EGRV 12 | Drop In! (1)

【No rules, no venue. Between heaven, earth, mountains, and forests, the boundaries are as far as the eye can see.】

Just as the two were about to set off, a tall skier on two planks zipped past Chi Yu like the wind, then came to a stylish stop with a hockey spray, turning his head to shout, “Chi Yu!”

The wind was strong at the summit and Chi Yu’s hearing wasn’t great. Liang Muyi had to tap him before he turned around. Only after the man took off his goggles could he be sure. “Gao Yi?”

Gao Yi gave him a tight hug, saying enthusiastically, “I saw your helmet from way off and knew it was you. I was afraid you’d already gone down, so man, I had to rush to catch up.”

“I’m with a student today, no rush to leave.” Chi Yu, unfazed by the bright light, also took off his goggles and face mask. “It’s been a while. Weren’t you busy with work recently?”

Gao Yi forced a smile. “I am. A project just wrapped up, so I took five days off to ski. And what do you know, I caught a bluebird day.”

“You’ve got great luck,” Chi Yu said. He glanced at the rather stuffed backpack on Gao Yi’s back and the panoramic camera in his hand and understood immediately. “Going into the backcountry today, huh?” He was carrying the avalanche safety trio.

“Yep, the snow is too good today. What do you say? Shall we do an off-piste run first? The Funnel is pretty fun, everyone’s heading that way.”

Chi Yu looked troubled. “Yi ge, today I’m…”

Gao Yi was the type who was very sociable. Realizing Chi Yu was with a student, he came over to greet Liang Muyi, quickly apologizing for the interruption. He explained that the last time he’d skied backcountry with Little Chi was a year ago. He was too busy with work and rarely caught such a perfect day, and to be reunited with his buddy was a rare stroke of luck.

Liang Muyi understood. He patted Chi Yu’s shoulder. “Go ahead, it’s fine.”

Chi Yu gave a short “mm,” and told him, “I’ll take you on a couple of extra runs later.”

Having decided to go off-piste, he bent down to tighten his boot bindings, getting fully kitted out within ten seconds. When he looked up again, the look in his eyes had changed. It held anticipation and excitement, brighter than the eight a.m. morning light. It was just like that look he had on the last run of the night skiing session, right after he’d strapped in. Or maybe it was like…

Liang Muyi stood beside him, but before he could get a better look, Chi Yu had pulled his sunny-day lenses down, his eyes hidden securely behind the black lenses with 6% light transmission. A real pity.

Gao Yi gave a light push with his poles, bent his knees, and slid off toward the untracked powder of the backcountry. Liang Muyi strapped on his board, ready to follow; he wanted to see how the two of them skied off-piste.

Chi Yu held back for a couple of steps to say to him, “Don’t follow. I’m just doing a couple of runs with Gao Yi. I’ll meet you at the chairlift at the bottom in about half an hour. Stay on the groomed trails and look up for the signs. The snow is pretty powdery today, so keep your weight back a bit when you ride, lift the nose of your board, and try to find that surfing feeling. Oh, right—” He gestured for Liang Muyi to take out his phone, made a few simple taps which looked like he was enabling location sharing between them. “You have my location on your phone. If you really get lost, call me. I won’t see text messages.”

Of course, Liang Muyi didn’t follow his instructor’s advice. Eager to see Chi Yu and Gao Yi ride from the bottom of the lift, he sped all the way down the run. When he got there, he heard some local kids waiting in the lift line buzzing about how spectacular “The Funnel” was today.

He looked up and understood what they meant. The Funnel was exactly what its name implied. It wasn’t an official trail, but a wide-open off-piste area. A vast expanse of untracked powder covered an entire rock face, at the bottom of which was a patch of forest. The terrain abruptly tightened into a steep channel through the trees, ending at a naturally upturned rock that formed a cliff nearly ten meters high. The run after the cliff was also backcountry terrain, with plenty of rocks. For that reason, the line was only skiable when there was a lot of snow.

This area was located right next to the chairlift station. By the time Liang Muyi got to the bottom, a crowd had already gathered to watch. He saw people hesitating at the edge of the cliff, some crashing so hard their gear exploded off them, and skilled riders who landed after a gentle leap. Even a skier who looked no older than seven or eight sent it off the cliff, earning a huge round of applause.

Liang Muyi kept scanning the area above, but he couldn’t see Gao Yi or Chi Yu at all. Soon, he knew why.

Gao Yi didn’t hesitate in the forested section. He came in with a bit of speed, paused for only a second with his eyes locked on the landing spot, then made a light jump and landed on the snow. His center of gravity was a bit too far back on landing, but he powered through and stood it up, winning a wave of cheers.

Chi Yu was right behind him. The run below was narrow, so to avoid the others who were eagerly waiting their turn, Chi Yu shouted “Drop in!” in a clear, loud voice from the open rock face above.

He accelerated downhill, dropping dozens of meters in a straight line. His riding posture was extremely low, almost parallel to the rock face. Everywhere he went, he left a beautiful, clean line carved in the snow. Behind him, a massive cloud of powder billowed up like a storm.

Then, he entered the forest. Liang Muyi’s eyes could barely keep up with him, because Chi Yu made no effort to slow down. A few foreign skiers watching next to Liang Muyi were already gaping in astonishment, muttering “Oh my god” one after another.

But they had spoken too soon. Chi Yu charged the cliff with speed. At the very lip, he initiated the spin and tucked his body, rotating twice while his left hand reached forward to grab the bottom of his board—

“Frontside Cork 7! With an Indy grab, holy shit! He’s insane!” Gao Yi yelled excitedly from a distance.

Chi Yu’s landing was fluid and light; he might have even had enough airtime to stomp a Cork 9. A Cork 7 is a corkscrew 720, an off-axis spin with two full rotations. It’s not a particularly outstanding trick on a park jump. But he was doing it in off-piste backcountry snow. The depth of the snow, the steepness of the run, the speed, the margin for error on landing—every single one was an unknown variable. Stacked together, the difficulty of any trick increased exponentially. A frontside cork 7 was also a blind landing, meaning the rider’s eyes can’t see the ground in the moment before touchdown.

A gust of hard, cold wind brushed past, as if the cold air kicked up by Chi Yu had finally, a moment late, reached him. Liang Muyi had thought he’d seen it all. Vicky had shown him videos of Chi Yu hitting big air jumps before, but it was nothing like seeing it with his own eyes.

The shape of the cliff before him was open and exposed, situated right next to the chairlift station, like a natural, wild arena. The atmosphere in the crowd was electric; whether a rider succeeded or failed, someone would always clap in encouragement. For a backcountry expert like Chi Yu, whistles and gasps of awe rose and fell in waves. No rules, no venue. Between heaven, earth, mountains, and forests, the boundaries are as far as the eye can see—”The only limit is your own imagination.”*

In that flash of a moment, Liang Muyi suddenly remembered what that look in his eyes reminded him of.

Back then, with a bright moon hanging in the sky, he and Chen Nian had lit a bonfire and talked about the vast mountains and their own small lives. The firelight reflected in his eyes, and a pure dream swelled within his pupils. It grew wild and untamed, pushing out the darkness, the emptiness, the frustrating reality, and everything else that was insignificant.