EGRV 17 | Breath

【Are you sure you’re okay?】

Chi Yu slept all the way back to the city, right to his own doorstep.

The bumping of the car had seeped into his dreams. First, he was drifting at sea under a torrential downpour. Then he saw himself and Gao Yi skiing in the Gem Bowls in the backcountry. With a loud bang, the world spun, and Gao Yi slipped from his grasp, sliding into an endless white abyss.

The next second, the snow was blindingly white. No—it wasn’t snow, but the glaring high beams of a car! The headlights of an oncoming car nearly blinded him. The two beams of light drove straight toward him. He instinctively jerked the steering wheel to the right to avoid it. The car violently struck the guardrail, flew into the air, flipped, and then crashed with a bang into a dirt mound on the side. He looked to his right in terror. The person beside him was no longer Gao Yi, but Liang Yichuan.

Liang Yichuan was smiling, the same pure, joyous smile he had on his face when they were skiing side-by-side through the backcountry trees. But blood was gushing from his left temple. The scene was bizarre. The blood stained the vast white snow red, while a large hand pushed him forcefully, pushing him deeper. He felt as if he had fallen into a tree well, buried by endless, cold snow, deeper and deeper, unable to breathe…

Chi Yu was jolted awake by the dual sensations of being buried and suffocating. When he woke up, he realized it was the person beside him gently shaking his shoulder. But he was gasping for air, short, ragged breaths, and couldn’t seem to get any oxygen.

The car was no longer moving. Liang Muyi, who had been reading a magazine by the dim overhead light, was startled by him. He dropped the magazine and turned his head, his eyes fixed on him.

“Deep breaths,” he told himself.

But this face, in his dream, bore a striking resemblance. Chi Yu, of course, didn’t listen, his breathing still rapid.

This had happened before. But he never expected it to happen again today, and in front of this person of all people. The more Chi Yu thought about it, the more embarrassed he felt. The more embarrassed, the more anxious he became, and the more anxious, the worse he felt, which only exacerbated the symptoms.

“Chi Yu, breathe with me! Inhale, one, two, three, four… now exhale, that’s right… again.” Liang Muyi raised his voice, commanding him, concentrating on helping him regulate his breathing. After about two minutes, his breathing returned to normal. Liang Muyi pulled a bottle of water from the side door pocket and tossed it to him. “Drink some water.”

Probably to cover up his anxiety, he gulped the water down desperately, immediately choked on it, and started coughing violently.

Liang Muyi finally couldn’t hold back. He reached out with his right hand and rested it on his back, patting it gently. “Don’t rush, what are you rushing for? What’s wrong?”

His fingertips accidentally brushed against the exposed skin on the back of Chi Yu’s neck. The touch felt like a neuralgic sting, and the fine hairs on his neck stood on end.

Chi Yu heard the man beside him say, “…Where did you get that scratch? Didn’t you feel it?”

Liang Muyi had seen a scratch on the back of his neck, undoubtedly from skiing through the trees. It wasn’t deep, but it was long, and the blood had already clotted, staining his light-colored base layer with specks of red.

So it wasn’t a neuralgic sting, but real pain. He had left in a hurry this morning and hadn’t brought his one-piece balaclava. When he was riding fast, his collar had come loose, exposing his neck. No wonder his neck had felt cold all morning.

Chi Yu took a moment to compose himself before forcing out two words: “I’m fine.”

He thought that would be the end of the conversation and was about to open the door, but Liang Muyi locked it first. A click, like a stone rolling off a cliff, the echo from the canyon floor clearly audible.

“Wait a second. Just now, were you…”

Chi Yu didn’t say anything. He pressed the unlock button himself. Another click.

As if he hadn’t seen, Liang Muyi pressed the lock button again with a click. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Chi Yu stubbornly unlocked it again. “Yes.”

“Are you sure you won’t…”

“I won’t.”

The lock clicked back and forth several times. Liang Muyi’s series of questions were all shut down, and he instantly fell silent. It was true; Chi Yu’s earlier state of excited, rambling, non-stop talking had been extremely abnormal. After waking up, he had immediately reverted to his old self, exuding a “stay away” aura.

Might as well see this through. He made one last attempt. “Chi Yu, this morning… what really happened?”

“I told you everything that happened. Now, can you please let me go home?”

This time, Liang Muyy didn’t insist. “You can go home whenever you want. I’ll get a cab nearby.”

The door wasn’t really locked. Chi Yu’s lips were pressed into a thin line as he opened the door and walked straight to the trunk to sort his things, not giving him a single glance.

Liang Muyi also opened the driver’s side door and reached into the back to retrieve the board Chi Yu had lent him.

With the board gone, there was no reason to come back for a ride. This time, Chi Yu finally turned to look at him. He was holding the splitboard in his right hand, his left hand resting on the car’s hood, feeling its cold surface.

But Liang Muyi had already turned and walked away.

To avoid running into Chi Yu again and having to say anything unnecessary, he deliberately walked to the intersection before calling an Uber. But carrying his snowboard, boots, and helmet, he didn’t get very far.

While waiting for the car, he couldn’t resist looking back. He saw Chi Yu in the exact same pose as himself, helmet tucked under his left arm, his heavy splitboard in his right hand, the nose of the board pointed at his own.

Only one of the porch lights was on, the motion sensor seemingly faulty, flickering on and off. The faint yellow light cast upon his damp snow jacket. He didn’t go inside, but instead stood in front of his own house with his head down, lost in thought. Thinking of the wound on the back of his neck, Liang Muyi thought he looked like some kind of lost little animal.

Perhaps he was just utterly exhausted from the day; even his keychain felt heavy. Chi Yu’s hand trembled slightly as he tried to pick out his house key. He had a touch of OCD and raised and lowered his hand several times before it steadied.

The house was as quiet and cold as ever. He didn’t even turn on the heat, heading straight to the bathroom to run the water. He wanted to wash away the fatigue and all the bad feelings.

He hadn’t experienced a nightmare and panic of this magnitude in almost two years; he’d even thought he had fully recovered. He didn’t know why, but ever since meeting that person, he was always reminded of the past. Maybe it was his voice. Even though their ages were so different from Liang Yichuan’s, their personalities were nothing alike, and his profession wasn’t a snowboarder.

The hot water poured over him from head to toe. The initial contact with his skin felt unnaturally scalding, and he realized it was because his hands and skin were so cold. After getting out of the shower, Chi Yu wiped down his snowboard, placed his boots upside down on the boot dryer, set the timer, and then collapsed onto his bed.

After plugging in his phone to charge, he scrolled through his photo album, found the picture of Gao Yi, and sent it to Xiang Vivi to reassure her again. After being rescued, Gao Yi had been thanking the rescue team non-stop. Thinking of Xiang Vivi and Gao Yi’s family waiting anxiously at the base, Chi Yu had, with hands aching from the cold, pulled out his phone and taken a picture of him just before the helicopter flew him away. Gao Yi, too, despite being so cold he was almost numb, had managed to give a thumbs-up for the camera. He didn’t want Xiang Vivi to worry.

Chi Yu’s finger paused in the album. With a swipe, he saw the selfie Liang Muyi had taken with his phone. The man wasn’t wearing a face mask, revealing the lower half of his face and a smile, one arm draped around his own shoulders.

He felt a bit dazed. It had only been a little over thirty hours, but it felt like so long ago. He knew that on the way back, he had been in a state of extreme mental exhaustion and agitation, and had been saying and doing the wrong things.

He opened his phone, tapped on Liang Muyi’s profile, and sent him the photo, adding a caption: “Photo from this morning, took two, forgot to send them to you.”

A moment later, seeing no reply, he corrected himself: “Yesterday morning.”