on Jiang Ran’s face.
She paused, the slight redness in her ears cooling momentarily, before she jumped up from the sofa: “Why didn’t you wash your hands!”
“…I didn’t plan to leave the kitchen,” Beijiao felt wronged by the scolding, “you called me over.”
Still chewing, his speech was unclear as he quickly swallowed the salty-sweet mess. He realized it was indeed a potato chip, just coated with chocolate on the outside—it felt weird at first, but after chewing, it wasn’t too bad.
As he was trying to appreciate the snack, Jiang Ran tried to wipe her face with her hand, only to realize her fingers were now sticky with chocolate from the chip’s coating…
She glanced down, expressionless, and pulled out a tissue to wipe her hands.
At this point, she had already regained her composure from the brief moment of panic.
“Weren’t you washing dishes? Why did you suddenly come out?”
Before he could answer, she interrupted.
“Although I messed up previously and hurt you, I admitted my mistake. I treated you to hotpot and even bought cherries as an apology. Do you know how expensive cherries are? I bought them without even blinking!”
“So?”
“So,” she said warily, “don’t even think about making me help you wash dishes.”
She didn’t realize that, at that moment, he had already achieved his goal—
Good.
She had genuinely apologized.
Not a dream.
Beijiao never wasted words once his goal was achieved. He glanced at her with a quick downward look, gave her a sharp, disdainful gaze, and returned to the kitchen.
Leaning against the back of the sofa, Jiang Ran stared at his back, unsure what was going through her mind.
After staring for a while, she pouted, turned around, and threw herself back onto the sofa, grabbing the remote to press buttons randomly.
…
When Beijiao came out after finishing the dishes, Jiang Ran had already thrown the remote aside. The TV was paused on CCTV 5, introducing various Winter Olympic events.
Jiang Ran was playing on her phone. The TV sound was just background noise, half-heard. But when it came to snowboard events, she lazily lifted her eyelids.
Then she felt the sofa sink near her feet.
She instinctively drew her feet back, watching as the teenager—who had just finished washing the dishes—climbed onto the sofa from behind. Clearly, he could have simply walked around and sat down properly, but he insisted on behaving like an animal, bouncing around. She had no idea what was wrong with him.
Jiang Ran lowered her head and continued playing on her phone.
At this moment, her foot was tapped. His fingers were cold from the water, but he didn’t seem to notice. While energetically tapping her, he pointed his chin at the TV: “Snowboarding.”
He was excited—
Just like anyone newly exposed to something. Whether in the streets or on TV, any related content would excite him endlessly.
Jiang Ran was an old hand at this, completely indifferent, not even looking at the TV. She responded with a perfunctory “Mm” and kept pressing buttons on her phone.
She was messaging Lao Yan to ask about the situation with Shan Chong. Lao Yan replied, “Surgery is ongoing; the family is devastated.” Before she could reply, her phone was suddenly snatched away.
She hissed, looking up.
The culprit showed no fear of her stern gaze, casually stuffing her phone into the gap behind the sofa, while his eyes remained glued to the TV: “Look, their bindings are both facing the same direction.”
Jiang Ran turned her head and saw that the TV was introducing snowboard parallel giant slalom.
In snowboard parallel giant slalom, two competitors race simultaneously on red and blue flag courses that are 400-700 meters long, with a vertical drop of 120-200 meters.
There are 18-25 sets of gates set along the course.
At the starting line, the two competitors begin simultaneously, each weaving through all the gates on their respective course before reaching the finish line. The one with the shortest time wins.
During the race, missing a gate, deviating from the course, or crashing will result in disqualification.
Because this event purely tests the competitor’s control over edging, gate negotiation techniques, route planning, and other basic skiing skills, parallel giant slalom is the only snowboard event in official competitions that is completely linked to skiing techniques.
“A one-foot-forward stance is advantageous for high-speed skiing and stable edging. Parallel giant slalom is indeed conceptually similar to general technical skiing, or carving, but they aren’t exactly the same,” Jiang Ran turned her gaze back, “Unlike general carving, for speed, their boards are longer, narrower in the waist, and stiffer, and they wear hard boots.”
“My boots are pretty hard too.”
Beijiao remembered how his feet almost broke the first time he wore them.
“Their boots are completely hard,” Jiang Ran explained, “like double-plank boots. Once you put them on, your ankles and lower legs can’t move at all. The advantage is quick feedback—any subtle movement is immediately reflected in your skiing. The downside is low tolerance for mistakes. Once you put them on, you can basically only ski straight—you can’t add freestyle tricks on top of carving.”
She paused, then added expressionlessly, “Just being able to race purely competitively, how boring.”
“But you can compete in events.”
“You’re how old now? At best, you could work hard and train your son,” Jiang Ran scoffed, handing the remaining half bag of chips to Beijiao, “You’re a teenager, still dreaming of the Olympics?”
Beijiao wasn’t bothered by her personal attack. He stared at the parallel giant slalom competition on TV, thought for a moment, then turned to ask Jiang Ran, “So, would wearing hard boots for regular carving be like a lower-dimensional attack?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
Jiang Ran yawned, speaking in a casual tone, “Because I used to.”
Beijiao’s hand froze mid-reach into the chip bag.
“Back when we did EC in Europe… that’s the old-school giant slalom. Everyone used hard boots. This style might not look pretty, but it’s the ancestor of modern carving.” Jiang Ran let out a calm “Ah,” continuing, “If I had kept using hard boots, I probably could have at least gotten an Olympic spot in parallel giant slalom.”
Not bragging.
Just a simple statement.
“Oh, then why did you stop?”
…
Jiang Ran didn’t answer. She leaned back on the sofa, watching the teenager shovel chips into his mouth rapidly.
…
That family-sized bag of chips ended up almost entirely in Beijiao’s stomach.
Right after finishing dinner.
He truly had an astonishing appetite.
After eating, he did something that Jiang Ran had wanted to do but hadn’t managed—pouring the last few crumbs from the bag into his mouth, crunching them up, and swallowing everything.
The packaging went into the trash.
From his crouched position on the sofa, he stretched his long arms to grab wet wipes from the coffee table, pulling one out to clean his hands.
Meanwhile, he was distracted, still trying to watch TV, busily occupied.
With no phone to look at, Jiang Ran was forced to watch his every little movement until she couldn’t help but say to the person practically sticking their head into the TV screen, “Stop watching. Our country started snowboarding late, and the environment isn’t great either. We’ve been catching up hard, but it’s barely passable.”
“All events?”
“All events. Our domestic development in snowboard parallel giant slalom isn’t even as mature as in snow parks—As for snow parks, our key gold medal contender just went into the hospital today and is still on the operating table… The good news is there’s no news yet, so I guess the surgery is going smoothly. If you hadn’t taken my phone, I could be certain.”
She was talking about Shan Chong.
As she said this, the TV, as if on cue, began introducing the snow park events in snowboarding: big air, halfpipe, slopestyle.
When it came to “big air,” catching the keyword, Jiang Ran finally turned her head again.
On the TV screen appeared a familiar figure—
Fully equipped, wearing the national team’s snow suit, with a bright red five-starred red flag on his arm.
He accelerated from the high-speed sliding zone, then with a “crack,” the board’s bottom scraped against the jump ramp. That agile figure leapt into the air!
Amidst the white snow, the five-starred red flag stood out particularly. At the highest point of the jump, he bent down to grab the board, spinning 360°, 720°, 1080°, 1440°, then landed solidly with a “thud!”
The audience erupted into cheers. A line of text appeared at the bottom of the screen: [PyeongChang Winter Olympics Qualifier, National Team Snowboarding Big Air Athlete: Shan Chong].
…
Jiang Ran turned her gaze away, her expression not very pleasant. She thought to herself that it was fortunate that probably not many people in the snowboarding circle were watching TV right now—otherwise, this would be like tearing open a fresh wound—
Adding insult to injury.
She moved her lips, about to say something, when she saw the teenager crouched at the end of the sofa, hugging his knees, his face filled with shock and admiration.
Jiang Ran: “…”
Jiang Ran: “What’s that look for?”
Beijiao pointed at the TV: “This guy can fly once he steps on the board.”
Jiang Ran: “What’s the big deal? Didn’t you see people doing park tricks at Ruihe?”
Beijiao: “That jump wasn’t even a tenth as high as a real competition. How can you compare—plus—”
Jiang Ran: “No, don’t say it.”
Beijiao ignored her warning, pointing straight at the TV with his hand: “Park tricks are fun. I want to learn that.”
Jiang Ran’s expression remained blank as she immediately lifted her foot and kicked his hand.
“What are you doing!”
“You can only do carving.”
She said coldly.
“Who says?”
“I do.”
“Why!”
“Because I only know carving.”
“…What I know has nothing to do with you! That’s robbery logic!”
“Exactly, it is.” She smiled at the indignant young man, her tone firm, authoritarian, and merciless, “I worked hard, knelt down to put your boots on, crawled on the ground to help you up, hand in hand teaching you how to carve. It wasn’t to train talents for those park tricksters. No. So, either carving, or no snowboarding at all.”
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