EGRV 32 | Delirium Drive

Like embracing gravity.

Before they set off, Chi Yu insisted that Liang Muye drive Chi Yu’s car. He wanted to be able to say what needed to be said—to beg for forgiveness or accept his condemnation—and then immediately drive away, vanishing from the other man’s life forever. In short, he wanted to put a period at the end of everything with dignity, or at least, with completeness.

Seeing Liang Muye hesitate, Chi Yu nervously began listing reasons. For instance, his car had more supplies in case of an emergency. Or, if the snow got really heavy, they could play poker inside his sleeping bag.

At the time, Liang Muye had wondered just what kind of dreams occupied that little head of Chi Yu’s all day long. Did he think Liang Muye was too much of a gentleman, or did he simply not view him as a normal man at all? If you actually put him and Chi Yu in the same sleeping bag, and Chi Yu took his clothes off, who the hell would be thinking about playing poker? But today the champion called the shots. It was rare for Chi Yu to explicitly name something he wanted, so for this one day, Liang Muye wanted to indulge him.

So, they swapped to Chi Yu’s car in Parking Lot 7, tossing Liang’s snowboard bag and his stuffed-to-bursting backpack into the trunk.

In the heavy snow, the deep red Highlander sat close to the dark green Mercedes AMG. Both were coated in a layer of white, like icing sugar—red and green, looking like a belated Christmas.

Villagers was a sports bar attached to a five-star luxury resort hotel at the base of the mountain. As luck would have it, it was a long weekend; the hotel was fully booked, and the bar was bustling. As soon as the two entered and looked up, they saw the 4K LCD screens starting to broadcast the replay of today’s freeride competition at Blackcomb. Specifically, the snowboarding division.

Great, Liang Muye thought. He had originally planned to use this opportunity—catching Chi Yu alone for dinner and drinks—to chat a bit more. Now, that seemed completely off the table.

As expected, once Chi Yu was in a crowded place, he became a bit withdrawn again. He ordered two beers. Before the food even arrived, he was already watching the match with his head up and drinking with his head down, polishing off a bottle by himself. Drinking alone wasn’t much fun, so Chi Yu asked, “Did you quit drinking? Since this is a special occasion, can I… buy you a drink, too?”

Liang Muye was about to refuse, but thinking that today felt almost like Chi Yu’s birthday, he changed his mind and agreed. He turned the drink menu toward Chi Yu, pointing to the section for signature cocktails. Bars in ski resorts often had a unique flair, naming every cocktail after a ski run.

“You pick for me. Just one.”

Chi Yu read the menu earnestly, going over it twice before raising his hand to call the waiter. When the new waiter arrived, he asked for Chi Yu’s ID again, studying it against the light for a long time before asking, “Are you really born in ’96?”

There were no seats facing each other left, so they were placed in a corner by the window, sitting side-by-side on a leather sofa. Mindful of Chi Yu’s right arm, Liang Muye deliberately sat on his left. While Chi Yu obediently waited to be carded, Liang Muye looked up to study his profile.

Chi Yu’s black hair was slightly damp from the snow, making the natural curl more pronounced. It was parted along the cowlick and messed up by his own hand, looking as if it had been styled that way on purpose. Ignoring the scar, the lines of his profile were clean and sharp. His cheeks, likely from too much sun exposure during his alpine skiing days, had a scattering of sunspots that looked very much like freckles. If he groomed himself a bit more and smiled more often, he would be considered a gentle kind of handsome. Although, he’d probably still get carded when going for a drink at age thirty.

A flash of orange crossed the TV screen. Liang Muye gently nudged his arm, signaling him to look up.

It was the broadcast replay of his run from this afternoon. The giant screen displayed his name and age. Chi Yu had a stroke of genius and told the waiter to look up as well. 

“I really am from ’96.”

The waiter looked down to confirm, then back up. It was true. Realizing the person in front of him was the athlete on screen, his jaw dropped in surprise. 

“You’re the one from today—”

Only then did Chi Yu speak, ordering the drink for Liang Muye: “Delirium Drive.”

The path of ecstasy and excitement leading to the loss of oneself.

Once the menu was taken away, Liang Muye asked, “What’s special about it? Vodka, lime, cranberry juice…” He looked at the ingredient list below. It was essentially a twist on a traditional Cosmopolitan. The pale red cranberry juice settled at the bottom of the glass, looking indeed like a misty sunrise. It actually suited his taste quite well.

Chi Yu, however, said, “Gao Yi knows this one. It’s the steepest run at Sunshine Village in Banff. My favorite. A freeride paradise.”

Liang Muye smiled. Sure enough, the answer had nothing to do with the alcohol. It was exactly the kind of thing the person in front of him would do.

Chi Yu hadn’t watched the competition live during the day, so now his eyes were practically glued to the screen. The only interruption came when a young guy slid over to ask Chi Yu a question.

The bar was noisy. Chi Yu didn’t hear him the first time, so he fished his hearing aid out of his jacket pocket, put it in, and asked the guy to repeat the question. The young man had likely seen the exchange between Chi Yu and the waiter and recognized him, asking if he could take a photo and get an autograph.

Chi Yu hesitated, instinctively looking up at Liang Muye with an inquiring gaze.

Liang Muye smiled and said, “Up to you.”

So Chi Yu agreed. The guests at a ski resort hotel were all ski enthusiasts. The young guy had come on behalf of his whole table. Before long, five or six people were lining up with their helmets for him to sign. Chi Yu couldn’t move his right hand and hesitated while holding the marker.

Finally, he looked up and confessed honestly, “Sorry, I haven’t practiced much with this hand, so the writing might be ugly.” Then, he scrawled his name crookedly.

Some people hadn’t brought helmets and asked him to sign their white T-shirts. The last one was even more interesting; he rolled up his sleeve and asked Chi Yu to sign directly on his arm, saying he wanted to borrow the luck for a cliff jump in the backcountry tomorrow. The group of young people chattered questions at him the whole time: How did he do the 720? What did it feel like to fly? How did he hurt his right hand? Would he go to the X Games again? How did the competition feel today?

Chi Yu was a man of few words. Aside from telling the guy planning to jump the cliff to be safe, most of his answers were only one or two words long. People who didn’t know him might have thought he was being aloof, but in reality, he was just focusing all his attention on writing with his left hand, terrified of making a mistake.

After the autographs, the fans asked for a photo. Chi Yu didn’t know how to refuse, so he sold out the person next to him. Since no one in the group wanted to be left out of the frame, Liang Muye had to stand up and take the picture for them.

“Could you please watch the lighting?” the owner of the phone instructed him.

Liang Muye found the whole thing quite amusing. He was the type of photographer who “spared his film”; the value of him pressing the shutter once, if calculated in money, would be in the thousands if not tens of thousands. Yet here he was, holding a fanboy’s phone like a passerby, playing the green foliage to the red flower. But he was quite happy to do it.

Whether it was accompanying him to the first aid station, driving him home last night, or picking him up again this morning, Liang Muye felt he had done enough. Yet, for this person in front of him, he broke his own rules time and time again. If he dug deep for the reason, perhaps it was out of a sense of compensation. Having seen so many people in their early twenties in this circle squandering their talent and capital, his initial judgment of Chi Yu had inevitably been prejudiced and unfair.

Looking at it now, Chi Yu’s journey must have been filled with more disappointment than triumph, every step difficult. But hard work did pay off. He had talent, yes, but he never took the competition lightly, moving forward steadily, one footprint at a time. It was the same person who had repeatedly studied the route on the camera screen yesterday, and the same person surrounded by applause and praise after achieving results today. From beginning to end, he had remained consistent.

Like sifting sand to find gold, the sincerity remained—shining like silent gold in the corner.

After sending away the fanboys, Liang Muye spoke up, leaning into his ear. 

“Sign one for me, too.”

Chi Yu, who had handled everything well so far, was caught off guard by this sentence. 

“What…” He turned his head, seeing the smile in Liang Muye’s eyes. 

“Are you joking?”

Liang Muye was teasing him, of course. But seeing him ask, he changed his tune. 

“I’m serious.”

“Then… sign on your arm too?”

“Come here.” Chi Yu didn’t expect him to dare, but Liang Muye accepted the challenge, actually extending his arm and rolling up his sleeve.

Chi Yu made up his mind—if he wants it, he gets it. The marker had been taken away by the young guy, leaving only a cheap ballpoint pen. Chi Yu used considerable force to write; the ballpoint pen scratched itchily against the flesh. Liang Muye clenched his forearm, revealing the wheat-colored muscle definition of a climber’s arm.

Chi Yu didn’t have a westernized English name and always signed his Chinese name. It was easy to sign, connected from beginning to end in one stroke, looking like he was drawing circles.

“Your name sounds nice,” Liang Muye said, breaking the silence.

Only then did Chi Yu say, “My mom chose it. My dad didn’t like it; he wanted me to change it. I didn’t agree.”

This was the first time Liang Muye had heard him voluntarily mention his family. He asked, “Do they know about the competition today?”

Chi Yu answered calmly and frankly. 

“I’ve never had contact with my mom. My dad… I’ll tell him in a couple of days.”

A moment later, he pushed the cocktail closer to Liang Muye, changing the subject. 

“Drink a bit more.”

Liang Muye never pushed or forced him. He believed in letting things take their natural course, so he picked a topic Chi Yu liked. 

“Tell me, what did it feel like the moment you dropped in?”

Chi Yu tilted his head, thinking. After a long while, he said, “Like embracing gravity.”

To actively embrace the descent, embrace the fall, embrace the uncertainty.

“The run today felt especially good. It felt like my last competition in the US before I got injured. Standing at the peak, the moment I took that first slide, I knew I had it.”

“I heard from Gao Yi that this is just the first battle of the year?” Liang Muye continued.

“Yeah, this is an unofficial competition, it doesn’t count for points. Next come the FWT challengers, then the qualifiers, leveling up as I go,” Chi Yu said, his tone full of anticipation. 

“Let’s see how far I can go this year.”

Seeing his mood improve, Liang Muye asked, “Did you insist on doing the 720 from the very start?”

Chi Yu thought for a moment before saying, “I judged the terrain conditions, too. Today wasn’t as bad as everyone said. It’s just… if I didn’t try to do it, my brain would have kept thinking about it. A race is a race; every competition is important, even the ones that don’t count for points.”

Liang Muye finished his thought for him: “Regret is more terrifying than failure.”

Chi Yu raised his eyes, his heart jolting. That post-race feeling returned. He had always felt that Liang Muye possessed the eyes of a journalist—he saw people deeply. Even behind two layers of lenses, he could see through Chi Yu’s myriad thoughts, perhaps even see through to the truth of everything.

He turned his head and replied, “That is exactly it.”