Beijiao used to be somewhat undisciplined on the ski slopes. Whenever he fell, he’d just sit there waiting for Jiang Ran to come pull him up. Alternatively, he’d roll around a bit and then lie by the side of the slope pretending to be a deadbeat dog.
You’d think he didn’t like skiing, but no—he’d enthusiastically drag Jiang Ran along early in the morning, hugging his snowboard like a long-awaited destined lover finally arriving.
At that time, he didn’t yet know Jiang Ran’s reputation in the skiing community, nor how hard it was to book a lesson with her. After spending these days at the ski resort, besides hearing her name constantly in the restrooms and dining areas, even employees at Sunac Snow World recognized her. They mentioned that she had stayed in Guangzhou more this year, while in previous years she might have already returned to Harbin by now, especially since Guangzhou was always crowded during summer vacation.
Why had she stayed in Guangzhou more this year? Simply because right at the start of summer vacation, she had picked up a cheap little brother on the street.
He overheard all these discussions and kept them in mind. Added to today’s provocation from Song Die—
After the final run, as soon as Song Die left, Jiang Ran noticed a complete shift in Beijiao’s demeanor.
The basketball prince who, on the court, remained unflinching even when facing a 1.9-meter-tall Xie Yu and would charge forward without hesitation, had returned. He was fearless once again.
After just three runs, he was already able to switch edges on the advanced slope.
When he fell, he’d push himself up within three seconds, movements so quick that Jiang Ran couldn’t even get close enough to ask if he was hurt.
When his rhythm for edge transitions broke, he’d simply crouch by the railing for a few seconds of deep thought—figuring out where he started too late or ended too early, whether his ankles engaged properly, if his core had lost stability. Then, he’d never repeat the same mistake again…
By the fourth run, not only was Beijiao smoothly switching edges on the advanced slope, but his timing for transitions was also spot-on.
He didn’t do what Jiang Ran had seen in others—those who, even after mastering the frontside edge to the point of touching snow, would occasionally only remember to switch to the backside edge just before completing a turn. Beijiao didn’t do that.
Instead, he was able to transition from the front edge halfway through to entering the turn on the back edge seamlessly.
The genius who had stunned everyone with a single pose on the mountain had returned. It gave Jiang Ran the illusion that he had been faking it with her these past few days, just playing around.
On the fifth run, while riding up the mountain on the chairlift, Jiang Ran explained to him the reverse arch and hip pressure for frontside carving. The reverse arch involved folding the body and bringing the hips closer to the snow surface to create high pressure, resulting in a high edge angle.
Beijiao simply said, “Oh.”
Then, on that fifth run down, in slightly steeper terrain, the tips of his gloves were scraping the snow surface.
It wasn’t the awkward bent-over posture he used to adopt when intentionally reaching down to touch the snow. This time, he was correctly executing the frontside carving technique as per the JSBA system.
He felt comfortable.
Jiang Ran, however, did not.
“This slope is only a few hundred meters long,” she said, puzzled while riding the chairlift. “Ever since Song Die left, you’ve been pulling out something new every run.”
Beijiao wondered if she was trying to praise him—fast progress deserved praise, after all…
But her tone sounded a bit off.
Still pondering, he heard her say, “Then what exactly were you doing these past few days—bending over and sliding aimlessly, falling and lying there waiting for someone to pull you up? Just messing with me for fun?”
Oh.
Beijiao emotionlessly reached a conclusion—
She was here to confront him.
But he wasn’t the least bit nervous.
“Of course,” the boy said, swinging his legs while sitting on the chairlift, stepping on the blue tree with his yellow board. “If you hadn’t said what you did just now, I might still be the same old me… But since you said that, I had no choice but to step up.”
His repeated “this” and “that” left Jiang Ran quite confused. She almost wanted to ask him what score he got on the college entrance exam’s Chinese section and whether he even passed the essay.
As the chairlift neared the summit, Beijiao wanted to lift the gate.
He raised his hand, but it wouldn’t budge. Turning his head, he saw the woman beside him pressing down on the gate, staring at him intensely, clearly not allowing him to dodge.
“What exactly are you talking about?”
History always repeats itself in astonishing ways.
This time, it was Beijiao’s turn to be interrogated.
Initially, he was a bit nonchalant, but soon realized he was actually a little afraid of being stared at like this by Jiang Ran—her eyes, usually hazy and unsharp, had a way of making one’s heart race when she looked directly at you.
It felt like being under intense sunlight.
His heartbeat skipped a few beats.
He almost felt guilty for no reason.
In that moment, cornered and flustered, Beijiao looked left and right helplessly within the gate before finally mustering his courage to pry her hand off the gate, lifting it up and standing up with the chairlift—
“What are you asking for if you don’t want to know?”
“I’ve already postponed the step of directly scolding you out of humanitarian concern.”
“…Ugh, you’re so annoying.”
“If you don’t give me a reasonable explanation, in addition to this annoying me, you’ll soon see an even more irritable version.”
Threatened by her, his ear tips slightly reddened, and he paused.
“It’s just that,” he said evasively, avoiding her gaze and whispering in an unnecessarily vague tone, like a thief, “you did ask me to be your apprentice, didn’t you?”
As soon as he finished speaking, he suddenly shoved the safety bar above his head like it had burned him, and then swiftly slid out.
Leaving Jiang Ran swaying on the chairlift, full of question marks.
Jiang Ran: “…”
At this moment, she was indeed filled with confusion, thinking: What? I asked you to be my apprentice? When did that happen? Excuse me?
“What are you running for? Come back here!”
Ever since he learned how to ski, the little brat had become as slippery as an eel.
Sometimes, Jiang Ran would lose focus for just a moment and couldn’t catch up with him.
Right now, he had already clicked into his bindings beside the starting chair at the summit. As he looked up and saw Jiang Ran slowly making her way over on one foot, one board still unmounted, scowling as she approached, he quickly averted his gaze—
It was as if just moments ago they hadn’t been discussing a master-apprentice relationship, but rather he had just proposed to her.
“Don’t blush,” Jiang Ran said coldly as she approached him. “No matter what you’re thinking, I’m not interested.”
But it didn’t matter.
As long as her tone wasn’t strict enough, everything she said would sound to Beijiao like her unlocked bedroom door—pretending to refuse while secretly inviting, like nonsense.
He finished adjusting his bindings and ignored her completely before shooting off.
With skiing, sometimes on one run, you suddenly manage to touch the snow with one edge, even if it was just by sheer luck. From then on, the probability of touching snow on subsequent runs increases exponentially until every edge can make contact.
That’s how the foundation for carving with the front edge begins.
Everyone learning to carve starts by touching snow with the front edge.
After another run, snow was already scraped all over Beijiao’s gloves—
As he clapped the snow off his palms, he was fully aware of his progress. Tomorrow, when Song Die arrives at the ski resort, he will find that the world has changed drastically since he left. Just the thought of this made him feel as if he had boundless energy…
Before Jiang Ran could even steady herself after getting off, she was being pulled back onto the cable car!
He kept pestering her to record another video for him.
After seven runs, despite all the exertion, Beijiao was even more energized, while Jiang Ran was utterly exhausted. Looking up at the familiar ski lift, she suddenly felt the urge to vomit.
Her back and waist were aching. At first, she thought it couldn’t be—her stamina wasn’t that bad. But then she took out her phone to check the date, counted on her fingers, and realized—oh no, her period was coming.
So Jiang Ran propped herself against the gate, refusing to go any further, as she felt she desperately needed a cup of hot chocolate.
At this point, Beijiao had already swiped his card and entered. After a long while without hearing any movement behind him, he turned back to look at her curiously, urging her with his eyes to hurry up—the cable car was about to arrive.
“I’ll rest for a while,” she said euphemistically, “I have a stomachache.”
To her astonishment, Beijiao actually looked shocked and said, “You’re just going to abandon me like that?”
Jiang Ran was baffled by his reaction: “…What do I care? For the past hour, every time you ran from the mountaintop to the cable car station, you dashed off like a rabbit—except for that one glance back at me by the ticket gate to make sure I’d catch up for the ride—”
Bei Jiao: “Are you angry because I didn’t wait for you just now?”
Jiang Ran felt like dying—she simply couldn’t communicate with this person. “No, I’m genuinely exhausted,” she said.
Bei Jiao had already turned back by then. With few people on the cable car, he sidled back to the ticket gate. Leaning over the machine with his long arm stretched across the barrier—his “paw” had somehow found its way back to her ski jacket again, as if obsessed with the zipper of her pocket—he began tugging at it playfully once more.
At first, he didn’t think much about having someone following behind him. But when she said she was going to leave him alone, he suddenly realized that having one less person behind him made him feel somewhat uneasy.
I always feel a void in my heart.
“Then will you come back?” His tone sounded a bit clingy when he finally spoke.
“…” Jiang Ran swatted his hand away and retorted coldly, “You’re no longer the beginner who needed hand-holding just to make wedge turns. Now you can even touch the snow with your front edge… Can you stop being so clingy? Just look around—how many people on this slope can ski as well as you?”
The snow wasn’t as good in the afternoon, and all the big shots had gone home.
On the slopes now, most people are just floundering around. The majority can only link turns smoothly on intermediate or advanced runs, and even fewer can carve properly.
Beijiao automatically ignored the first half of the sentence and actually turned around to glance at the people on the ski slope behind him—
After observing for a while, his eyes grew even brighter as he reluctantly agreed, “Alright.”
Finally managing to persuade that annoying pest to leave, Jiang Ran let out a sigh of relief. She bent down to remove her snowboard, holding it in her hand as she casually brushed off the snow clinging to it. Just as she was about to turn and walk away…
Then, I heard the person lying motionless on the ticket gate behind me, watching her leave, ask, “Will you come in to pick me up later?”
Jiang Ran didn’t look back, quickening her steps to escape.
As she pushed open the snowfield gate with an expressionless face and walked out, she pondered whether to bring a lollipop in later.
I heard this is the proper sense of ceremony when picking up your son from kindergarten.
……
Jiang Ran left, and with her departure, the dramatic snow-cutting movements behind him—like something out of Godzilla—were gone. The person recording was gone, and so was the one who used to chat with him.
Bei Jiao sat alone on the cable car, swinging his legs, feeling an inexplicable trace of emptiness.
How empty was he feeling? He didn’t rush to put on his snowboard and slide down the mountain as usual. Instead, he sat on a bench, staring blankly while watching others fall… He had thought it would be amusing to see people clumsily repeat the mistakes he made when he first learned to ski. But to his surprise, he zoned out after just five minutes.
He seriously considered whether to ski down to the restaurant to find Jiang Ran, make sure she rested for ten minutes, and then drag her back onto the slopes.
He thought about taking out his phone to ask her where she was, but before he could even type, he saw her profile picture jump to the top of the chat list due to a new message—
She sent him a voice message.
[Whose Ranran Duck: Think about your problem before you slide, don’t just slide mindlessly? Although you can now touch the snow when switching from front to back, your back leg keeps sweeping the snow at the tail of the board… Why does it sweep the snow? It’s because you rush into switching to the back edge before completing the turn, and your back leg pushes it. Don’t push it—let the board carry you! Your gaze should also follow naturally; don’t actively look toward the back edge. That’s the SAJ technique’s way of looking!]
A thirty-something-second voice message, with the background noise of a bustling restaurant and a waiter asking her what she’d like to order.
As if guided by some supernatural force, Bei Jiao listened to her voice message twice—the first time focusing on the content, and the second time purely to hear her voice.
I read through the text again after converting it.
I’ll reply to her later.
Bei Jiao: It’s only been five minutes since we parted.
The other side was clearly confused and had no idea what he was trying to say.
[Whose Ranran Duck: What’s Wrong with Five Minutes?]
[Whose Rising Duck: Don’t tell me your next line is some corny pickup line like “I just miss you”?]
[Whose Ranran Duck: Sis, I ain’t buying it!]
Bei Jiao’s snowboard crunched against the snow with a “creak-creak” sound. He let out a low, derisive chuckle and lifted his eyelids to glance toward the ski resort’s entrance—
On the mountain, it was just barely visible, even though there was no one there.
【Beijiao: No.】
【Bei Jiao: I mean, we just parted five minutes ago and you’re already texting me.】
【Beijiao: Now let’s see who’s the clingy one?】
After sending this message, he put his phone back into his pocket with satisfaction at having turned the tables in his favor, then bent down with a “click-click” to fasten the bindings.
He did manage to turn the tables.
(Note: “扳回一城” is a Chinese idiom meaning to regain an advantage or stage a comeback in a competition or conflict. “Turn the tables” is a natural English equivalent conveying the same sense of reversing a situation to one’s advantage.)
Because at the same time, outside the ski resort, inside the restaurant, staring at the two new lines of text that had just popped up on the screen, Jiang Ran repeated eight hundred times the urge to dunk her phone directly into the cup of hot chocolate in front of her—just to give it a good wash.
Wash away the bad luck or something like that.
……
Jokes aside, Jiang Ran’s words stuck with Bei Jiao. When he skied on his own, he couldn’t see if his tail was scraping snow, so he could only try his best.
Let him finish the front edge route first, and then he should try not to rush into the back edge.
However, every time he consciously tried to address this issue, he found himself unable to initiate the edge change in advance. More often than not, he would ride the front edge until he completely lost speed, only then realizing—forget about actively pushing off the board to force a change in direction—he hadn’t even registered the need to switch edges, having already ridden the front edge way too far.
I suddenly hit a bottleneck this afternoon.
Bei Jiao tried to find a balance between “not actively changing the snowboard’s trajectory in advance” and “but shifting to the back edge early.”
He spent two or three runs just studying this, and once he got serious, he forgot all about his original plan to go find Jiang Ran at the restaurant.
Time quickly passed to around 4 p.m.
The snow slope at Guangrong was nearly empty now—only a few newbies had just arrived. Because the snow had been completely ruined, they kept falling hard.
After another run, Beijiao spotted in the distance a young girl wearing pink overalls struggling on the slope.
Initially, what caught his attention was that her overalls were the same style as Jiang Ran’s, just a different color. For a straight guy like Beijiao, noticing this was unusual even to himself, so he stole a couple more glances at the girl.
One of the annoying habits he had picked up after learning to ski was instinctively checking people’s gear when watching them ride—first their outfits and boards, then reflexively looking at the direction of their bindings.
Surprisingly, hers were both set forward.
She was struggling, and Beijiao watched as she clumsily switched to her back edge, only for her board to suddenly slice sideways into a deep groove in the snow. Then with a loud “plop,” she tumbled and rolled out of control.
Beijiao: “…”
He lifted a hand to rub his nose, recognizing the groove as his own doing.
Earlier, frustrated while experimenting with edge-changing timing, he had suddenly recalled Jiang Ran’s mention of the underarm hair carving turn and impulsively wanted to test just how steep an edge he could carve.
At 1.83 meters tall with a muscular build, when he really put effort into carving, his board could gouge the snow like the Mariana Trench.
Now, watching someone crash on his handmade groove, he felt a bit awkward.
So, with a few quick turns, he slid down and pulled the girl up from the snow.
She rapidly said, “Thank you, thank you!” in a soft, sweet voice. Lifting her head, she looked about his age, like a college student, with a slightly baby-faced, fair and tender complexion. Big round eyes and cherry lips.
Oddly, Beijiao thought of Jiang Ran and quickly concluded: this girl was the complete opposite type.
His gaze swept across her face, and Beijiao waved his hand dismissively, not even bothering with a “You’re welcome,” releasing her arm and turning to leave—
But before he could fully turn, someone grabbed him from behind.
He turned back, looking down at the girl behind him with a cold gaze.
“Anything else?”
He hadn’t spoken since Jiang Ran left, and when he finally did, his voice was low and magnetic.
Quickly pulling his jacket from her hands, the boy’s dark eyes showed no emotion as he watched her face flush slightly.
Her nose even had a hint of red. Tilting her head, she said, “I saw you riding when I came in. You’re just starting to learn carving too, right?”
“…”
Beijiao glanced behind them. The slope was empty, yet standing in the middle chatting was clearly absurd.
He had no desire to talk and gave a perfunctory “Hmm,” not asking what she wanted, turning to leave again.
The girl was momentarily stunned, clearly not expecting him to just walk off mid-conversation. Hurriedly, she followed with two quick turns.
She also rode forward-facing carving, but from her posture and smooth, relaxed transitions, Beijiao recognized her as SAJ.
How effective was Jiang Ran’s brainwashing?
Seeing someone who rode differently from him, Beijiao slightly frowned.
Jiang Ran had explained that although both were forward-facing carving, JSBA and SAJ techniques were quite different—from weight shifting, body posture, to visual guidance, everything was different.
They had nothing in common.
He didn’t want her following him.
But the girl wasn’t fazed by his cold attitude, persistently approaching: “You’re way better than me. You ride on edge the whole time and even touched the snow with your front edge. I can’t… I struggled with edge changes for ten whole days before I got it!”
She laughed at herself after speaking.
Beijiao could only think one thing upon hearing this: she was pretty slow, slower than Song Die.
He wanted even less to hang around with her now.
His reaction was cold, silent the whole time, watching this strange girl with a cold stare, wondering what she wanted—
He was wearing a face guard.
If at the Yellow Snow Shop the girl was drooling over his looks wanting to befriend him, now fully covered, what appeal could he possibly have?
He couldn’t figure it out.
Unbeknownst to him, he was wearing a white hoodie with a matching waterproof jacket, gray sweatpants, and riding a blue tree board. His height and tall, slender build, narrow eyes naturally exuding an aura—
Without even showing his face, he was the standard eye-catching figure on the slopes.
Beijiao didn’t think much about it. He intentionally sped up, trying to shake her off, even regretting having helped her earlier.
At top speed, he reached the bottom, swiping his card to pass the gate to the lift, but the gate wouldn’t open at a critical moment.
A staff member came over: “Try the left one!”
He struggled to move his board to the left gate.
Of course, the girl caught up again.
Even squeezing onto the same lift.
“I’m Liang He!” A hand extended from the left.
The lift swayed as Beijiao looked down at the hand in front of him, wondering what was going on.
He pressed himself against his side of the lift’s handrail, nearly falling off, reluctantly reaching out to briefly touch her hand. “Beijiao.”
Before he could ask Liang He what she wanted, she cheerfully blurted out: “Why are you riding alone? I came late today and saw you all alone! It’s kind of boring skiing alone. We usually come in groups of three or five, all beginners. Most do carving, a few do flatland tricks… We have a group chat, it’s fun. Add me on WeChat, I’ll invite you in. We can ride together and improve!”
Beijiao thought: even one Song Die was annoying enough. Three or five people?
How wide was this indoor snow slope anyway?
His expression remained calm, showing no interest.
The girl beside him guessed his reluctance to socialize but wasn’t discouraged. People like him probably got approached by eight hundred people daily.
Once she improved, there’d be even more.
She kept chatting sweetly and enthusiastically, talking about how fast carving was, how flatland tricks could jump but were slow—
Beijiao thought: Jiang Ran did both carving and tricks seamlessly. You’re just not skilled enough, hmpf.
He casually hung on his side of the lift’s handrail, spacing out like a lazy dog.
When the lift reached the top, he impatiently muttered, “We’re here,” lifted the bar, and without waiting for the lift to push off, skillfully used one leg to propel himself away from the noise source.
He quickly reached the summit, bent down to fasten his bindings as fast as possible, preparing to find Jiang Ran—
He was hungry.
Time to go home for dinner.
Just decided, after fastening his board, he looked up and accidentally glanced toward the snow slope entrance, suddenly spotting Yang Yitong from that morning bringing the man who had bumped into him earlier into the snow slope.
Beijiao: “?”
The two walked straight to where they had left their boards that morning, grabbing a staff member to ask something…
Probably realizing something was wrong, they had come back to retrieve their boards.
But there were no boards left—Jiang Ran had taken them all.
Beijiao stretched his neck for a few more glances, thinking it might be a hassle, deciding he’d just avoid them on his way down.
Just as he was distracted, Liang He approached again, this time holding her phone, wanting to add him on WeChat.
Beijiao was getting really annoyed.
He turned his head slightly, eyes cold, about to rudely say “No,” lips just parting, when from the corner of his eye he noticed the snow slope door opening again. A woman with long curly hair wearing an orange overall slowly walked in.
Beijiao had good eyesight. He immediately saw her looking around, taking out her phone to type something…
Almost simultaneously, his phone vibrated in his pocket, a WeChat notification.
He didn’t need to look to know it was her messaging him.
Jiang Ran and Yang Yitong were now less than a hundred meters apart.
Neither noticed the other.
That was fine, it would’ve been trouble if they had.
Beijiao was getting anxious, but his gaze remained calm and cold. He took out his phone, intending to tell Jiang Ran to leave the snow slope first—
Beside him, Liang He was still holding her phone, persistently waiting. His expression turned icy, showing a hint of impatience, finally giving her a proper glance: “Are you going to follow me forever if I don’t add you?”
Liang He, not understanding his literal meaning, thought he was teasing, eyes squinting with a smile: “Yes! I’ll follow you forever!”
Without another word, Beijiao scanned her QR code and added her.
He immediately sent Jiang Ran a voice message telling her to wait outside, then put his phone away and slid down.
He moved like the wind.
So fast that Liang He didn’t even react. In the blink of an eye, the tall guy had already reached halfway down the mountain, his back decisively disappearing, not even saying the word “again” before leaving.
…
Outside the snow slope entrance.
Jiang Ran stood holding her board, waiting facing the main gate.
Not long after, the door opened, and the familiar white figure appeared in the doorway. The boy strode out, still carrying the chill of snow—
His face guard was still on, only his helmet removed. His short black hair was slightly messy. The icy look in his dark eyes seemed to have slightly melted in the indoor warmth, giving his gaze a moist impression.
He didn’t even search when he came out, probably spotting her immediately, walking straight toward her and stopping in front of her.
The cold air made Jiang Ran, who had been indoors for a while, sneeze from a tickling nose.
This caused a spasm of pain in her lower abdomen, and she let out a soft “Ugh.”
“What’s wrong?”
The husky voice came from beside her.
The boy slightly bent to look at her, noticing her pale face, puzzled.
He glanced back to confirm Yang Yitong and the other man hadn’t come out yet, still tense, thinking how troublesome it would’ve been if he hadn’t noticed and told her to leave first…
Thinking this, he frowned, raised his hand, lifted the hoodie under her overalls, and pulled the hood over her head, covering half her face.
Looking down, he saw her sneezing continuously. His large hand, still on her head through the hoodie, gently pressed down as he coldly said, “If you’re cold, why even come in?”
The force made her stumble forward slightly as she muttered, “Who was that little dog earlier, watching me like a lost puppy asking if I could come pick you up,” while feeling her board suddenly disappear from her hands.
She let out a soft “Hey.”
Her empty hands flailed in the air.
Then she turned to the chest pocket of her overalls, unzipped it, pulled out a lollipop, unwrapped it, and slightly tiptoed, offering it to his lips.
Beijiao first smelled a strong strawberry scent, surprised—
Looking down, he saw the lollipop extended toward him. Behind it was the young woman, slightly lifting her head, gazing at him without any clarity.
Earlier, when she drank hot chocolate, most of her lipstick had come off, but the original color was clearly a vivid cherry red.
Her black eyelashes were long and curled like a fan.
In short, a term like “cute young girl” didn’t suit this older sister at all.
He curled his lips and opened his mouth, biting the lollipop with a “chomp.”
“Sweet?”
She casually asked as she started walking forward.
The sweet candy rolled from one cheek to the other, the strawberry sweetness flooding his nose and almost drowning him.
“Not bad.”
He replied lazily and relaxededly.
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