EGRV 24 | Park

【The entire mountain, no, the entire world, was his park…】

“Your fans too noisy for you?” Liang Muyie teased him.

Chi Yu gave a sullen “mhm,” then, realizing he was being joked with, shook his head and said awkwardly, “Not really. That was so many years ago.”

Liang Muyie knew his type well; he was clearly uncomfortable in this kind of social setting.

“I’ve asked you this before, but why did you stop competing?” he asked, getting straight to the point.

It was tiring to always be evasive, and even more tiring to make up excuses. Telling the truth was easier. Having had three drinks, Chi Yu chose the latter. “Something happened afterward,” he said, still avoiding Liang Muyie’s gaze. “It set me back two years. I could have moved up to the pro division, and I had sponsors talking deals with me, but then…”

“Because of an injury? Was it serious?”

“Yeah. My body needed to recover, and that wasn’t enough. I also had to get back to my previous competitive level. The worst part was, the clock reset, all my efforts were wiped clean, and I had to start all over again. Everyone else had started the race, and I wasn’t even at the starting line.”

The years between eighteen and twenty are a professional athlete’s most golden period of growth, a dividing line that determines whether they can truly stand out. Liang Muyie didn’t need him to say it; he understood all too well. Back then, Liang Yichuan had also been at that same turning point.

“What about now?”

Chi Yu felt that once he stepped off the snow, the moments he was truly brave could be counted on one hand. This was definitely one of them.

He thought for a long time, then answered in a different way. “This Sunday, that WinterLasts Foundation freestyle challenge, I signed up. Will you… come watch?”

Just then, a light flashed on the distant mountaintop. The sun had rolled over the peak, and after dusk, night descended. A dozen ski runs lit up, weaving into a giant, warm yellow net. The lights for night skiing had come on.

Maybe the timing was right for Chi Yu to tell him these things. Or maybe talking about competition had rekindled his fighting spirit. A fluorescent yellow light reflected in the bottom of his eyes, making them shine brightly.

Liang Muyie had seen that expression before, like the first time Chi Yu spoke of the Freeride World Tour, or when he was about to ski the Funnel. Liang Muyie felt that in that instant, his heart was once again very, very close to Chi Yu’s, just like that day in the snowboard shop when he was waxing the board.

Thump-thump, thump-thump.

Twenty-two-year-old Chi Yu rarely concerned himself with matters of human relationships. He had so few expectations for anything outside of skiing that they were like luxuries, like candies in a Mason jar—take one out, and there’s one less. In those six or seven seconds, he ladled out a spoonful for Liang Muyie. He was awaiting his answer.

“Yeah, of course I will,” he said with certainty, as if he knew the weight of those words.

This time, Chi Yu finally dared to turn and meet his gaze head-on.

He set down his beer can. At that moment, Liang Muyie suddenly had an impulse and called out to him, “Don’t move.”

Liang Muyie took two long strides back into the room. On the wall, the projected video was still replaying, frame by frame, the double cork Chi Yu had done in Corbet’s Couloir. The commentator was still talking nonstop: “Kevin, you mark my words today, he is a freestyler with a limitless future. Because he is both a backcountry rider and a true park rat, because nature is his playground. The entire mountain, no, the entire world, is his park…”

Liang Muyie walked over to Cheng Yang and asked in a low voice, “Lend me a camera.”

Cheng Yang had just returned from a weekend shoot and had a ton of gear with him. When it came to professional matters, he didn’t mess around. “Shooting the night view? Take my 1D, and the tripod too. The weather’s really nice tonight.”

“A portrait. I’m not picky about the camera, I can use anything.”

Cheng Yang opened his bag. “Take your pick.”

Liang Muyie returned to the balcony with the camera in hand and saw that Chi Yu’s third beer was also empty. He crushed the can in his hand with a crackle, the veins on his arm bulging.

When he looked up again, he saw a dark lens pointed at him.

“Are you going to…”

“Look at me,” Liang Muyie said.

Chi Yu’s gaze immediately drifted away. In recent years, Liang Muyie had mostly shot commercial ads and fashion pieces in studios. Anyone he photographed was at least a C-list celebrity, individuals who were born for the camera. An assistant would take notes, a stylist would arrange the clothes and accessories, a lighting technician would set up the lights, and all he had to do was press the shutter. It had been a long time since he’d photographed someone so uncomfortable in front of the lens.

“Will you… go back to Corbet’s in the future?” Liang Muyie asked from behind the camera, his tone casual. He knew talking about skiing would help Chi Yu relax.

Sure enough, the young man answered seriously, “I’ll go again if I feel like it. But it’s the same venue, so there’s not much point, is there? There are so many other big mountains in the world to ski that I haven’t been to.”

“So that move where your board bounced off the rock wall—was that planned?”

Chi Yu smiled.

“Oh, that. My take-off arc was a bit too wide, overshot it by a little. Zero-point-one degrees.”

So it was just a coincidence. The shutter clicked softly, freezing his expression.

Liang Muyie looked down at the display. The light from inside the apartment perfectly carved out the scar at the corner of his eye, casting a tiny shadow. It was like a marking on a measuring cup, or a single stitch of time, marking his growth year after year. Chi Yu rarely laughed out loud. When he smiled, his thin lips were pressed together, making him look calm and serene. When his eyes curved, the scar folded in half, looking even more like half a parenthesis, folding away his youth.

Seeing him silent, Chi Yu grew a little nervous and continued on his own, “But… that time at Corbet’s was actually my favorite win.”

“Not the X Games?” Liang Muyie looked up, surprised. That was, after all, his most well-known title.

“No. That was for my dad. Big air is all he understands,” Chi Yu said, looking down and smiling self-deprecatingly. “Most people are like that too. Corbet’s was for myself.”

The glass door slid open again, and the noise from the living room spilled out. Two girls saw him taking pictures on the balcony with a camera and eagerly asked him to take some of them. Seeing that they were already posing, Liang Muyie naturally agreed. He had rushed over earlier and only now had a moment to sling the camera strap around his neck and slowly adjust the settings.

Anyone in this line of work knows that photos can be roughly divided into two types: those you take for yourself, and those you take for others. The picture just now was for himself. Now, it was different.

More and more people gathered on the balcony. Cheng Yang also took out another of his cameras to take individual shots and group photos. The very first model, Chi Yu, was nowhere to be found. The moment Cheng Yang’s friends had come over, he had slipped away quietly, hiding behind the glass door and watching Liang Muyie.

Even though he was just taking casual photos for friends, the man was quite serious about it. It was freezing outside in January, yet he was only wearing a thin black shirt with the top two buttons undone. The strong wind pressed the fabric tightly against his body. Cheng Yang had set up the only tripod he’d brought, so Liang Muyie had to make do, leaning lazily against the railing and using his own elbow as a tripod.

That silhouette… it was so familiar. Chi Yu couldn’t remember where he’d seen it before, perhaps in some untimely dream of his.

And as luck would have it, Liang Muyie happened to turn and look back into the room, and his eyes met Chi Yu’s. Chi Yu pretended to look at his watch and dodged his gaze again.

This wasn’t the first time. The entire evening, Chi Yu had been playing a game of hide-and-seek with his eyes. By the time the guests on the balcony couldn’t stand the cold anymore and flocked back into the room, Liang Muyie couldn’t find Chi Yu at all.

“Have you seen Coach Chi?” he even asked a guy standing next to him.

The guy was also clueless. “He didn’t go up the mountain for another lesson, did he…?”

Liang Muyie looked down at his watch. The night skiing lights had just come on. It was, in theory, possible.

But then, the doorbell rang again. The room fell silent. Liang Muyie glanced at Cheng Yang, as if to ask, “Who else did you invite?”

Cheng Yang threw up his hands.

He opened the door, and there stood Chi Yu, having forgotten to even put on his jacket. In his hand, he was holding an eight-inch birthday cake.

The smile on Cheng Yang’s face froze. Liang Muyie’s expression was also one of surprise.

It was Cheng Yang who spoke first. “I’m sorry.”

“Happy birthday,” Chi Yu said at almost the same time. Seeing the reactions of the two people at the door, he froze as well, not daring to take a step forward. “Today… isn’t the actual day?”