Jiang Ran felt like she might carry some sort of “DEBUFF that prevents entering the ski resort at opening time,” specifically manifested in that whenever she got up early and arrived at the resort first, something unexpected was bound to happen that day.
The shuttle bus stopped halfway up the mountain on the way to the ski resort. They were told that heavy snowfall throughout the previous night had blocked the mountain road, and they had to wait until the snow was cleared before proceeding. Inside the bus, complaints echoed all around—everyone was eager to be among the first to ski that morning.
Freshly groomed snow is best right after a snowfall, when the snow is thick, moderately firm, and offers strong support—perfect for practicing tricks.
But there was nothing they could do. Since the bus couldn’t move forward, they couldn’t very well get out and walk the rest of the way to the resort.
Under normal circumstances, walking wouldn’t have been impossible, but now everyone on the bus was already wearing ski boots and carrying their snowboards. If they walked, they’d burn through their energy before even hitting the slopes.
So, despite their grumbling, everyone resigned themselves to waiting inside the bus.
Jiang Ran hadn’t slept well the previous night. Now, surrounded by murmurs and the rustling of snow jackets, her eyelids grew heavy. Leaning against the window, she dozed off, nodding slightly, before jolting awake as her head tilted sideways.
She braced for the sound of her head hitting the window with a “thud,” but instead, she felt her head land softly against someone’s palm.
Before she could react, a large hand gently but firmly pushed her head back—guiding it sideways into the lap of the boy sitting beside her.
Opening her eyes, all she could see was the sharp curve of his jawline and the protruding Adam’s apple.
Still looking down at his phone, Bei Jiao said without glancing at her, “If you want to sleep, just sleep.”
Half-reclining against him, she noticed his snow jacket was unzipped, revealing a soft hoodie underneath. It smelled faintly of cheap laundry detergent… The hoodie’s drawstrings hung near her face, and she reached up to brush them aside.
She turned over, curling up against his chest, resting her forehead lightly against him. The harsh light was completely blocked by his black hoodie.
She sighed contentedly, feeling his arm now naturally resting behind her back, his palm giving her a gentle pat, almost like a lullaby.
It was a completely instinctive gesture.
Throughout, his eyes never left his phone.
Jiang Ran closed her eyes again, the murmurs of the other passengers filling her ears, darkness before her eyes—
As her consciousness blurred, she kept feeling like she was back three years ago, on a crowded and noisy bus ride that night.
It was 2016, and she was just in her early twenties.
That winter, she had gone to Scandinavia with Lin Shuang, primarily to ski, and incidentally to celebrate Christmas.
At that time, Lin Shuang was just beginning to gain some fame in China’s technical snowboarding circles, full of ambition, vowing to conquer every ski resort in the world.
Their first stop was Iceland. They skied during the day and, after changing clothes at the hotel, joined a one-day tour chasing the Northern Lights.
Most of the hotel guests were on the same itinerary.
They boarded the bus at the meeting point, filled with people from various countries. The weather was poor that day, and the driver warned them in advance that the Northern Lights might not be visible. The bus drove far out into the countryside before stopping at an open area.
To monitor the auroras at any moment, dozens of buses crowded together at the observation site in the open field, then collectively turned off their engines and lights.
It was pitch black outside. Without heating, everyone huddled together in thick coats on the bus, waiting for staff to notify them when it was time to get off.
With nothing else to do during the wait, people chatted idly. Jiang Ran and Lin Shuang squeezed into the back row, yawning constantly. Lin Shuang wasn’t great at English, and Jiang Ran had social anxiety, so they just talked amongst themselves.
Jiang Ran, sitting on the inside, lazily leaned over and lay down on Lin Shuang’s lap.
Lin Shuang was in the middle of talking about how Ah Ju had gotten furious after seeing their snowboarding videos from Scandinavia, warning them not to betray the group by secretly hiring a helicopter to ride big mountains. They had to wait until he and Li Xingnan and Qiu Nian arrived after New Year’s Day…
As she spoke, she suddenly noticed that Jiang Ran, who had been laughing with her head on Lin Shuang’s lap, had gone silent.
She leaned down and asked, “What’s wrong?”
Her short bangs brushed against Jiang Ran’s nose. The latter lazily lifted her head and said, “The people in front are talking about us.”
Lin Shuang swore, “What are they saying? I just heard them laughing?”
Foreigners’ ability to distinguish Chinese people was practically nonexistent—they couldn’t tell the difference between Japanese, Korean, or Chinese people at a glance. Plus, Jiang Ran and Lin Shuang had sat at the back of the bus as soon as they boarded, so they had no idea they were even on the same bus.
Thus, the foreigners discussed freely.
Several foreigners speaking German or similar languages were one thing, but they happened to be Americans speaking English, chatting about how they had bought a house near Beverly Hills in Los Angeles, then moved on to skiing, saying that they had encountered two Chinese girls at the ski resort that day. They were riding snowboards, doing technical runs, and were actually pretty good, surprisingly so.
The foreigners started laughing. One woman said, “Come on, don’t exaggerate. Snowboarding in China has only been around for a few years. They can’t be that good—probably not even as good as Japan or Korea. When have you ever seen a Chinese person place in a real competition? Don’t even mention major events like the X Games or the Winter Olympics—they don’t even show up in World Cup rankings!”
After translating for Lin Shuang, Jiang Ran had her hair tugged.
She turned over onto her back and saw Lin Shuang leaning over her, saying, “I’m so angry! Today at the resort, there wasn’t a single person among those foreigners who was better than us! They talk so big! I want to beat them up!”
“You can’t fight them. There are a bunch of them, and their arms are thicker than your thighs.” Jiang Ran said flatly. “Don’t cause trouble.”
They didn’t bother to lower their voices, because no one around could understand them anyway—Mandarin wasn’t exactly a global lingua franca.
“Let’s beat them in competition!” Lin Shuang shook Jiang Ran. “Goddamn it! How can they be so arrogant? We started late, but we’re serious about this. We’ll definitely beat them within five years—Jiang Ran, let’s go! Let’s compete professionally? The gold and silver medals in the parallel giant slalom at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics should be Chinese names!”
“…You really have dreams.”
“It’s true! It’s just parallel giant slalom on hard boots! I can’t do jumps or halfpipes—I don’t have the guts for that—but we still have a chance in parallel giant slalom!”
“Okay, but do you know that to participate in the Winter Olympics, you need to meet the FIS international snowboard rankings to qualify for the preliminaries?”
“I know. We still have two years to earn points, right? Let me check the upcoming World Cup events—oh, the 2017 February FIS Snowboard Parallel Giant Slalom World Cup (Altay, Xinjiang station)… Isn’t that the next station, just a couple of months from now?”
“…”
“And there’s BC co-sponsorship—wow, the first place gets a BC RX snowboard and limited edition BC stickers!!!”
“BC brand stickers? If you want them, I can get you a hundred—”
Most snowboard brands have custom logo stickers, usually given as freebies with their products. For sponsored riders, they often stick their sponsor’s stickers on their snowboards.
It’s a form of indirect advertising and also a symbol of status.
“It’s different! These stickers have little wings! See? So cute! They’re exclusive to the first place in this competition, not the regular ones you stick on your helmet. What do you think? Want to go for it!”
“…”
“Jiang Ran!”
“…Okay, let’s go for it.”
Lying on Lin Shuang’s lap, Jiang Ran lazily humored her.
That night, they didn’t end up seeing the Northern Lights.
But Lin Shuang, who usually had a poor memory, remembered what she had said.
At the second stop, Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi, Finland, in a crowded post office, Lin Shuang leaned over a desk, carefully writing a postcard to Jiang Ran on a celebrity-style card: We must win the parallel giant slalom at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics!
Then she solemnly filled in Jiang Ran’s address back home in China.
Then she bought another postcard and wrote one for herself: I must get second place in the parallel giant slalom at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics!
Then she solemnly filled in her own address back home in China.
Jiang Ran watched with a twitching eye corner: “Thank you so much, leaving the championship for your master.”
Lin Shuang fanned the two postcards in her hand, laughing with her nose in the air: “One must know their limits. I don’t think I can surpass my master. Even in wishes, one should be realistic—after all, the master is still the master!”
She kissed each postcard and, during that snowy northern twilight, carefully dropped them into a red mailbox marked “JOULUKSI 2017 FOR CHRISTMAS.”
Perhaps foreign mascots don’t truly bring blessings to Chinese people. Later, the postcard sent to Jiang Ran was never delivered, while the one addressed to Lin Shuang herself did arrive but eventually got misplaced among some books, vanishing without a trace…
A hissing sound of air release, the bus shook and slowly started moving.
Amid the smell of gasoline mixed with the scent of snow and ice, the woman curled in the boy’s lap turned over, half-dreaming.
In her ears was the sound from Bei Jiao’s phone on speaker, low volume, a voice from someone unknown but rather chatty: [This is the first outdoor technical snowboarding competition of the 2019-2020 snow season. Unlike the amateur competitions at Ruihe Indoor Snow Field, this event follows the same venue as the FIS Snowboard Parallel Giant Slalom World Cup held in February 2017.]
[This competition is jointly sponsored by BC and Gray snowboard brands. In recent years, perhaps the focus has gradually shifted toward amateur technical snowboarding, and BC’s brand strategy has adapted accordingly. The limited-edition BC stickers, once regarded as a symbol of王者status, have been re-released…]
[The slope gradient, length, and gate width of the course are set according to the Beijing Winter Olympics standards. It is expected to be a top-tier event within the amateur level… It is understood that many snowboarders are eager to participate, believing that achieving good results in this competition could likely offer them the opportunity to become sponsored riders for one of the snowboard brands involved…]
When keywords like “February 2017,” “FIS Snowboard Parallel Giant Slalom World Cup,” and “BC limited edition stickers” appeared, the voice from the phone completely overlapped with Lin Shuang’s voice from her dream.
Jiang Ran lifted her hand weakly and nudged the phone above her head: “Change the channel.”
As old memories resurfaced.
The dead past suddenly seemed to launch a dense attack on her.
She knew she should have stayed away from Qiu Nian and the others…
…
The shuttle bus arrived at the ski resort at nearly eleven in the morning.
Outside the equipment hall, a familiar scene unfolded—
In the few hours they had been stuck on the bus, countless tents and umbrellas had sprung up, with staff in uniforms bustling about.
The snowboarding insider news Bei Jiao had been watching was confirmed: at the start of this snow season, a national-level large-scale snowboarding competition was kicking off.
The event included not only technical snowboarding, but also snow park terrain and flatland freestyle events.
Different events were sponsored by different snowboard brands, naturally focusing on their specialty boards. For example, technical snowboarding was sponsored by BC and Gray, park terrain by Nitro (Burton usually doesn’t easily sponsor commercial events), and flatland freestyle, which previously lacked dedicated major competitions, now had its own event sponsored by Spread and November.
With these snowboard brands as sponsors, the enthusiasm for registration was unprecedented—
As everyone knew, getting sponsored by snow jackets or backpack brands was just the icing on the cake… The real skilled snowboarders usually had dedicated snowboard brand sponsorships—that was the true symbol of status.
But Jiang Ran wasn’t interested in any of it.
Staff were setting up frames and hanging promotional banners with competition information and registration requirements. Below that were the prize categories.
Standing in front of the frame, Jiang Ran patiently waited as they unfurled the banner, immediately spotting the parallel giant slalom section. Alongside the snowboards offered as prizes by various brands for the top three placements, there was a small asterisk below indicating that the top three finishers would receive a reissue of the 2017 World Cup BC limited edition stickers.
The sticker design wasn’t complicated—BC’s brand logo was made into a waterproof holographic sticker, with a pair of small wings added next to the logo…
Jiang Ran remembered how she had once mocked her former sponsor for this design, thinking it might be trying to imply they were the Bentley of snowboards.
Now, standing in front of the promotional frame, she couldn’t move her feet, staring at that sticker for a long time.
“If you want it, just sign up?” A cold voice came from behind her. “It doesn’t say sponsored riders aren’t allowed to participate.”
Jiang Ran turned her head slightly and cast a disinterested glance at Qiu Nian.
Qiu Nian smiled at her: “For you, getting top three in an amateur competition like this should be a piece of cake, right?”
Jiang Ran appeared indifferent. It had been many years since she last participated in any technical sliding competition—since Lin Shuang was gone.
Never again after that.
Qiu Nian clearly understood this. She smiled again and switched to a nearly gentle tone: “Jiang Ran, you’re basically washed up.”
Jiang Ran didn’t move.
Suddenly, she felt warmth envelop her ears, and the surrounding noise seemed to be blocked out by something… she blinked.
Beijiao emotionlessly raised her hand to cover the woman’s ears and said to Qiu Nian, expressionless: “Talk nonsense again, and I’ll cut you down.”
Behind Qiu Nian, Li Xingnan raised an eyebrow.
Beijiao’s gaze shifted to him: “You can’t beat me either. Save it.”
Her tone carried a kind of well-meaning advice, like telling an old man not to compete with the young.
And oozing explosive confidence.
Li Xingnan: “…”
“Hmm, even amateur rematching competitions give stickers now… these stickers are going to become worthless. Lin Shuang might crawl out of her coffin if she knew,” Qiu Nian bent down to look at the promotional stand for a while, then turned to Ah Ju behind her, “Back then, she kept complaining for ages because she couldn’t get top three. We even mocked her for being a dreamer. That was a legitimate World Cup qualifying event—”
She mentioned “Lin Shuang” casually, as if talking about a friend who just happened to be absent.
The two standing behind her remained silent.
But Beijiao understood. There was a sticker in this competition that Lin Shuang had wanted but never obtained.
He was still pondering this information when suddenly the hand covering the woman’s ears was yanked down. Her collar tightened, and the woman in front of him grabbed her hood string and dragged him forward.
Still completely bewildered, he heard Jiang Ran command in a calm voice: “You’re going to sign up. I want that sticker.”
Beijiao: “…”
Beijiao: “What?”
He was supposed to win something Lin Shuang once wanted but failed to obtain?
What did that mean?
Replacement literature?
At this moment, Beijiao still had patience: “Jiang Ran, you carefully (open your dog eyes wide) look. It seems to say right here that only the top three (emphasis) get stickers—”
Before he could finish speaking, he heard his master use a voice that sounded like a joke to him but seemed serious to her: “Back in Guangrong, you did pretty well. Can’t you even get top three in Xinjiang?”
This Xinjiang competition was even bigger and more formal. According to the updates from the carving experts Beijiao followed, nearly all the well-known carving snowboarders in China were currently at General Mountain Ski Resort—
Including one or two who had officially retired from the national team.
So the question was, would these people be interested in this competition?
At the beginning of the snow season, everyone needed something to make a name for themselves to get snowboarding lessons booked solid for the next few months.
Even if he grew two more legs, he couldn’t get top three.
Before Beijiao could respond, Qiu Nian, Li Xingnan, and Ah Ju quickly filled out registration forms. After slamming the forms on the table, Qiu Nian sighed: “It’s about time I got a snowboard sponsorship. These days, newbies have learned to be smart when choosing instructors. They know those Level One, Two, Three certificates are all for show. A snowboard sponsorship is the real symbol of strength.”
Judging from the on-site atmosphere, whether getting a snowboard sponsorship was real or not was yet to be discussed. It was hard to say she wasn’t deliberately stirring things up in front of Jiang Ran.
Beijiao looked down at Jiang Ran, hesitating.
Jiang Ran: “If you have something to say, just say it.”
Beijiao: “We don’t even need to get to the competition site. Right now, counting me after filling out four registration forms, I’m already in fourth place.”
—Only the top three get stickers.
He swallowed the second half of the sentence, thinking it would be pointless to emphasize it further.
Jiang Ran: “…”
Jiang Ran: “First place also gets an RX board. Your board base is already scraped up like this. It might not even last a few more days. Aren’t you tempted?”
Beijiao: “I am tempted. But is it because China’s snowboarding has yet to win an Olympic gold medal in history that we don’t want one?”
Jiang Ran: “…”
Jiang Ran: “How can you talk like such a jinx? At the latest by the Beijing Winter Olympics, we’ll have a gold medal soon.”
Later, the mutt still obediently filled out the registration form, mainly because there was an atmosphere at the time that if he dared to back out, he would be expelled from the apprenticeship on the spot.
…
Signing up for this competition seemed to be just an obsession for Jiang Ran.
She was clear-headed. Of course, she knew that with Beijiao’s current level, in such a large competition, let alone top three, even making it into the top ten would be difficult.
But she still pressed his hand and made him fill out the registration form.
Beijiao naturally knew his own limits. Maybe he learned a bit faster than ordinary people, but compared to those who had been sliding for years, he was simply no match.
This kind of competition wasn’t meant for someone at his level.
But he didn’t complain. Even after registering, aside from teasing Song Die by lifting the registration form and raising the corner of his eyes saying, “You can take over as my master for a few days,” after handing in the form, he became serious.
After parting ways with Qiu Nian and others, they also let Song Die go. Unlike usual, they didn’t take the cable car to the top of the mountain and slide down. Instead, after reaching the summit, they detoured to the competition venue that would be used in the next few days.
The competition venue had already been quietly preparing for several days, and most of the park terrain features had been built… and at this very moment, on another open area, staff had already set up the gates for participants to practice.
As the previous rumors suggested, this competition was also promoted as a warm-up for the Beijing Winter Olympics. Therefore, in the parallel giant slalom event, except for a slight difference in the slope gradient, the snow track width, length, and gate spacing were all the same as the Winter Olympics venue.
Unlike the competition at Guangzhou Rongchuang, the previous event was constrained by the snow track, featuring narrow gates and a relatively manageable course. Most participants could barely pass two gates with a quick board flip before exposing their shortcomings.
But this time, the gates were wide, the turns were large, and those with less technical skill might not even be able to pass a single gate…
An example to illustrate this could be Beijiao.
Because the gates were wide and the turns were large, during the initial test runs, he either lost speed and stopped directly or rushed to change edges, with inconsistent turn control, crashing into the next pole…
After two trial runs, he charged recklessly, and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call it a mess. He was almost falling apart.
Jiang Ran followed behind him, hands behind her back, pushing the slope as she watched him navigate the gates. At first, she still tried to shout instructions like “Change!” “You can change now!” “Change again or you’ll stop!” After shouting a few times, she found that whenever she didn’t speak, he either hit the pole or rolled out of bounds…
It was clearly a hopeless scene.
After all, the competition wouldn’t allow someone to shout beside you.
Beijiao’s performance was solely attributed to inadequate route control skills. In other words, he hadn’t practiced enough to develop the technical proficiency required for high-level competitions.
The facts were clear. Beijiao was no Lin Shuang.
Beijiao crashed into the pole again and flew out. This time, he hit the guardrail and was caught by the net. The boy looked exhausted, hanging on the net with his head buried in the snow, reminding one of a butterfly on a spider web…
He wasn’t dead yet, but his spirit had lost the will to survive.
“…”
For a moment, Jiang Ran felt a twinge of compassion. She knew she was being unreasonable, and this unreasonable behavior would only make people criticize her for being capricious, gaining not a bit of benefit.
But he went along with her caprice.
She clenched her fists behind her back. Finally, her heart stirred slightly, thinking maybe she should give up and stop causing trouble…
At this moment, the boy hanging on the net patted the snow off himself and stood up. Just now, he had done a front flip when he fell, watching the board flip over his head. It seemed like he had never fallen that badly since he started learning to snowboard.
Jiang Ran shifted her feet, her mind made up. She was about to slide over and tell him to forget it and just go home—it wasn’t worth risking death from a fall—when suddenly she heard someone behind her…
“Is that Jiang Ran’s apprentice?”
“Seems like it.”
“What’s he doing here… signed up for the competition? Seriously? Can he even participate in this competition?”
“He got some results in the Guangrong competition and got a bit too confident, thinking he can do it… look how badly he fell?”
“It’s all those people online hyping him up as a genius. Most of it was probably because of Jiang Ran’s reputation in the first place. Now they’ve made him lose his head, hahahaha!”
“Why doesn’t Jiang Ran stop him?”
Today, Jiang Ran had tied all her hair up. Her long braid was different from her usual hairstyle, and with her snowsuit changing every day, the two people engaged in a heated discussion didn’t notice at all that the person they were discussing was just one meter away from them.
Their volume was quite loud, probably intentionally wanting Beijiao to hear.
Jiang Ran thought this was probably the unfairness of information asymmetry. Right now, they might still think everyone was giving Beijiao a good face because of her…
But maybe in a few minutes, they would start avoiding him whenever they saw him.
She turned to look at Beijiao and, for the first time, didn’t stop him from taking action.
—According to the usual style, Beijiao had already taken off his snowboard, walked over, and slapped the snowboard on their faces.
But to everyone’s surprise, he didn’t do that today.
He had his own considerations: What if he got disqualified from the competition for fighting?
He almost wanted to cry for his restraint and maturity today.
Brushing the snow off his knees, he stood up calmly, preparing to go to the next gate. From the corner of his eye, he saw the slender figure that had been following him behind waiting for him without success, suddenly changing her route on her own, sliding from his direction to behind those two people.
Beijiao: “…”
The distance wasn’t far. He heard the woman’s calm voice ask: “If he gets a ranking in the competition, will you kneel down and apologize to him in person?”
Jiang Ran’s voice was quite unique, not affected or soft, but a magnetic tone between a girl and a mature woman, the so-called “young mistress” voice.
There weren’t many people in the snow circle with such a good voice who still didn’t speak properly. As soon as she spoke, others didn’t need to see her face to know who had arrived.
Originally still happily making fun of him, one after another calling him “Jiang Ran’s apprentice” and speculating, gradually turning to “Jiang Ran is just like that anyway,” suddenly the female voice from behind made their hair stand on end, more stimulating than a horror movie.
They both shut up, bewildered, turning their heads to look at the real person who had appeared out of nowhere.
Jiang Ran blinked, leaning on her knees and bending down to look at the two sitting on the snow trail, gently urging, “Speak.”
“…”
“If he gets a ranking, will you kneel down and apologize to him?… I mean, a real kneel.”
Her tone didn’t sound particularly angry, just very serious, so serious that it seemed like once the two nodded, she would note down their ID numbers and go to the court to notarize this promise.
The two “ah” opened their mouths but couldn’t say a word.
In the end, Beijiao took off his board, casually stuck it beside the snow trail, walked over, grabbed the woman’s waist, and said to the two completely bewildered people: “You two can go now. She’s in a bad mood today.”
They were still staring at each other in confusion.
“Just go,” the boy said coldly, “or I’ll be in a bad mood too.”
…
It was actually quite funny to say. Since the two met, it had always been Jiang Ran cleaning up the mess after Beijiao’s bad temper, holding him back from being arrogant and causing trouble. Today was a rare occasion when it was the other way around.
As if following some kind of IQ energy conservation law.
After the two left, Jiang Ran still wanted to chase after them but was intercepted by Beijiao. She struggled a few times but to no avail. For him, her flailing was like a little chicken desperately flapping its wings in a hawk’s mouth.
“Stop moving,” he said, “can you leave if I don’t let go?”
She finally got tired and quieted down.
After the two were gone without a trace, he pressed her to sit down by the snow trail… Fortunately, the sun was bright today, and with the inner protective gear, sitting like this didn’t feel cold.
“Why are you like this?” she asked curiously, “Did that front flip just now let you see a Bodhisattva? Did she tell you to be merciful?”
“If I make a mistake, I’ll be banned from the competition,” Beijiao ignored her sarcasm, instantly seeming fifty years more mature, “Deal with anything after the competition.”
“You don’t even want to compete.”
She hit the nail on the head, with a bit of the atmosphere of not knowing how to be grateful.
“It doesn’t matter. If you want me to go,” only he could tolerate her temper, still speaking in an unusually calm voice, “then I’ll go.”
He was so obedient, not a single flaw could be found.
It made her seem even more unreasonable and cold-hearted.
She stared at him intensely.
“What are you looking at? I already agreed to go,” his voice was unusually gentle, “Even though you just have a twisted desire to see your apprentice appear on the stage of a big competition again, fighting for the same thing… but I still went. What else do you want to criticize?”
Jiang Ran was silent.
After thinking, she couldn’t find words to deny it, thinking there was no need to deny it anyway—
After all, that’s what they all thought.
Like Sima Zhao’s intentions, hiding it would only seem pathetic.
Especially since he didn’t resist fiercely, as if he had already accepted this reality.
“Knowing that, you still agreed?”
Beijiao gave a “Are you joking with me now?” look: “You looked like you didn’t give me the option to refuse back then.”
The script of this body-double literature had been slapped right in his face from the very beginning.
“…Beijiao.”
“Don’t call me by my full name,” he paused, glancing at her indifferently, “it makes me anxious.”
“I want to ask you something,” she paused again. “I’ve wanted to ask since yesterday.”
Yesterday?
To summarize yesterday—
He hadn’t done a single good thing.
“Don’t ask.”
“What’s going on with you lately?” She stared straight at him. “You wouldn’t be—”
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!”
“…”
He reached out and covered her mouth. Watching her widened, innocent eyes, he felt quite surprised—was this creature in front of him truly the legendary gentle and soft-spoken girl everyone talked about? Otherwise, how could she possibly have no sense of shame?
The girls who had confessed to him before weren’t like this… They would lower their heads, their faces blushing like boiled shrimp, stammering while speaking, yet their eyes sparkled.
Well, they didn’t necessarily have to stammer… but still, they were definitely not like this!
Jiang Ran was nearly suffocated by his hand over her mouth. He pressed so hard that he almost shoved her into the snow. She struggled to pry his hand off and, once freed, immediately gasped for a deep breath of fresh air.
She patted the boy’s shoulder gently, took a deep breath, and said meaningfully, “The wise do not fall into love.”
“…”
Beijiao thought for a moment and decided that was acceptable. Since they had already come this far, shouldn’t he say something too?
Then why not just talk it out?
He couldn’t afford to seem less than manly.
The boy’s dark pupils locked onto her face. After a while, he let out a mocking laugh as if giving up entirely, “Wise?”
Jiang Ran: “Hmm?”
Beijiao: “Didn’t you realize after watching me tumble and fall all over the ski slope?”
“What?”
He lifted his eyelashes slightly. His previously tense gaze softened, and he casually swept his eyes across her face, using the exact same detached tone she had used earlier, “I’m just an idiot.”
…
The wise do not fall into love.
Oh, right. I’m just an idiot.
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