It’s not necessarily about dating.
For some people, “liking” someone doesn’t mean mutual pursuit and doesn’t require a response. Having someone you like, or a favorite food, makes your heart beat strongly in your chest, heavy like a drumbeat.
You start looking forward to each sunrise, entering the school gates, and passing the once-boring playground. You turn your head and see the person who appeared in your dreams jumping with a ball in the crowd, taking three steps for a layup… The crowd begins to applaud, and a beautiful morning unfolds.
You see, it doesn’t even require the other person’s deliberate participation.
Just thinking about or seeing them makes your lips unconsciously curl up slightly—
It’s the sweet rot of love, taking root and sprouting even in winter. Any little movement can make it thrive.
Amidst this atmosphere of budding romance, Shan Shan faced her first semester-end exams as a high school student, followed by winter break.
In this school, the only perk for first-year students was a proper, complete winter break. As the New Year approached, no one had to brave the freezing winds at minus ten degrees to rush to early morning reading sessions.
Two weeks into the winter break, Shan Shan was making final preparations for her trip to Changbai Mountain.
Snow had been falling early in Changbai Mountain, and Shan Chong had already left for the professional team’s training base when Shan Shan’s break began—
The family was used to this. All Shan Shan did was sit beside her brother, nitpicking as he packed his snowboard bag. Annoyed, Shan Chong tossed his helmet aside and said, “If you miss me, you can come to Changbai Mountain to see me.”
How did Shan Shan respond then?
“Why would I go there? I won’t.”
But the night before, she saw a familiar figure on her brother’s short video platform—
Shan Chong had posted a video of himself training.
Usually, he’d post some daily training clips, mostly just him on the jump, nothing special. A few hundred likes, a hundred or so comments, that’s it.
But this one was a bit different…
The video featured two people.
One in white, one in black, both leaping from the big air jump in unison, then performing a perfectly synchronized fork 1440°.
Their movements were like they were cut from the same mold. Upon landing, the black figure stood steadily, while the white one wavered slightly but didn’t fall.
They glided forward side by side for a distance, then gave the standard extreme sports athlete a fist bump, ending the video.
Shan Chong’s caption for this video was simple: fsrk 1440°, Dai Duo.
Comments flooded in: “Is this Changbai Mountain?” “Back with the team?” “Has he joined the national team?” …
To all of these, Shan Chong replied with a single word: Yes.
Dai Duo was in Changbai Mountain, now her brother’s teammate.
So that evening, Shan Shan announced at the dinner table that she missed her brother and wanted to go to Changbai Mountain.
She said she wanted to go out for a bit, and of course, her family didn’t stop her—
This led to the current scene, with Shan Shan busy in the kitchen. Her mother peeked in, saw her squeezing cookie dough onto a baking sheet and sprinkling raisins, and leaned against the doorframe, watching for a while before she couldn’t help but ask, “Has your brother done something good recently?”
The girl looked up from the edge of the baking sheet.
“You’ve never visited him before…” her mother paused, “let alone with gifts.”
“I’ve grown up,” Shan Shan said expressionlessly. “I’ve decided to be nicer to my brother.”
Her mother looked at the lit oven behind her.
“Your brother likes sweet things,” she said. “He probably won’t like those scallion-flavored shaqima you made.”
Shan Shan didn’t look up, continuing to sprinkle raisins on the small cookies.
…
The next day.
When Shan Shan arrived at Changbai Mountain, it was snowing.
Wang Xin came to pick her up.
Due to her limited mobility, she sat in the rest area behind the training base, waiting for Shan Chong. Throughout the process, she was polite and quiet, repeatedly adjusting the ribbon on the gift bag of sweets…
She chatted amiably with the team’s physiotherapist.
“I heard from Chong that your legs aren’t that bad, you still have some function… In your situation, wouldn’t a prosthetic be great? You could run and jump.”
“No, thanks. Those are too expensive.”
“No matter how expensive, for a young girl like you—”
“Before getting those, you need extra rehabilitation training, and after, you need to practice using them. It’s too troublesome. I have classes to attend, where would I find the time?” The girl’s voice carried a lazy, relaxed nasal tone. “Isn’t it fine the way it is now?”
As Shan Shan spoke, she occasionally glanced out the window—
Coincidentally, the rest area’s huge floor-to-ceiling windows faced directly towards the big air training ground not far away.
So, from the warm and dry rest area, from the soft couch, she could easily see the training situation nearby.
Although she couldn’t make out faces.
But she could accurately distinguish that at a certain minute, a certain second, the black figure starting from the jump platform on a snowboard was Shan Chong. The black figure leaped from the takeoff point, arcing through the air, spinning multiple times, disappearing behind the frost-covered trees that blocked her view.
Then.
Following Shan Chong would be a slender figure…
It was Dai Duo.
…This was the first time Shan Shan had seen Dai Duo in ski gear.
He wore a helmet, his ski suit was white, and his gloves were white too.
How to put it, compared to at school, he seemed different. At school, Dai Duo represented—
The second-year senior who was great but brutal at basketball;
A popular person;
Decent at studies;
Astonishingly good at high jump during sports meets, sweeping all first places;
Tall and slender in school uniform;
Mistaken for a girl if you only looked at his face;
For some unknown reason, not very approachable.
In her peripheral vision, that white figure also leaped from the jump, as light as a falling leaf, or an elegant feather…
He soared high into the sky.
Flexing, grabbing the board.
His backhand firmly grasped the front edge between the bindings, his front hand casually extended.
Flipping, rotating.
He moved so fast, in the entire perfect, solitary parabola, he probably spun at least five times or more at the apex.
Until his figure disappeared from Shan Shan’s view, she felt a bit dazed, her palm holding the ribbon even sweating a little, her heart racing—
She saw a different Dai Duo.
But this Dai Duo now…
Seemed to be the real him.
This description might sound strange, but in Shan Shan’s eyes, compared to the person before her, the Dai Duo who appeared at school seemed a bit unreal.
No one knew that when he stepped onto a snowboard, he was far more spirited and dashing than when he leaped over the high jump bar in sneakers—
Shan Shan knew now.
Her heart raced because of this.
“Come to think of it, you can see a bit of the big air training from here,” the physiotherapist’s voice came from behind. “Can you tell which one is your brother?”
Dai Duo should have landed by now.
Based on her half-hour of observation, it would be at least ten minutes before he appeared on the jump again.
“No,” Shan Shan said with a smile, turning her gaze away. “I can’t see anything.”
“Nearsighted?”
“A bit, I suppose.”
…
It must have been close to lunchtime when the door to the rest area opened from the outside.
A man wearing a black snowsuit walked in, carrying his helmet and snow goggles. His face, unprotected, was slightly reddened from the cold. Despite the snowy weather, the sun’s ultraviolet rays were quite strong, giving his cheeks a distinct “goggle tan” – a face half-tanned, half-pale.
The siblings met without any polite small talk. A single glance sufficed as their greeting.
“You should wear a face mask,” Shan Shan frowned. “You look like a raccoon.”
Shan Chong remained silent.
“It’s fine,” the therapist chuckled. “Chong’s goggle tan doesn’t affect his status as our team’s eye candy.”
Shan Chong set down his helmet and sat next to Shan Shan, bringing with him the scent of ice and snow. He glanced at her – she didn’t even look at him, merely raising an eyebrow at the mention of “eye candy.”
Shan Chong then noticed the bag on her knees, which seemed to contain baked goods.
“For me?” he asked.
Shan Shan gave a slight “mm” in response, but when Shan Chong reached for the bag, she moved it away slightly.
Shan Chong: “?”
Shan Shan: “It’s almost mealtime. Why eat cookies now?”
Shan Chong: “Why are you talking to your brother like he’s a three-year-old in kindergarten?”
As the siblings faced off, the therapist continued his monologue: “Oh, by the way, Shan Shan, you might not know this, but your brother’s reign as our eye candy is coming to an end. We have a new team flower now.”
Just as he finished speaking, the “team flower” entered.
“Shan Chong, if you don’t want your gloves, throw them in the trash—”
The voice, still carrying the timbre of pre-pubescence, was filled with impatience. Of the entire team, only Wang Xin and this newcomer, who had just joined this year, dared to address the man by his full name. Unruly and stubborn…
At that moment, a person dressed in an all-white snow suit pushed open the door. His beautiful yet slightly sharp face was etched with impatience, eyebrows furrowed.
Dai Duo entered, carrying a black ski glove liner. He shouldered the door open, a patch of snow still clinging to his shoulder. As he grumbled his way in, he suddenly sensed the atmosphere was off—a faint, sweet scent, unfamiliar among the usual masculine odors, wafted through the air…
He paused, looking up, and unexpectedly locked eyes with the young woman sitting on the sofa.
Perhaps it was the frigid weather outside, but at that moment, the boy’s eyes seemed to freeze. For a second, as his eyebrows raised in surprise, he stared at her.
Shan Shan’s fingers tightened imperceptibly on the package in her lap. She straightened her back slightly and smiled at those cold eyes directed at her.
“It’s you,” Dai Duo said, his voice devoid of emotion.
Shan Shan nodded, matching his tone, “Yes. It’s me.”
Hearing this unconventional greeting between the two, Shan Chong was inexplicably reminded of the dialogue between the ox-head and horse-face guards of the underworld, or perhaps the black and white impermanence—
This absurd comparison made him wonder if these two were mentally sound.
Ten minutes later.
In the rest area of the Changbai Mountain professional ski team’s training base, only three people remained, the therapist having left for lunch.
The sweets bag, previously resting quietly on the young woman’s lap, had been opened. The ribbon, adjusted countless times before, now lay carelessly next to the ashtray on the coffee table. The bag gaped open.
Inside were scallion-flavored shaqima and some raisin cookies.
Some. As in, about a baking tray’s worth.
“Why did you come?” Dai Duo asked.
“To see my brother,” Shan Shan replied.
“In the rest area?”
“Well, I can’t exactly go to the jumping platform… not in a wheelchair.”
“Oh.” The boy’s voice paused. “Isn’t a wheelchair inconvenient? Have you considered getting a prosthetic limb?”
“…Uh.”
“What does ‘uh’ mean?”
Upon hearing the words “prosthetic limb,” Shan Shan, who had always firmly rejected the idea, suddenly became hesitant.
As the boy in the white snowsuit lazily brushed off melting snow from his suit, he heard her say slowly, “Do you think a prosthetic would look better?”
…What a strange question.
Dai Duo raised his eyelids slightly, glancing at her. “You can’t just sit like this forever. Your muscles will atrophy.”
Shan Shan pressed her lips together.
If anyone else had said this to her, she might have casually replied, “Oh well, I’m prepared to sit like this for life. If they atrophy, so be it…”
But now.
These words of self-deprecation, once so easy to utter, suddenly became difficult to voice or swallow.
She let out a small, forced laugh, seeming evasive.
Dai Duo frowned.
Beside them, oblivious to the “friendly” conversation between schoolmates, Shan Chong reached into the bag, grabbed a cookie, and crunched it. He then reached for another bag—
From the corner of his eye, he saw the young woman’s lips tighten as she turned her head, her intense gaze falling on his hand.
Ignoring her, Shan Chong opened the plastic bag containing another baked item – a large portion of scallion-flavored shaqima.
Shan Shan liked to experiment with various foods when she had nothing to do. Her culinary skills were excellent, and everyone in the family enjoyed her sweets, including the little ones from their relatives’ families who looked forward to eating and taking home cookies and snowflake crisps every New Year…
The shaqima was delicious too.
Soft, fluffy, and fragrant—
But only when it was milk or sesame-flavored.
“Are you crazy?” Shan Chong withdrew his hand. “Scallion-flavored shaqima?”
“It’s trendy this year, so I wanted to try it,” Shan Shan said expressionlessly. “Take it or leave it.”
Bullshit.
This neither-sweet nor-savory thing had never been trendy.
“Savory,” Shan Chong said in a tone that implied ‘you must be seriously ill.’ “Dessert.”
Shan Chong loved sweets and was the only person Shan Shan had ever known who could eat sweets without getting acne.
Already irritated by her unsuccessful conversation with Dai Duo and his slight frown, and now with her brother being picky, Shan Shan slapped Shan Chong’s hand. “Take it or leave it. If you don’t want it, I’ll take it back—”
Taking it back was out of the question.
No sane person would let their sister bring homemade sweets to Changbai Mountain, only to take them back because they didn’t like them.
But Shan Chong never followed the rules.
Under his sister’s intense glare, the man nodded, not arguing at all and even speaking quite seriously: “Alright, I won’t eat it. You can take it back.”
Shan Shan: “…”
Her eyes darted back and forth across his handsome face.
Shan Chong sensed her piercing gaze but couldn’t understand her meaning.
Hesitantly, he reached for the shaqima again, only to have his hand slapped away once more.
Silence.
Graveyard-like silence.
Shan Chong tossed the bag onto Dai Duo’s lap. “Here, for you. You don’t eat sweets and always have low blood sugar in the morning… This is perfect.”
Dai Duo, sitting on the sofa, looked down at the heavy bag of shaqima on his lap. He hesitated, then looked up at Shan Shan, who had perked up, tilting her head and watching him nervously.
“Alright,” Dai Duo said casually, leaning back in a relaxed posture. “In return, I’ll bring you breakfast when school starts.”
Although it wasn’t even New Year’s Eve yet, firecrackers were already going off in Shan Shan’s heart.
The million-firecracker kind.