As he spoke, Wei Zhi was ignoring Jiang Nanfeng. She held a wine glass in one hand while leaning forward to ask Backbiter for Shan Chong’s U-shaped pool video, intending to post it on her social media.
Suddenly, the focus shifted to her. Caught off guard, she had only typed the first three characters of “Isn’t my master amazing?” when her hand slipped, accidentally posting the incomplete message. She didn’t even have time to set the visibility settings.
Sitting up straight, Wei Zhi stared at Shan Chong with a slightly dazed expression. The latter maintained a normal, composed demeanor.
He had spoken matter-of-factly, not expecting the brief silence that fell over the previously lively table. Everyone paused their small group conversations and turned to look.
Wei Zhi could feel all eyes alternating between her and Shan Chong—Little Bear’s gaze was particularly intense.
Slowly straightening her posture, she sat expressionless, thinking to herself, “Look all you want. Even if you lose sleep over this, my trip won’t have been in vain.”
As she was still inwardly grumbling, an unexpected assist came from Lao Yan, who asked with a casual smile, voicing what everyone was thinking: “What’s going on? Are you two an item?”
It seemed like an offhand question, and it probably was.
Lao Yan was the type who, charitably speaking, lacked boundaries, or less charitably, was a player. He was always all smiles with everyone, frequently saying things like, “Sister, if you’ve taken my class and then go to someone else’s, that’s cheating.” Anyone he had taught thought they shared some level of intimacy with him.
After his argument with Jiang Nanfeng, he had toned it down slightly, but not by much. He just stopped flirting openly with his entourage of admirers and stuck to discussing classes when necessary…
Wei Zhi had seen his social media posts. Any video he shared would attract comments from the likes of “Kitty Cindy,” “Baby Meow is Your Sweetheart,” and “Strawberry Apple Little Chili.” He’d consider it a failure if a post didn’t get at least a hundred likes, blaming it on poor timing if it didn’t.
So from his perspective, Shan Chong’s words seemed a bit odd, mainly because men don’t typically talk like that—but truly shocked? Not really.
As the table fell silent, Shan Chong remained calm. He glanced at Lao Yan before turning to Wei Zhi and saying, “Why don’t you ask her who she called when she was drunk last time?”
Wei Zhi, still holding her glass, smiled innocently at everyone. “Previously, my main contacts were delivery drivers.”
She paused before adding, “Recently, Chong-ge has been the most frequent and top contact in my call history.”
Oh, that seemed to make sense.
The crisis averted, and everyone returned to their previous conversations. The atmosphere at the table relaxed, and Shan Chong poured himself another drink.
He drank Western liquor without even bothering to add ice, downing it like baijiu, one glass after another. After three or four glasses, his movements slowed, and the aura around him became less gloomy, though his gaze began to wander.
When people nearby tried to chat with him, he would turn slightly to respond, his words tinged with a hoarse breathiness.
Wei Zhi observed him for at least an hour. During this time, she barely did anything except nibble on a few green peas with sparkling water, chatting idly with Jiang Nanfeng and Hua Yan.
She never touched the glass she had used for the earlier toast again.
“What happened to that guy from Wantong Hall?” Hua Yan asked her. “I heard he confessed to you the day before we came to Altay. Tsk, quite the Romeo and Juliet scenario, wasn’t it? He’s got some nerve.”
Jiang Nanfeng chuckled. “Isn’t it kind of cute?”
Hua Yan retorted, “Your eyesight must be failing.”
Wei Zhi waved her hand dismissively. “I had a stomachache that day. His timing couldn’t have been worse.”
Hua Yan’s face showed a natural, matter-of-fact expression. “Right, he must be crazy. How could Shan Chong’s disciple possibly be interested in someone from Wantong Hall? What was he dreaming about?”
The statement had a strong cliquish flavor, essentially protective of their own. Outsiders might have frowned upon hearing it, but as the one being protected, Wei Zhi responded casually, not feeling much about it.
However, her peripheral vision discreetly fell on the man who had just been mentioned not far away—
He was still drinking.
He wasn’t even playing drinking games with Backbiter and the others, just drinking alone.
As he poured a new glass, his movement was a bit exaggerated. A drop of liquor splashed onto the bandage on the back of his hand holding the glass. The white bandage absorbed the amber liquid, staining a small area.
His hands were beautiful, with distinct knuckles.
When the weather wasn’t too cold, he would occasionally forgo thick ski gloves and wear only the inner liners. The black gloves clearly showed his five fingers, and when he was on the flying ramp, you could see every detail of his hands gripping the edge of the board.
Now, those fingertips that usually held onto the board’s edge for various tricks were grasping a wine glass, bringing the amber liquid to his thin lips, and drinking it all in one go…
In the dim light, his thin lips glistened with moisture from the alcohol.
This was the first time Wei Zhi had seen Shan Chong drink like this.
The atmosphere indicated he was drowning his sorrows.
She hesitated for a moment, then couldn’t help but turn to Hua Yan and say, “He’s had quite a lot tonight.”
She was trying to call for help.
“Leave him be,” Hua Yan said. “To be honest, I disagreed when he insisted on coming to Altay that day. He knew there was a big ski jumping competition here in a few days, with the media and Wang Xin around. Yet he still wanted to come… How could these people let him off easy? I won’t even mention how much pressure they’re putting on him; he’s just reopening his wounds.”
And this was only the first day—it was bound to be a bloodbath.
“Chong-ge hardly ever drank before. You’ve seen how even when we drink until we can barely stand, he doesn’t touch a drop,” Yan Yan added in her soft, girlish voice, lacking any aggression. “Drinking is so harmful, especially for professional athletes—”
Jiang Nanfeng interjected, puzzled, “Why be so disciplined? He’s retired now.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, Jiang Nanfeng seemed to realize something. Then, along with herself, their entire circle fell into silence.
Wei Zhi felt her heart breaking.
She wanted to toast these three sisters: “Thank you, each of you, for stabbing my heart with your words. Now it truly hurts.”
“Let’s stop talking about it. Let him drink. We’ll drink too,” Hua Yan raised her glass. “Cheers!”
Wei Zhi casually picked up the sparkling water from the table.
Yan Yan asked, “Eh, why are you drinking that? Is your stomach starting to hurt?”
Wei Zhi mumbled a vague response. For the rest of the evening until nightfall, she didn’t touch another drop of alcohol.
…
It was rare to see someone drinking to drown their sorrows from midday until dinner time. As darkness fell completely, the bar began to fill with more people. Several groups came over just to toast Shan Chong with their drinks.
It was hard to tell what these people’s intentions were.
But Shan Chong didn’t refuse anyone.
By the end, his eyes were bloodshot, as if he had conjunctivitis. The man sat in his chair, his back fully supported by the backrest, eyes downcast and silent. He still held half a glass of liquor with two fingers, the liquid swirling with his careless movements.
He looked like he was about to fall asleep.
No one knew what he was thinking.
After sending away yet another person who had come to toast him, the man finished the last sip in his glass. When he tried to set it down, he missed, and the glass rolled off the table, shattering on the floor. The harsh sound of breaking glass was quickly drowned out by the music…
No one even noticed.
Wei Zhi, sitting next to him, realized it was about time. She leaned in slightly, bringing her mouth close to his ear, and asked softly, “You’ve had so much to drink. Are you feeling unwell? Should we… should we head back and get some sleep?”
The young woman’s voice was gentle and docile.
By this point, Shan Chong was indeed quite intoxicated. His mind was filled with the surrounding music, and he had barely any reaction to who came or what was said…
But upon hearing her voice, all his blood seemed to rush to his brain. He slowly turned his head with great effort, expressionlessly glancing at her.
His gaze was now numb and dark, like that of a corpse, frightening Wei Zhi considerably. She feared he might tell her to get lost and shrank back a bit.
“In a bit,” the man said concisely, his speech already somewhat slurred. He thought carefully for a moment before asking, “What’s wrong? Stomachache?”
His breath was heavy with alcohol, his eyes bloodshot, looking as if he was on the verge of death, yet he still remembered to ask if her stomach hurt…
However, Wei Zhi couldn’t feel honored by his concern. Perhaps Shan Chong’s usually imposing image was too deeply ingrained, so being stared at expressionlessly and questioned made her want to cower and run away—
Fearing that one wrong answer might lead to a scolding for insisting on coming along earlier, the young woman quickly shook her head. Just as she was about to say something, the phone in her pocket rang.
She took it out, glanced at the caller ID, and immediately placed it face-down on the table.
Shan Chong glanced at the vibrating phone on the table and asked, “Who is it?”
Faced with the drunk man, she didn’t dare lie: “My mom.”
She sounded somewhat resentful, starting to believe that saying—unfortunate events often cluster together in a single day, with unpleasant things piling up, constantly reminding you of the meaning behind “This is nothing, there’s more to come, just wait and see”…
“Why don’t you answer it?” she heard the man ask.
“She probably doesn’t have anything nice to say,” Wei Zhi replied. “Let’s just forget it.”
“No matter how unpleasant it is, can you avoid listening to her for your entire life?” Shan Chong raised an eyebrow, seemingly puzzled.
He looked at Wei Zhi, who couldn’t bear his gaze anymore. Feeling as if she had a second father sitting beside her, the pressure was immense. Muttering “Why do you have to manage even this,” she picked up the phone and answered with a “Hello.”
“Where are you? Why is it so noisy in the background?”
On the other end of the line, Ms. Yang got straight to the point.
Wei Zhi looked around, her gaze circling before meeting the eyes of the man beside her—he was already drunk, his pupils dark, staring at her intently. Their eyes locked, and he showed no intention of looking away.
She almost dropped her phone. Wei Zhi’s mind went blank for a few seconds before she steadied herself, gripping the phone with both hands. “I’m out. Is something wrong?”
“Nothing, just wondering if you’ve had enough of running wild in Xinjiang.”
Ms. Yang’s clear voice came through the phone. The iPhone’s sound insulation wasn’t great, and Wei Zhi wasn’t sure how much the man had overheard. She glanced at him awkwardly.
Looking at her phone, she saw that Ms. Yang had indeed seen the video of Shan Chong she had posted earlier…
She had even liked it.
“If you have something to say, just say it. I don’t have the energy to argue today,” the young woman said irritably, wanting to end the call quickly. “If you want to start something, do it another day.”
“Wei Zhi, have your wings grown so strong?” Ms. Yang’s voice suddenly rose on the phone. “You think I want to call you? Is it trendy now for mothers to check on their daughters? Dr. Han asked me to find out if you’re coming back for New Year’s Eve this year! Didn’t you say last year that you wanted to set off fireworks? If you’re coming back, he wants to contact someone to buy fireworks for you! Honestly, just saying this makes me angry. What does he see in you? If I were him, I’d find someone else!”
Wei Zhi pressed the phone against her ear.
She despairingly realized that Ms. Yang’s voice was so loud that even covering the phone couldn’t muffle it—
When “Dr. Han” emerged as a key phrase, she felt the man’s gaze, which had previously shifted away, return to her face.
Her heart sank.
“…Then tell him to find someone else quickly!” Wei Zhi said. “Nancheng has banned fireworks for how many years now? What’s there to set off? To light fireworks, you’d have to drive to Qujiang! He’s just fooling you with those words—I’m not going back for New Year’s! I might not even go back for Spring Festival! If there’s nothing else, I’m hanging up!”
“Don’t hang up! You’re not even coming back for the Spring Festival? Are you crazy?!”
“What’s there to go back for?”
“What for? To get engaged! Get the marriage certificate, whatever you want!” Ms. Yang said. “Have you lost your mind? Leaving your fiancé waiting in Nancheng without a word, posting videos of other men on social media. Who are you showing those to, Dr. Han?”
Wei Zhi was stunned by the forceful utterance of “fiancé.”
Before she could react, suddenly, Ms. Yang fell silent on the other end, then spoke again in a slightly more gentle tone: “Come to think of it, if this is your ploy, it’s indeed effective… Dr. Han probably saw your social media post, which is why he suddenly asked me about you coming home for New Year’s.”
For some inexplicable reason, Wei Zhi felt the atmosphere around her change.
The man had been lazily watching her before.
Now it seemed he wasn’t anymore.
She suspected it might be her imagination, but when she forced herself to look over, she found that someone else had come to talk to Shan Chong, and he was now engaged in conversation with that person…
She didn’t know what was said, but he laughed, though the smile didn’t reach his eyes.
It was eerie.
Wei Zhi figured he hadn’t heard anything, and without dwelling on his ominous expression, she breathed a sigh of relief. She truly regretted answering this damned call and said with suppressed anger: “I posted that video simply because I wanted to. I just asked if you thought it looked good—you even liked it—This level of skiing video, you’ll only get to see during next year’s Winter Olympics, so what’s wrong with giving you a preview to broaden your horizons? For Han Yiming’s sake? Is that necessary? If it weren’t for a little mishap earlier, I would have set it to a limited audience. Do you think you would have seen it then? And don’t keep saying those… those three words I can’t even bring myself to say. Stop talking nonsense!”
“Wei Zhi, don’t say things out of anger.”
Wei Zhi was indeed speaking out of anger—
But that anger wasn’t directed at Han Yiming.
Her heart felt like it was being clawed by a hundred cats, and she didn’t know how to explain herself. She dropped a final “Han Yiming and I are impossible. I wasn’t just saying that out of anger at the restaurant that day. Stop fantasizing,” and hung up the phone.
She shoved her phone back into her pocket, thought for a moment, then took it out again and turned it off completely.
Angry to the point where her temples throbbed, she raised her hand to rub them, then pressed her brow. As she was trying to take deep breaths, she heard someone beside her slowly say: “That brother of yours, fiancé?”
Wei Zhi’s hand froze mid-motion.
She turned her head in confusion to see the man lounging in his chair, looking at her.
“He’s not,” she said. “My mom was talking nonsense.”
The man’s face showed little emotion.
He smiled slightly, teasing lightly: “I never thought my little disciple was a runaway bride who fled to her master.”
Wei Zhi was speechless.
His smile faded as he sat up a bit, pouring the last dregs from the bottle next to him into his glass and downing it in one go.
…
As the drinking continued, most who were going to get drunk were already there.
Shan Chong held his liquor well. Even when drunk, he didn’t talk much or cause trouble, just sitting there quietly, though it was a bit scary, and no one dared to provoke him.
It wasn’t clear if he was asleep or lost in thought.
He had drunk far too much tonight.
Wei Zhi sat next to him, observing him at an average rate of once every five seconds, ready to take action if he showed any abnormal reactions like wanting to vomit or even alcohol poisoning… She had been drinking sparkling water all evening, her stomach full of it, and now she needed to use the bathroom but didn’t dare leave. She just sat there uncomfortably.
As she was feeling increasingly uncomfortable and looking around, hoping Backbiter or Lao Yan would have the courage to stand up and suggest leaving to end the night, her gaze had just swept over when she overheard a few people whispering nearby—
Little Bear asked: “What’s wrong with Chong-god? He just drank himself under the table tonight?”
Backbiter: “Bad mood, I guess.”
Lao Yan: “What happened? I saw the comments under the U-shaped pool video were quite friendly, nothing seemed wrong… Except for a few people who came to toast sarcastically tonight, but Chong-ge was already in a bad mood by then.”
Hua Yan glanced at Little Bear, clearly a bit annoyed at her question: “It’s not a big deal, just that there are too many people with loose tongues in Altay, and it’s bothering him.”
Little Bear was about to ask more when Yan Yan frowned and decided to clarify: “This afternoon he ran into his former coach and got scolded… Chong-ge started jumping after learning basic skiing with that person, so it’s normal for him to feel upset after being scolded.”
“What’s wrong with that person? How could they not know his situation?” Little Bear said. “We all know a bit about his family—”
“Wang Xin isn’t having an easy time either,” Backbiter interrupted her expressionlessly, seemingly impatient with Little Bear’s guessing. He spoke in a numb voice, “He just knows that Chong-ge has trained on the big jump his whole life, dedicating the past twenty-some years entirely to that ramp, and now he’s giving up completely. It’s like it was all a dream, and all his previous efforts were wasted… If he just gives up like this, Wang Xin would be the first to get anxious.”
Little Bear, already a bit tipsy, leaned on the table after hearing Backbiter’s words and moved closer: “Even if he dedicated the first half of his life to skiing, there will come a day when he has to move on—Can’t he do something else to distract himself?”
Backbiter looked at her.
“Teach skiing, do promotions, make videos, save money, get married, have kids, return to normal life, what’s wrong with any of that?” She smiled. “There are so many things a person can do in life, don’t ordinary people also have to live step by step?”
Her words plunged those around her into silence.
When no one responded, she simply turned around, pulled over the last bottle of wine on the table, poured two glasses, and walked around the entire table, past Wei Zhi, to stand in front of Shan Chong.
“Chong-god, there are many things a person can do in life, like making money to support a family, dealing with daily necessities.”
She was being straightforward, “Thinking too much is useless. If you can’t go back, don’t look back. Why not move forward—”
Up to this point, Wei Zhi still felt that although this person was being a bit presumptuous and stating the obvious, at least she was speaking sensibly.
“Backbiter said you only knew how to ski before, skiing was everything, so when you’re idle now, you feel lost,” Little Bear thought for a moment and continued, “Have you ever considered dating?”
She held out the wine to Shan Chong.
The man raised his head, looking at her emotionlessly.
Little Bear smiled at him: “I’ll queue up.”
The table fell into dead silence.
At that moment, the atmosphere froze. It wasn’t exactly awkward, but everyone turned to look at this sudden interlude. The men had ambiguous expressions, while the women looked bewildered—
Oh, except for Huhu.
She seemed to admire Little Bear’s directness as if she wanted to applaud her.
Wei Zhi was busy looking for a knife on the ground.
Before she could prepare herself mentally, thinking that if Shan Chong accepted that glass of wine, she would be taking the throne for the worst mood of the day, she saw the man raise his hand and gently push away the glass Little Bear had offered him with the back of his hand.
“I already have someone I like.”
The man’s voice sounded as if he had never been drunk, clearer than ever before, floating lightly into the ears of everyone present—
“It’s just unfortunate that I’m useless. I’m no good at skiing, and it seems I’ve fallen for someone I shouldn’t have.”