The three-year timeframe, Jiang Ran couldn’t quite figure out where exactly in her mind it had suddenly come from. Normally, everyone would say something like, “I never want to see you again in this lifetime,” but that felt more like an empty threat shouted into the void. But what she said was genuine.
This had a real effect. As her former partner, Bei Jiao immediately recognized the sincerity in her words. His eyes widened, and he stared at her in disbelief, as if he’d suddenly gone mute. She felt that after three years, she could forget him. Then, when they met again, they could smile and let bygones be bygones.
Leaning against the glass wall of the shower stall, the chill from the glass contrasting with her warm body, her hair stuck to her face in a disheveled manner. Yet, she didn’t forget to offer him a smile.
She decided to let the sharp and forceful word “leave” be the exclamation point to her first love, a perfect and lofty one. That is, if she weren’t crying right now.
Tears mingled with the hot water from the shower, slipping unnoticed from the corners of her eyes. Blinking her reddened eyes and flaring her nostrils slightly, she controlled herself to the smallest degree possible, just enough not to draw attention.
If Bei Jiao had any sense at all, he should leave the bathroom right now, so she could hurry and cry her heart out.
She sincerely hoped for this sequence of events, even though her mind was blank, and she still instinctively thought neurotically at the last moment: she had to remain a dignified person when breaking up.
However, Bei Jiao might have been born precisely to make sure Jiang Ran didn’t get her way.
After a brief moment of shock, he didn’t even ask why or what nonsense she was spouting. Instead, he reached out, pulled her up from the floor, and kissed her.
“Ugh!”
His large hand pressed firmly on her shoulders, preventing her from moving. Her soft, warm skin pressed against his soaked bandages. He slid his hand into her hair, pulling her closer to himself.
The kiss, filled with anger and panic, quickly spiraled out of control. It felt like the blizzard outside had landed on her eyebrows, nose, and lips. Finally, he tilted his head, his tongue prying open her teeth.
Jiang Ran experienced her first kiss, one that was cold beyond belief.
Although her body was warm and her head ached from the heat of the shower, she still felt the chill from his lips and tongue nearly made her legs give out.
She began pushing him away, trying to separate from him, but he was too strong, holding her in place effortlessly. She lifted her leg to kick him, but he seemed to anticipate it, shifting his hips to pin her between himself and the shower wall.
Initially, it was just a desperate, trapped beast’s kiss.
But as it continued, the mood gradually changed.
When he flipped her around, pressing her shoulders so that her back faced him and she was pushed against the fogged-up glass, her hand sliced through the steam, leaving a visible trail.
If someone were watching from outside, they’d see her weakly struggling, leaving clear streaks on the fogged glass, her tear-streaked forehead pressed against it.
Silently, he raised a hand and pressed gently on her waist.
She let out a loud sob, and at the same time, she felt a hand unexpectedly lifting her already disheveled, wet skirt.
The slightly rough fingertips sent a shiver through her.
“You dare!”
She rasped, her hand that had originally been supporting the glass reaching out desperately to pry his hands away, but his strength was too much. Soon, her skirt was lifted to her waist.
Her voice finally broke, clearly laced with tears—
“Bei Jiao! If you dare touch me, just try it! Then it won’t be three years—it’ll be forever! Truly forever!”
His movements abruptly stopped upon hearing the tremble in her voice, and the hand that had been struggling against hers also loosened its grip.
“Forever? Forever is fine. Hating me forever isn’t better than politely smiling at me after three years?”
He said in a voice that sounded almost mad.
Though he was hurling threats, he still reached out from behind, roughly wiping the tears from her face before stepping back slightly. Finally giving up entirely on the idea of “dignity,” she slid down helplessly, sitting behind him.
The hot water that had been running for who knows how long was turned off, the sound of flowing water abruptly stopping. In an instant, the sobs and breathing within the shower stall were amplified.
He suddenly let out a sarcastic snort.
“Then make sure to hide well. Don’t let me find you.”
His hoarse voice sounded from behind.
Jiang Ran’s back was to the boy, the shadow that had loomed over her suddenly lowering to her level as he squatted down behind her.
Looking at her wet black hair, disheveled and clinging to her pale skin, water droplets like pearls falling, his gaze darkened, his pupils slightly constricted.
The next second, he raised his hand, brushing the strands of hair away from her neck, his hot breath tickling her skin.
It was just like the first time, in that snowy, power-outage night in Altay, when he kissed her for the first time. The final kiss ended with a bite mark left on her shoulder.
This time, he bit hard, his canine teeth piercing her skin, leaving a small blood mark.
She let out a low whimper but didn’t try to pull away.
Ten minutes later.
The bathroom was left with only Jiang Ran.
She numbly covered her shoulder and stood up, quickly turning the hot water back on to take a shower, washing away the salt residue on her face, and stuffing her soaked pajamas into the washing machine.
When she walked out of the bathroom, she noticed the towel had been moved to a spot where she could easily reach it as soon as she opened the door. She couldn’t help but twitch her lips in amusement, knowing without a doubt who had done it.
She wanted to get close to the mirror to check how serious the wound on her shoulder was, after all, she had heard that human teeth were the most dangerous.
But the bite was in a hard-to-see spot on her back. She tried to open her swollen eyes as wide as she could, only to see the unfortunate sight of her eyes swollen like peaches.
In frustration, she wiped the mirror fog away with her hand.
She fell asleep with tears that night.
…
The next day, Jiang Ran slept until the sun was high in the sky.
She still felt the corner of her blanket being lifted slightly. She instinctively turned over and mumbled, “Don’t mess with me,” just about to bury her face into the covers…
Then she was suddenly jolted awake by two things—
First, she heard her own raspy voice, sounding even worse than a male duck’s, rough as if it had been scraped against sandpaper.
Second, she realized that the person who usually lifted her blanket was already gone.
Turning over, she hid under the covers and silently locked eyes with Qiu Nian.
Qiu Nian slowly widened her eyes: “…Did you look in the mirror before going to sleep yesterday?”
Jiang Ran was very reluctant to speak: “I did, so what?”
Qiu Nian: “Then how could you even fall asleep? Do you know your whole face is swollen like a pig’s head? If I took a photo and posted it in any group chat, countless teenage boys’ dreams of the graceful skating goddess would be shattered today—”
She rambled on, while Jiang Ran weakly tugged at the corners of her lips, rasping: “No, they won’t. The graceful skating goddess ended up like this because she broke up… For a long time, they couldn’t even dream about me. Now they can again. If I were them, I’d set off fireworks.”
Qiu Nian: “…”
Seeing that she still had the energy to joke around, she felt relieved.
She yanked the covers off her and told her that the sun was already shining on her butt and asked why she was still lying in bed. After all, the plan for the year is made in spring—
Jiang Ran didn’t care, because she had completely messed up this year. She was locked down on New Year’s Eve, went to the hospital on the first day of the Lunar New Year, and broke up on the seventh. The rhythm was so tight and dramatic.
She yawned as she climbed out of bed, squeezed toothpaste onto her brush, and stuck it in her mouth, habitually flipping her hair.
The bite mark on her shoulder made Qiu Nian gasp in shock from behind, “Were you bitten by a dog?”
Jiang Ran turned around, looking at her expressionlessly.
Qiu Nian realized, that was indeed a dog bite. She awkwardly chuckled: “He packed his stuff and moved to Da Tou’s place this morning. I was wondering what was going on, so I guess you two have broken up, huh?”
Originally, she had a lot to say, but after locking eyes with the calm gaze of the woman in the mirror, she couldn’t utter a single word. The tone of what should have been a shocking event suddenly turned into something as mundane as, “Breakfast today is stir-fried eggs.”
Upon hearing that Bei Jiao had moved out, Jiang Ran simply said, “Oh,” then added, “Hmm.”
Qiu Nian: “What’s wrong?”
Jiang Ran: “Should I go get a rabies shot?”
Qiu Nian: “…”
…
After finishing her morning routine, Jiang Ran received a WeChat message from Da Tou.
Da Tou had only recently found out that their park prodigy Bei Jiao was actually the little mutt from Jiang Ran’s house. That’s why Zhao Keyan had initially said, “No one can steal her away, not even if Shen Chong himself came.”
After all, in the skating circle, didn’t Jiang Ran’s status match up with Shen Chong’s in the park?
Now, he had taken in the kicked-out stray dog and properly settled him.
The stray dog curled up on the sofa bed in his living room, covered with a blanket. He was asleep now, but even in his sleep, his eyebrows were tightly furrowed, dark circles under his eyes, clearly having not slept all night.
He looked pitifully miserable.
[Da Tou: He was still having nightmares in his sleep, did you really have to make the breakup so bloody?]
[Da Tou: You were too harsh, Ran Jie.]
[Whose Ran Ran Ya: The phrase ‘peaceful breakup’ was invented precisely to distinguish it from ‘violent breakup,’ right? :)]
She tossed her phone aside. Jiang Ran went upstairs to another room to tidy up a bit. The room was already empty, with not many traces left by the previous occupant.
The most noticeable presence was still his scent.
It was like the pine and cypress in the cold winter wind, the withered branches and fallen leaves, yet the only plants that could stubbornly maintain their dignity through winter, merging with the snow and ice, their scent being hailed as the fragrance of winter.
Jiang Ran emotionlessly pushed the window open; a cold gust of wind mixed with snow blew in, nearly freezing her face crooked. She turned back to wrap herself in a thick coat before returning to the room, satisfied to find only the scent of the cold wind and the earth outside.
Spring was coming.
The closet was empty. He hadn’t had many clothes to begin with—just a couple of hoodies and two inexpensive snow suits, one black and one white. Looking at the empty hangers, she recalled the time she asked him to buy more clothes so he wouldn’t look so shabby—
“Why buy so many clothes?” At the time, he was slurping a bowl of instant noodles he’d found somewhere, “My clothes aren’t even worn out yet.”
“I heard you’ve been painstakingly training a lot of beginners in Guangrong, almost becoming a famous rescuer of novices in the circle,” Jiang Ran asked, “What are you saving all that money for?”
He picked up a forkful of noodles and offered it to her lips. She sniffed, the sweet aroma of oil and sugar made her turn her head away in disgust.
“I keep it in my bank account. I like seeing the numbers.”
She was silent for a moment: “Promise me you’ll stay away from the three evils: pornography, gambling, and drugs.”
“Having sex with you adjusts my hormones, small bets under 50 cents are fun, and drugs are indeed the root of all evil.”
“…Good thing you’re not a celebrity, you’d crash within three months.”
“No need for three months. Debut in the morning, apologize at noon, and quit the industry at night.” He thought for a moment, “The next day, I’d use the remaining money in my card—half to buy a trending topic to publicly announce our marriage and the other half to actually marry you.”
With heaven and earth as witnesses, she had been surfing the internet for so many years, yet she was still tragically moved to tears by his strange, cheesy love talk.
She closed the wardrobe and calmed herself.
As she turned around, she noticed the trash bin hadn’t been emptied.
He didn’t smoke and had no strange bad habits, so the trash bin in his room was usually quite empty, at most some packaging from plasters…
However, today, there was also a blood-stained bandage inside.
From the torn ends, Jiang Ran recognized her own work—it must have been the bandage she had changed the day before, which later got soaked in the shower, and he had removed it when he returned to his room.
Instinctively, she extended a finger to poke it, and to her surprise, it was still damp.
Jiang Ran reflexively looked up toward the bed, imagining him sitting alone in the room the night before, only a dim lamp on, silently removing the bandages from his shoulder one circle at a time.
She blinked.
She turned around and removed the neatly made-up bedding.
Thus, she suffered retribution.
While lifting the sheet, she unfortunately caught his scent again—the sheet falling through the air like his warm chest had enveloped her the night before in the bathroom.
Unexpectedly, an indescribable sourness surged from her heart straight up her throat.
She instinctively touched her thigh; the tremor from the boy’s rough hand was still vivid. Her throat moved, and that sourness flowed down to her lower abdomen.
She stuffed the sheets and blankets into the washing machine, throwing in five laundry pods in one go, then closed the washing machine door.
She went downstairs to fetch the robot vacuum, bent down to place it at the door of the now thoroughly cleaned room, and Jiang Ran swore to herself that she would never fall in love again.
Life had been good, carefree, and full of happiness. Only a fool would fall in love.
…
Later, life underwent earth-shattering changes, but quite dramatically, this time, the entire nation… no, the entire globe shared this upheaval.
Those who couldn’t accept new things might even wish to time travel back to January 1st, 2020, and commit suicide before that day.
The sudden outbreak of a major pandemic swept the globe overnight. The phrase “overseas travel” suddenly became almost impossible. Passports sat in drawers, gathering dust. Jiang Ran calmly accepted the fact that she couldn’t fly to Paris to feed pigeons and ease her heartbreak.
In the blink of an eye, a year passed like a white horse galloping by.
The spring of 2021 arrived.
With the Winter Olympics drawing closer, the slogan “300 million people on ice and snow” grew louder and louder. During the 2020 to 2021 snow season, Jiang Ran was busier than ever, teaching students every day and selling products on WeChat.
In just one snow season, her WeChat account recorded a running account of over two million entries. Only the gods know exactly how many snowboards, bindings, and snow suits she actually sold.
The sponsors were practically smitten with her, constantly shouting, “Come on, Sister Ran, push a bit harder—you’re about to become the next Shan Chong of carving!”
Oh, Shan Chong was the one who previously injured his spine, an incident that indirectly triggered Lin Shuang’s timeline and ultimately led to Jiang Ran’s decision to seal away her heart forever. After his injury, a successful surgery, and a dramatic retirement, he had returned to the snow scene, now standing at the forefront of promoting winter sports.
Since he had injured his spine rather than his brain, his skills remained sharp. This led many naive kids to believe that using the same model of board as him would allow them to spin five, six, seven, eight rotations in the big air park themselves. Thus, Shan Chong’s sales influence was unmatched.
But the girls preferred to follow Jiang Ran’s recommendations.
After all, she looked good in anything, and the products she endorsed had passed through a series of rigorous checks—her own aesthetic judgment, her conscience, and practical usage tests. This was far more sincere than some big male influencers who would just shout “Looks great! Buy it!” with their eyes closed after receiving a product.
Sometimes, she even felt like she was turning into a damn fashion influencer. This absurd feeling struck when someone commented under one of her sponsored snowsuit try-on reviews: “Hey, can you switch sides?”
…Honestly speaking, when she saw that comment, Jiang Ran didn’t even bother to send the question mark emoji—she was too busy thinking: this is an utter disgrace.
Of course, that person was later mocked mercilessly by others, with comments like, “Have you even looked at her homepage?” until he deleted his comment. “Can you switch edges?” momentarily became a popular meme within the community.
But the incident gave Jiang Ran quite a bit of inspiration. Before the announcement of the end of another snow season at Jilin Songbei Ski Resort, she seized the last moments of the season and suddenly became diligent.
She started going up the mountain at dawn every day, grabbing Qiu Nian, A Ju, or Li Xingnan to film videos for her.
Sliding videos, carving tutorials, or even high-speed flatland carving tutorials.
…Well, that’s why the carving community is so unique. Before she did this, most people in the carving community just quietly focused on their own skiing. Occasionally posting a video was simply a quick “plop” of their own sliding footage. Forget tutorials—sometimes they even skipped music, calling it: “Carving, feel the wonderful sound of the edge carving through the snow.”
Meanwhile, the flatland masters had already been making excellent tutorial videos. Take the most famous one, Zhao Keyan—
His tutorial videos were so detailed he almost seemed like he wanted to jump out of the screen to help you flick the board (*referring to using the snowboard’s elasticity to jump or spin during tricks).
So within just one winter, his follower count on the short video platform skyrocketed from twenty or thirty thousand to over one hundred thousand, turning him into a rising snowboarding influencer—a skilled and handsome content creator, complete with some juicy gossip to spice things up.
Putting aside the last part, the direction he took was still worth learning from.
Jiang Ran’s first carving-flatland tutorial was released in mid-February, focusing on a nollie 360°. Although it was just a basic 360°, first of all, the threshold for high-speed flatland after a carve was already quite high.
Secondly, tutorial videos were naturally aimed at beginners transitioning to intermediate-level skiers.
There were plenty of people like that now—people who could already press their front and back edges down to touch the snow, then thought carving had no more tricks to offer, gradually losing interest in technical sliding—
Now they realized, oh, carving and flatland weren’t mutually exclusive at all. High-speed carving could also include tricks, even higher, faster, and more powerful ones.
So, as expected, her tutorial videos were quite successful and very popular.
Even before the Lunar New Year ended and she hadn’t even left Songbei Ski Resort yet, many people had already booked her for sessions at Guangzhou Sunac.
With business coming in, she happily agreed.
…
By April, it was already warm enough in Guangzhou to wear light clothing.
On this day, Jiang Ran had an appointment with a student who already had a solid foundation in regular carving and wanted to learn high-speed flatland tricks in regular stance.
He said that ever since he learned smooth edge switching, he had switched to regular stance and studied carving for an entire season with a coach in Chongli.
Jiang Ran thought about it—after a whole season, he should definitely have the basic ability to slide low and press edges comfortably. She agreed and scheduled the session for the afternoon. After all, just starting to learn flatland tricks, expecting someone to immediately perform high-speed tricks was basically impossible, so the snow conditions weren’t that important.
When they arrived at Guangzhou Sunac, as usual, the first run was always just letting the student warm up and show his level without saying anything—
The student happily agreed, eager to show off in front of the “big sister,” and took the lift straight up to the advanced slope. Jiang Ran, just like Song Die used to check her level, sat on the lift, looking down at him while keeping her head lowered.
Once the student was ready, he started off. The big fold, quick board flip, and high-speed sliding were all familiar JSBA (Japan Snowboard Association) style to her. She was just thinking to herself about how nowadays, there were actually fewer people willing to do JSBA than SAJ (Swiss Alpine Junior) style—
Suddenly she went “Hmm,” blinked a few times, and felt something was off.
After watching a couple of edge changes, she was still thinking, when she noticed that when this student flipped the board, his back hand looked like a little duck’s wing—his elbow habitually lifted slightly mid-air, then his hand waved around restlessly like he had ADHD.
This unnecessary little habit, if you called it a technique, it wasn’t wrong either. None of the foreign pros did it like that… but in China’s carving community, regardless of style, the only person who did it this way was Jiang Ran herself—
Oh.
And later, one more person.
She gently scratched her chin with one finger, deep in thought.
When they took the lift again for the second run, she slightly turned her body, subtly smiling as she casually asked her new student, “Who did you learn carving from in Chongli?”
The student “Ah’d” and didn’t catch the change in her tone: “Not someone super famous, but he’s really damn good—a hidden gem brother… Wait, let me show you his Douyin (TikTok), you can judge if he’s a gem or not!”
Then he took out his phone, scrolled through, and shoved it right under her nose.
The video was posted in March this year, at Chongli’s summit ski resort, on the steepest slope. A tall, slender young man in full gear was standing on a gray Type-R snowboard. The red baseplate gleamed brilliantly under the sunlight as he shifted forward.
He glanced sideways at the camera, his narrow black eyes behind the goggles cold and sharp. He raised his hand, biting down to pull the bottom of his right glove.
The palm of his glove was clearly worn and faded.
Under the lens, he launched himself off a jump with a sharp edge cut from the summit. Upon landing, he was already in a textbook carving backside low stance.
Snow sprayed high from his board, several edges carving through most of the slope. When he reached the widest, emptiest part of the terrain, he seized the moment, using his back hand to push off the ground and immediately springing up—
Snow swirled through the air as his fingers flicked upward.
On the board, the BC limited-edition sticker with small wings reflected a rainbow of colors under the sunlight.
About three seconds later, he landed steadily on his front edge, slapped the ground with his hand, flipped the board effortlessly, and continued his smooth, high-speed carving run.
After the video ended, there was a line of text: “Nollie 360° after a day of secluded training with Master. Product achieved.”
Jiang Ran: “…”
F*ck.
Since when did he have a master?
How long had it been? Now he even had a new master. Don’t tell me the kid’s already a year old and crawling all over the place!
Men are truly all bastards. Ugh, gross!
Tai Sui Yellow Amulet Paper FuLu Taoist Love Talisman Traditional Chinese Spiritual Charm Attracting Love Protecting Marriage