Jiang Ran woke up from hunger.
When the pain in her stomach and abdomen synchronized, she forced herself awake from a chaotic dream and found she was actually in bed… holding the quilt, she sat there blankly for a while.
Until the room door was pushed open from the outside, under the dim light of the living room, a fuzzy head peeked in through the door crack, looking at her: “Are you hungry?”
She barely made a sound; she didn’t know how this dog-eared person heard her stir.
Her reply to Bei Jiao was an enthusiastic growl from her stomach. Before she could even blush, she heard him say calmly: “The food is still hot in the pot, want to eat?”
“…”
Of course she wanted to eat.
Three minutes later, all the lights in the house were turned on, the kitchen and living room brightly lit, the dish in the pot boiled, and steam “puffed” lifting the lid—
Suddenly, ten minutes ago everything was silent and dark, but now it transformed into a house with lights shining like countless others.
Jiang Ran sat at the dining table holding a steaming bowl of freshly cooked rice, watching Bei Jiao wearing tiger-striped cat paw oven mitts he had dug up from somewhere, carrying a big pot of tomato beef brisket from the kitchen.
“Did Yang Yitong and the others go crazy while I was sleeping?”
“Solved it.”
“…Solved it?”
“I sent the video you sent me this afternoon, along with the footage of the damaged board before repairs, to Old Yan,” Bei Jiao said calmly. “Besides, it’s not like they’re the only ones with something to share. It’s snowboarding business anyway; our own people can understand it.”
As for those clueless passersby who insisted on saying things like, “Why do your skis zigzag left and right on the slope? Is it your house?”—he couldn’t even be bothered to explain what skiing is.
Jiang Ran paused, murmuring “Oh,” feeling like she should have handled it herself. “Whose idea was this?”
The beef brisket had cooled and reheated, now even more tender, the meat connected to the tendon, sour and salty, melting in the mouth… As Jiang Ran poured tomato sauce over her rice, Bei Jiao scooped the remaining rice into his bowl and sat opposite her.
“My idea.”
“Wow, bloodless victory. That doesn’t sound like you.”
He held his bowl, “What else? I could beat them up again. I wouldn’t mind.”
“…”
Jiang Ran glanced at the clock. It was nine at night; normally he should already be at “Wuwo” working.
But now, the workaholic was sitting in front of her, expressionlessly shoveling rice into his mouth, clearly famished, every bite full, his cheeks bulging.
“Why didn’t you go to work?”
She spoke, realizing her voice was hoarse, so she stood up and shuffled to the fridge to grab a bottle of apple juice, drank half of it, sighed comfortably, feeling her muddled head slightly clearer.
She gave Bei Jiao a new bottle of apple juice and sat back down in front of him.
The latter twisted open the juice and gulped down two-thirds of it in one go, put the bottle down, and belched: “Do you know you’re sick?”
Jiang Ran said “Ah,” “What’s wrong with me?”
He paused, his thin lips slightly parted, saying calmly: “Low fever.”
“Maybe just tired,” she casually self-diagnosed. “Since teaching you and Song Die, I’ve really been exhausted. Before, class started at one in the afternoon, but now I’m up early every day—what a misery. You and Song Die both made me sick! And just when you’re finally able to touch the snow with your front edge, your back edge is still miles away from the snow surface.”
“And then?”
“You’re so stupid! I was made sick by your stupidity!”
Bei Jiao listened to her nonsense.
His gaze swept over that irresponsible face, unintentionally recalling the woman in the afternoon sun, wrapped in a blanket, drowsily opening her arms to him for a hug…
At that moment, he vaguely remembered she was only four years older than him.
“Too talkative,” he said concisely. “You should just say thank you now, otherwise you might die on the sofa… When it’s so hot, maybe two days later the neighbors would smell something and call the police, and you’d melt into the sofa, impossible to lift.”
He had to say this while eating, but Jiang Ran didn’t care: “I was just wondering how I ended up in bed from the sofa.”
Bei Jiao thought, you weren’t “just fine” on the sofa at all.
He “Hmm”ed, lowered his head, and continued shoveling rice, saying in between: “I carried you in.”
Jiang Ran clearly had no idea. She looked the boy sitting opposite her up and down, who was devouring food like he hadn’t eaten in eight lifetimes, finally settling her gaze on his arms…
Unlike her, who was wrapped up tightly, he was wearing only a white tank top at home, loose and baggy, like the same style worn by old men playing chess downstairs fanning themselves with palm-leaf fans.
This exposed the muscles on his arms—
He probably couldn’t afford to waste money on a gym, so these muscles likely came from carrying boxes of beer into the warehouse, refusing taxis in the summer heat to ride shared bikes, and the water evaporating with sweat from plush toys…
Carrying her into the room must have been effortless.
Realizing she hadn’t inconvenienced him, Jiang Ran shifted her gaze.
She lowered her head to continue eating attentively, but unexpectedly, the person sitting opposite her, after saying “I carried you,” was now seriously observing even the slightest emotional change on her face—
But apparently, there wasn’t any.
“…Jiang Ran.”
Jiang Ran heard the person sitting opposite her call her name with unprecedented seriousness.
She looked at him strangely from the edge of her bowl.
The person who, just a second ago, had been bowing his head like a hungry ghost devouring food now put down his bowl, sat upright, and stared at her across the table.
“Do you actually like women?”
Jiang Ran choked on her food, coughed, but instead of spitting it out, it slid down her throat.
The hot tomato sauce with rice scalded her esophagus and chest, she threw the bowl aside, grabbed the apple juice and gulped it down.
While pounding her chest, she didn’t forget to kick him twice.
After a chaotic dinner, perhaps due to the shock, Jiang Ran’s stomach and abdominal pain disappeared… she felt she had recovered, very strong.
But she was still forcibly pressed onto the sofa to take her temperature. There was still a slight fever, but nothing serious.
She turned on the TV, still watching the horror movie from the afternoon, while Bei Jiao aimlessly circled the room three times, making small talk every time he passed by her…
On the fourth time, when Bei Jiao took the board from the guest room and asked her whether it was a carving board or a flat flower board, she got impatient and told him to go back to the bar to work.
Bei Jiao saw she was lively and energetic, her face no longer unnaturally flushed, so he readily agreed to be shown the door.
Standing at the entrance putting on his shoes, he suddenly turned his head to look at the woman behind him, who had her arms crossed and was looking at him with lowered eyes.
Her white nightgown swayed slightly with her movements, “What else can I do for you?”
“Are you going to kick me out and then invite some strange woman home?”
Jiang Ran smiled, lifted one leg like a crane, then took off her slipper and threw it at the boy’s serious and solemn face.
…
Bei Jiao returned to “Wuwo” nearly at ten in the evening. The boss was alone and overwhelmed with work, hugging him and tearfully repenting never to be soft-hearted and give him a day off again.
Bei Jiao was forced to dive into work immediately, and when he twice dropped candied haws into glasses while placing them, he realized he was a little distracted.
He checked his phone every five minutes, looking at the silent screen with no new WeChat messages, and thought emotionlessly: could she already be dead from illness?
The liveliness before he left might have just been a false glow.
This frequent phone-checking experience was uncommon for Bei Jiao. In the past, when he was busy, he could go a whole day without checking his phone. When he opened it, there would be a pile of desperate people looking for him, and he would reply one by one before sleeping—
The most ridiculous time was when Zhang Liang asked him to help bring lunch, and he only saw the message the next noon and asked others what they wanted to eat, then Zhang Liang replied with an “…”.
After finishing a batch of drinks like a zombie, he had some free time, checking his phone now and then, occasionally looking toward the door—
Finally, he couldn’t help it anymore, opened WeChat, scrolled past various active groups, directly ignoring the seven or eight messages from Liang He, and found a familiar avatar under a bunch of others.
After thinking for a moment, he came up with a legitimate reason.
[Bei Jiao: Reconciling accounts, what was that bottle of wine you insisted I drink last time?]
Not long after, the other side replied.
At the moment her avatar lit up, the screen light made his eyes slightly brighten.
[Who is Ranran’s duck: Reconciling accounts or revisiting old debts? What are you up to now?]
[Who is Ranran’s duck: It should be “Xiang.”]
Bei Jiao replied with an “Oh” and put down his phone.
The bar owner passed by, observing how Bei Jiao transformed from “an ant on a hot pan” to now looking calm and serene, kicked him and asked if he was lovesick, saying it’s already summer, his biological clock is four months behind others?
Bei Jiao ignored him, instinctively checked his phone again, then dragged a chair, squatted in the corner carving apple rabbits…
After finishing, he didn’t waste them, found a takeout box, and put all the rabbits inside.
After filling a large box with rabbits, he took out his phone, took a photo, and sent it to Jiang Ran.
[Who is Ranran’s duck: …]
[Who is Ranran’s duck: Is the bar very idle tonight?]
[Bei Jiao: Yeah.]
He initiated the conversation but didn’t say anything extra, as if he just really had something to find her or casually shared something.
Putting down the phone, it was too boring, so he called Zhao Keshan.
The other party had just landed and thought he was hallucinating when he saw the caller ID.
“Do you want to come play?” Bei Jiao asked, “At ‘Wuwo.'”
So on the way, Zhao Keshan imagined all the ways he might die at this banquet, and seriously considered for about twenty minutes whether he should drink the wine if Bei Jiao poured rat poison into it in front of him.
…
“Who is Lin Shuang, anyway?”
At ten o’clock at night, the “Wuwo” bar had just started its business. Zhao Keshan placed his chin on the bar counter, using his fingertip absentmindedly to tap the water droplets hanging on the whiskey glass.
Initially, when he pushed the door open and faced Bei Jiao’s grim face, he almost knelt down and swore he was innocent regarding Jiang Ran.
Until he got straight to the point and asked Zhao Keshan a question that somewhat surprised him.
“Lin Shuang? That, Bei Ge, you know, Jiang Ran has a lot of friends. I couldn’t even squeeze into her table at the ski resort restaurant…” Zhao Keshan paused, “At least back then.”
Bei Jiao leaned on the bar counter with both hands, looking down at him.
Silently indicating him to continue.
“Lin Shuang is Jiang Ran’s first and only apprentice, raised by her personally, trained for five years, becoming the second person in China to receive sponsorship from BC—also the only other one besides Jiang Ran.” Zhao Keshan said, “Later, she died in a skiing accident, broken in a foreign mountain… Foreign ski resorts generally don’t have railings, you know—well, you probably don’t know. Anyway, she was sliding too fast, hit a tree, and fell off the trail. Unfortunately, the snow outside the trail collapsed, and she fell into an ice cave, dying instantly.”
Zhao Keshan wasn’t a party to this incident, so he only knew the general story…
Strictly speaking, he wasn’t even part of Jiang Ran’s circle back then—
Thinking about it now, maybe that’s exactly why Jiang Ran is willing to hang out with him now.
Because for some unknown reason, since Lin Shuang’s accident nearly two years ago, spanning three ski seasons, Jiang Ran hasn’t been in touch with her old friends.
It was as if she had truly developed PTSD.
Zhao Keshan couldn’t describe that feeling and didn’t dare to ask.
The two fell into a brief silence before Bei Jiao leaned forward and asked curiously, “Do you have any photos or videos of that Lin Shuang?”
He didn’t have any ill intentions, just wanted to see what kind of person she was, who could make Jiang Ran, even when seriously delirious, still call her name.
Zhao Keshan thought for a moment; he didn’t have any, but he could find some—
He knew the short video app usernames of Jiang Ran’s old friends. Most of them are still active in the snowboarding circle, and they kept their old videos.
He randomly browsed two accounts and indeed found a bunch.
He casually opened a cover with Lin Shuang’s smiling face, clicked into it, and pushed the phone under Bei Jiao’s nose.
The first video was a selfie perspective—
At the beginning of the video, it showed a snowy mountain and ski trail covered in white snow, with small snowflakes drifting from the sky.
The video camera turned around, revealing a smiling young woman with shoulder-length short hair and a sweet face.
The woman in the white full-body snowsuit made a “shush” gesture at the camera, then started backing up. As the camera moved, another woman gradually appeared in the frame. She had long curly hair, looked a bit heavier than she does now, with a rounder side profile, not as sharp and defined as in memory.
The orange overalls she wore, Bei Jiao had just seen today.
In the video, the woman was adjusting a binding, using a screwdriver to tighten screws while clutching her waist and grumbling, “Lin Shuang! If you don’t have the diamond tools, don’t take on the porcelain work! If you mess with your bindings again, don’t expect me to fix them for you. You deserve to ski like that—limping all the way!”
After she finished scolding, Lin Shuang, who had been holding the camera, put her phone aside. In the fixed frame, she suddenly jumped behind Jiang Ran, hugging her waist and rubbing playfully against her while saying, “Ranran, the bindings are already installed. Check out the bottom of my snowboard—its pitch-black surface looks like it’s whispering to you: give me a wax!”
Jiang Ran threw away the tools in her hand and pried Lin Shuang’s hands off her waist. “Wax it yourself! You’ve been snowboarding for years and still don’t know how to wax? Useless!”
Lin Shuang rubbed her face against Jiang Ran’s back, speaking in a coaxing tone, “Wuwuwuwu, I have you. Why should I learn waxing?”
“You can’t rely on me forever!” Jiang Ran replied.
“I can’t rely on you forever?” Lin Shuang countered.
“What if I’m not here anymore?” Jiang Ran asked.
Lin Shuang looked confused. “Where would you go?”
Jiang Ran fell silent.
The second video was shot from a third-person perspective—filmed from halfway up the mountain, looking upward. From a distance, two women could be seen at the summit, one with short hair and the other with long hair flowing in the wind.
An off-screen young female voice giggled, “Behold the strongest female carving duo in China! Tremble, male snowboarders!”
The camera focused on the two women at the top of the mountain.
Both started simultaneously, carving down the slope. As they rode, even those who had never heard the snowboarding term “twin carvers” could instantly understand its meaning.
They were nearly identical in height and build, riding identical BC snowboards.
During their descent, every pressure, fold, arc, edge height, and even the small habitual motion of slightly flicking their back hand upward upon standing were as if copied from the same mold.
They slid down the mountain for dozens of meters like perfectly duplicated images. Then, both jumped simultaneously, performing a backside edge handplant, pushing off gently with their hands, spinning a nollie 540°, and landing in a folded stance!
Both snowboards struck the snow simultaneously, producing a loud, overlapping “slap!”
The third video looked like it was filmed in a hotel suite.
After several rounds of drinking, the video showed people sprawled on the floor, completely drunk.
In the corner, several carving snowboards stood upright, with puddles of melted snow beneath them.
“HJiang Ran is drunk! The price was the collective sacrifice of Year Year, Erche, and Aju, who all reached their personal limits!”
The speaker was a sober-sounding woman. The camera turned to her face—still the same sweet, smiling face, her eyes sparkling as she laughed.
Stepping over the bodies littering the floor, she walked around to the edge of the sofa. On the couch, a woman hugged her knees, curled up in a ball in the corner.
Hearing footsteps, she lifted her head from her knees, staring at the short-haired woman in the camera frame. After a few seconds, she stretched out her arms.
“Lin Shuang,” the usually fierce Jiang Ran said in a now nasal voice from the previous videos, “come here, hug me. My head hurts.”
Lin Shuang approached Jiang Ran, bending down, and the latter immediately clung to her like a blob of clay, wrapping her arms around the short-haired woman’s neck, rubbing her face against hers restlessly.
“Wait… Jiang Ran! Wow! You stink so bad! Don’t rub on me!”
“Oh, okay, no rubbing.” Jiang Ran released her neck and momentarily kept some distance, staring at her face for a while before flashing a bright smile. “Then can I kiss you?”
Then, “smooch!” She planted a loud, exaggerated kiss on the short-haired woman’s cheek.
The fourth video was still at a ski resort, this time seemingly in China.
Lin Shuang lay slumped over a table that looked like it belonged in a restaurant, sleeping. Beside her was her helmet, goggles, and gloves. Her BC snowboard leaned against the table, dripping water.
Jiang Ran approached from a distance, tugging at her sleeve. “Wake up.”
Lin Shuang stirred slightly, curling tighter. “Nope. It’s freezing outside, freezing, freezing! They promised Harbin’s Yabuli ski resort wind could blow your head off, but there’s no wind in Jilin—it’s a total lie!”
She suddenly lifted her head, hugging the woman standing beside her around the waist with sparkling eyes. “Let’s take the gondola down, okay? The wind is too strong today. Let’s ride again tomorrow?”
Jiang Ran: “Where did I find such a lazy apprentice?”
Lin Shuang rubbed against her frantically. “Wuwuwuwu, you can give me a one-day suspension from the master-disciple relationship, it’s okay! Even though then you’ll be the only one left in the sect, it’s fine! A heart without love rides sharper!”
The fifth video—
In Altay, in front of a wooden cabin belonging to a man named Kimura.
Standing on a fence buried in snow, Jiang Ran and Lin Shuang held hands and fell backward together.
Amid shrieks and laughter, snow swirled, swallowing their struggling figures buried in the snowdrift.
The sixth video was set against a backdrop of snowy mountains, lakes, and winding mountain roads.
Jiang Ran drove while Lin Shuang, sitting in the passenger seat, offered a bite of an apple she had already bitten into, mumbling, “Wow, this is so sweet… Jiang Ran, you’ve got to try this!”
…
There were many similar videos.
A person who had only existed in others’ words suddenly came vividly and vividly to life in Beijiao’s eyes.
She could move, laugh, and play around.
Besides Lin Shuang, there were many others—Year Year was a tall girl with a high ponytail who wasn’t the best but still managed some sponsorships; Erche was a tall, muscular Northeastern guy with a buzzcut and earrings; Aju had dyed orange hair…
Their earlier videos were filled with friends—
Until one day, Jiang Ran disappeared from their world.
Gradually, over time, the videos they later posted only featured their own snowboarding.
Nowadays, Jiang Ran seemed to have many friends—wherever she went, people greeted her. Yet, if she wanted to drink, she would simply pick up her phone and randomly invite a couple of lucky viewers.
In those videos, she laughed joyfully.
Unlike now, when she always seemed lazy and unmotivated.
Beijiao asked Lao Yan for the names of these people on short video platforms, and after briefly browsing each one, he noticed a customer had ordered a drink and put his phone down, turning to mix drinks.
Sitting at the bar, Zhao Keyan supported his chin with one hand, increasingly troubled by his thoughts.
“What’s wrong?” He asked the teenager with his back to him, “Why suddenly ask about Lin Shuang?”
Beijiao shook the cocktail shaker with a clinking sound. Upon hearing this, he hesitated slightly, looking slightly reluctant to say anything but, following the principle of exchanging information politely, he finally said, “She had a slight fever when she got home today.”
“And then?”
“At the time you called,” Beijiao thought for a moment, “she asked me to hold her, and she said Lin Shuang’s name.”
Zhao Keyan’s expression grew increasingly horrified as his imagination ran wild.
—It’s happening! The cliché of calling out an ex’s name in the throes of passion—the female version is here!
“You held her?” Zhao Keyan’s teeth chattered slightly, “Jiang Ran? We’re talking about her, right?”
Beijiao felt a bit nervous under Zhao Keyan’s intense gaze, thinking he might have been out of touch with society for too long and that maybe hugging someone nowadays really warranted such a look. He slapped the cocktail shaker and looked puzzled, “Just a hug?”
Zhao Keyan: “Just? Just a hug! And she was under you calling out Lin Shuang’s name? Oh my god! What a strange turn of events! They should be just innocent friends—”
Under?
Beijiao, seeing how worked up Zhao Keyan was, increasingly felt something was off and emotionlessly interrupted, “Are we talking about the same ‘hug’?”
Zhao Keyan paused. “Which one are you talking about?”
Beijiao mimed picking someone up in a hug, and watched the person leaning on the bar, who had been upright, relax and slump down.
Zhao Keyan sighed, “Oh my god, I thought something else had happened—”
Beijiao considered whether to scold him for his dirty thoughts first but hadn’t had time to speak before Zhao Keyan continued, “She was delirious from fever, so if she wanted to call anyone’s name, let her say whatever she wanted. You saw the videos, right? Lin Shuang is allergic to alcohol and never drinks. Back then, when Jiang Ran was drunk, the only person still standing nearby was Lin Shuang, so, sigh…”
Beijiao emphasized, “She called her name while I was hugging her.”
Zhao Keyan: “…”
The person leaning on the bar fell silent for three seconds.
Then slowly sat up.
Zhao Keyan: “North Brother, just to make sure I don’t misunderstand again, are you… jealous?”
Beijiao didn’t respond.
Zhao Keyan blinked in confusion. “Wait, what’s going on with you? Are you jealous? Is that the kind of jealousy I think it is?”
Zhao Keyan: “Hahahahahahahahahaha—”
He laughed at his own absurdity, laughing heartily.
Beijiao: “Is that so?”
Zhao Keyan: “Hahahahaha… Ha?”
Beijiao: “It might be a bit much to get jealous of someone who’s no longer around. I don’t think it’s jealousy, but I did feel a bit unhappy instinctively at that moment.”
Zhao Keyan: “…”
Beijiao (seriously): “At that time, I was thinking—if ‘Lin Shuang’ was the name of another guy I didn’t know, I might have beaten him to death.”
Zhao Keyan: “…”
Oh my god!
Bro, do you even know what you’re saying, bro!
My fragile heart can’t handle this kind of pure, innocent confession!
Beijiao looked serious: “Is that jealousy? The problem is, why would I be jealous?”
Zhao Keyan: “I don’t know either! Don’t ask me! If I had known this was what I’d be hearing tonight, I wouldn’t have come here in the first place, only to be killed by you on the Sunac ski slope tomorrow!”
(Note: “融创” is translated as “Sunac,” which is the official English name of the real estate and tourism development company.)
The playboy snowboarder’s voice was filled with panic, which caused the teenager behind the bar to lazily glance over…
He curled his lips slightly, made a “che” sound, and said disdainfully, “So what good are you? You’re just wasting my time.”
Author’s note:
Lao Yan: Don’t tell me these innocent stories! I’m allergic!
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