It was already past noon. Wei Zhi stood up, dusting off her backside. She looked at the man still crouching, seemingly lost in the “Two planks rule the world” wisdom from the mountain-top snow field’s “sage.” She kicked his ski boot lightly, saying, “Do you know what time it is? Hungry? Let’s go down for lunch.”
Shan Chong looked up at her with unfocused eyes, slowly uttered an “Ah,” and stood up.
They left the park and stood in front. Wei Zhi stretched out her gloved hands, grasping at the air, and said, “Why do I feel like my hands are so empty? Did I forget something?”
Shan Chong glanced at her, first checking her ski goggles—which she had a history of losing—but they were properly on her face. Her helmet and gloves were also in place, and she didn’t have any snowballs…
He looked away, “You’re overthinking it.”
They headed down the mountain.
The descent was quick, both moving at high speeds. Shan Chong on his skis couldn’t do short carving turns, but he could manage medium turns somewhat. He followed behind Wei Zhi… partly because he genuinely couldn’t keep up with her speed, and partly to protect her from any careless people who might crash into her when she was on her back edge.
Soon, they arrived at the entrance of the ski equipment hall.
It was lunchtime, and the hall was bustling with people preparing to eat. Wei Zhi took off her helmet, her face guard still on, but her eyes were filled with confusion visible beyond it. “No, I still feel like I’ve forgotten something.”
Shan Chong pulled his wife into his arms, taking her snowboard. He casually leaned the expensive board—worth over 10,000 yuan without bindings—against the doorframe. Ignoring her comment, he asked, “What do you want to eat?”
Wei Zhi thought, “The cafeteria on the second floor, what else? Can’t eat spicy food, and Xiao Man—”
Her mind went blank for three seconds.
The confusion in her eyes finally cleared, replaced by focus.
She grabbed the man’s collar, forcibly pulling him down to her level, and asked expressionlessly, “Shan Chong, where’s your daughter?”
Shan Chong: “Huh?”
Shan Chong: “…”
Shan Chong: “Ah.”
As the man’s face showed realization of what they had forgotten, Wei Zhi pushed his head away and reached into her pocket for her phone—
It was almost one o’clock, and there wasn’t a single message. Bei Ci, who seemed to have kidnapped her daughter in exchange for drinks, hadn’t made a sound.
Wei Zhi felt inexplicably anxious. Even though she knew no news meant nothing bad had happened, she still felt a sense of urgency as she dialed the number. It rang twice before someone picked up.
Wei Zhi took a deep breath, about to ask where her daughter had been taken and if they knew it was time for lunch when a “Hello” came from the other end. It wasn’t Bei Ci.
It was a woman.
The voice sounded familiar, probably Yan Yan. After all, it was recognizable, and among Bei Ci’s acquaintances, only Yan Yan spoke so softly.
“Yan Yan?”
“Yes, it’s me, Ji Ji?”
“Where’s Bei Ci?” Wei Zhi asked.
“He’s, ah, he’s giving Xiao Man a lesson?” The young girl on the phone spoke slowly and softly. “Are you down the mountain ready for lunch?”
Before Wei Zhi could answer, she heard her daughter’s excited, high-pitched laughter from the other end—
“Tell Mom I’m not hungry!”
That voice could only belong to Shan Xiao Man.
Usually, when they were skiing on the mountain, the wind was so strong that they had to raise their voices to speak…
Now, from such a distance, she could still hear Xiao Man screaming.
How loud must that be?
… Learning a falling leaf turn, at most a J-turn, could make her this happy?
She didn’t even want to eat.
Wei Zhi had learned to ski before. The beginner’s stage of pushing on slopes was exhausting. Eighty percent of people quit before learning edge control—
How could pushing on a slope make someone so happy? Either she had been brainwashed with “skiing is fun” since before birth, or she was naturally a bit slow, or she wasn’t learning to push on slopes at all.
Holding her phone, her back teeth itching with irritation, Wei Zhi pointed at Shan Chong from afar.
Shan Chong: “?”
Wei Zhi hung up the phone, glanced at the man, and said, “My sixth sense tells me your disciple is up to no good.”
Shan Chong: “Ah, well, since you’ve known Bei Ci, has he ever done anything good?”
The man’s tone was far too matter-of-fact. Wei Zhi wanted to reply, “Doesn’t pick up the crippled me from the mountainside snow field back then count?” but she held back after hesitating for a while… She put her helmet back on.
Shan Chong: “What do you mean?”
“Let’s go pick up your daughter from that shady daycare,” Wei Zhi said. “What do I mean? Can you eat without seeing her? You don’t know how to care for a child that’s not your own—”
Shan Chong was caught off guard by the scolding and even felt a bit wronged. If he could give birth, he would have done it himself…
It’s just that conditions don’t allow it, right?
Every time this topic came up, he was forced to back down. How pitiful is that?
Out there, hundreds of disciples would tremble at the mere mention of his name, the cold skiing machine. But now, he was being scolded by his wife who wasn’t even as tall as his shoulder, lowering his eyes obediently and mumbling, “Fine, let’s go.” He also dutifully put his helmet back on.
Picking up the two snowboards, he thought for a moment and asked, “The snow field at the top of the mountain is so big. You didn’t ask Yan Yan where they were just now? Where should we look?”
Wei Zhi snorted through her nose and laughed coldly.
Shan Chong looked a bit confused, tilting his head to look at her. “Huh?”
Wei Zhi gritted her back teeth and squeezed out four words: “The terrain park.”
Shan Chong: “…”
Shan Chong had never felt that the place where he ate, drank, and dreamed could sound so nerve-wracking.
While queuing for the cable car, taking advantage of his wife being in front, the man leaned his boards against the railing and took out his phone, intending to ask his senior disciple where exactly he had taken the child, and if they were in a place they shouldn’t be, to quickly retreat—
But before he could open WeChat, the person standing in front of him, as if she had eyes on the back of her head, turned around and snatched the phone from his hand.
Shan Chong: “What are you doing?”
Under Wei Zhi’s bright and piercing gaze, the man fell silent for a moment.
Shan Chong: “I just wanted to check the time.”
The person staring at him didn’t say anything, but swiftly turned back around, very quickly and neatly putting the man’s phone into her pocket, zipping it up, and patting it cutely.
Shan Chong watched this series of domineering yet childish actions, unable to get angry even if he wanted to. So, with his phone confiscated, his heart rate didn’t even increase for three seconds. He bent his elbow and leaned against the railing beside him…
He stretched out his long arm, hanging it over the young woman’s shoulder in front of him, his bare fingertips lazily pinching her soft cheek.
The back of his hand was lightly patted.
He turned her shoulder towards him and leaned in.
Following his lead, she turned her face slightly, hesitated for a moment, and kissed his cheek as he leaned in.
“A disciple’s actions are not the master’s responsibility,” the man said. “Since I couldn’t control you from the start, the school’s reputation has been ruined. You should reflect on that.”
“…”
Wei Zhi’s lips twitched, about to retort, when the cable car arrived. She was pushed and hugged into the car by the man.
…
The terrain park was on a fork behind the small park at the top of the snow field.
The newly built terrain park is connected to a mountain-circling snow trail about 300 meters long behind the small park. Beyond that, it had a feeling of “a village appearing after a deep forest,” with terrain features rising from the ground in an open area.
There was a half-pipe and several small and medium jumps. The big jump was too large a project to build, but everything else was complete.
As they descended the snow trail, Wei Zhi was carrying an atmosphere with her.
Note that it was an atmosphere, not anger.
That kind of momentum was hard to describe clearly. In any case, Shan Chong followed behind her, slowly carving turns down the slope. As he looked down while sliding, he noticed that the snow trail, which wasn’t very even to begin with, naturally had ruts and bumps by mid-afternoon. But where his wife had just skied—
How to put it? It looked like a dinosaur wearing skis had just passed through.
The ruts were so deep that you could almost see the ground. Even though Shan Chong was using a relatively stiff board today, he could feel the grooves under his feet where she had skied.
With his hands behind his back, the man chuckled indulgently, not bothering to remind Wei Zhi to slow down or anything. He followed not too far behind her, watching her carve the snow trail into a mess—
Like an angry little bird.
It was quite cute.
Though he pitied the skiers who would use this trail in the afternoon; they would probably be cursing internally, and once again, snowboarders would be at the bottom of the skiing hierarchy.
As the man was pondering this, they had already reached the entrance of the small park. He looked up and saw her make a sharp turn on her front edge, kick with her back foot, and “whoosh!” come to a sudden stop, kicking up a three-meter high snow wall in the soft snow!
A beginner girl sitting by the side of the trail, wearing a turtle-shell backpack, was amazed, looking at Wei Zhi with admiration.
Shan Chong glided over with his hands behind his back, “Not bad, that’s a high snow wall.”
The sarcastic praise earned him a slap on the chest.
Wei Zhi bounced a bit, slowing down as she headed towards the terrain park.
…
The terrain park was usually quite empty, and at lunchtime, it should have been even more deserted.
… At least, that’s how it should have been.
As soon as Wei Zhi swooshed into the terrain park entrance, she heard familiar giggles. The little girl’s voice, with its childish sharpness, easily carried far in the mountain wind—
“Again! Again! Uncle Thief, one more time! Let me try the front-edge falling leaf again!”
At this point, Wei Zhi’s heart was first filled with confusion. Her initial reaction should have been to grab her eighty-meter-long blade upon learning that the senior disciple had taken her daughter to mess around in the terrain feature park…
But listening to their dialogue seemed quite serious. Wasn’t there talk of a front-edge falling leaf turn?
With conflicting confusion in her heart, she took off her snowboard and tossed it onto the nearby snow trail. She trudged through the snow, one foot deep and one foot shallow, towards the source of the voices—
The closer she got to the half-pipe, the clearer the voices became.
“Press down on the boot tongue for the front edge.”
“I can’t press it down, look, I’m falling!”
“Can’t press it down? It’s normal for kids’ ski boots to be too soft to press down properly.”
“Then why did you tell me to press it!”
“It’s okay, isn’t that just going through the motions? Just pretend you’re doing it, so when your mom asks you later, you’ll have something to say. Otherwise, your mom will get mad at me.”
“It’s fine, she didn’t pay you anyway.”
“How come you little rascal are all about money now? You must get that from your dad.”
“Don’t take this chance to badmouth my dad. He’s just a bit more frugal than most people—that’s what Dad says! Besides, how come you say I can’t do anything? Look, I’m doing pretty well, aren’t I? Look, look!”
“I’m not looking.”
“Don’t not look, let go and I’ll show you! I’m doing well!”
“That’s because I’m holding onto you. Of course, you’re doing well. If I let go, you’d fall so hard your front teeth would fly… Come on, one more time. Don’t move around, I’m holding you—”
The conversation between the adult and child ended.
Wei Zhi then saw, inside the half-pipe, a man in a punk-style suit bent over, holding the short arms of a little Star Darling. They were face-to-face.
In her field of vision, emerging from the left blind spot, the Star Darling’s snowboard was steady under her feet. With a “whoosh,” the snowboard glided smoothly across the half-pipe.
Accompanied by Shan Xiao Man’s joyful voice, the small snowboard, carried by momentum, went up the right side of the pipe—
Wei Zhi’s heart felt like it was bungee jumping.
Fortunately, Bei Ci hadn’t completely lost his mind. While muttering the basic posture for a front-edge falling leaf turn, emphasizing “where to look” and “don’t look at me,” he guided her to stop in the middle of the pipe wall amidst the child’s happy laughter—
The walls of a half-pipe are usually about five meters high. Even half of that is quite high for a three-year-old kid who’s barely knee-high to an adult.
Yet neither of them seemed afraid. Standing on the snowboard, they swung back and forth along the pipe wall a few times. As the height they reached on the wall gradually decreased, the two stopped in the middle of the half-pipe.
The conversation continued in all seriousness.
“Did you get it?”
“More or less,” the little one affected an old Northeastern accent, “Just kneel from the knees, shin bone against the boot tongue, don’t stand on tiptoes, right? I think I’ve got the gist of it.”
“Yeah, so when your mom asks what you learned—”
“Just front and back edge falling leaf turns, right?”
“Did you learn it?”
“You bet I did.”
“Alright, watch what you say. If asked, say you properly learned intermediate-level techniques. There’s a small forest nearby and further away there’s a snow mountain where you can’t see the BMW logo. Don’t sell your uncle out, okay?”
“Come on, you can trust me to handle this, can’t you?”
“Mm-hmm, Shan Xiao Man.”
“What?”
“Is skiing fun?”
“It’s fun! Hahahahaha!”
“Will you ski again in the future?”
“Of course! Why wouldn’t I?” The little Star Darling put her short arms on her hips. “Not only will I ski, but I’ll also become as good a skier as Dad and Uncle in the future! Just you wait, soon I’ll be able to bounce around without anyone holding me!”
This adult and child, bound by a plastic friendship born from a bag of wafer biscuits, were right there making an evil deal, asking and answering, planning how to deceive her mother—
Shan Chong, listening nearby, almost wished he hadn’t come up the mountain.
Looking up at his senior disciple, who was crouching down to the same height as the little girl not far away, he raised his hand, adjusted his ski goggles, and pulled them down to cover his eyes, commonly known as “out of sight, out of mind.”
How to describe this situation?
They had genuinely started proper ski training, and the child’s interest had been cultivated. However, looking at the entire global ski circle, there probably weren’t many people whose basic snowboard training, like front and back edge falling leaf turns, were learned in a half-pipe…
Looking at it optimistically, this was indeed worthy of being Shan Chong’s daughter.
Looking at it pessimistically…
Shan Xiao Man, you won’t escape a beating today. I hope you have some moral integrity. Considering that I’ve treated you well in the past, don’t implicate your father.
“Ah, becoming a skilled skier is a goal we can work towards, but whether you become one or not has nothing to do with your dad.
I won’t take credit for introducing you to this sport. You should thank your Uncle Zei properly. When you’re about to get a beating, make sure you shout your Uncle Zei’s name loudly.
…
So, it’s settled then.”