The air should have frozen solid next.
Did it freeze?
Not at all.
“Is fifty thousand not enough?” Jiang Ran stared at the straight line of his tightly closed lips, paused for a moment, didn’t move away, but leaned in even closer. She looked into his eyes and asked tentatively, “How about I personally add a bit more?”
Bei Jiao could only silently shift sideways.
The sweet scent on her, a creamy yet nerve-wracking sweetness, wasn’t unpleasant, wasn’t strong, but made one feel a suffocating discomfort in the chest.
It was overwhelmingly invasive, quickly drowning him.
“…Will one hundred thousand work?”
Her voice buzzed. In reality, he might not have heard a single word.
And facing her silent resistance and slightly furrowed brows, so far, Jiang Ran still didn’t think this was anything difficult.
After all, there were so many difficult things in the world, but certainly not charity for no reason—giving money to someone.
There were so many annoying things.
But money wasn’t one of them.
Money could buy about 99.5% of everything in the world, even though it couldn’t buy roughly 0.5% of what the world offered.
Money was cute.
No one would dislike money.
Unless he had a problem in his head.
…
He did have a problem in his head.
In the afternoon, at the Guangzhou Rongxue Snow World.
From the mall into the entrance of the snow world, the temperature dropped sharply from the air-conditioned 20 degrees outside to single digits—just in time for summer vacation, besides the young people who came to ski seriously, there were also many young parents who bought tickets for the snow play area and brought their children to play in the snow.
Therefore, as the most popular indoor ski resort in China, today’s Rongxue Snow World was still bustling with people.
In the rest area outside the locker room, Jiang Ran was grumbling as she tugged at the laces of her ski boots, still immersed in the embarrassment of being driven away in a fluster from in front of a small restaurant in broad daylight—
What did he say in the end?
“Don’t bother me, go away.”
As if at that moment he was busily washing bowls symbolizing the ultimate in the world, and if he didn’t wash them within the allotted time, those bowls would explode, blowing the entire Earth’s civilization back to the barbaric era.
Originally, she hadn’t planned to come to the ski resort today.
She wasn’t in a good mood and needed to do something else to distract herself, so she casually accepted a temporary invitation from a student who wanted to take lessons with her. The student was introduced by Lao Yan, and had invited her several times.
So she reluctantly agreed, left the small restaurant, and arrived at the ski resort in one swift drive.
At this time, the student hadn’t arrived yet.
Jiang Ran was slowly putting on her boots while sitting on a bench, and her mobile phone beside her on the bench was still buzzing aimlessly. In WeChat, her father was still asking whether the money had been sent, whether Bei’s little brat was happy or not…
This only increased her embarrassment and anger.
After an hour of bombardment without a response, Mr. Jiang finally gave up, then sent a string of phone numbers, this time changing his tone, saying, “Here’s your brother’s phone number. Add him on WeChat and keep in touch regularly.”
So now he became a brother.
Jiang Ran replied with “OK,” didn’t add the WeChat contact, but dialed directly.
The phone rang twice before being answered. The other side said “Hello” politely, and Jiang Ran, with her chest heaving, said, “Little brat, you’re getting too big for your boots—”
Then the call was hung up.
The other side didn’t even hesitate for a second.
Jiang Ran, holding the phone with a busy signal, was a bit stunned. Her first reaction wasn’t anger, but confusion: “How did he recognize my voice so quickly?”
She doubted herself for a while, then thought again carefully, reaching a new optimistic conclusion: he probably didn’t recognize her voice, maybe he just received too many calls from people scolding him every day…
Like debt collectors.
She was always tolerant and didn’t hold grudges.
She patiently tried adding him on WeChat, afraid he wouldn’t accept. This time she made herself clear, “Your family asked me to add you.”
After all, if her father had been forcibly appointed as a stepdad, Jiang Huaimin probably wouldn’t mind being forcibly appointed as a father-in-law.
Not long after, when Jiang Ran had finished putting on both boots, her friend request was accepted.
The other party didn’t say anything, but she typed fast and struck first—
[Who’s Ranran Duck: Kid, you might not know who I am, which isn’t your fault. You don’t need to apologize to me, since I didn’t explain clearly beforehand, that’s my fault.]
She thought she was very magnanimous, carefully appreciating her wording, then, with a sense of self-satisfaction, confidently sent this message first.
[Who’s Ranran Duck: My name is Jiang Ran. I’m the daughter of Jiang Huaimin, your mom’s new boyfriend.]
She sent it and waited for his shock.
After waiting for a few minutes, until she thought he had gone back to washing those endless piles of dishes, the other side finally replied with three words—
[Bei Jiao: I know.]
Jiang Ran clicked her tongue, thinking he knew nothing at all.
Then she expressed this thought in a more tactful way.
Bei Jiao’s reaction was still indifferent, saying he had seen her photo at his mom’s place and recognized her that day at the bar. Finally, he changed the subject and asked if she had anything else.
—An attitude that clearly wanted to end the conversation.
Did you eat?
Yes.
Do you have anything?
Are you okay?
He used a very formal, distant tone, lightly brushing aside the recent messy drama in a few words… He didn’t even use many punctuation marks. His typing style was as boring as his personality.
Jiang Ran held the script of the messy drama, but the actor completely deviated from the script.
So the “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” was forced to become “Dream of the Red Chamber.”
Well, she couldn’t force him to express shock, so she gave up on the previous nonsense… She opened the previous chat window and directly selected some of Jiang Huaimin’s relatively decent messages to explain the origin of the 50,000 yuan.
Bei Jiao’s reply was—
[Bei Jiao: Thank you, no need.]
Politely and firmly refused.
This little brat was even more stubborn than a carbon fiber bicycle wheel hub.
[Jiang Ran: ? Why not? With that money, at least your tuition fees for the next two years would be covered, and you wouldn’t have to work all over the place.]
[Jiang Ran: I can’t even imagine where we might meet again if you keep refusing me…]
[Jiang Ran: KTV? Disco? KFC? McDonald’s? On a street at five in the morning holding a bamboo broom?]
She described it too vividly.
This time the other side at least stayed silent for five minutes.
Probably because he was speechless.
[Bei Jiao: Would you accept a huge sum of money from someone out of nowhere?]
Jiang Ran thought to herself, what kind of stupid question was that?
[Jiang Ran: Yes, why not take 50,000 yuan without a contract, verbal promise, or any labor or other cost?]
[Jiang Ran: What are you worried about? Although one should be cautious, no book teaches you to be wary of real pies falling from the sky.]
[Jiang Ran: And what’s 50,000 yuan considered a huge sum?]
The other side fell silent again.
Maybe his hand had broken.
[Jiang Ran: Unless the urgency of being homeless without a job brings you joy or motivation in life?]
Jiang Ran typed the last line with anger, almost breaking the phone screen—
Finally, the other side responded.
[Bei Jiao: The school has dormitories.]
Meaning he wouldn’t end up homeless even if he was poor.
This stubborn answer…
It would have been better if he had stayed silent with a broken hand.
Jiang Ran didn’t care whether he really ended up homeless or not. She was just wondering in her heart: Was the money she had handled through her hands poisoned? Why was it so hard to give away?
[Jiang Ran: Are you still angry because of the video incident last night?]
[Jiang Ran: I was drunk last night, not intentional.]
[Jiang Ran: I’m apologizing here?]
That question mark was her last bit of pride swallowed—
Somewhat like “If you really don’t need the apology, just pretend I didn’t say anything.”
[Bei Jiao: No.]
[Jiang Ran: Then you just simply don’t like me?]
[Bei Jiao: No.]
This impervious attitude left Jiang Ran so angry she stomped her foot.
She was racking her brain, trying to figure out what kind of twisted anti-fraud app was in the mind of this teenager nowadays…
At this moment, the light in front of her was blocked by a figure.
The person bent down, covering her in shadow. She naturally looked up and met a pair of smiling eyes. That pair of youthful, smiling eyes looked at her, the corners of the eyes wrinkled so deeply they could kill someone—
“Teacher, good afternoon.”
A cheerful and refreshing teenage voice.
Jiang Ran quickly scanned the student she had today from head to toe.
The person was about eighteen or nineteen years old, still with a hint of childishness, sporting a buzz cut, and wearing a diamond-studded earring.
He was wearing the latest colorway of the AK 457 snow jacket this year, which was priced exorbitantly.
The snow boots on his feet were the flagship model from the well-known brand Nitro. Admittedly, the boots might be a bit stiff for a beginner, but because of the reliable brand, the comfort level was surprisingly high, making them an ideal choice to accompany him from beginner to intermediate.
The snowboard in his hand was his own, not one of the public rentals from Rongxue Snow World.
In short, he was a well-equipped, relatively wealthy novice student.
Jiang Ran openly examined him.
He also let her examine him openly, his smile never fading.
“I saw you from far away. I even asked Lao Yan for your photo before. You won’t believe what he said—he said no need for a photo, just look for the most powerful-looking female boss in the crowd, and that’s definitely you.”
Oh, his buzz cut was also two-toned, dyed white at the bottom and black on top. Very stylish.
…Right.
This was exactly the kind of energetic young male student of today’s universities.
…
Putting her phone down, Jiang Ran temporarily pushed the ungrateful little brat to the back of her mind.
She picked up her snowboard and walked side by side with her student into the indoor ski resort, her expression calm, greeting a few young people passing by.
At Guangrong, from the snow experts to the staff, basically everyone knew her.
After a brief exchange, she learned that her student today was named Song Die, who had only skied once before, learning from a coach at a ski resort on Changbai Mountain during winter.
In other words, Song Die was essentially a half-beginner in snowboarding.
Jiang Ran generally didn’t like teaching students like this, not because she was arrogant or aloof (there were indeed such quirky masters among those who played park features), but mainly because her fees were quite high—700 yuan per hour in summer indoor ski resorts and 1200 yuan per hour in winter outdoor ones. Using this money to teach basic skills felt a bit like a guilty waste.
But Song Die didn’t mind. Once inside the ski resort, unlike typical students who would immediately ask how to learn and what to learn, he simply stood at the bottom of the slope and asked Jiang Ran to demonstrate first.
It had a strong vibe of inspecting the teacher’s qualifications.
Jiang Ran didn’t refuse. Unlike some snowboarder who loved working, she was quite sensible—
Today, after arranging the lesson, Song Die immediately and without hesitation transferred the fee for three lessons, which was nine hours’ worth of tuition…
As the saying goes, whoever pays the bill is the dad.
Quick to pay must be a dear daddy.
Jiang Ran herself first boarded the indoor ski resort’s lift, telling Song Die to take the lift up after three minutes and observe her sliding from above on the lift. Song Die agreed.
So he sat on the lift looking down and saw a young woman with medium-length hair standing with her hands on her hips at the top of the long advanced slope. She put on her helmet, pulled down her goggles, and was lazily chatting with someone beside her…
When Song Die got on the lift, she raised her hand and waved at him from afar.
Then she bent down, fiddled a bit with her snowboard, probably fastening the bindings, and prepared to slide down.
How many snowboarding experts were there at the Guangzhou Rongxue Snow World in summer? Countless.
But everyone should know her. From afar, as soon as she moved, basically everyone on that advanced slope, whether skilled or not, started to move aside and stop voluntarily.
They saw Jiang Ran coming down from the top, first doing two small S-shaped runs to get started. By the third turn, her speed picked up—
Her body naturally folded, arched backward, and pressed down.
In the afternoon, the snow at Rongxue Snow World had been ruined by countless skiers, a situation where even beginners would fall repeatedly.
But her sliding was seemingly unaffected!
The edges of her snowboard deeply cut into the snow, leaving deep grooves on the slope, such force naturally making her run both fast and stable—
Her edges were raised to the limit. From the lift, one could clearly see the bottom of her snowboard, which was mainly black with a red accent at the front and a simple tree shadow as a pattern.
Because her posture was low enough and the edges raised extremely high, her gloved hands naturally brushed over the snow surface, kicking up snow dust.
When she reached the vertical position overlapping Song Die’s lift, Song Die looked down and saw that she seemed to have eyes on top of her head. At the end of a turn, her body clearly exerted force forward—
Then her hand seemed to lightly support the snow surface, or perhaps just barely touched it. Immediately after, she jumped up, standing on that wide and long carving-specific snowboard, which didn’t deform even at high speeds—
In the whistles of the crowd, the young woman’s long hair flew in midair, her movements light yet unexpectedly steady, cleanly and efficiently completing a one-and-a-half vertical-axis ollie in the air—
She landed solidly!
With a loud “thud,” the snowboard hit the snow!
Just before the jump, she once again resumed the folded, arched-back basic sliding posture at a low position, and her sliding speed didn’t decrease at all!
On the slope, experienced skiers applauded, as did the semi-new, semi-old novices.
“Oh my god, that’s amazing!”
Beside Song Die, a middle-aged man in his thirties or forties who was squeezed into the same lift leaned his neck out to look down, his mouth never stopping—
“Isn’t this Jiang Ran? Ah, it can only be Jiang Ran, the queen of carving in China… The control of power and speed is so impressive, who wouldn’t call her dad when seeing that?!”
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