At this moment, although Jiang Ran’s eyes were wide open, due to the lack of oxygen just seconds ago, she was in a daze, her eyes foggy and hazy, her cheeks flushed, lips slightly parted, staring at him in disbelief.
Beijiao couldn’t help but raise his hand, gently caressing her face with deep affection, yet his heart was cold. He thought to himself, why couldn’t she just behave herself?
Why did he have to chain her up and tie her to his waist to feel secure?
His slightly cool fingertips lightly stroked her soft cheeks again and again, his mood listless as he wrestled internally, wondering what he should do with her—
Soft methods didn’t work on her.
Hard methods, though, he felt a bit… reluctant.
Absentmindedly, the hand that had been fondling her face gripped a little harder. She was so sensitive that she hissed in pain and frowned, pushing his wrist away with both hands.
“Jiang Ran.”
He called her name, his voice hoarse.
“Do you really not like me at all?”
At this very moment, she could clearly feel the part of him pressed tightly against her through their thick snow suits and protective gear, burning hot and aroused…
Yet the weariness in his voice made her hesitate in pushing him away.
Her soft fingertips slid down along his wrist, she looked up at him in confusion—
His face was so handsome. A few years ago, before he had fully matured, he might have even made some girls feel inferior, and guys on the street would turn their heads to look twice…
Now he had truly grown up.
He could now openly say crude and rough things that completely contrasted his delicate appearance.
He wanted to do that in front of everyone.
Just thinking about those words from earlier made her ears burn red, her breath becoming slightly unsteady, cautious and blushing.
She had already agreed to a kiss, her mood soaring to the peak of a rollercoaster, only to be suddenly questioned—
As if at this very moment, the rollercoaster began its steep plunge.
She stared at him blankly, not answering his question for a moment.
Beijiao, as if recovering from his previous frenzied state, now stared at her with the same cold, indifferent gaze as at the beginning, as though he were looking at a complete stranger.
Her fingers twitched, and she even wanted to lift her hand to cover his eyes, telling him not to look.
She was still sitting in his lap, yet she felt his embrace gradually cooling, the emotions in his eyes fading almost to nothing.
“You’re good-looking, with many followers. You can ski so well that no one can keep up. You come from a good family and studied abroad, so whether it’s Chinese or foreigners, you can probably chat comfortably with anyone.”
He smiled, tilted his head, and leaned back against the cable car wall behind him.
“Sometimes I think, hoping that you might show mercy and deign to look at someone like me, who lives in the mud, is probably an unrealistic fantasy.”
His voice was extremely hoarse. He raised his hand, the fingertips rough from working temporary jobs and covered in thin calluses, gently brushing across her forehead, then tapping her nose.
The pressure gradually increased, scraping against her delicate skin painfully.
“You don’t like me.”
A definitive conclusion.
Yet his voice was calm as water, as if he had already accepted this reality.
His judgment exploded in Jiang Ran’s heart like an atomic bomb.
She parted her lips, eager to voice a loud rebuttal, yet the words caught in her throat. It wasn’t that she couldn’t speak—but in that very moment, an overwhelming wave of grievance crashed over her.
She was caught off guard.
Her beautiful almond-shaped eyes gradually regained focus. Beijiao could see his reflection slowly becoming clearer in her deep brown pupils, those eyes widening again, staring at him.
The emotions in her eyes were so intense it was as if she wanted to devour him whole, yet he merely gazed back at her silently, only his gaze darkening.
“Yes. I don’t like you.”
Sitting in his lap, she echoed coldly like a recording.
She swallowed hard, using a voice that seemed to emphasize something to no one in particular, “I don’t like you at all.”
He didn’t react much.
But she could feel her chest losing the ability to draw air, her lungs desperately trying to extract oxygen, yet everything seemed ineffective—
Her chest ached so much she could barely sit straight, her eyes stinging, and then her vision quickly blurred. Before she could even lift her hand to wipe, scalding tears had already filled her eyes.
She felt the arm around her waist tighten silently.
It was as if she had just awakened from a dream, realizing only now that she was still sitting in his lap. She lowered her head and began to pry his arm with her hands—
Large, hot tears fell onto her sleeve and his arm, like pearls, or perhaps more accurately described as “splashing.”
The waterproof fabric of her snowsuit amplified the sound of her uncontrollable tears, making her feel embarrassed to the point of her ear tips turning red—
She couldn’t wait to get off him, yet his arm was like iron, unmoving.
She was both angry and anxious, sniffling and letting out a mortified whisper, desperately struggling. Finally, she struggled so violently that Beijiao suspected she might bite her tongue if he didn’t let go—
His grip loosened, and she quickly slid off his lap.
As soon as she was free, she scooted away from him to the other end of the bench, turned her back to him, and hurriedly wiped her tears.
Even as she did this, her shoulders continued to tremble.
At this moment, the cable car arrived at the transfer station. The door “hissed” open. The staff peeked inside the empty cable car, somewhat puzzled, and was about to call out to the people waiting in line to board from the transfer station to the summit.
Just then, a hand reached out and grabbed the door frame.
The handsome young man’s expression was cold but sufficiently polite. He nodded slightly to the person at the front of the line outside the cable car who wanted to board, saying indifferently, “Bro, let’s do the next ride.”
The man was slightly taken aback, about to get angry and say, “Is this ski resort yours?” but upon seeing his face, he instinctively muttered, “Isn’t this Dog Brother?”
Then both he and the transfer station staff looked into the cable car—
Only then did they see a woman with long curly hair sitting in the dark corner, her back turned to them. She probably realized the cable car had reached the transfer station and was already trying hard to suppress her sobs…
At this moment, she let out a weak, cat-like whimper.
Although they couldn’t see clearly who she was, the woman’s sudden tears shocked the people outside the cable car, causing them both to instinctively step back.
They didn’t even need to think about it—the cable car only had two people. Who else could have made her cry?
But as fellow men, the guy who had been holding his board just a second ago gave Beijiao a look filled with sympathy, raised his hand in a “please continue” gesture, and decisively turned to board the next cable car.
The cable car slowly started moving again, and the automatic door closed once more.
…
As the cable car gradually entered the thicker fog on the mountain, Jiang Ran heard a sigh from behind her.
He reached out and tugged at the hair hanging at her waist.
Then his fingertips climbed upward, reaching her elbow.
The fingertips became the whole hand, and once again he grabbed her elbow, lifting her up from her crouched, crying position and placing her back into his lap. He forcibly turned her head to face him—
Her eyes and nose were red and swollen from crying, damp and wet. His fingertips gently swept over her long lashes, brushing away two tears that had been hanging precariously.
“Why are you crying? Do you think you’re in the right?”
He leaned in to kiss her, and she closed her eyes, making a sound of disgust and turning away.
But it didn’t stop his lips from firmly landing on hers, prying open her trembling teeth, and entwining his tongue with hers amidst her muffled protest—
He kissed her again.
This time, unlike the previous domineering and intense kiss, it was gentle and lingering. The moment the cable car door opened, cold air rushed in. In that brief pause for breath, the icy mountain air intertwined with their heated exhales, flooding their mouths.
His tongue danced around hers, pushing and pressing.
Jiang Ran’s eyelashes fluttered rapidly, and she was pathetically weakened by the kiss.
She physically choked, barely maintaining a sliver of consciousness during the few seconds he finally let her go, and said, “Apologize to me.”
Beijiao was momentarily taken aback. Apologize for what?
Jiang Ran watched him carefully: “Whether it’s what you said earlier, wanting to—”
She paused, “I can’t even say it.”
Before he could answer, she quickly continued, “Or whether it’s you presumptuously imagining and guessing whether I like you or not, you owe me an apology.”
In ancient times, she would have been a tyrant.
Regardless of her thoughts, she refused to allow others to guess her intentions, being capricious to the extreme.
Beijiao lowered his gaze, his eyes sweeping over her lips, which had been kissed into blooming like roses and were now glistening wetly. He admired her ability to haggle with him so imperiously even at a time like this, then quickly pecked her reddened lips again.
She let out a protesting sound.
“Are you begging me?” he asked.
Jiang Ran took a deep breath, pursed her lips, and corrected him, “I’m demanding it from you.”
He narrowed his eyes slightly, studying her face. He found it amusing that she seemed serious—his sense of absurdity was so strong he didn’t even bother to hide it. He asked her in a tone of “why are you so naive,” “Why should I apologize to you?”
She looked a bit dazed, appearing not only confused but also pitiful.
Seeing her like this, Beijiao couldn’t help but raise his hand to press the corner of her reddened, tear-streaked eyes. Tilting his head, he nodded toward the surveillance camera in the upper right corner of the cable car: “Take off the camera and try. Guess what I’ll do?”
Jiang Ran was startled, quickly slapping his hand away and scooting backward in panic—
But this time, he didn’t let her go. With a calm expression, he used one hand to pin both of hers behind her back, making her obediently sit in his lap.
“As for whether you like me,” he lifted his head and kissed her nose, “I don’t care at all.”
She stared at him in shock.
“Whether it’s a mud pit or hell, wherever I am, I’ll drag you along with me,” his tone was calm, “you can just consider yourself unlucky.”
…
The cable car reached the summit, the automatic door opened, and the previous chaos that people halfway up the mountain had seen was gone. Inside the cable car, everything was now calm and peaceful.
The two walked out one after the other. When Dalong’s cable car door opened, he immediately saw Jiang Ran standing at the exit. Beijiao expressionlessly pulled her Mach from the cable car’s board slot and handed it to her.
She had already put on her goggles and pulled up her face mask, leaving only her nose exposed. From behind the mask, she mumbled a “thank you” in a muffled voice.
Polite yet distant.
As for Beijiao, he merely glanced at her, as if his gaze hadn’t lingered on her for even a second.
Dalong was full of confusion but also couldn’t help feeling relieved.
He picked up his board and stepped forward. First, he nodded to Beijiao, who was standing beside her, then bent down and spoke to Jiang Ran in a tone as if nothing had happened earlier: “Sorry, I spaced out for a bit at the bottom of the mountain and didn’t make it onto the cable car in time. By the time I realized it, the door was already closed.”
Jiang Ran mumbled an “uh-huh” indistinctly, seemingly not too concerned.
“Why didn’t you get off at the transfer station?” Dalong asked. “I saw you didn’t get off, so I followed you up the mountain.
There was fog halfway up, making it impossible to see anything clearly. But when we entered the transfer station, I could barely see that the previous cable car had two people in it the whole time—
She turned sideways, her back to Beijiao.
When the cable car door opened, he thought she would get off at the transfer station as she usually did, but she didn’t move. Only Beijiao pressed the door with his hand, leaned his head out, and said something to the people outside. Then the cable car door closed again, no one got on that ride, and no one got off.
He didn’t know what had happened, so he had no choice but to take the next ride up the mountain.
Jiang Ran was too preoccupied to care about what he was saying. She had just decided to confess to him later that she wasn’t going to play anymore and quickly find Qiunian to throw herself into her arms and cry about the wild dog’s misdeeds—
She dragged her board and walked forward dejectedly, threw her board in front of the A2 big slope, and bent down to put on one binding.
Dalong, who had no idea what was going on, was stunned. He watched in disbelief as the woman, standing calmly in front of the steepest slope at the Quansong North Ski Resort, prepared to put on her boots.
“This slope is too steep for you to go down—”
Before he could finish speaking.
Suddenly, a figure brushed past him.
The heavy and broad Gray Type-R was taller and wider than her. He carelessly stuck it into the snow beside her, his tall figure standing behind her—
His long arm, full of possessiveness, stretched out, wrapping around her shoulders and pulling her into his embrace.
She turned her head in confusion, her face mask pulled down. The young man with black hair bent his head and fiercely kissed her lips as she looked up in surprise.
“Wait for me tonight.”
“I won’t—”
“Then I’ll tear it up,” he tilted his head, his tone wicked, “or burn it, if you prefer.”
As Jiang Ran remained silent, he let her go and even considerately pulled her face mask back into place.
Turning around, Beijiao nodded at Dalong, who was still standing there in shock, and said expressionlessly, “Have fun.”
Then he yanked the red board deeply stuck in the snow—
He put on his board, easily stepping onto the wide ski board and performing a light jump turn into the steep slope, quickly disappearing into the thick fog.
…
That evening.
Gossip and rumors spread rapidly through the snowboarding circles. Multiple eyewitnesses (and victims) confirmed that Beijiao, who had gone half a season in Chongli and two summers in Guangrong without any romantic news, had found himself a girlfriend after coming to Songbei Ski Resort for less than half a month.
Long, black curly hair, rides a Mach, and does parallel carving.
Their boards had matching stickers, the BC ones with small wings.
The girl had a delicate personality. She had been made to cry by Beige on the cable car that day, probably because he got impatient while teaching and said something hurtful.
Ah.
Truly, Beige, the innocent, snowboarding-obsessed straight guy.
Author’s note:
Jiang Ran: ………………………… I really appreciate it, but seriously, you guys are just too good at making up stories from pictures.
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