EGRV 29 | Fair

【Upon a thousand-foot cliff face, all are equal, and what you put in is always what you get out.】

The next morning, as soon as Gao Yi woke up and pulled back the curtains, he saw a light rain falling outside.

“It’s raining,” he said, rubbing his eyes, to Xiang Weiwei, who was already up and washing her face.

Before she could answer, Gao Yi shot up in bed, all sleepiness gone. “Holy shit, it’s raining!”

Rain in the city meant snow on the mountain. Which meant the snow in Diamond Bowl today…

“Two centimeters.” Liang Muyie was driving. During a red light, he pulled up the weather forecast and read out a number. “Might as well not have snowed at all.”

He had even subscribed to a professional ski resort weather forecast for a month just for skiing. Even a layman like him understood that this paltry amount of snow was far from enough to make the backcountry any better to ski.

Chi Yu, however, said nothing. After a moment, he asked, “What’s the freezing level?”

“Fifty-two hundred.”

He nodded again, noncommittally.

Only then did Liang Muyie ask, “Is that good or bad?”

Chi Yu gave the same answer as before: “There is no good or bad. The mountain is very fair. When the snow is good, it’s good for everyone.”

Chi Yu was probably one of the few competitors who wasn’t picky about snow quality. The competition officially began, with the ski division going first. Nearly every competitor’s speed and fluidity were compromised as they tried to control their landings off the cliffs. The number of falls today was also far greater than in a typical competition. One skier from New Zealand even lost his balance after a big jump and fell straight down the mountainside, getting stretchered off—the steepest parts of Diamond Bowl were over forty degrees. If you skied poorly, it was life-threatening.

“It only snowed a little this morning, visibility isn’t great, and it’s all been skied out after these few runs,” Gao Yi said with concern. “Chi Yu is number 19 today, that’s pretty far back.”

The bib draw was completely random, which was fair in theory. As for what lines the previous riders chose and how well they executed them, it was a total mind game. Some, fearing it would affect their own performance, would cover their eyes and choose not to watch until it was their turn. Chi Yu was the other type of competitor. In every competition since he was a kid, he could watch everyone else from start to finish. This type of athlete, to put it nicely, was mentally strong and flexible. To put it bluntly, he was a show-off. The greater the pressure, the greater his potential.

But today, Chi Yu hadn’t come to watch the first half of the competition.

After the snowboard division began, Liang Muyie gathered his things, left his snowboard by the rest area halfway up the mountain, and followed the route Gao Yi had shown him yesterday to the spectator area to find them.

Once the snowboarders started, Gao Yi provided a running commentary for Xiang Weiwei and Liang Muyie. Every few minutes, Gao Yi would look down to track Chi Yu’s location, seeing that he was still on Crystal Ridge doing warm-up runs, as anxious as if he were the one competing.

“I heard you and Chi Yu went to the park yesterday, and he was practicing 720s again. And he collided with someone,” he asked Liang Muyie.

Liang Muyie replied, “Yeah, yesterday was unlucky. He also went to get X-rays.”

Hearing this, Gao Yi’s brows furrowed. “What’s the situation?”

“Cracked elbow.”

“Holy shit…” Gao Yi was shocked. “He made it sound so… casual on the phone yesterday.”

Back in Banff, he had caught a glimpse of Chi Yu’s medicine box. It had everything from regular painkillers to stronger prescription drugs. He had them all, but using them too much could lead to dependency, so he avoided them if he could. He could imagine how Chi Yu had gotten through last night and this morning—by just gritting his teeth and enduring.

“How was his condition this morning?” Gao Yi asked again.

Liang Muyie thought back. This morning in his car, Chi Yu had been his usual quiet self, which had put him a little at ease. It meant his mental state was stable.

“He was fine. As normal as could be.”

Only then did Gao Yi relax a little. A sudden cheer broke his thoughts. Gao Yi looked around and saw a few people waving small flags to cheer on the next competitor. They looked like family.

He looked up at the temporary broadcast screen. The 12th person to go was a Canadian competitor, Max Willard. His home mountain was Mont-Tremblant, Quebec. The name looked familiar.

“Isn’t that…” Liang Muyie recalled the old magazine in Chi Yu’s car. “Chi Yu knows him.”

Gao Yi looked, then said, “More than just knows him.”

Liang Muyie glanced sideways at him. Gao Yi didn’t elaborate, just continued, “Max has gotten pretty famous these past couple of years. I think he was the first young snowboarder sponsored by Rossignol. Now he’s covered in sponsors from head to toe. The year before last, he was third in the North American region. He got injured a bit after that, so this is his first competition of the new season too.”

Liang Muyie took Gao Yi’s binoculars, glanced at the rider on the mountain, and asked, “Who’s better between the two of them?”

“According to Chi Yu, he won more when they were kids. It’s hard to say now. Max’s style is a bit different from his. He’s been a big mountain backcountry rider since he was a kid, skiing with his dad and brother all year round. He learned freestyle later. Chi Yu comes from a freestyle background, so he has more tricks up his sleeve. For today’s venue, little Chi probably has the advantage, since it’s his home turf. And actually, Max didn’t even need to participate in this competition.”

“Then why did he come?” Xiang Weiwei asked.

Gao Yi said, “Rumor has it, just a rumor, that his dad is a guest presenter for the awards today. His older brother is also a famous freeskier, an X Games champion. Ever heard of Alex Willard?”

So he came from a skiing dynasty.

Max, dressed in a fluorescent green suit, bombed down from the summit. Sure enough, his speed and form right from the start were different from the amateur competitors before him. He chose his first cliff drop on the rider’s right, about twenty feet, did a flat-spin 360, landed solidly, and after a little bit of sluff, he skied through it quickly. Instead of traversing to lose speed, he weaved through numerous treacherous rocks, linking four big jumps in total, and only reduced his speed by twenty percent at most. His overall run was incredibly fluid.

Freeride competitions are scored on five criteria: line choice, fluidity, control, air & style, and technique. In Max’s run, his air & style was a bit lacking, but he maxed out the other four categories, especially the last one. The judges almost all gave him scores above 80. In today’s conditions, landing a 360 solidly without affecting the flow of the run was already very impressive.

Max skied directly over to his family. A group of them had already opened beers to celebrate. He hugged them and seemed to look around for someone. Then, he turned to face the screen, joining the crowd of spectators.

By the time it was Chi Yu’s turn, the weather had turned colder, dropping below freezing, and a few snowflakes began to fall again. The alpine zone at the summit was already ten degrees colder than the base on average. With the wind, the light snow from the morning was about to freeze into ice. Liang Muyie and Xiang Weiwei had been skiing on the adjacent runs that morning; everyone knew what this kind of weather and snow condition meant.

Gao Yi asked him if he wanted the binoculars for a clearer view, but he said no. He tilted his head up and looked at the summit. Amidst the crowd of people, there was a small orange dot.

Even though the competition had nothing to do with him, he felt as if he were there, his heart pounding, adrenaline shooting to his fingertips. It was the excitement before a big event, a positive kind of nervousness. He usually only felt this way the night before a summit push.

Perhaps it was because he had spent a bit too much time with Chi Yu these past few weeks. On his birthday, the guy had actually brought him a cake. After eating the cake and seeing the guests off, he had sent the photo Cheng Yang had taken of the chocolate cake to Han Zhixia, saying: Birthday’s over. Had cake this year.

He knew that not picking up the cake had been like a clumsy metaphor. She had left that chocolate tiramisu cake at the pastry shop, and their family had left all reasons for celebration behind on that day three years ago. He knew Han Zhixia had felt guilty about it for a long time. Seeing this, she would probably be happy.

That day, he had found candles too formalistic and hadn’t lit any, but he had indeed made three wishes. He wished for his mother Han Zhixia’s health and happiness, for a smooth preliminary shoot for the climbing documentary, and, for Chi Yu to do well in the competition and have a successful season ahead.

Perhaps that was the reason, Liang Muyie told himself. Whether he succeeded or failed, he had a small part in it.

Chi Yu stood at the top of Diamond Bowl, on the side of Blackcomb’s rugged ridge.

The wind howled in his ears, but his blood was warm. The pain in his arm and the fatigue from the previous day were all swept away, leaving only a strong, relentlessly beating heart.

A staff member at the summit recognized him, clapped him on the shoulder, and called out warmly, “Yuchi POW*, GO!” yuchi_pow was his social media handle. In Whistler, many locals had witnessed his training and growth over the past two years.

Generally, twenty is the watershed age for elite athletes, when competition shifts from a battle of technique to one of mentality and experience. But Chi Yu knew in his heart that the hardest part for him these past two years hadn’t been the mental game. It had been the material obstacles. Just being able to stand on this line, he had already won half the battle.

The snowy mountains were a sacred place, a permanent sanctuary for his chaotic thoughts. Gao Yi was right. Compared to all the other complex and messy things in life, skiing was simple. For him, it was almost instinctual.

Three, two, one, Go.

The starting gate opened. He leaned forward and let gravity pull him onward.

The full panorama of the mountain unfolded before him. He knew he had entered his own absolute domain. Upon a thousand-foot cliff face, all are equal, and what you put in is always what you get out. Unlike the rest of his life, outside the mountains.