On October 1, 2024, the snow season kicked off with an opening ceremony amid a blizzard in Keketuohai, Xinjiang.
Like geese flying south, this time of year always sees a group of people gathered in various southern cities’ Sunac ice rinks, preparing to migrate north. Snow enthusiasts eagerly anticipate bidding farewell to indoor rinks…
Meanwhile, in the south, the sun still blazes high in the sky.
The greatest distance in the world is when you’re running air conditioning in the south while I’ve already turned on the heating in the north.
For Wei Zhi, this is always the busiest time of the year.
As the snow season arrives, Shan Chongxuan, who spent the entire summer idling on various ice rinks, dry ski slopes, trampolines, skateboards, and surfboards, must return to his true calling in the ice and snow industry—
From judging various competitions to training in Changbai Mountain and performing at different ski resorts…
In winter, they settle in the Northeast.
This means that as soon as winter begins, their family must relocate from the south to the north until the entire snow season ends.
While friends’ social media feeds are filled with posts like “Keketuohai’s opening was terrible this year, don’t come, but I’ll probably be back next year anyway,” the door at the end of the tenth-floor corridor in a high-end residential complex in the southern city stands wide open.
A young woman, 25 years old but still looking like an invincible college student, wears a light blue hoodie and gray skirt. She leans against the doorframe with one hand while slipping on running shoes at the entrance.
Behind her are more than a dozen high-stacked boxes ready to be shipped by courier.
Wei Zhi, about to leave, turns back and shouts, “Chong-ge, did you send some of the pain relief patches I had you buy last time to my mom?”
“I just went to pick up the package. How could I have time? I’ll send it tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? We’re flying back to the Northeast the day after. May I ask if your suitcase is packed?”
“Tomorrow.”
“You have quite a lot to do tomorrow.”
“I can manage.”
“Yeah, right.”
No matter if they’re Olympic champions, athletic stars, or skiing gods, all men in the world seem cut from the same cloth—
That irritating smell of incompetence…
Tsk.
Wei Zhi finishes putting on her shoes, drags over one of the courier boxes thrown by the door, opens it, and takes out several boxes of pain relief patches, stuffing them into her woven shopping bag…
As she’s stuffing them in, her peripheral vision catches sight of a large, rectangular courier package placed in the entryway, about as tall as she is.
Wei Zhi stares at this package for a few seconds, then judges by its length that it must be the 24-25 model snowboard she ordered a few months ago, which has finally arrived.
“Did you bring back my snowboard too?” she asks. “Is it mine?”
During her questioning, the man who had been puttering around in the kitchen slowly walks out. Time hasn’t left any negative marks on him; he’s simply transformed from the Kashiwabara Takashi of years ago in snow gear to the current Kashiwabara Takashi in casual cotton and linen home clothes…
Still stunningly handsome.
Only his eyes and brows now carry the maturity and steadiness of a man in his thirties.
At this moment, the man glances at his wife standing in the entryway, then at the cardboard box she’s leaning on, and lets out a slow “Ah”: “Who else’s could it be? My board wouldn’t be this length… Which board did you buy?”
“Not telling you.”
“Didn’t even ask for a discount?”
“I did,” Wei Zhi grins. “Who doesn’t know who I am? This year, there’s even a new domestic snow gear brand asking if I want to promote their products…”
Shan Chong glances at her, seeing her smile so wide her eyes have disappeared, as if she’s scored some great bargain—
After accumulating experience over three snow seasons, her skill level now surpasses 90% of skiing enthusiasts in China…
Under his careful guidance, after one more snow season, it wouldn’t be impossible for her to become a proper female skier.
Yet she still acts as if she’s just riding on her lawful husband’s coattails.
Shan Chong decides to scold her less this snow season and give more loving encouragement.
“I’ll help you unpack it and install the bindings,” he says good-naturedly.
“I’ll chop your hands off,” Wei Zhi pouts at the door. “Don’t touch it.”
For her, it truly is three seconds of affection, followed by its complete disappearance in the fourth.
The man tosses the kitchen wipe for his phone and walks up to her at the entryway. He bends slightly to look her in the eye for three seconds, then raises his hand to pinch her cheek and pull it to the side.
The plump, fair face in his hand becomes distorted as he pinches it. Seeing her eyes narrow slightly, looking like a chubby-cheeked cat, the man releases her face and hooks his finger under her chin. “So I can’t even touch a mere snowboard, huh? Are you going to install the bindings yourself later?”
“Unwrapping it is about the ritual,” Wei Zhi’s voice becomes a bit more reserved.
There’s no help for it; when you’re under someone’s roof, you have to bow your head—
Even though she’s spent three snow seasons and is now a big shot who can dominate the slopes and impress beginners wherever she goes, everyone in the snow circle knows…
Shan Chong’s wife can’t even install bindings.
She can recite details about angles, stance width, binding brands, snowboard models, flex ratings, and so on, but when it comes to dealing with these things individually, like how to adjust binding angles, where the screws go, how to change the highback angle…
She doesn’t know.
Ask, and the answer is simply: she doesn’t know.
“It’s learnable but tiring”—
As a woman, these six words should be engraved on her forehead.
Raising both hands to hug the man’s neck, pulling him down to lean closer to her, Wei Zhi moves in and sweetly kisses his cheek: “Let’s unwrap it together when I get back… Then you can install the bindings for me.”
The man lets out a cold laugh.
She blinks, shaking his neck a little. The man turns his head, looking at her up close. She doesn’t speak, just stands on tiptoe and kisses the corner of his lips.
“You’re just sweet-talking me to get me to install your bindings.”
“And to stop you from unwrapping my new board.”
“…” The man says, “What if I just take a look without unwrapping it?”
Wei Zhi smiles sweetly, leaning close to his ear to say, “Don’t touch it.”
…Ten minutes later, Wei Zhi leaves.
Shan Chong turns back to the kitchen and takes the banana egg custard off the stove, placing it on the dining table.
He picks up his phone from the side to check the time and notices a new message from his wife—
[Full Moon Chirp: Take the egg custard off the stove, then wake up your daughter. If she sleeps too much, she’ll be bouncing around unable to sleep at night.]
It’s now 2:15 PM.
Shan Chong looks at the message, then at the perfectly steamed egg custard beside him. He chuckles softly, his dark eyes warming with affection. He quickly replies “Got it” and puts down the phone.
Looking up at the wall clock, he decides to let his daughter sleep until 2:30 before waking her. While waiting for her post-nap sweet treat to cool, the man wanders around the house…
Checking the packed courier boxes.
He checks them one by one, finally stopping in front of the upright courier box in the entryway—
He has to admit, when he carried the board up earlier, it was quite heavy.
Probably due to special materials, the board has some weight to it, and its length is nearly the same as Wei Zhi’s height. Judging by the width, the waist isn’t narrow either…
He guesses it’s either a carving board or a park board.
Then,
Based on her performance over the past two snow seasons, and given that Wei Zhi wouldn’t actively and consciously buy a park board, he deduces that this must be a carving board.
Whose brand is it?
Which company released a good-looking new carving board this year?
Shan Chong squats expressionlessly in front of the courier box, studying it—
This is troublesome.
His curiosity is piqued.
He wants to open it.
“Dad, Mom said you’re not allowed to touch her board!” A childish voice pipes up behind the man.
It’s just a little kid with a child’s voice, but she deliberately tries to sound gruff, coming across as both cute and fierce. “She’ll skin you alive later.”
Standing behind the man is a miniature version of Wei Zhi.
The three-year-old girl has big, round eyes. Children this age are naturally blessed with beautiful eyes, and that’s the one feature she inherited from her mother. Her small, delicate nose and lip shape, however, take after her father.
When she was born and first brought out after being cleaned, before she even opened her eyes, little Shan Xinyue melted the hearts of her maternal and paternal grandmothers. The newly minted maternal grandmother, Ms. Yang, who was just under 45 and had sworn “I’ll never babysit for you,” couldn’t let go of her granddaughter, repeating one phrase: “This child picked the best features.”
She took the best from both parents.
After all, her father’s monolids wouldn’t suit a girl.
At this moment, little Shan Xinyue’s messy hair is tied into a small braid, disheveled from her recent nap. Her fair little face is still flushed from sleep, and the sunlight behind her turns her two blonde wisps of hair brown…
Wearing her pajamas, she stands behind her father with her hands behind her back, issuing a warning with an air of precocious wisdom.
“Who on earth taught you to speak with such a heavy accent?” The man asks without turning around, just reaching out to touch the snowboard-shaped courier package. He examines the packaging, then the courier label, which doesn’t indicate which brand sent it…
He’s itching to open it but maintains a poker face.
“I don’t talk like that either.”
“Self-taught genius.”
“…” Shan Chong lowers his eyes. “How do you know your mom doesn’t want me to touch this thing? Did you wake up on your own just now? Were you eavesdropping from behind?”
Shan Xinyue shrugs, not feeling like she was eavesdropping—
She woke up smelling the banana egg custard and sat on the stairs for quite a while, cupping her face. Neither of them at the entryway noticed her.
“Really,” Shan Xinyue says, “don’t touch her stuff, or she’ll cry again.”
As if finding common ground, Shan Chong turns around this time, looking his daughter up and down: “You think your mom is emotional too?”
Shan Xinyue: “Oh, she has been quite emotional lately. Maybe she’s having a little brother.”
Shan Chong was about to say that her mom had always been a crier, but the words caught in his throat as he processed what his daughter just said. He pauses abruptly and asks, “No way?”
“What do you mean?” Shan Xinyue blinks her big, sparkling eyes. “The way you look now, your expression seems to say ‘One of you is troublesome enough.'”
“…”
Shan Chong doesn’t know who his daughter’s intelligence takes after, but this ability to nitpick, make a fuss, and use keen observation for improper purposes comes ten-tenths from her mother.
“The snow season is about to start. If she’s having a little brother, she won’t be able to ski,” Shan Chong says casually. “Then she’d skin me alive.”
Shan Xinyue doesn’t understand so much—
Of course, she doesn’t know why having a little brother would make her mom want to skin her dad.
As she’s using her small brain and incomplete worldview and knowledge to try and figure out the logic and relationship behind this, she sees her father touch the courier box again.
“Shan Xinyue.”
“What?”
“Go get the scissors for opening packages from the top of the shoe cabinet for Dad.”
“…” Shan Xinyue takes a step back. “I won’t get them.”
Shan Chong stands up, leaning down with his hands on his knees to ask his daughter: “Alright, so I can’t order you around anymore, is that it?”
If Wei Zhi were here, she might ask the man how classless he has to be to intimidate his three-year-old daughter at the age of thirty…
But this is Shan Chong, after all.
How many disciples has he trained? His students are all over the world, and their first reaction when mentioning their master is always “Oh, that poker-faced guy.”
When he puts on a stern face, everyone is afraid.
Shan Xinyue hugs one leg of a dining chair next to the table with one hand, nervously shaking her head: “I won’t go. I know what you’re up to. You want to use the scissors to open the package… Then when Mom comes back and scolds you, you’ll say I handed you the scissors to open it, so she shouldn’t forget to scold me too—”
She’s still young and doesn’t know the professional term “accomplice.”
But she understands the concept very well.
That’s the gist of it.
Caught between her beloved mother and her intimidating father, Shan Xinyue is torn. After struggling for a while, she finally blurts out, “If you keep pressuring me, I’ll call Mom!”
Shan Chong gives his daughter a light glance.
“Coward.”
By the dining chair, the little girl who’s just been attacked widens her already round eyes even more—
This makes her look exactly like her mother when she’s working part-time.
Certainly, they didn’t bring home the wrong baby when they left the hospital.
“How can you call me names?” she accuses.
“I didn’t call you names.”
“You called me a coward,” she points out. “How can that be a good thing? I can tell from your expression it’s not a good thing!”
“Speak properly,” the man stands up from beside the package, casting it a reluctant glance. “Your accent is so heavy, your classmates will laugh you to death when you go to kindergarten next year.”
Hugging the chair leg, the little one lets out an “Oh.”
“All know I speak Cantonese and Guangdong-hua.”
“…”
“My egg custard has cooled down.”
Letting go of the chair leg, the miniature version of Wei Zhi smiles at her father, walking over to hug his leg.
“If you have nothing else to do, and you can’t open the package, since you’re free anyway, could you at least hand me my egg custard… ya?”
She blinks, asking sweetly and obediently—
“Can you, Daddy?”