— Jiang Ran, the girl who once trampled the entire male team’s pride into the dirt, conquering everything with just a soft boot, is back.
The news spread through the Heilongjiang Province snowboard parallel giant slalom program via every channel available, instantly.
The female team was ecstatic.
The male team trembled, but still clung to their Q-spirit for self-preservation: It’s okay, she’s only at 29 seconds; that’s far from her previous 24 seconds! Besides, watching her struggle even to achieve 29 seconds this time, maybe that 24-second record was just a faulty timer!
[Nei Xin: It matters. 29 seconds was only her time today during rehab. Once someone cheats, have you ever seen them turn around and disable their cheat?
[Nei Xin: Also, my stopwatch has never been broken. If her 24 seconds back then was fake, then your male team’s record of 25.31 seconds that day must also be fake.]
For a moment, no one spoke. At that time, Xie Yu was squatting in the smoking room with the male team members, skipping work, since it wasn’t their training day anyway. One of them, unable to contain himself, stubbed out his cigarette: “Damn, I’m scared. Nei Xin is such a master of psychological manipulation. I have to go train now! Waaah!”
Xie Yu stubbed out his cigarette too and went inside with his board tucked under his arm.
However, as the person directly involved in the soft boot 24-second incident and the control group, Xie Yu had long accepted the reality of Jiang Ran rubbing them into the ground. He wasn’t particularly eager to train; he just wanted to see Jiang Ran…
After all, for these past three months, he had seen her struggle with her own stubbornness, looking like no one could talk her out of it.
She must be really happy now.
They say good moods are contagious to everyone who genuinely wants you to improve, so, after hearing that Jiang Ran had stood up again, Xie Yu’s lips had curled into a smile that hadn’t dropped since.
At this moment, the female team’s training was winding down, and staff were busy removing the gates when the suddenly motivated male team members shouted for them to stop…
They left the gates in place for the male team to practice.
Nei Xin had never seen these people so motivated in his life. Moved to tears, he not only had the original gates left in place but also added another row of gates for Jiang Ran and Xie Yu to race again.
Except for Xie Yu himself, who didn’t really care, the other male team members had a strong sense that the coach was using a sacrificial pawn to help his beloved daughter level up in practice—
Unfortunately, the pawn himself didn’t feel anything was wrong. Perhaps the nutrition meant for developing his brain had all gone into his height, but when he agreed to the race, his dark face clearly showed shyness. He even pulled up his face guard because he was a bit embarrassed.
“Xie Yu, you!” Male team member A was speechless with exasperation, “Can you be done already?”
Xie Yu bent down to put on his snowboard boots and turned toward Jiang Ran.
Jiang Ran raised her hand to wipe her goggles: “Don’t look at me; I’m still not faster than you right now.”
Behind her goggles, Xie Yu’s eyes crinkled, his whole body radiating obvious delight: “It’s good if you’re faster than me; keep it up.”
The male team members fell silent, then half of them went to find a place to “YUE,” while the remaining half endured watching their good teammate on-site. Normally, he didn’t seem like this, but now, with lust clouding his mind, this black bear of a guy seemed to radiate a glow of idiocy from every pore.
The male team hadn’t even started training yet.
For fairness, Jiang Ran took the initiative to occupy the newly added left gate and stood at the top of the slope planning her route—
Frankly speaking, the left side of the slope is challenging for riders with their right foot forward, as it always feels like the front edge might come late and hit the wall, or they might worry too much about hitting the front guardrail, causing mistakes in controlling the turning shape.
Nei Xin didn’t give them much time to prepare, calling out “Ready,” both male and female riders at the gates simultaneously crouched low.
“Go!”
After the not-so-standard command, both riders at the gates set off at the same time—
They wore the same model of shoes and boards, and as they moved, their height and physique became blurred. From the top of the slope, the two riders’ movements were so synchronized they looked like one snowboard track copied and pasted!
Their carving and pressure application were roughly the same, only experts could see where the differences lay…
Xie Yu was fast!
Jiang Ran was faster!
The two snowboards almost simultaneously passed the first seven gates, at which point Jiang Ran had even vaguely shown the potential to overtake. But then, at the third to last gate, Jiang Ran suddenly paused for some unknown reason, and Xie Yu took a very slight advantage, pulling ahead half a body length to win the race!
At the top of the slope, the male team had no idea what had happened, assuming it was a successful redemption, with Xie Yu winning the race, and they erupted into cheers!
Xie Yu ignored the cheers. Upon reaching the intermediate slope, he patted Jiang Ran on the shoulder, intending to say something, but she silently waved him off, lifting her hand to adjust her earpiece: “Hello? It’s okay, you can continue talking.”
…Turns out she was on a call.
If it hadn’t been for the Bluetooth earphone call that startled her at the third-to-last gate, today’s outcome would have been hard to predict.
After Jiang Ran finished her call, the young female teammates who had just watched an exciting race as the day’s training finale had already slid down, surrounding her, chattering away—
“Nei Xin said Xie Yu usually performs stably around 28 seconds, and you’re not far off this time; you’re both so fast! We’re secure now, Pea Sister, you can now easily slide into the 30s!”
“Waaah, why is your progress so fast?!”
“Pity we didn’t time it, I feel like this time was even faster than 29 seconds?”
“Right on, Pea Sister, every run you make shows improvement. Your return to the glory days is just around the corner!”
They laughed and talked, and Xie Yu didn’t mind these matters of face, hugging his board and squeezing into the flock of girls clustered around Jiang Ran, saying to her: “After three days apart, you’ve changed so much that I must look at you with new eyes.”
Jiang Ran clenched her fist, pressing her nose, desperately telling herself not to smile too happily, lest she offend someone—
So she turned her face away and gave Xie Yu a reserved and polite smile.
The latter immediately felt he must have said the right thing, patting himself on the back in his mind, when he heard Chun’s sarcastic voice from the side: “Don’t bother. Compared to her ex-boyfriend, you’re worse in both personality and appearance… you only win in height, but the problem is, he’s probably around 185 cm tall, so she’s not that short either.”
After Chun spoke, Song immediately asked: “What ex-boyfriend? Where did this ex-boyfriend come from?”
Xie Yu looked at her, bewildered.
For a moment, the air was tense.
Jiang Ran’s smile this time also genuinely faded as she turned her head, her dark brown eyes flickering, looking somewhat flustered at Chun: “How do you know… what my ex-boyfriend looked like?”
…
When night fell that evening, Jiang Ran opened her front door with her snowboarding backpack.
The door was pushed open by her, and the snowboarding backpack was casually thrown to the ground.
Everything seemed so familiar.
At that time, Qiu Nian was poking a sweet potato dripping with honey-colored syrup, wondering if it was cooked through. Hearing the noise, she didn’t even look up and said: “You’re back just in time; check if this sweet potato is cooked yet. It looks withered already—”
Receiving no response for a moment, she turned her face to look and saw the woman who had just come home still wearing her snowsuit, arms crossed, expressionless, standing at the entrance staring at her.
Of all Jiang Ran’s personality traits, this might be the only one worth praising: usually, she writes all her emotions on her face, sparing others the trouble of “guessing her heart.”
Like now, she probably wants to confront someone but hasn’t figured out how to start.
Qiu Nian “oh”ed, her face calm: “Which part slipped up?”
Her calmness only made Jiang Ran seem petty, a surge of frustration rising in her chest almost suffocating her. After a while, she took a deep breath, exhaled, bent down to kick off her shoes, and put on slippers.
With clattering steps, she came to the dining table, grabbed a warm sweet potato, peeled it open, the outside was charred but the inside core was still raw, she rolled her eyes: “Only when my mind was muddled could I believe that someone who can’t even roast a sweet potato properly could make a decent bowl of congee!”
Qiu Nian showed no remorse, she said: “Haha!”
Jiang Ran threw the ruined sweet potato back onto the baking tray, put it back into the oven to reheat, and complained: “You actually let him into my house!”
Qiu Nian: “He not only entered your house in Guangzhou but even came and went three times, so now you’re fussing over this?”
Jiang Ran: “If it weren’t for the girls in the team letting it slip—”
Qiu Nian sighed in relief: “I knew it. With my acting skills, I couldn’t possibly be the one to let the secret out. You scared me to death!”
For her irrelevant answer, Jiang Ran, squatting in front of the oven, was silent for a moment, her hand turning the oven knob paused, she slightly turned her face, and when she spoke again, her voice was low: “And him?”
“He’s also capable of not seeing him, keeping to the three-year no-contact agreement, he’s gone home.” Qiu Nian said expressionlessly, “Tonight’s flight.”
He kept to the rules like hell.
Jiang Ran didn’t respond.
Three minutes later, Qiu Nian lifted the person squatting in front of the oven, hugging her knees and staring at the reheating sweet potato inside, and threw her onto the sofa.
“No wonder I’ve felt like someone was watching me these past few days…”
“Don’t worry, he’s really gone tonight; he didn’t hide behind the curtain.”
Seeing Jiang Ran sit down like a wandering soul, reaching for a pillow to hug in front of her chest, Qiu Nian then gave her a sarcastic glance before picking up her phone, tapping it, and sending her the video of today’s career-best performance, announcing the end of her painful struggle with hard boots.
The moment Jiang Ran saw the video, she immediately recognized that it was the round when she set her record, because she had later undone her braid, and the video still showed her with the braid.
And the moment when those girls halfway down the mountain announced her time to her was also captured on camera.
“How did you—”
Her question stopped halfway as she already had the answer: the video was recorded from the cable car looking down.
“I didn’t see him?” Jiang Ran said, “That’s impossible. If he was at Harbin Rongchuang’s refrigerator, as long as he took the cable car, even for a second appearing in front of me, I couldn’t have failed to recognize him. Even if he changed clothes, as long as he dared to change his stance!”
“Rightfully teacher and student, the chemistry is still there, isn’t it?” Qiu Nian smiled. “He said the same thing. So, how was that young man today—wearing the snowsuit and snowboard rented from Rongchuang, tirelessly pushing the slope in front of you—did he look good?”
“…”
Before Qiu Nian finished speaking, Jiang Ran already had the corresponding image outline in her mind—
So that annoying pusher this afternoon was him.
She had specially skied in front of him to give him a chance to show off.
And she had even teased him about his waist being great.
…Help!
“…Is he a pervert?!”
“He is quite a pervert,” Qiu Nian looked up and down at the woman in front of her, “If your ears and cheeks weren’t that red right now, your insult might have been more convincing.”
“I’m not blushing!”
“Don’t you have a mirror at home?”
“…”
…
The National Day holiday ended, and for most people in the snowboarding circle, the start of the snow season at ski resorts across the country in late November was just around the corner.
A new snow season was about to begin.
This was the second snow season since Jiang Ran and Beijiao parted ways.
When Jilin City finally received its first big snowfall of the year, Beijiao, relying on his exquisite carving technique and unquestionable good looks, claimed the title of the second most handsome man in the snow community (the first place was held by Shan Chong, and it wasn’t necessarily because Beijiao lost in terms of looks; it might also be due to the ranking principle of respecting the elders in the industry), and his video account’s follower count skyrocketed to over 50,000.
While quietly waiting for the club to arrange the opening event at the Jilin City ski resort, Jiang Ran spent her days openly watching him. She no longer had much psychological burden—
After all, he was the one who broke the rules first, acting like a pervert in October, pushing the slope for her for five days straight.
On this day, Jiang Ran was browsing through the personal homepage of a girl she didn’t know—
Who is this person?
Under Beijiao’s latest post, she replied with a “Wow, you skied so well” under a pretty nice-looking avatar, and this nutritionless reply actually got a response from the content creator. Although Beijiao only replied with an emoji pack.
But compared to other earnest questions or sincere compliments that didn’t get a reply, this was very strange.
Jiang Ran was just about to flip to her June 2019 post, getting increasingly annoyed, thinking there must be nothing strange about it, just simple teenage lust…
At this moment, a new message notification popped up on her phone, it was Nei Xin @ing everyone.
Jiang Ran exited the unfamiliar girl’s interface, swiped to close the short video app, and clicked in to take a look, finding out that there were indeed many ski resorts hosting opening events this year.
What Nei Xin wanted to say was probably that a well-established ski resort in Tonghua had been closed for years and had now fully renovated, finally celebrating its grand reopening this year, joining the money-making plan for this snow season as another super-large outdoor ski resort in the country—
But promoting a new ski resort is tough, as most clubs already have fixed cooperative resorts, making it expensive and difficult to get in touch with them for promotion. Thus, the ski resort operators had a brilliant idea and turned to provincial professional teams.
They cleverly planned a competition that would span three styles: carving, park terrain, and flatland freestyle, with rich prizes. To attract more participants and enhance the competition’s prestige, they also invited personnel from provincial professional teams to act as judges and reviewers.
So they found Nie Xin, who then reached out to his trusted off-season crew from previous winters. Some of the team members, who had already started their self-training in Xinjiang, sent their locations to indicate they couldn’t come.
Whoever had the bright idea to remember Jiang Ran at this point started tagging her relentlessly and reminded Nie Xin: “Your beloved daughter usually stays at the Songbei Ski Resort in Jilin Province. She must be waiting somewhere in the three northeastern provinces for the season to start. If you don’t send her, I won’t be able to sleep tonight because of your favoritism!”
[Nie Xin: @Whose Ran Ran Duck…]
[Whose Ran Ran Duck: …]
[Whose Ran Ran Duck: I can’t possibly be the only one!]
[Xie Yu: Oh, so she’s dragging someone else down with her.]
Xie Yu was in Altay at the time, so he could afford to speak carelessly without any consequences.
[Chun: I’m in Harbin, but I don’t want to go.]
As the years passed, Chun, the captain of the female team, had become increasingly blunt and assertive, exuding an unyielding aura of teenage arrogance. Sometimes even Nie Xin couldn’t do anything about her.
[Nie Xin: …@Chun. The team’s morale is low; it’s really hard to lead them now.]
[Nie Xin: Aaaaa! Someone from the male team, please!]
[Xie Yu: The male team is currently doing self-funded extra training in Xinjiang to avoid being surpassed by Pea. They can’t come. I’ll send you a group photo tomorrow, and if you count one person missing, I’ll lose.]
“Pea” had somehow become Jiang Ran’s nickname. Now even Xie Yu had started using it, making her miss the days when he respectfully called her “Senior Sister Ran.”
Meanwhile, people in the group chat expressed little enthusiasm for participating in this charity event during their precious pre-season break. Just when Nie Xin was about to angrily shout, “Do I have to go myself?” someone finally stepped forward, albeit reluctantly.
[Galaxy’s Cutest Girl: Fine, I’m from Tonghua. I’ll go too.]
[Nie Xin: …You’re from Tonghua and you’re saying this now, in such a reluctant tone. What about your conscience!]
[Galaxy’s Cutest Girl: Being a judge is so boring. Sitting on the mountain getting cold wind. Sounds uninteresting.]
Song Song expressed her reluctance so genuinely that she soon ended up contradicting herself.
…
On the day they arrived in Tonghua City, Jilin Province was experiencing a heavy snowfall. As Jiang Ran stepped out of the provincial team’s support van, the blizzard immediately blurred her vision.
She raised her hand to press down her face mask, burying half of her fair face into the soft scarf around her neck. Her long, soft black curly hair was soon covered in snowflakes from the blizzard, forcing her to shake her hair like a drenched dog when she stepped indoors.
The ski equipment hall, not yet fully operational, was bustling with activity today.
Inside the equipment hall gathered the participants of the upcoming competition, along with members of the media.
Since the ski resort was indeed new and some areas were still not fully completed or open to the public, the resort staff checked health codes and forcibly confiscated everyone’s communication devices while the media waited eagerly to explore and report the latest news about the ski scene.
The ski resort had heavily promoted this competition, making it seem like the pinnacle of amateur competitions, naturally attracting many skiers eager to build their reputations before the season started.
Jiang Ran had extensive experience as a judge and referee in major competitions. Accompanied by Song Song, she weaved through the crowd to find the staff and confirm her identity.
Under the admiring gaze of “Oh my god, you’re Jiang Ran,” she calmly handed over her phone and went to take a photo for her ID badge.
While she was taking the photo, she heard a staff member shouting outside, reminding all the contestants to remember their registration numbers, stick the number labels on the upper part of their boards for easy inspection.
…This was another sign of the competition’s seriousness. Usually, casual amateur snowboard events don’t require ID checks, real-name registration, or equipment inspections, and sometimes even don’t distinguish between genders.
However, this competition hosted by the Tonghua ski resort covered everything from real-name registration to gender-segregated events and required inspections of the equipment used by participants.
Today was exactly the day when they had just completed registration and were checking whether the equipment met the competition’s specifications.
Of course, as an amateur competition, the key word was “amateur.”
For example, in the parallel giant slalom, participants were required to use soft boots and any commercially available snowboard. Hard boots or racing boards were strictly prohibited, as the differences in performance caused by professional gear would turn the competition into a self-indulgent game for those using hard boots.
Today, besides registering their identities as referees, Jiang Ran and her team were also here to help inspect the equipment of the participants in the parallel giant slalom event.
They casually hung their temporary work badges around their necks and sat solemnly behind a long table, waiting for the competitors to present their snowboards.
Across three male riders sent by other provincial teams, Song Song was winking and making faces at Jiang Ran.
Jiang Ran tilted her head and mouthed the question: What’s up?
Song Song silently rambled on, her eyes sparkling with excitement. She kept gesturing toward a specific direction. Jiang Ran followed her gaze and looked up—
Only to see a young man with black hair wearing a black Burton jumpsuit standing by the window, talking to someone.
In the blizzard, the light from outside seemed to cast a halo around his hair.
His jumpsuit and black slim-fit hoodie gave him a warm and cozy appearance. Standing there, he held the Gray Redtree board that had been his companion for two seasons since he got it—never willing to part with it (he couldn’t bear to break the board even when injured). Behind his face mask, his dark pupils were deep and serene, his long lashes nearly obscuring the gleam in his eyes.
It was Beijiao.
He had come too.
…Oh right, participating in competitions to build reputation—she had taught him that.
Jiang Ran stared, momentarily lost in thought.
The next second, a clipboard flew in front of her.
She looked down and saw that Song Song had somehow found the clipboard. On top of a pile of registration forms was a blank sheet of paper with Song Song’s messy handwriting:
[Oh my god! Did you see that cute guy! I didn’t even need to take off his mask—tears were already pouring from my mouth and pooling on the floor! Look at those legs! Aaaaaah! Leg god incarnate! No wonder he’s part of the carving crew!]
…With their phones confiscated, she had resorted to the most primitive form of human communication.
Jiang Ran thought for a moment. It seemed that aside from Chun, no one else knew that Beijiao was her ex-boyfriend. Song Song and the others only knew that “Jiang Ran had an ex-boyfriend.”
She tugged at her lips and casually replied:
[“Part of the carving crew”? You’re just trying to ride on his popularity. I know this guy. I have his short video app account. Based on his leg length, he might look even better in the AK457 jumpsuit.]
She casually drew the outline of an AK457 jumpsuit in the blank space.
Then she tossed the clipboard back to Song Song.
[LOL! This jumpsuit design looks so sexy! Ugh, how can this be a skiing jumpsuit? It would be sexier if he wore nothing underneath!]
[Then from the side, you’d see everything.]
Jiang Ran wrote that line, originally intending to maintain some decorum, but accidentally recalling that expression Beijiao once sent of a pretty girl saying “handsome,” she emotionlessly added:
[What if he’s only got long legs but nothing else? Wouldn’t that be awkward?]
The clipboard went back, Song Song peeked at it, and nearly died laughing.
[Congratulations to Princess Pea, Jiang Ran, for winning the first “Golden Underwear” award at this competition!]
Jiang Ran quickly glanced at the clipboard, rolled her eyes, and ignored her.
She casually placed the clipboard aside just as a staff member approached to verify her identity information. She turned away from her seat temporarily.
Outside the venue, the staff were in a frenzy, busy verifying participants’ identities, checking registration forms one by one, comparing them with their ID cards, and having them sign for confirmation.
“Parallel Giant Slalom! Parallel Giant Slalom! Carving crew, please confirm your participation. Riders, come this way!”
A staff member shouted in the noisy equipment hall.
Jiang Ran caught a glimpse of the young man who had been by the window disappearing somewhere, making her feel uneasy. She thought about faking a bathroom break to hide somewhere. But just as she returned to her seat and greeted a male rider from another province’s professional team, asking him to cover for her—
She suddenly felt something was off.
She had already taken a few steps away when she turned back to her seat, looking at the table and then under it. She leaned on the long table with one hand and asked the male rider beside her, “Where’s the clipboard I just left here?”
“What clipboard?” The man asked, puzzled. “All the clipboards have registration forms. The staff probably took them to verify the participants’ info.”
Jiang Ran: …
Jiang Ran quickly turned her head toward the crowd.
As everyone knows, after registration closes, all participants’ numbers are re-sorted alphabetically by their first names. In this day and age, not many names start with “A,” but there was a “B” name—exactly “Bei.”
So when Jiang Ran turned her head, she could see the young man with black hair removing the paper filled with her and Song Song’s silly scribbles from the stack of registration forms. He briefly glanced at it.
Then, with a flick of his fingers, he folded the paper and slipped it into his pocket.
Throughout, his eyes remained calm, and no emotion showed beneath his mask.
The horror lay precisely in that.
Jiang Ran: …
She wondered if it was too late to scream for help, call out for her dad Nie Xin to rescue her.
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