The next morning, Wang Xin was waiting downstairs early. He couldn’t focus on his breakfast, taking twenty minutes to eat a bowl of noodles while checking his watch three times. His internal monologue shifted from “30 minutes until I go upstairs to fetch them” to “20 minutes left” to “10-minute countdown.”
At 9:30, he began to worry about what he’d do if they had already left when he went up. Just as his anxiety peaked, the elevator doors opened. A man in a black hoodie and sweatpants emerged, followed by a petite girl.
The girl, barely reaching his shoulder, trailed behind like a little eunuch, carrying two helmets—one black, one white—filled with face guards and gloves.
As they walked out, they were arguing.
“Just carry things properly. Don’t swing them around. Can’t you walk normally, with your heels touching the ground?” the man grumbled.
“I won’t drop them! If I do, I’ll pay for them!” she retorted. “Can’t you speak nicely? In TV dramas, the male lead mysteriously appears before the female lead after a long journey. But in reality, the male lead mysteriously appears on a ski jump, while the female lead travels far to surprise him. And instead of appreciating it, he criticizes her walking style—”
“…”
“This is how I walk. Take it or leave it.”
“I was just saying. You’ve got quite the energy for such a long rant.”
“Mm-hmm, what’s wrong with that?” The helmets in her hands clacked as she gestured. “I slept well in your arms. If you didn’t want me so energetic, you should’ve made me sleep on the couch instead of holding me.”
Wang Xin rolled his eyes discreetly.
Now he understood why Shan Chong alternated between calling her “wife” and “mom.” Apart from his birth mother who carried and raised him, this young woman wasn’t just pretty—
She skillfully turned harsh words into soft ones. When she argued with her hands on her hips and a stern voice, it was real arguing. But when she used the same posture to say sweet, coaxing words, it became adorable.
Look at Shan Chong—his eyebrows had been raised in annoyance, but now…
He let it go.
His large hand pressed against the small woman beside him, pulling her into his embrace with one swift motion. He didn’t forget to plant a kiss on the top of her head.
“I’m about to throw up my breakfast,” Wang Xin said expressionlessly.
“The more you say, the more jealous you sound,” Shan Chong retorted.
Shan Chong grabbed a red bean bun and ate it in a few bites. He was about to say they could leave when he noticed Wei Zhi still looking around with her plate. He sat back down.
When she returned with her plate of food and a glass of juice, she saw the two men engrossed in their phones. She hesitated, then said, “I’ll eat quickly.”
“No rush,” Shan Chong said. “Take your time. We’re not in a hurry to pledge the national flag.”
Wei Zhi ate quietly and quickly.
Wang Xin looked up from his phone and noticed Shan Chong hadn’t brought his snowboard.
He probably brought the helmet because you can’t enter the ski resort without one.
Making them look like tourists.
…The Changbai Mountain Heavenly Lake isn’t even on the ski slopes, damn it.
He was about to curse but reminded himself not to rush. Pushing too hard wouldn’t end well, especially since Shan Chong hadn’t been near Changbai Mountain for two or three years. Who knew where this sudden courage came from—
Ah.
Wang Xin glanced at the young woman quickly chewing a piece of watermelon. Feeling his gaze, she looked up and mumbled, “I’m eating as fast as I can. You can’t skip breakfast yourselves and not let others eat.”
Wang Xin: “…”
Fine.
At least it wasn’t completely unexplained.
…
Compared to other major ski resorts in China, Changbai Mountain was probably the most remote.
Every snow season, people from the “Three Refrigerators” (northeastern provinces) scattered. Industry bigwigs usually stayed at the five major ski resorts in Chongli or the two in Jilin, with a small portion in Xinjiang…
Only Changbai Mountain was typically occupied by provincial or national training teams.
It truly had few people and great snow.
This year, Changbai Mountain’s terrain park had been renovated. All the features and props were brand new—
Even the paint on the ground and poles hadn’t been completely scraped off. In larger resorts, with everyone’s destructive tendencies, the top layer would likely be worn down to metal within a day…
Here, you could still see traces of blue paint.
Someone was training in the halfpipe, performing a double cork 720 from the left side, then repeating it on the right—completing one of the most difficult halfpipe combinations, a back-to-back double cork 720. It wasn’t quite at the international competition level, but the person was steadily practicing and improving.
Shan Chong watched for a while before walking towards the jump.
This was his final destination. The jump was still the same, no different from his memory—
For a long time, he had spent every winter here…
He knew it intimately.
So familiar that he could tell the slight angle differences in each corner without measuring;
So familiar that he knew exactly where the paint had worn off the starting gate’s handrails, even with his eyes closed;
So familiar that he could instinctively adjust his starting route to perfectly avoid the small dip in the middle of the takeoff ramp…
Now, the previously paint-chipped starting gate, worn takeoff ramp, and buffer zone had all been refurbished—
The snow was smooth, the ramps were new.
Shan Chong didn’t feel much unfamiliarity.
He walked around the terrain park with Wei Zhi. As they passed by the side of the jump, a figure came down from the starting gate. The newcomer was tall and slender, riding the same yellow Burton Custom board that Shan Chong owned. He stood at the takeoff ramp, pressed his waist, and set off—
Smooth edge control, and precise positioning.
After three edges, he straightened his board. Probably due to his familiarity with the place and knowledge of the jump’s slight defects, he instinctively shifted slightly to the left as he left the takeoff ramp. He grabbed his board.
Off-axis rotation.
The fluidity of his aerial maneuver drew admiring sounds from onlookers. After several rotations, he landed steadily. There was a slight backseat landing, but it wasn’t too noticeable. After a brief pause, he regained his balance using centrifugal force and stood upright on his snowboard, completing the move.
A very stable FS cork 1800.
Applause erupted around him, but instead of immediately stopping to remove his board, he glided over to Shan Chong and asked, “Where’s your board?”
The newcomer’s voice was slightly hoarse, still carrying traces of recent puberty.
Shan Chong glanced at him without speaking. It was rare for Dai Duo not to start barking like a dog upon seeing him, so he didn’t feel like initiating a conflict—
“Weren’t you in Jilin? Oh, Songhua Lake, right? You just went to the wrong place. If you want to take a stroll, why not go to Beidahu? There are more of your peers there—old men who need to hold their backs while wearing boards. You could join their sunset years walking group.”
“…”
The dog barking hadn’t stopped after all.
Shan Chong gave him a lazy glance, not angry, and said, “Move aside, a good dog doesn’t block the way.”
“You’re in my way. This is the landing buffer zone.”
“Your landing spot was miles away from me. Did I ask you to drag your board over here to bark wildly?” Shan Chong said, “You think I’d let you crash into me?”
Dai Duo wanted to say, yeah, I can’t crash into you, you’d probably fall on your own.
The words were on the tip of his tongue when he suddenly remembered where they were—
At any other ski resort, he would have dared to spout such venomous words tenfold. But at this moment, he suddenly realized they were at Changbai Mountain. The jarring sense of incongruity instinctively made him shut his dog mouth.
That’s right.
Changbai Mountain.
This person had returned.
Unconsciously looking back at the jump platform, he saw Wang Xin standing at the top, hands on his hips, surveying the scene below.
This scene was familiar. Countless times, he had stood at the bottom of the jump platform with Shan Chong, discussing what was wrong with their recent moves or arguing until they were ready to fight. Back then, the now-balding middle-aged man would stand there, hands on his hips, patiently waiting for them to finish their discussion…
Then they would return to the platform together to face a scolding.
Time is a curious thing, turning one year over after another.
The hand tearing off calendar pages never stops, even if the paper might have already been cut into the palm.
Dai Duo remained silent for a few seconds. He bent down to remove his snowboard and, under the watchful eyes of a few familiar onlookers, thrust it into the man’s arms. “Since you’re here anyway,” he said.
Why not take a jump?
Snow from the bindings fell as the board landed in the man’s arms, scattering onto his snow boots. He reflexively reached out to steady the board that was about to slip down.
Wearing thin black glove liners, the man’s fingertips swept across the icy surface of the bindings, which had frozen due to compression from stepping. The ice shattered at his touch.
He chuckled softly.
Too lazy to say even one more word that might seem sentimental.
…
The few spectators standing at the bottom of the platform didn’t even know who the newcomer was.
They just saw someone standing at the bottom of the jump platform talking to Dai Duo for a few moments, taking his snowboard, and heading up to the jump platform—
They were a bit bewildered, thinking, “Oh, this person can jump too? We thought he was just a tourist.”
As they watched the black figure carrying the yellow snowboard toward the starting platform, people belatedly realized that this jarring color combination didn’t feel unpleasant. On the contrary, amidst their mental confusion, it seemed increasingly harmonious and familiar.
Who was this person?
They racked their brains.
The man carrying the snowboard arrived at the starting platform, dropped the board at his feet, bent down to adjust his snow boots, and strapped into the board.
Standing up straight, he turned his head and casually took the snow goggles off Dai Duo’s face, putting them on his own. Amidst Dai Duo’s cursing, he bent down again, pressing the bindings’ buckles.
He was ready to go.
His fluid starting motion and the nearly vertical drop of the jump line often made many first-time big air jumpers instinctively ride their boards sideways for a bit at the beginning…
However, this person showed no signs of discomfort.
Shoulder compression, center of gravity adjustment, edge control, and board release.
The black figure rode the bright yellow snowboard, the sound of the board’s edge cutting through snow becoming the only sound that even the cold wind couldn’t mask.
The snowboard crossed the jump platform. The black figure on the board was like a light falling leaf, as if in a slow-motion movie frame. He shot off the jump platform, and in mid-air, there was a noticeable moment of suspension…
Bending, grabbing the board.
His body tilted, the axis rotation smooth, each turn almost textbook-perfect with his head nearly parallel to the snow surface.
When they realized he had effortlessly surpassed the “expert threshold” of 1800 degrees, their hearts pounded, blood boiling and a name surfaced in their minds!
“Ah, isn’t this person, that—”
Amid a faint, almost inaudible question.
The man’s axis rotation continued for several more turns.
With a “pop,” the last turn completed, the snowboard landing perfectly. The standard front edge landing made him arch his back, his core slightly engaged—
“It’s Shan Chong, right?”
The name, almost forgotten by the mountain’s spirits, once again emerged from the lips of bystanders.
Under everyone’s gaze, the man who should have been able to stand steadily suddenly leaned forward and knelt on the snow after riding for a while.
No one knew if he had fallen, or if that jump had exhausted all his strength, or what had happened…
They could only see him kneeling with his back arched in the center of the vast snowy expanse, his black figure suddenly seeming so small against the enormous snow-covered mountain.
He supported himself with one hand on the snow surface, the other slowly reaching towards the rear binding, seemingly about to unfasten it and stand up. However, the moment he touched the binding, his hand stopped.
They watched as he bent down, burying his face in the messy snow.
In a posture that seemed to reverently kiss this mountain range.
…
Standing at the high point, looking down at the black figure on the snow below, as snow fell from the sky, his silhouette became somewhat blurred…
The entire scene seemed frozen, unusually quiet.
Wei Zhi leaned one hand on the railing, not rushing to go down to find him, nor racking her brain for nice things to say, to praise or encourage him later—
Her mind was blank for the first time, thinking about some currently irrelevant things…
For instance, she had thought that Shan Chong might never make a comeback.
If he didn’t come back, what then?
He would probably still be very happy.
Spending time with someone he liked, going to Chongli in winter, to Changbai Mountain, to Jilin, and meeting up with three or five good friends at the end of the snow season to bid farewell to winter in Xinjiang.
Summers in Guangzhou, in Chengdu, in Harbin, his figure would be seen in the big refrigerator.
Life would go on, day after day.
A few more years would pass.
He might have a child, breaking his vow to never teach beginners again, holding a learning rope, guiding a child wearing a dinosaur suit on a children’s snowboard, wandering around the beginner slopes…
There would be nothing unhappy about it.
Just like an ordinary person, living a peaceful, uneventful life.
— But there would be no more glory.
People’s applause would only be for the man who remained at the forefront of ice and snow sports promotion, not sighing for him standing on the podium;
He would sit on a decaying throne until his halo dimmed and new successors came to replace him.
He understood all of this.
But from beginning to end.
The king’s eyes always gazed at the borders of his realm, where he once fought.
On that horizon shrouded in darkness, perhaps he too was hoping that one day, the sun he once turned his back on would dawn again.
He must have heard all the grand principles countless times, right?
He simply wasn’t content to end his life like this.