The moment he said that, not only Song Die, but even a three-year-old kid on the street wearing open-crotch pants wouldn’t believe even a single punctuation mark of it.
Song Die acted as if his brain had malfunctioned, his smile never wavering as he gently said, “That day after getting hit by a basketball on the court, you didn’t seem to speak like this. You said I was in cahoots with your sister, ganging up on you.”
Bei Jiao was truly impressed that he dared to bring up that day again. Wasn’t he genuinely the victim back then?
His face had swollen for two or three days!
So the teenager’s resentful expression vanished in an instant.
“Aren’t things exactly like that now?” he asked Song Die, “Otherwise, how could you two hold hands and ride the cable car without ruining your harmonious atmosphere?”
That was indeed true.
But when they actually boarded the cable cars, he sat in the one behind, glaring at the two in front. Whenever the two in front got slightly closer, he would cough loudly.
As a result, Song Die’s original plan to show Jiang Ran the video he recorded during practice to find flaws was interrupted by the person behind, who was coughing so hard he seemed about to cough up a lung.
At the summit, looking at the two teenagers sitting on either end of a bench, strapping on their snowboards back-to-back, clearly not wanting to acknowledge each other, Jiang Ran had a severe headache.
She proactively suggested they go down one at a time from the summit, stopping halfway—
The snow trail was only so wide. Carving required speed, and both Bei Jiao and Song Die were beginners, making wide turns and struggling to control their speed, so it was extremely crowded when they were on the trail at the same time. They had to wait for one to go down before the other could proceed.
She had previously allowed them to play around because Bei Jiao was too slow to catch up with Song Die.
Now that Bei Jiao was carving fast on a single edge, naturally, she had to separate them.
Song Die went first. Jiang Ran stood on the mountain with her hands behind her back watching him slide down. When he stopped, she turned to Bei Jiao and said, “I’m going down now. Watch my front edge carefully. Tuck your butt into the board and apply pressure with your hips toward the front edge.”
These few technical points were repeated over and over again. Bei Jiao had heard them so many times that they made his ears calloused. He gave a lazy expression indicating: I know.
Jiang Ran slid down, quickly reaching Song Die after two or three edge changes. The moment she arrived on the snow trail, anyone carving stopped to watch her—
A living textbook of standard carving techniques, why not watch when it’s free?
When Jiang Ran reached Song Die’s side, she started talking to him, gesturing as she spoke, probably pointing out Song Die’s mistakes during his previous run…
Standing on the mountain, Bei Jiao looked down, initially impatient thinking, “How long are these two going to talk?” but gradually his mood shifted into a strange feeling: “Let them talk forever.”
As he hesitated whether to just slide down himself, Jiang Ran finally turned around and waved at him.
He mentally reviewed the key points for the front edge—
Flex.
Imagine sitting, bending the back leg.
Push with the front leg.
Place the back hand on the backplate of the front foot binding.
Extend the front hand naturally forward.
Then he set off.
He couldn’t link multiple edge changes on an advanced slope yet, so after a few single edges, he reached Jiang Ran, only to find her holding her phone recording.
“What are you doing?”
“Recording,” Jiang Ran said, “to analyze the details later.”
Thanks to the iPhone’s built-in frame-by-frame analysis function for videos, watching his own snowboarding footage made Bei Jiao feel like he was undergoing a slow execution by slicing.
This was wrong, that was wrong.
He thought he had folded himself into a ball, but watching the video, he realized how fully stretched his body actually was.
He thought he was stiff as a stick, but watching the video, he realized how limp and weak his movements looked.
“Great recording,” he said expressionlessly, “don’t do it next time, delete it.”
Jiang Ran had no intention of deleting it. In fact, under Bei Jiao’s agonized gaze, she sent the video to his WeChat: “Reflect on it when you’re alone at night.”
“Why don’t you record him?” Bei Jiao pointed at Song Die, “This guy who’s so determined to become your apprentice?”
“The determined-to-become-my-apprentice guy already had someone record him this morning and sent it to me,” Jiang Ran said calmly, “Didn’t you watch it too? Otherwise, how could you rush here in such a hurry?”
If he had a needle and thread in his hand,
He could sew her mouth shut in a second.
“You’re just biased.”
“If I’m not biased toward him, what else can I do?” Jiang Ran found his anger amusing, putting her phone away while glancing at him sideways, “Or should I be biased toward you, who’s so determined to become a disciple of Shan Chong? Heaven is watching, Shan Chong is still recovering in the hospital, at least I’m a living person right in front of you.”
She sounded quite wronged.
Bei Jiao pursed his lips, thinking that no matter how sweetly she spoke, she was still the type who would break his legs if he so much as looked at the park equipment too long.
The more he thought about it, the angrier he became, so he simply ignored her.
In the following lessons, he only responded with “Hmm” or “Oh,” not uttering an extra word.
However, there’s an old saying in this world: “When you lift a stone, it often ends up crushing your own foot,” especially considering Bei Jiao’s usual bad attitude toward everything…
Therefore, he sulked all the way, but Jiang Ran didn’t feel anything was wrong.
…
Bei Jiao stubbornly remained silent for almost two hours.
The clock pointed to 3 p.m. Song Die, having skied all day, was getting tired and decided to do one last run before heading home.
After making this decision, he naturally turned to Jiang Ran beside him, asking when she planned to go back.
He simply asked, not expecting this innocent question could stir up a hornet’s nest—
Originally, Bei Jiao was quite pleased when he heard that Song Die, who was annoying from any perspective, wanted to leave. But he didn’t expect Song Die to be so scheming. Leaving himself was one thing, but he also wanted to persuade Jiang Ran to leave with him.
Upon hearing this, Bei Jiao frowned immediately, genuinely somewhat unhappy this time.
If the previous jealousy still carried some playful and teasing elements, now he was genuinely feeling something indescribable and uncomfortable.
It was as if ten thousand ants were crawling on his heart, not biting him, but crawling around, making him extremely annoyed with their presence…
What’s going on? You leave, why bring her along? Trying to show off how close you two are?
A flood of unaskable questions filled his mind.
At that moment, he didn’t speak, becoming even more silent, just staring at Jiang Ran, his pitch-black pupils unfathomable, his gaze slightly darkening, as if a defendant was waiting for the judge’s gavel to decide between death or innocence. If she really nodded and agreed to leave with him…
Just the thought flashing through his mind was enough to darken his gaze threefold.
However, when Bei Jiao truly had feelings, he concealed them well—
Jiang Ran beside him pulled out her phone to check the time and discussed with Song Die about how he would return. Throughout the entire process, she didn’t even notice the emotional turmoil of the young man standing beside her.
“It’s still early,” Jiang Ran slowly put her phone away, “I’ll ski with him a bit longer.”
She casually pointed at the person standing behind her and Song Die.
Following her fingertip with his gaze, over her shoulder, Song Die unexpectedly made eye contact with a pair of pitch-black eyes, which startled him. He asked in confusion, “What’s wrong?”
When Jiang Ran curiously turned around, she only saw Bei Jiao looking emotionless, calmly asking, “What do you mean, what’s wrong?”
If it weren’t for the palpitations he had sensed just a second ago, Song Die would have thought he had imagined it.
…
The three of them passed through the cable car gate together for their final run.
When they reached the cable cars, this time Bei Jiao finally gave up on riding a cable car by himself. For the first time that day, he actively pushed forward, casually squeezing Song Die to the back.
In these days, Bei Jiao might not have mastered much else, but he had become incredibly skilled at getting on and off the cable cars on one foot.
He squeezed onto the same cable car as Jiang Ran. As the cable car passed the lift bar line, he casually lifted the safety bar.
“Why are you pushing Song Die around? Don’t you care that my legs swinging might hit your board?” Jiang Ran turned her head, looking at him with a sarcastic expression.
“It’s fine.”
The cable car was only so wide.
Sitting beside her now, legs touching, under the cover of his face mask, he subtly sniffed, catching faint whiffs of her scent…
As if possessed by some supernatural force, his mood improved a little again.
“It’s Ah Huang’s board. If you scratch it, just say it was your fault. He wouldn’t dare ask you for compensation anyway.”
“…”
Jiang Ran was speechless when she suddenly felt her hair being tugged.
Before she met this little brat, no one had ever randomly pulled her hair for no reason—
Now she had almost gotten used to this way of being called instead of using her name.
Following the force of his pull, she leaned a bit toward him, and when her shoulder touched his broad shoulder, she casually slapped away his paw.
“Jiang Ran.”
“What?”
“I need to tell you something.”
His voice was very serious.
Jiang Ran blinked, feeling a bit nervous because of his tone, “What’s wrong?” she asked seriously in response.
“If you don’t think of me as your apprentice, you can’t think of Song Die as your apprentice either.”
The young man, having his hand slapped, obediently let go of her hair, but his voice was firm.
As if afraid that Song Die, three meters away in the next cable car, might hear, he leaned close to her ear, “Got it?”
At this moment, the cable car shook slightly.
The snowboards under their feet made a soft “clack” sound. Amid the background music of the Rongchuang freezer, his voice was right beside her ear.
He didn’t manage the distance well, and when the cable car swayed, she could clearly feel his face mask brushing against her earlobe through her hair, his breath warm and close.
She strongly resisted the urge to raise her hand and rub her ear.
“Why suddenly bring this up? Who was the first one to jump up and say he wasn’t your apprentice just now?” she said, “Now you miss it?”
While speaking, she raised her hand and pushed his face away.
The cable car was so small, she couldn’t push him far, and his face refused to move away… without feeling such intimacy through the face mask and gloves, he turned his head while leaning against the posture of her hand—
As if rubbing against her palm.
This casual little action stunned Jiang Ran, her fingers bending, she stiffened her face, silently retracting her hand.
But the former was completely oblivious, only focusing on sticking his neck out, staring at her with bright eyes: “You’ve always been biased toward him. If you take him as your apprentice, you’ll be even more biased toward him… then there’ll be no place for me.”
“…”
He thought about so much.
Jiang Ran’s lips twitched, “If you keep thinking about the park every day, whether he’s my apprentice or not, there’ll be no place for you. Why would I raise a traitor?”
“Your kind of remarks seriously affects the unity atmosphere of snowboarding.”
He accused her.
“At critical moments, we unite against outsiders, sharing glory and shame… but this isn’t a critical moment.” Jiang Ran said expressionlessly, “Now is just a time when we’re idle and have nothing to do. When we’re idle and have nothing to do, we like to fight among ourselves. Ask Old Yan back then when he was doing flatland tricks if anyone ever called him ‘Dog Bounce’ to his face? Then ask him if he ever called carvers ‘Voldemort’ when he was doing flatland tricks and park riding? Then just randomly ask someone below doing park tricks if anyone ever called them ‘Jishuitan Hospital sponsored rider (*a famous hospital renowned for orthopedics)’?”
“Then when is the critical moment that requires us to unite against outsiders?”
“When you collide with a skier and get into a dispute, and no one knows who’s really at fault.”
“…”
She explained the snowboarding circle’s endless bickering and blind allegiance with a few words.
After Bei Jiao was educated, he felt a bit confused, thinking: after saying so much, was she going to take Song Die as her apprentice or not?
He realized he had been successfully distracted from the topic.
At this point, the cable car was almost at the summit. Naturally, he assumed she had deliberately changed the topic out of nervousness. He raised his hand, ready to grab her again to ask clearly…
At this moment, he heard her slightly helpless sigh.
She raised her hand, lifted the bar, and her snowboard “clacked” onto the ground.
“I’ve never put shoes on Song Die, nor have I held his hand and pushed him up the slope… if we’re really talking about apprentices, then there’s only you.”
As her voice faded, she pushed off with her feet and directly stood up, sliding away from the cable car.
Leaving Bei Jiao alone, stunned.
Until the Rongchuang cable car attendant shouted at him, “Bro Bei, what are you doing?” did he realize he had been daydreaming for too long, the cable car had moved too far, and his feet were almost dangling. In a hurry, he jumped off the cable car—
His board was already dangling, he didn’t stand steady, and he slipped straight out, falling for the first time at the cable car station since he started learning how to get on and off the cable cars.
…
Song Die was on the cable car behind, and from afar, he saw Bei Jiao sitting dazedly on the cable car, about to miss his stop.
A staff member who knew him called his name, and only then did he hastily jump off.
He fell at Jiang Ran’s feet in a clumsy sprawl, expecting him to be embarrassed and angry, but after Jiang Ran helped him up, he didn’t seem angry at all. Instead, like a stubborn dog, he stuck to her—
Song Die thought this metaphor couldn’t have been more fitting.
Specifically, the hand Jiang Ran had pulled him up with didn’t let go after he stood up. Instead, he turned his hand over, climbing up her arm, then fidgeting with the zipper on the pocket of her overalls.
Opening and closing it repeatedly for fun.
“What are you doing?” Song Die frowned and walked over.
Bei Jiao didn’t speak, just turned his head—
His face mask covered his face completely, but it didn’t stop Song Die from sensing the radiant cheerfulness radiating from him through the air.
From Bei Jiao’s gloomy attitude at the lower cable station when he pushed him away and squeezed into Jiang Ran’s cable car until now…
It should have been less than five minutes in total.
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