When Wei Zhi returned home two hours later, she opened the door to a shocking sight: the man was still squatting next to the courier package in the entryway, scissors by his feet, and the mysterious board…
Still there.
Unopened.
Hearing her open the door, the man looked up at her and nodded solemnly: “You’re back.”
“…Don’t tell me you’ve been squatting in that position for two hours.”
As Wei Zhi spoke, she felt deeply that she had raised a large dog even more loyal than Hachiko…
Squatting at the door as soon as it opened, staring at her with dark eyes, conveying a sense of reproach like “You have the nerve to come back so late.”
“He did go to the bathroom in between.” A small head peeked out from behind the wall in the entryway, blinking eyes identical to her mother’s. “Mommy, I missed you so much. I felt so lost when I woke up at noon and didn’t see you first thing.”
Little Shan Xinyue is indeed three years old this year, and her mouth has become the most flowery in the family—
Who knows where she learned it from?
This coming New Year, the whole family could probably put on a solo crosstalk performance just with her.
But Wei Zhi falls for this kind of talk. Hearing these words, her heart melted.
She put down her bag, walked over, took the iPad from her daughter’s knees, turned it off, and cupped her daughter’s fragrant, soft cheeks to kiss her.
Squatting not far away, the cold skiing machine who at this moment only had eyes for this mysteriously alluring snowboard, now tilted his head to look at the two fair faces, their features infinitely similar due to the miracle of blood ties, both cute and full of vitality…
It was surprisingly easy to feel like he might be the happiest man in the world.
However, he only paused to look for three seconds before hesitating.
“Can we open the package now? I want to see the board,” he said.
The world fell silent for a moment.
“If you’re so curious, you can open it first.”
Wei Zhi stood up and walked towards the entryway. Her daughter followed behind, unable to grab her waist, stumbling as she held her hand. Hearing her mother’s words, she bounced and emphasized: “He doesn’t dare! He doesn’t dare, oh!”
Wei Zhi chuckled softly, patting her little paw, and bent down to whisper in her ear: “He’s not afraid of me.”
Shan Xinyue’s eyes widened, clearly not believing it.
“This isn’t fear,” Shan Chong said calmly. “It’s respect, understand?”
It was very respectful.
His words were filled with an atmosphere of “Just try saying you don’t understand.”
Then, with Wei Zhi’s approval, the man who respected his wife finally got permission and opened the package—
A gray Hammerhead high-speed carving board, model TypeRR. How to describe this board…
A pure carving board.
The kind that most people would struggle to even attempt a flat trick on.
Upon opening the package and seeing the small tree on the board’s base with the red background behind it, Shan Chong’s hands instantly left the box. He didn’t even have the urge to take it out further.
The man stood to the side with his hands withdrawn, wearing an expression that clearly said “disappointment.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? What’s with that expression?” Wei Zhi asked. “Didn’t Gray give you a board this year? How have they wronged you? Don’t you know how hard it’s been to get their boards since 2021? I’ve been wanting to tell the distributors to notify Japan to increase production. There’s a neighboring country with 300 million people getting into ice and snow sports…”
“…”
Shan Chong was silent for three seconds.
“I was thinking that when I opened it, I’d be pleasantly surprised to find it was a random Salomon or Burton or even a Nitro or Sims park board, and then you’d sweetly tell me you wanted to learn jumps—”
He finally revealed his fantasy.
Stopping halfway through.
Wei Zhi looked at him strangely: “Go on?”
Shan Chong stared back at her expressionlessly. After a few seconds, he bent down, raised his hand to cover his daughter’s ears, and said in a calm voice: “I can’t continue. I suddenly realized that even waking up after a wet dream during puberty wasn’t as embarrassing as this moment.”
“…”
As soon as he finished speaking, he saw the person in front of him first look at him expressionlessly, and then after a few seconds, her originally fair face gradually turned red…
Then she hooked the corner of her mouth, her cheeks gradually inflating, puffing up.
She let out a “puff.”
Finally, it turned into a big laugh.
The man released his daughter’s ears and glanced at her with a bit of dissatisfaction: “People want to take my classes and book two months in advance of the snow season…”
“Women, you know,” she waved her hand, “don’t cherish what they already have.”
“…”
…
In the end, they took out the board, removed the film, and handed it to Shan Chong to install the bindings.
The man squatted beside Wei Zhi, removing the original bindings from her previous board. As he pried at the bindings, they made “click-clack” sounds… As they say, the son of a mouse knows how to dig holes. For Shan Xinyue, the sound of the snowboard and bindings was more attractive than the cartoon playing on her iPad.
Soon, she ran away from Wei Zhi’s side, “pitter-pattering” to Shan Chong’s side, and squatted down next to the man.
“Daddy, what are you doing?”
The little one cupped her chin, tilted her head, and looked closely at the screwdriver in the man’s hand.
Shan Chong lifted his eyelids to glance at his daughter, casually putting a screw in her hand, his tone kind and gentle: “Being enslaved by your mom.”
“Don’t put everything in the child’s hands,” Wei Zhi looked up and saw the screw in Shan Xinyue’s chubby little paw. “She might stick it up her nose later.”
Shan Chong raised an eyebrow.
Shan Xinyue also raised an eyebrow.
Squatting in a row behind the snowboard, the father and daughter’s expressions were cut from the same mold. Before the man could speak, the little girl let out an “Oh”: “Why would I stick this thing up my nose?”
Wei Zhi: “…”
Shan Chong: “Yeah, why would she?”
Under the reproachful gaze of father and daughter, Wei Zhi felt a bit of pressure. Her hand, which was reaching for the next package, paused, and she stammered a bit: “Well, isn’t it better to prevent than to cure?”
“Even if you’ve never seen a pig run, you’ve eaten pork. Please, at least come and look at how big the binding screws are,” Shan Chong withdrew his gaze. “Even Wang Xin couldn’t fit it up his nose.”
He couldn’t help but take a jab at his coach.
Wei Zhi was speechless. To be honest, most binding screws are under the footbed of the binding, and you’d have to pry open that plate to get to them…
She hadn’t paid much attention to how big they were or what they looked like.
So, amid the father and daughter’s friendly (sarcastic) dialogue—
“Daddy, it seems like Mom thinks my IQ isn’t very high. What’s going on?”
“Then you should act smarter in the future… And tone down that Northeastern accent.”
“Oh, so what counts as smart?”
“This snow season, as soon as you learn basic sliding, immediately follow me into the park. Learn to hit jumps in three days, and your mom won’t be able to keep up with you even on horseback.”
Wei Zhi expressionlessly opened another courier package. A tightly compressed purple fluffy object, once the packaging was opened and it came into contact with air, immediately exploded outwards. She picked it up and shook it out.
A thick, child-sized StellaLou sherpa fleece onesie snowsuit, just right for a three-year-old…
It even had rabbit ears on the hood, with soft wire inside so they could stand up and be posed.
Wei Zhi gestured towards her daughter in the distance and nodded with satisfaction, making an “Mm” sound.
For a child Shan Xinyue’s age, others might like My Little Pony, but her aesthetic taste was surprisingly normal. She didn’t care much for flashy things, but her eyes lit up at the sight of the Disney outfit in her mother’s hands—
She immediately abandoned her father.
Standing up and “pitter-pattering” back to her mother’s side, she tugged at the hem of her short skirt: “Is this for me? Is this for me? It is! It is! Mommy, you have to say it is!”
She spoke while bouncing, but her hands were well-behaved. No matter how much she liked it or how excited she was, she didn’t reach out to grab the thing hanging in her mother’s hand until she got permission.
Finally, Wei Zhi bent down, unzipped the StellaLou onesie, and smiled, telling her to try it on.
“Mommy, am I going to learn to ski too?”
“Mm-hmm,” Wei Zhi zipped her up, tugging at the slightly long sleeves and pant legs. “Your dad wanted to teach you a year ago, but you had just learned to walk not long before that.”
“Is it like the skiing in Crayon Shin-chan?”
“…You watch Crayon Shin-chan?” Wei Zhi adjusted her rabbit ears, thought for a moment, and said, “That’s not suitable for you to watch. Don’t watch it next time.”
“Isn’t that for kids?”
“That’s for big kids.”
“So am I going to ski like in Crayon Shin-chan?”
“Ah,” Wei Zhi tried to remember which episode of Crayon Shin-chan mentioned skiing, and after thinking for a while, she slapped her forehead as she remembered, then patted her daughter’s round head. “It’s not quite the same. That’s called alpine skiing. Your dad, he—”
“Then I want to do alpine skiing!”
“…”
Wei Zhi looked up and cast a sympathetic glance at the man who was burying his head in fiddling with the bindings. At this moment, he looked up, and death rays shot over.
He looked like he wanted to burn a hole through the mother and daughter.
Wei Zhi scooped up the StellaLou-clad child rolling at her feet and placed her on the living room coffee table, leaning in to kiss her fragrant cheeks: “Don’t bully your dad anymore, okay? Today’s quota was already used up by Mommy with that carving board…”
Not far away, the man squatting in the living room let out a loud, cold laugh.
“See,” Wei Zhi tapped her daughter’s nose, “I told you, your dad isn’t afraid of me, he’s giving me the cold shoulder…”
“Eeh!”
“Winter is here!” Wei Zhi smiled at her daughter, “The season when he calls the shots has arrived. Starting from today, you be good, and I’ll be good too.”