Returning to the hotel, Wei Zhi sensed Shan Chong’s unusual silence as they entered the elevator. She dared not look at him, instead fixating on the ascending floor numbers. Her ears, however, remained alert, sensing that something significant was unfolding behind her.

From the moment they stepped into the elevator, Shan Chong’s phone had been incessantly buzzing with WeChat notifications. The frequency suggested someone was frantically messaging him, likely with nothing pleasant to say, based on Wei Zhi’s experience with her mother’s similar messaging habits.

Sure enough, Wei Zhi caught a glimpse of Shan Chong checking his phone in the elevator’s reflection. Though his expression was unclear, she saw him tap the screen with his thumb. Just as she was about to suggest using voice-to-text, she was abruptly interrupted.

“Shan Chong, do you have any self-respect? Any at all? I truly regret bringing you along. Even a pig would have been better—at least it’s only stupid, not infuriating!” A middle-aged man’s voice, strong and tinged with a northeastern accent, filled the elevator.

Shan Chong quickly silenced the voice message, but WeChat’s quirk of auto-playing consecutive unread messages kicked in.

“I, Wang Xin, swear to heaven that if I so much as look at you again or ask if you want to come to Altay, may I lose a hundred years of my life—”

The forceful voice rang out once more, catching Shan Chong off guard. He fumbled to silence it and hastily exited WeChat.

Wei Zhi stood frozen, the man’s shouts seemingly echoing in the elevator. She could feel her hair standing on end, her social anxiety flaring as she wished she could vanish into thin air.

Staring at her feet, she didn’t dare look at Shan Chong’s reflection. Her mind raced, wondering if this Wang Xin was the coach Shan Chong had mentioned earlier, and why he was berating him so harshly.

Suddenly, Shan Chong spoke: “Wang Xin, Dai Duo’s coach.”

Wei Zhi’s suspicions were confirmed. Confused by his voluntary explanation, she quickly realized it was an attempt to break the awkward silence.

Shan Chong continued, “I guess Dai Duo complained to him right after we left.”

He smirked, imagining the tirade of accusations Dai Duo must have unleashed—calling him stubborn, complacent, uncooperative, and lacking ambition—which had sent Wang Xin into a rage.

Noticing Wei Zhi’s slight movement, Shan Chong saw her turn to face him, asking perplexedly, “Why is Dai Duo’s coach yelling at you?”

“Oh, when I was still on the professional team,” Shan Chong replied calmly, “he was my coach too.”

As Wei Zhi processed this new information, the elevator chimed, reaching her floor. She quickly exited but turned back, holding the door open. “Can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead,” he replied.

After a moment’s hesitation, she asked, “Why doesn’t your short video platform have any big air jump videos? You only have videos of rail slides, barrel jumps, box jumps, medium and small jumps, but nothing from the big air.”

He raised an eyebrow, watching her.

Swallowing hard under his intense gaze, she mustered the courage to continue, “You used to be a professional snowboarder in big air, even competing in the Olympic qualifiers a few years ago before retiring due to injury, right? But now, years later, you can still perform so well on the medium jump, and Dai Duo says you can still do it—”

Suddenly, Shan Chong smiled at her, causing Wei Zhi’s voice to trail off.

His enigmatic smile inexplicably robbed her of the courage to continue, despite the many questions burning in her mind:

If you truly still can compete in big air snowboarding as Dai Duo claims, why have you given up?

The Winter Olympics, hosted in our home country, is a once-in-decades opportunity—why have you abandoned it?

With the nation promoting winter sports and snowboarding gaining more attention than ever, why have you walked away?

Why did you give up?

Was there not even a moment of hesitation?

Don’t you feel any regret?

If it wasn’t because you couldn’t jump anymore, do you truly have no lingering attachment to the big air after all this time?

But she couldn’t bring herself to ask. She knew it would be seen as meddling and unwelcome.

So she remained silent.

Her hand, holding the elevator door, loosened. As the doors slowly closed, she managed to whisper a barely audible “Good night” before they shut completely.

The next three days passed uneventfully as if nothing had happened. Apart from learning from Jiang Nanfeng that Dai Duo had arrived at the Jiangjun Mountain Ski Resort in Altay to train for the competition, no one mentioned Altay again.

During these three days, Wei Zhi successfully advanced to become a competent edge-changing skier. As Shan Chong began refusing gloves and flaunting his bandaged hands, she finally started practicing the carving turn that Jiang Nanfeng had been working on since arriving in Xinjiang.

Lu Xin joined her.

Since their superficial reconciliation, he would appear punctually by Wei Zhi’s side whenever Shan Chong had lessons in the park. An outsider might have thought Shan Chong had hired him to keep an eye on her.

Today, for instance, Wei Zhi was practicing carving turns on the advanced slope. Nearby, Lu Xin occupied the edge of the run, working on some simple freestyle moves.

His natural talent was undeniable. In just a few weeks, he had progressed from struggling with 270-degree drive spins on intermediate slopes to successfully landing 540s on the advanced slope two out of three times.

No wonder Wantong Hall was willing to accept him; they likely saw his potential as a freestyle skier and wanted to recruit him for their club.

Wei Zhi shakily completed a forward edge carving turn, then stopped to examine her tracks. The uneven path, alternating between skidding and clean edges, left her feeling frustrated.

She sat down, sighing heavily.

Lu Xin, who had just finished his run, glanced at her tracks and then at her board. “Your board’s too wide. It’s harder to get on edge… Did you rent it from the ski shop?”

“Yeah,” she replied. “My teacher got it for me.”

“Doesn’t he know your foot size?” Lu Xin asked, surprised. “Look how far your bindings are from the edge. This board is way too wide for you.”

Snowboards come in various lengths and widths. In theory, wider and longer boards offer more stability. However, when the bindings extend beyond or fall too short of the board’s edges, it can affect edge control—overhang limits the maximum edge angle, while too narrow bindings reduce responsiveness.

Wei Zhi shrugged, guessing that Shan Chong had prioritized stability given her frequent falls.

She hadn’t bothered asking him about switching boards now that she was learning edge control, knowing he would likely respond with his usual silence before matter-of-factly stating that with proper technique and practice, any board could be used for basic riding.

Lu Xin sat down beside her. “You should ask your teacher if it’s time for a new board… buy one or rent a different one. Where is he, anyway?”

Buy a snowboard? That didn’t seem like a bad idea. Constantly renting was inconvenient and didn’t look great.

“He’s teaching,” Wei Zhi replied, her mind still on the idea of buying a board. “Someone found him this morning, apparently heading to Altay for a big air competition in a few days. They came here for some last-minute guidance—”

“Guidance from whom?” Lu Xin asked reflexively.

Wei Zhi’s train of thought broke. She looked up at him, bewildered.

After a moment, she understood his question.

“If you don’t know my teacher, you should look up ‘Shan Chong’ online,” Wei Zhi said coldly, turning away. “Don’t you know he used to be on the national team? Those people aren’t paying six thousand yuan an hour on a whim, and your Wantong Hall members don’t cower like mice before him because of his looks.”

Wei Zhi’s tone suddenly turned cold, unlike her usual soft manner.

To be honest, Lu Xin’s reflexive question had already irritated her. Noticing her stiff demeanor, the young man on skis paused, looking at her tense face. He explained, “That’s not what I meant. Of course, I’ve seen your teacher’s videos; he’s truly impressive. But you said someone came to him for help with big air jumps?”

“What about it?” Wei Zhi asked.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but his short video platform doesn’t have a single big air jump video,” Lu Xin hesitated before continuing. “I was just wondering… can he still do big air jumps?”

As soon as he finished speaking, the girl beside him pushed herself up.

“He can,” she said coldly, glancing at him. “Just a few days ago, he performed a frontside 1980 right in front of me. The video you all saw was my poor filming.”

Dropping these words, she skied away, putting several meters between them—her whole demeanor radiating “I don’t want to deal with you.”

She skied down to the equipment hall entrance, bent to remove her skis, and walked away carrying them. Lu Xin, who had followed her down, only managed to catch a glimpse of her hurried figure as she entered the dining hall and sat at a table with two others.

Realizing his chance to invite her to lunch was gone, Lu Xin gave up and turned away.

…

Wei Zhi, having successfully avoided Lu Xin and found Shan Chong and Bei Ci, squeezed in to join them.

Now, the young girl was shoveling food into her mouth while watching a basic carving tutorial video Shan Chong had sent her earlier.

The man, having finished his meal, leaned back in his chair, watching his little disciple eat while diligently studying. He asked, “Weren’t you skiing with your friend this morning? Where is he?”

At the mention of Lu Xin, Wei Zhi frowned—she did so, pausing her phone scrolling and saying listlessly, “Don’t mention him, I’m eating.”

Hearing this, the corner of the man’s lips quirked up. “What, does he ruin your appetite?”

Wei Zhi looked up, seriously examining her handsome teacher’s smirking face for a moment before nodding solemnly, “You’re much better for my appetite.”

Shan Chong: “…”

He wasn’t sure if she was insulting him or not.

Sitting across from them, Bei Ci idly scrolled through his phone while listening to the teacher and his new favorite disciple banter. He sighed, “Christmas is coming soon.”

Wei Zhi stopped eating and checked the calendar on her phone. Indeed, it was already December 20th… She realized she had been in Xinjiang for many days and didn’t want to leave at all.

“How are we celebrating Christmas?” she asked casually.

“Single dogs will spend it barking,” Bei Ci replied offhandedly, then turned to the unresponsive man beside him. “Friendly reminder, Nitro’s people told me about Christmas approaching ten seconds ago.”

Hearing the sponsor’s name, the man who had been silent as a corpse finally decided to lift his eyelids.

Seeing his ghostly appearance, Bei Ci felt exasperated. “Although Little Sis’s front edge video has now reached over 200,000 likes, I still have to say, you can’t just give them a split-second, barely visible shadow as product placement in return for their boards, can you?”

Shan Chong opened his phone and started replaying the video.

Wei Zhi covered her ears, embarrassed enough to want to crawl under the table. “Ah! If you’re going to watch it, mute it!”

The man lazily muted the sound and watched it seriously. “Isn’t this video interesting?”

Bei Ci deadpanned, “Oh sure, it’s so interesting I could say that blurry shadow outline is Burton’s new Custom model.”

Shan Chong corrected him, “That’s not possible, the new Custom is yellow.”

Bei Ci: “…”

The senior disciple, unable to bear it any longer, kicked his junior sister under the table. “You tell him! What’s going on? Is he learning from you now? Before, he wasn’t motivated but at least he worked hard to make money—now he’s poor, unmotivated, and not even trying to make money!”

Wei Zhi shoved a straw into her yogurt bottle, puffing out her cheeks as she gulped it down while mumbling, “You’re talking nonsense. I’m very motivated; I’ve started practicing carving.”

Bei Ci stared at her, speechless at having a junior sister who proudly announced she was preparing to learn carving.

Shan Chong chuckled softly, picked up his phone, and sent “Posting tonight” to the sponsor. Then he looked up at the person sitting across from him and said, “You’re coming this afternoon, right?”

He meant for Bei Ci to help film the video.

Bei Ci didn’t react much, just grunting in agreement. After all, he had been Shan Chong’s dedicated cameraman for years. Of the videos on Shan Chong’s short video homepage, eight out of ten were filmed by him…

From all angles.

Rail slides and ground tricks were one thing, but sometimes for jump videos, the cameraman had to follow onto the ramp and jump down to get the best angle…

That’s something ordinary people couldn’t do.

The outcome for ordinary people who tried was usually like Wei Zhi’s attempt—the remaining 20% of Shan Chong’s videos filmed by various people typically ended with Shan Chong landing steadily while the cameraman face-planted.

“What are we filming this afternoon? A run through all terrains?” Bei Ci asked. “Rails, barrels, boxes?”

“Hmm?” Shan Chong said, “The brand asked for jump videos earlier.”

“Alright, impressive! These days, only the brand daddy remembers what your original specialty was… So, small and medium jumps then?” Bei Ci continued to inquire. “How about the halfpipe?”

Shan Chong fell silent. He rested his chin on one hand, absently scrolling through his short video platform’s follow list while considering how to shoot the proper video that afternoon—whether to just do a small jump or add a medium jump as well—

Just then, his finger slipped, refreshing to reveal a post from over an hour ago. The poster was Dai Duo, with a large caption reading: “For the loser to see.”

The man hesitated for a second, not bothering to guess who it was insulting, and straightforwardly opened it to take a look.

The video background was the training ramp at the Altay ski resort, with a tall 8-meter air jump. A figure, tiny from that height, wearing a white snowsuit, started from the drop-in point, took off—

The camera zoomed in, showing him grabbing the front edge between his bindings, tucking his body as the snowboard began to rotate in the air, completing six full rotations.

The camera zoomed out as the white-clad young man landed steadily after six rotations, gliding for a distance before stopping.

The person recording cheered, shouting “Dai God is awesome!”

The video ended there, with a caption at the bottom: fsquadcork2160 🙂

In the hour since it was posted, the video had over 30,000 likes and thousands of comments. Opening them revealed:

“China’s number one big air snowboarder! (thumbs up)”

“Who’s better, you or Shan Chong?”

“Damn, we’re both snowboarding but why are we so different!”

“Dai God is truly awesome, GOAT!!!!”

“Who’s Dai God insulting? Hahaha!”

“Nice, that 2160 was very stable. Go for it, Dai God is our hope for next year!”

“Duo is in Altay preparing for the qualifiers? Haha, I’m in Altay too! Want to watch your competition!”

“Oh, this is indeed Altay. Preparing for the World Cup in a few days? Gotta place!”

“2022, go for it!”

“Bring back a medal next year! We’re counting on you for big air snowboarding!”

The comments were full of congratulations, expectations, and praise for his skills… quite repetitive actually.

Yet Shan Chong scrolled through them for quite a while.

Finally, he smiled to himself, his dark eyes showing no emotional waves. He put down his phone and said casually to Bei Ci, “Let’s just do the medium jump this afternoon.”

As he spoke, he didn’t notice the little girl sitting next to him had been watching him the whole time. Now her eyes flickered with curiosity about what he had seen to produce such a strange, meaningful smile—

So, daringly, before the man could react to his conversation with Bei Ci, her hand darted out and quickly flipped over his face-down phone.

On the screen, the looping video was just showing the young man in the white snowsuit taking off on his snowboard, flying off the big air jump, his board spinning like a helicopter rotor in a quadcork 2160…

Stirring up a pool of flattering comments.

As Wei Zhi tapped to open the comment section, the man reacted, pushing away her approaching head and picking up the phone. “What are you looking at?” he said, exiting the short video platform.

Wei Zhi rolled her eyes, muttering “Who doesn’t have their phone,” and picked up her own to find Jiang Nanfeng. She quickly located a user called dai. dd at the top of Jiang’s follow list—Dai Duo’s account.

She clicked on it and selected the most recent short video. Honestly, she initially wanted to see what comments had made Shan Chong look so intently, but unexpectedly, before she could even tap the comment section, she saw the caption outside his video.

[For the loser to see.]

Wei Zhi: “…”

No exaggeration, for a moment, Wei Zhi’s blood seemed to flow backward, rushing from her feet to the top of her head. The blood surged so strongly that she had to grip the table to avoid fainting from anger—

She didn’t need to ask who the “loser” referred to. After all, three days ago, Dai Duo had used that word quite freely when addressing Shan Chong!

Pointing at her phone, the young girl’s starry eyes flashed with anger. After a while, she finally found her voice, asking the man beside her in disbelief through gritted teeth, “Did you see his caption?”

Shan Chong lowered his eyes slightly: “Mm.”

“?”

Mm?

What does “mm” mean?

Wei Zhi felt like she was witnessing a showcase of the world’s most confusing behaviors: “Is it your comprehension that’s the problem, or have I misunderstood something? The other day you stayed silent when some random person, a former coach or teammate, cursed you to high heaven, and now you see his caption, and you still—”

She really couldn’t finish the sentence.

She had been watching him the whole time.

So at this moment, she realized that even knowing Dai Duo was insulting him, the man had spent a long time scrolling through comments praising Dai Duo—

She didn’t know what he was thinking.

But she liked him.

So imagining this scene, she couldn’t bear it. The person she liked should be shining brightly, high above others, receiving everyone’s worship and praise—

Not allowing anyone to slander or look down on him.

Dai Duo being unclear in the head was one thing, but even Lu Xin, who hadn’t been skiing for long, could inexplicably ask, “Is your teacher not doing big air jumps anymore because of some trauma or something?”

Where did they get the gall?

What great injustice was this?

Wei Zhi’s eyes stung with unshed tears. She rubbed them hard, making them red and hot. Her throat felt choked, as if she might suffocate at any moment.

She was quite surprised herself—so this is what it’s like to care for someone—

When they are hurt, that pain is transmitted to her with doubled force.

At this moment, whether he needed it or not, she felt like she could draw a sword and face the whole world for him.

“It’s just a quad cork 2160, what’s Dai Duo so great about? Can’t you do a 1980 too? And that was on a medium jump! If you were on a higher jump, wouldn’t you spin even more—”

Shan Chong: “You’re too noisy.”

Wei Zhi ignored him completely. Her eyes were so sore she had to squint slightly. She tried hard to glare at the white-clad chatterbox in the video on her phone: “What’s he so proud of!”

Shan Chong lifted his eyelids slightly: “Which eye of yours saw him being proud?”

Wei Zhi was stunned. She whipped her head around to glare at the man, tears suddenly blurring her vision, making the glare less intimidating: “Is something wrong with my ears? Are you trying to argue with me for Dai Duo’s sake? Isn’t he insulting you!”

Her voice was thick with a nasal tone.

However, he couldn’t be bothered to respond to her. He locked his phone with a click and stuffed it into his pocket, about to stand up when the person beside him grabbed his sleeve. He looked down, meeting her gaze, and raised an eyebrow.

As if asking, what’s wrong?

Wei Zhi held back again and again.

She was trying her best to control her emotions, but at this moment, under the man’s calm inquiring gaze, she felt that if she remained silent any longer, she would surely die of frustration right there.

So, after a few seconds of silence, she sniffled loudly and finally asked the question that had been bothering her for three whole days: “So why don’t you want to do big air jumps anymore?”

The question landed.

Shan Chong didn’t speak. Even Bei Ci, who had been watching the scene unfold with a relaxed expression, froze and sat up straighter.

He kicked Wei Zhi under the table, but she pulled her foot back out of his reach, stubbornly gazing at the man through tear-filled eyes.

Her fingertips, gripping his sleeve, were turning white from the force.

After a moment of standoff, the man’s expression still hadn’t changed. He simply pulled his sleeve from her grasp with a bit of force and said calmly, “There’s no ‘want’ or ‘don’t want’ about it. Do you want to see me do a big air jump?”

She hesitated: “It’s not that I completely want to…”

Large teardrops fell uncontrollably.

“Then let’s do it,” the man said lightly. “It’s not a big deal. Is it worth your tears? Are you a crybaby?”