Wei Zhi crouched on the ground, clutching her phone, almost as still as a trash can on the street. She looked dazed, but the man had no intention of letting her off the hook. He leaned against the wall, exuding an air of “if you don’t speak, we can stand here until the end of time.”
With the phone still pressed to his ear, Jiang Nanfeng called out a couple of times, only to hear Wei Zhi’s shaky breaths. After a moment, he kindly said, “It’s okay; I don’t mind being the back of your hand.” Then he hung up.
Shan Chong walked up to Wei Zhi, who was crouched down to his thigh level, so he looked down at her from above. “Lost your voice?” he asked.
The young girl’s lips trembled, her hair disheveled. After a moment of struggling to breathe, she managed to say, “…I wasn’t talking bad about you.”
Her tone was particularly aggrieved as if to say, “I didn’t do anything wrong; why are you making me feel this way?”
“I was just curious, asking a question. I didn’t scold you,” he replied, his tone still languid. At that moment, he stood before her, the scent of blood mingling with disinfectant wafting from him.
Wei Zhi lowered her gaze to his snow boots for a while, gradually feeling the overpowering smell of blood fill the air, invading her nostrils.
Frowning, she stopped pretending to be dead, grabbed the man’s pants for leverage, and stood up on her tiptoes to look at his hand.
His palm was half-raised at chest level, and the bandages wrapped around it were layered, but blood was seeping through the center.
And it seemed to be spreading.
“What happened?” she exclaimed. “Isn’t there any way to stop the bleeding?”
“Yeah,” the man replied, his eyes downcast. “You guessed it; I need stitches. The medical room at the snow resort doesn’t have the facilities for that. I need to drive down the mountain.”
“??? Then why aren’t you leaving?” Wei Zhi genuinely didn’t understand what was going through his mind. “Why are you just standing here chatting?”
Her expression was serious, her slightly chubby face taut with tension. Although she lacked authority, she was filled with emotion. Her voice was hoarse, and her nose was red.
Shan Chong certainly knew he should leave quickly.
He glanced at her, watching her flap her arms as she jumped up, and thought it was strange that he was usually the one scolding and directing her, but now she was the one urging him. He couldn’t help but want to chat with her a bit more.
So he bent slightly, leaning closer to her—close enough that their noses almost touched. His dark eyes locked onto hers, unavoidably. “Have you been crying?”
Wei Zhi froze at his words, unwilling to let him see, and immediately turned her head away.
The man maintained his bent posture, briefly curling his lips at her turned face. He didn’t press her further, straightening up slowly and saying, “Alright, I see you care about your master now. It wasn’t in vain that I held back from breaking your legs out of love.”
“……”
“I hope you’ll care about me more in the future and not act like a leaky balloon on the snow path.”
Wei Zhi was at a loss for words.
She struggled to hold back her retort about how she could care for him.
After a moment, she couldn’t resist asking, “What’s a leaky balloon?”
The man glanced at her and replied seriously, “It means having many small problems. When you fix one, another one that didn’t exist before suddenly appears. Tell me, doesn’t that sound like a leaky balloon with holes everywhere?”
Wei Zhi: “……”
Wei Zhi: “Does your hand not hurt anymore?”
Her mind was sharp.
She didn’t seem like someone in pain at all.
As she spoke, she noticed the red spots on the white bandage of his palm becoming more pronounced, clearly indicating that blood was seeping through the layers. To say it didn’t hurt would be a lie; with such a large wound, he couldn’t even move his hand.
“It hurts,” Shan Chong said. “Are you going to drive me down?”
Wei Zhi certainly wouldn’t refuse, but she bit her lip, not wanting to validate his claim of “finally caring for your master,” as if she were an ungrateful person who never considered him.
So she decided to act like an ungrateful person this time.
“I’m not going. I still need to go back and take care of Nanfeng. You can have Lao Yan take you down. He’s probably somewhere crying and wishing he could chop off his head to make it up to you.”
As she rambled on, her gaze uncontrollably darted to him, trying to guess whether his car keys were in his left pocket, right pocket, or the storage compartment.
“Oh,” he said calmly, “you just said the palm and back of the hand are both flesh.”
“…………… Can we just chop off the hand instead?”
Wei Zhi muttered as she reached for his pocket. Before he could react, she pulled out his car keys. But as she held the keys, she suddenly hesitated, remembering something. “Are you sure you don’t want Lao Yan to take you?”
She had repeatedly refused him.
The smile that lingered in his eyes faded slightly, and his expression turned a bit cold.
“I just sent him to apologize to Jiang Nanfeng and Dai Duo. In front of so many people, he named names and made a scene. Who knows what rumors will spread in the snow circle tomorrow?” He spoke in a flat tone. “If you don’t want to, then please call for a backup.”
Without needing to see his face, Wei Zhi could tell he was a bit unhappy—
He had used the phrase “please.”
His temper could change in an instant; just a moment ago, he had still seemed somewhat amused.
“Seriously,” she said, genuinely worried that he might bleed and get angry, causing him to faint at any moment. “I’m just worried my driving skills aren’t good. What if the bumps on the road make your hand hurt?”
Shan Chong glanced at her upon hearing this.
The young girl looked worriedly at his hand, and her concern didn’t seem like a mere excuse.
So the slight displeasure in his heart faded a bit. He relaxed his expression and gently patted her head with his uninjured hand. “You worry too much. I’m not made of tofu.”
Wei Zhi raised her hand again, scratching her head in the spot where he had just patted her.
As they spoke, they slowly made their way toward the parking lot.
The path was muddy; it had snowed in the afternoon, and the snow was deep.
The young girl, resourceful and persistent, managed to get a broom from a ski shop in the equipment hall. She hopped ahead, sweeping a small path through the untouched snow, ensuring there were no sharp stones or slippery ice that could trip them before taking another step—
The snow by the roadside barely reached her calves.
She wore size 225 snow boots, leaving a trail of tiny footprints beside the path she had cleared.
She diligently ran ahead, creating a path wide enough for someone to walk through. Then, about five meters away, she turned back to watch the man behind her, making sure he was following her lead.
It seemed she took his words as mere background noise, always believing he was as fragile as tofu at that moment.
Her gaze inadvertently swept over her hands, red from the cold as she gripped the broom. When she wasn’t paying attention, he kicked the snow piled on either side of the path, sending it flying and easily covering the small footprints.
Not wanting her to waste her efforts, he stepped onto the path she had cleared under her watchful gaze, perfectly timing it to make her eyes light up with excitement.
He didn’t need to look up to feel the sparkle in her eyes from a few meters away, her almond-shaped eyes shining brightly as she looked at him.
He raised his head, and their eyes met.
…It was quite refreshing.
Throughout his life, from the time he started skiing, he had always practiced alone and then taught others. Until now, he had always been the one protecting others—
No one had ever worried about him tripping on a flat snow path or slipping on ice.
Later, after getting injured and retiring, he found himself suddenly accompanied by a little girl who walked ahead, leaving footprints in the snow for him to follow.
Seeing the man standing silently, Wei Zhi chuckled and scratched her head, asking, “Are you touched?”
Shan Chong stood in the snow pit she had cleared, feeling the ground beneath his feet.
With one hand in his pocket and his injured hand naturally resting at his side, he raised an eyebrow at her, his tone gentle yet teasing. “Yeah, I’m touched.”
Before Wei Zhi could respond, she heard him chuckle softly, adding leisurely—
“Jiang Nanfeng is probably still hungry, right? Now I know, being your master means I should at least be a hand to feed him.”
“…Can you please forget about that?”
“Hmm.”
“?”
“Can’t.”
“……”
……
As Wei Zhi placed the turtle-shaped cake neatly on Shan Chong’s car and climbed into the driver’s seat, Lao Yan stood at the door of her hotel room, frozen like a statue for quite some time.
Beici leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, expressionless, watching Shan Chong stand like a statue, questioning his life choices.
The whole situation unfolded like this: after a long day of hard work at the park, he hadn’t accomplished anything. He sat on the icy snow path, watching the sunset, and patted his chest, telling himself, “It’s okay; you’re the best.” After finally building up his mental fortitude, he brushed the snow off his backside and stood up…
Then he received a phone call. On the other end, Hua Yan’s voice sounded as if she had just witnessed the resurrection of dinosaurs, like Jurassic Park rising from the ground.
She had said:
**“Lao Yan and Chong Ge got into a fight over Dai Duo’s board, and Chong Ge’s hand was cut by the edge of the board, blood flowing everywhere. That bright red blood flowed into Lao Yan’s heart.”**
If Jiang Nanfeng took thirty seconds to digest Wei Zhi’s broadcast, Beici took a full three minutes to process Hua Yan’s words.
Ignoring the last inexplicable poetic line, the information in that statement was so overwhelming that Beici had to send a voice message to Shan Chong. The man on the other end said nothing, confirming the incident was true. Since he was already there, he might as well accompany Lao Yan to apologize to Dai Duo and Jiang Nanfeng—
At that point, the mental health state Beici had painstakingly built up crumbled once again.
He even regretted making that call; after all, from Hua Yan’s tone, which was seven parts anxious and three parts amused, it was clear that their master was at least still alive.
In the end, he had to muster the courage to meet the disheartened Lao Yan outside the medical room—
After all, he was still just a kid, and it hadn’t been more than two or three years since he had the guts to fight thirty people in an alley for his brothers…
Lao Yan usually didn’t say much, but anyone with eyes could see that despite his carefree demeanor, he held a deep respect for Shan Chong—
Now, he was personally sending his master to the hospital.
He felt guilty and terrified, nearly losing his mind.
When Beici first saw Lao Yan, his immediate reaction was that Hua Yan’s description of “that bright red blood flowing into Lao Yan’s heart” was disturbingly accurate.
Through the window of the medical room, he saw Shan Chong, who was having his hand temporarily disinfected and bandaged. To be honest, even with blood gushing from his hand, Shan Chong’s complexion looked healthier than Lao Yan’s, who was crouched in the corner outside the window.
Lao Yan was dragged back to the hotel by Beici, looking like a dead dog, and they stood at the door of Jiang Nanfeng’s room.
At that moment, they had been hesitating for at least ten minutes.
Lao Yan’s hand hovered over the door several times before dropping it, resembling a scene from a melodramatic soap opera. Beici couldn’t take it anymore and quietly urged, “If you’re a man, just be straightforward. It’s better to admit this yourself than to have it spread through other messy channels to Dai Duo and Jiang Nanfeng later.”
Lao Yan’s face turned ashen. He wanted to shout but didn’t dare to raise his voice. Instead, he hissed in a low tone, “Do you think I want to? Before you question whether I’m a man, why don’t you ask what Dai Duo did? I called Jiang Nanfeng, and when he answered, he immediately said someone was in bed!”
He paused, growing angrier as he continued, “In that situation, it would have been more manly for me to smash his board and beat him up!”
“Hey, what are you acting like a melodramatic character for?” Beici looked him up and down. “What’s Jiang Nanfeng to you? Do you need to play the role of a righteous man?”
Wasn’t this the same guy who used to say, “During the day, I walk the blade; at night, I walk the kidney”? Suddenly, he was acting all innocent in Xinjiang.
“I’m just happy.”
“You certainly look happy,” Beici replied. “You’re wearing a face that looks like you’re about to cry. If Dai Duo sees you, he’ll probably laugh at you.”
Lao Yan opened his mouth to say something, but at that moment, the door to the room was suddenly pulled open from the inside.
Without warning.
The root cause of all the trouble appeared at the door, and the gap widened a bit as Dai Duo looked up and down at the two standing outside…
At the same time, Jiang Nanfeng bounced off the bed and stood behind him, asking, “Who is it?”
From outside the door, only a strand of her hair could be seen bobbing as she leaned forward, while the rest of her body was completely hidden behind Dai Duo. At that moment, the person outside heard Jiang Nanfeng’s voice. After she finished speaking, the person blocking the door paused, didn’t turn around, and replied expressionlessly, “There’s a mouse in this hotel corridor.”
Mouse Person One, Lao Yan: “……”
Mouse Person Two, Beici: “……”
Standing outside, Beici genuinely wanted to tear Dai Duo’s mouth off.
He held back, reminding himself he was there to apologize, and kicked Lao Yan’s leg. The latter’s gaze flickered, finally returning from the strand of hair visible from the door.
Lao Yan pushed the door but couldn’t open it; the person behind the door was firmly guarding it. He knocked on the door, his voice low and filled with warning: “Step aside.”
Dai Duo wasn’t afraid of him at all and ignored him, turning back to ask the person inside, “It’s Lao Yan. I don’t know what he’s here for, but he’s insisting on coming in. Should we let him in?”
There was a moment of silence in the room before Jiang Nanfeng’s confused voice rang out, “What’s he here for?”
Dai Duo turned back, seriously translating, “Did you hear? He wants you to leave.”
“……”
Leave? Hell no!
Lao Yan was infuriated, unable to hold back any longer. “Why the hell were you talking nonsense on the phone earlier?”
“You’ve got a problem with your brain; everything you hear sounds the same,” Dai Duo shot back without holding back. “I heard what happened, and thanks for providing me with the only laughable material I’ve heard in the last three months.”
His eyes were devoid of emotion, and he added casually, “Actually, it doesn’t matter if you smashed that board. The new models are coming out soon for the snow season, so I’ll just switch.”
He had no sponsorship as a park athlete, so he had to pay for his board…
He almost got a freebie.
He felt a bit regretful.
Lao Yan: “……”
He wanted to punch him. Lao Yan helplessly looked at Beici, as if to say, “Last time you stopped me from hitting him; now it’s your turn to return the favor.”
Beici stood beside him, arms crossed, silent.
Seeing that Beici was no help, Lao Yan refused to waste any more time with this chatterbox. “Get out of the way; I need to talk to her.”
Dai Duo certainly didn’t move, shifting slightly to see Jiang Nanfeng, who was hopping on one leg to grab a box of yogurt from the table, then hopping back to the bed, showing no intention of receiving guests.
After a pause, he said to the determined-looking young man in front of him, “Save it. I heard you loudly proclaim in front of a crowd that I stole your student and quickly got involved with her.”
Lao Yan: “……”
Dai Duo: “Did Shan Chong get hurt and end up in the hospital because of you?”
He was right in his summary.
But it all sounded wrong.
What kind of high-end contemporary drama was this?
“Shan Chong probably never imagined that after a few years, he’d end up in the hospital because of his student,” the young man said with a mocking expression, which looked even more sarcastic on his delicate face. “This story is truly delightful.”
He hadn’t finished speaking.
Lao Yan kicked the door open and lunged inside.
……
About twenty minutes later, while driving furiously toward the hospital, Wei Zhi received a call from Jiang Nanfeng. She put it on speakerphone and said before the other side could speak, “What’s up? I’m driving Shan Chong down the mountain to the hospital. Speak.”
This was a reminder for Jiang Nanfeng not to say anything inappropriate.
Jiang Nanfeng paused for a second, understanding her hint, and then said, “Did Lao Yan come here specifically to fight Dai Duo?”
As she spoke, a loud crash of a chair falling over could be heard on the other end, along with Beici cursing, asking if they were crazy—
Everyone fell silent.
Until Wei Zhi asked, “Did they fight over you?”
Jiang Nanfeng was speechless for two seconds. “Do I look like I can make that happen?”
Wei Zhi held the steering wheel and glanced at Shan Chong, who lifted his eyelids and looked over with an emotionless gaze. “What are you looking at? I don’t have that ability either.”
“……”
Well, he certainly had that ability.
Before she could retort, on the other end of the line, accompanied by the sound of glass shattering, Jiang Nanfeng’s voice rang out again, “I think it’s still possible. After all, Lao Yan kicked the door down after Dai Duo said, ‘The student sent the master to the hospital.’ That door has a big hole in it, so you can imagine how angry he was. I feel sorry for today’s duty manager… Oh, I have to hang up.”
Wei Zhi: “What’s wrong?”
Jiang Nanfeng replied calmly, “Call the police. They smashed our room, and if we don’t report it, we’ll have to pay for it later… I’m not paying for this nonsense.”
Then the call ended.
The car fell into silence, and the worst part was that they had just reached a red light in front of the hospital. As they waited, Wei Zhi felt awkward in the strange silence and said, “It sounds pretty lively; you’ll probably have to clean up the mess when you get back.”
Shan Chong didn’t respond.
When he was silent, he always had an inscrutable coldness about him, and no one knew what he was thinking.
Until the man’s eyelashes fluttered, and he raised his eyes, calmly summarizing, “After careful selection, I only take in rebellious students.”
Wei Zhi: “……”
I suspect you’re making a broad statement, but I have no evidence.
……
Upon arriving at the hospital, Shan Chong’s bandage was already soaked with blood. At a glance, it was hard to doubt that if pressed, blood would seep through the bandage.
Wei Zhi only glanced at it, her temples throbbing, and quickly averted her gaze, feeling anxious and keeping her head down to stare at the ground.
She focused intently on the tips of her shoes, not noticing the man beside her slightly turned his head to glance at her, seeing her ear tips pale from fear…
He had originally wanted to say something, staring at her for three seconds, but his gaze flickered, and he fell silent.
Perhaps he had grown numb to the pain; in any case, he didn’t feel particularly hurt. His skin, usually pale, looked almost translucent under the hospital lights, giving off a faint glow.
He was completely devoid of color.
This situation warranted an immediate trip to the emergency room.
Fortunately, the emergency doctor was experienced and took him into the emergency room to prepare for stitches and bandaging.
A crowd gathered, and Wei Zhi, who would have been eliminated within 24 hours in a survival situation, was quickly pushed to the back of the line. She had originally wanted to follow the doctor and nurses inside, but as soon as she ducked her head to step into the emergency room, she heard the front man say, “Wait outside.”
She froze for a moment, quickly looking up to meet his calm, unfazed black eyes. She wanted to argue but found her lips moved weakly before closing again. “Oh.”
Then she turned around and obediently stepped back outside.
Crouching outside the emergency room, hugging her knees, she fell into a daze.
After a while, the door to the emergency room swung open, and the nurse’s voice rang out loudly in the quiet night corridor, “Family members! Payment!”
The girl squatting outside was startled, reflexively gasping, and stood up. A payment slip appeared in front of her. “Family member, please pay at the front desk.”
She took it with both hands, dazed, and said, “Okay.”
She jogged to make the payment and then hurried back, clutching the payment slip. By then, the doctor had already unwrapped the bandage and was preparing to stitch up the wound… She hadn’t even caught her breath when she stepped into the ward. The man sitting by the bed turned his head to look at her as he heard the commotion.
Their eyes met.
Wei Zhi instinctively wanted to look at his hand.
Feeling her gaze, the man moved his hand, flipping it over to block her view.
Wei Zhi: “?”
Doctor: “Just finished disinfecting! Don’t move! What are you moving for?”
Wei Zhi: “……”
Shan Chong: “……”
Under the doctor’s irritated scolding, a rare look of helplessness appeared on the man’s handsome, indifferent face. He glanced at the girl standing beside him, radiating tension and worry, fearing she might suddenly start crying beside him. So he moved his lips slightly, his voice a bit hoarse, “Family member?”
Wei Zhi looked up at him in confusion.
He lazily curled his lips, “Wait outside, family member.”
Wei Zhi: “……”
Wei Zhi: “………………………………”
After a long moment, she finally processed his words, and her face burned under the mask, her ears nearly feeling like they would fall off.
She fought against the urge to squirm in embarrassment, her eyes fixed on the man.
After a few seconds, she nodded and said clearly, “Okay, Dad.”
Then, in the silence that followed, marked by the doctor’s clattering of instruments, she adjusted her mask and calmly turned to leave.