EGRV 31 | Home Ground

He had a premonition that tonight he possessed a certain magic—one that could invert black and white, and turn the world upside down.

There were only a few competitors left in the snowboard division. Everyone’s attention had returned to the race, and no one noticed the figure in the orange jacket quietly gliding away. Gao Yi, his emotions still not quite settled, was rambling on to Liang Muye about how difficult it had been for Chi Yu when he was training alone in Banff all those years ago.

Liang Muye listened intermittently, but he was distracted.

Just a moment ago, after he had asked that question, Chi Yu hadn’t answered; he had just continued to look at him. Chi Yu wasn’t wearing goggles, so Liang Muye took his off as well. They shared a brief moment of eye contact.

He hadn’t congratulated him, and Chi Yu hadn’t offered any words of thanks. Yet, both of them felt it—an emotion far vaster and more indescribable than excitement or joy, resonating in the small space between them.

But then, Chi Yu’s expression changed. He quickly pushed Liang Muye away, turned his head, and went to the media zone to accept interviews as per protocol.

The heavens played a massive joke on all the contestants. Just as the competition was nearing its end, the snow began to fall harder and harder, threatening to turn into a full-blown blizzard. Seeing the weather conditions, the organizers moved the awards ceremony indoors.

Chi Yu won the Men’s Snowboard Freeride Challenge with an average score of 87.25. Max’s performance had been impeccable, but competitions always reward those who dare to take the greater risk. He had to settle for second place.

At the ceremony, a legendary Olympic skier and former member of the Canadian Olympic Committee came out to present the gold, silver, and bronze trophies. As this was a challenge organized by an environmental foundation, the trophies were shaped like snow mountains and made from special fiber materials recycled from ocean plastic, engraved with the event logo.

The legendary skier presenting the awards was none other than Max’s father.

That was when the unexpected happened. The organizers called Chi Yu’s name three times, but he was nowhere to be found.

Max’s calm face finally showed a ripple of emotion. Perhaps feeling that standing on the second and third place podiums while waiting was too awkward, he whispered to his father beside him, “This is just… too childish of him.”

In his view, breaking convention by not watching his run, competing with a board engraved with “Team T,” and then refusing to accept the award after beating him—it was a naked provocation.

Gao Yi, standing on the sidelines, couldn’t watch this go on any longer. He cleared his throat and stepped forward to explain to the presenter, “Chi Yu fractured his arm during training yesterday. He skied down first so he could get a cast before the first aid station closes.”

Max looked stunned.

Upon hearing this, the older man, reasonable and understanding, handed the trophy that belonged to Chi Yu to Gao Yi, who accepted it on his behalf.

Once the ceremony ended, Liang Muye finally found a moment to ask Gao Yi, who was also a frequent visitor to first aid stations: “Does the first aid station really close at five?”

Gao Yi caught the subtext immediately. 

“Who knows? honestly, sometimes I can’t guess what goes on in Chi Yu’s head.”

“Those two used to…”

“I don’t know the full story,” Gao Yi said.

“Anyway, it wasn’t an amicable breakup. Chi Yu probably just didn’t want to see him. He didn’t even come to watch the competition earlier.”

Liang Muye thought of the brown-haired man he had run into at the ramen shop the other day—he looked like a friend of this ex. His reaction back then had explained everything.

After the competition, Gao Yi and Xiang Weiwei headed down the mountain first. Gao Yi, who had previously fractured his femur, hadn’t rested properly in bed for two days and had been standing for a long time today. After the sun went down, the weather turned biting cold, and he was starting to feel a dull ache in his injury.

Before leaving, Gao Yi had to entrust the trophy to Liang Muye to pass on. Still riding the wave of emotion from earlier, and recalling what Chi Yu had told him on the phone yesterday, he suddenly grabbed Liang Muye’s arm. 

“Muye, no matter what happens later, you have to treat our Little Yu well.”

Liang Muye found this baffling and opened his mouth to deny it. 

“We aren’t…”

Xiang Weiwei pinched his good thigh and quickly interjected, “He means getting him home safely relies on you.”

Liang Muye nodded at that.

For the first time in his life, Chi Yu followed medical advice religiously. Twenty minutes before the first aid station closed, he dawdled his way through the door. He spent three minutes painstakingly undoing the laces of his snow boots, which had stiffened in the cold, went through the registration process, and then sat waiting for the doctor.

Even sitting in the simple examination room partitioned by waterproof tarps, his heart was still racing.

It certainly wasn’t because of the competition. He knew his physical limits well: a three-minute run, ten minutes of pleasantries and photos, an interview where he barely said two sentences, plus a twenty-minute easy ride down the mountain. Under normal circumstances, his heart rate would have recovered long ago.

It was just bad timing. Before Liang Muye had asked him that question, he had felt physically fantastic, light and agile. He had brought the prescription painkillers the doctor gave him that morning but hadn’t taken any, fearing side effects. While warming up, his mind had been entirely occupied by the tension and anticipation of the race. He had even felt that if he took an X-ray in two days, he’d see the crack in the bone healing itself. But Liang Muye just had to say that. After he asked, Chi Yu felt his arm throbbing painfully, even worse than yesterday.

Last night, the eve of the competition, he had uncharacteristically suffered from insomnia. The emotions he had tried so hard to suppress for the past two days suddenly surged up, completely uncontrollable.

At ten o’clock, Gao Yi had sent him several high-definition videos of that day’s training. He knew the videos were just for reviewing his line on the spot—he had already finalized his route, so there was no need to study them in detail. Yet, after hanging up the phone, Chi Yu still retrieved his laptop from the car and opened the very last video.

The image was clear, the framing perfect, without a hint of shake, tracking him all the way down the mountain. This video was obviously filmed by Liang Muye after he took over.

The snowboard settled back onto the horizon, but the recording didn’t stop. The lens continued to follow him, filming until he walked up to Gao Yi and took off his goggles to talk. It seemed that run had gone well; he had even glanced at the camera and smiled unconsciously. He had absolutely no memory of doing that.

He thought of his birthday night, when Liang Muye had insisted on filming him, insisting on capturing a smile. Chi Yu hadn’t asked for that photo; he didn’t want to see it at all. He felt that if he saw it, it wouldn’t look like him. It wasn’t him.

If that person would just look at him one less time, help him one less time, say one less sentence, perhaps he could handle this normally. But it was always like this. He had a thousand ways to face all the hardness and coldness of the world, yet in the face of a little bit of kindness, the dam broke easily.

Walking out of the examination room, Chi Yu had barely taken two steps with his head down when he nearly collided with a fluorescent green jacket. Chi Yu instantly took a half-step back, surprised to find himself face-to-face with Max Willard, whom he hadn’t seen in over three years.

The blond young man had taken off his helmet and was wearing a red and white maple leaf beanie, the colors of the Canadian flag. Snow dusted the top of the hat, with blond hair poking out from underneath.

The first thing he said to Chi Yu wasn’t a congratulation, nor was it concern. It was: “Why did you change your home ground to Whistler?”

Years ago, it would be inaccurate to say a twelve-year-old Chi Yu was at the Mont Tremblant freestyle ski camp to train; rather, he was obsessed with competing for first place against Max. They had competed since childhood, from the big air jumps to the glades, from the mountain peaks down to the tents at the base. The fight for first place eventually changed flavor, shifting from “I must beat him” to “Only I can beat him,” turning from a boy’s game into a man’s game. Chi Yu felt he had won in the end because he got the person he wanted.

But there are no eternal winners in this world. And now, the person least qualified to bring up the past was standing right in front of him. Chi Yu, who had been frowning, actually laughed when he heard the question.

“I’ve been training here for the last two years. Is there a problem?”

“We were both at Tremblant…”

“The IFSA doesn’t have rules on how to choose a home ground. If we’re being technical, my home ground should be the hill in my dad’s backyard.”

Max clearly hadn’t expected such a smooth answer and was choked into changing the subject. 

“You should have come to accept the award.”

Chi Yu lifted his arm, now in a cast and sling, as his answer.

Only then did Max ask how his arm was. By this point, Chi Yu wasn’t in the mood to answer. He muttered a perfunctory reply and tried to walk out of the station, but Max reached out to stop him.

The hand brushed against Chi Yu’s freshly cast arm. It wasn’t just his arm that hurt; his head started to pound.

“Sorry, sorry,” Max apologized repeatedly. And not just for the touch.

“I… just wanted to say, I haven’t seen you on the circuit in a long time, and I thought it was a pity. I don’t want you to keep missing opportunities. Seeing your run today, I was really happy for you. You should have come to get the award. That’s what I meant. I also hope we can… look forward, and be friends again. We’ll always run into each other at competitions.”

“You…” Hearing this, Chi Yu felt a nameless fire start to burn alongside the pain in his head and arm. He opened his mouth but couldn’t get the words out.

Max misread his reaction and continued, “Ryan told me he ran into you at dinner a couple of days ago. He’s been shooting the annual promotional film for Rossignol for the last two years. If you want…”

“I don’t need it.” His voice wasn’t loud, but it was firm.

By the time Chi Yu exited the first aid station, Whistler had long since been swallowed by the mountains. In just this short time, the snow had turned the world into a sheet of white, completely covering the road signs. He walked hurriedly with his head down, hearing only the short blasts of car horns nearby.

The parking lot was nearly empty, save for a dark green Mercedes AMG idling near the exit, its hazard lights blinking as it waited for him.

He recognized it. The license plate had “LIANG” in it—Liang Muye’s car.

Liang Muye, undeterred by the heavy snow, got out and walked around to the passenger side. As always, he opened the door for Chi Yu personally, helped him stow his snowboard and helmet, and only then got into the driver’s seat.

With the vibration of the closing door, the orange jacket Chi Yu had draped over his shoulders slipped down. Because the cast was applied directly to his arm, he couldn’t fit into his tight competition gear, so he had walked out shirtless with just the jacket draped over him. Even with his high tolerance for cold, he shivered.

“You…” Liang Muye didn’t have the heart to scold him. He stripped off his black hoodie and handed it to him, leaving himself in just a quick-dry base layer. 

“Can you get this on?”

Chi Yu ducked his head and pulled the hoodie on, then offered a dry “Thank you.” Being ambushed by Max had left him feeling irritable, and he wasn’t very talkative.

Liang Muye was used to this. He seemed relaxed, cranking the heater to the max and setting the GPS before asking, “How do you feel? Did you enjoy the run?”

At the mention of the race, Chi Yu’s spirits recovered slightly.

As Liang Muye looked down at the navigation, Chi Yu started to speak. 

“I have something…”

Before he could finish, Liang Muye interrupted him. 

“Wait a second. Look at this.”

On the GPS map, the drive to the city, which should have been under two hours, had turned into three and a half. The nearest stretch of highway was a solid line of red.

Chi Yu pulled out his phone, swiping through it, and said, “There’s been an accident on the highway. It says up ahead is completely gridlocked.”

Liang Muye checked his group chats as he pulled out of the lot and saw the same news. A car without snow tires had skidded, hit the guardrail, and collided head-on with oncoming traffic, causing a pile-up. The highway was shut down. Who knew how long it would take for the police and tow trucks to clear the wreckage?

With the snow falling heavily, the road conditions and visibility were atrocious, and the Sea-to-Sky Highway was packed with skiers heading home. Chi Yu thought of what he had experienced a few years ago, and his face grew pale; he couldn’t speak for a long time.

Liang Muye didn’t notice the pallor, but he already had a solution. 

“How about this? A friend of mine rented a place in Squamish. We could drive there first and wait it out.”

Chi Yu shook his head. 

“The accident is further north than that; we won’t make it there. Hang on, let me contact someone.”

He sent a few messages to his friends. A moment later, he got a reply.

Gao Yi and Xiang Weiwei said: Don’t come. Those of us who left early are stuck in the middle of the road, not moving an inch.

Liang Muye saw this and, instead of getting anxious, offered Plan B. 

“Then let’s not rush.” He patted Chi Yu’s left shoulder—the uninjured one. 

“Let’s eat first. You won the championship; we have to celebrate somehow.”

Chi Yu turned his head and met Liang Muye’s smiling eyes. Liang Muye was waiting for his answer. Chi Yu felt his face heat up under that gaze and could only nod in silent permission. 

“Okay. Then… let’s go to Villagers.”

He had a premonition. Tonight, he seemed to possess a kind of magic that could invert black and white and turn the world upside down. In this moment, inside the car, it was as if he were back on the peak of Blackcomb Mountain—able to make all living things submit beneath his blade, able to realize all dreams, able to make the person he liked like him back.

Even if just for this moment.

The truth would still have to be told, but after working so hard and giving so much, perhaps he could steal this fleeting moment of intimacy.