Chapter Ch44.2 - Love Song on Ice (1.2)
Chapter Ch44.2 - Love Song on Ice (1.2)
translator: baumkuchen editors: serefina, glitterypanda
The leader had been knocked out of his wits by this torrential storm. He took a while to come back to himself, before shouting, “You dare hit me!”
Chi Xiaochi: Papapa.
He proved with his actions that not only did he dare once, he even dared to get in a few more hits.
Only when he rushed out did he realise, this group of brats all looked about twelve or thirteen, not much taller than the original host. They looked to be from the same grade, wearing the same clothes as the original host, and on their backs were even the words “Binzhou Sports School Skating Team”.
As Chi Xiaochi calmly beat them up, he analyzed the surrounding situation.
Including the original host, there were a total of five people in the toilet. In general, it could be summed up with the one currently beating people up, the one currently being beaten up, a jeering little groupie, soft egg, and soft egg +1.
After finishing his assessment of the entire situation, Chi Xiaochi was relieved.
He let go of the leader, climbed off of his body, aimed his gaze towards the two drenched people sitting on the floor, and sneered.
061 had seen this gaze and laugh of Chi Xiaochi’s before. He’d used it when acting as a murderer.
Before the leader even got off the floor, he cried out in a tearful voice, “What are you guys all doing dazing about?! Get him!”
At last, those people awoke from their daze at the sudden change.
When the two on the ground started trying to get up like dazed geese, Chi Xiaochi’s gaze turned cold. He shouted in a stern voice, “Sit down!”
His voice was much more frightening than that of the just-beaten leader, immediately dispelling the hint of fighting spirit they had just gathered and sending them into utter defeat.
Chi Xiaochi turned around to look towards the leader. His eyebrows raised slightly. “What, you’re already crying?”
The leader wiped his face, then said in a tearful voice, “Since when did Laozi cry?”
Chi Xiaochi let out a slightly contemptuous whistle.
Chi Xiaochi had seen a lot of these types of groups of little brats who depended on bullying others to gain a sense of existence but couldn’t actually do anything. There was always one person who acted as the central figure, responsible for bossing people around, and the rest helped by acting as supporting roles. When they were a large group, they imagined themselves amazing and could run wild without fear.
To Chi Xiaochi, they were nothing but a nest of flies, buzzing as they flew about, pretending they were poisonous bees.
Sure enough, after Chi Xiaochi lightly pointed out that their leader was “crying”, the others’ gazes towards him were filled with suspicion and unease.
How could the leader hold on to his face? He wiped his red and white face, saying, “Dong Ge, if you have the ability, then don’t leave! Today, my brother came to the team, I’ll ask my brother to come deal with you!”
“Don’t.” Chi Xiaochi leaned against the door, standing with his arms crossed. “How is just calling your brother enough? How about you call your parents over too? There’ll be more people to provide their strength, all the better to support you.”
061, “……” This mouth of Chi Xiaochi’s.
The leader looked to have been quite agitated by Chi Xiaochi. He let out a curse, then got up from the floor and rushed at Chi Xiaochi.
Suddenly, from the door came a teenager’s pleasant voice, “……What are you guys doing?”
Those few people turned and looked around to see two people standing side by side in the doorway. Immediately, they were so scared that they couldn’t stand straight.
“Fan-ge!”
“He-ge!!”
It had to be said, those two had come just in time.
If they had been just a little slower, the leader might have gotten another beating.
Chi Xiaochi placed the mop pole he’d just picked up down upright, resting it against his palm. He nodded towards the two teenagers who looked to be three or four years older than him.
Their identities were not difficult to ascertain.
The two people were both wearing the same fire-red jackets, with the logo “Provincial Ice-Skating Team”.
And their builds were similar to those of the children present, with long arms and legs like works of art that had been precisely measured to the nearest centimeter with a ruler to strictly comply to predetermined lengths.
The one that they had called “He-ge” was a teen with delicate features unlike that of a man and an incredibly cold temperament.
Seeing the water poured all over the floor, he furrowed his brows, as if he’d thought of something bad.
It was just that the scene and atmosphere before him were a little weird.
The first thing he noticed was that child holding a pole.
It was for no other reason but that he was a vivid budding beauty standing there, so anyone would notice him at first glance.
The corners of his eyes and mouth were all a little broken, but it just made his dazzling features stand out all the more. His mouth, his eyes, his nose, everything was naturally gorgeous, yet shockingly harmonious, nowhere outshone anywhere else.
However, in sharp contrast to his appearance was his temperament, like a wild horse, a stubborn, indomitable ambition shining from the inside outward.
The other four people would try to dodge their gazes when it fell on them, yet only he dared to calmly stare straight back.
In sports schools, it was common to see people being bullied by big groups, and the scene before them was clearly yet another one of those.
But this situation actually looked as if this beautiful child had single-handedly, one against four, gotten his revenge.
……And the more he looked, the more familiar this beautiful child seemed.
The slightly taller teenager standing next to him said to him in a soft voice, “Changsheng, you forgot? He’s the kid the coach said he wanted to accept into the provincial team in the future. The one who was wearing blue cloud patterns on the rink just now.”
He Changsheng remembered now. “The one who danced《Unstoppable》.”
Chi Xiaochi answered concisely and comprehensively, “Yes.”
Right now, he had no time to study the world information and could only have 061 tell him some basic information about the original host.
The original host’s name was Dong Ge, 11 years old this year, from a little county town that was covered in ice and snow five months a year. His parents ran a family ice-skating rink. From a young age, he had grown up on the ice, to the point that it wasn’t clear whether he’d first learned to run or first learned to skate.
However, his parents didn’t have a good relationship and often got into big, sometimes physical fights.
When they argued, little Dong Ge would dress himself into a furry ball, and would, with his hands clasped behind his back, do rounds around the ice-skating rink, spinning around with his eyes closed along to the love songs blaring from the loudspeakers.
Nevertheless, his parents, who had serious differences of opinion and raised Dong Ge strictly, were extremely unified on one thing.
——They would never say anything good about Dong Ge.
If Dong Ge got a score of 98 for his exam, they would definitely ask how he lost those 2 points. Their final, concluding statement would be, why are you so careless.
If Dong Ge got into a fight with his classmate, they would press Dong Ge’s head down and make him apologise to his classmate, not caring about whether that classmate had first thrown Dong Ge’s pencil case out the window.
If Dong Ge was scared of thunder, they would disdain him for being a coward, not being at all like a man. Later on, after Dong Ge had heard a lot of it on his own, he was no longer scared.
Under this kind of teaching from his parents, Dong Ge became silent, but stubborn and competitive.
He was the leader of the dance team in elementary school. Because he liked skating and was eager to get away from his parents, he gave up his studies after graduation and was admitted into the figure-skating team of the city’s sports school.
His technical skill was first-rate amongst his peers, but his stubborn, inflexible personality was never likeable.
The person who’d taken the lead in bullying him this time was called Xue Yibo. Since Dong Ge had entered this school, he’d disliked him. The reason for bullying and humiliating him this time was because the provincial figure-skating team’s coach had brought a few students who had graduated from Binzhou Sports School to share their experiences.
Dong Ge and Xue Yibo were under the same coach. He’d pushed Dong Ge out like he was presenting a treasure, telling him to skate for the provincial team coach.
Dong Ge, a cold look on his face, went up and did it.
This was originally nothing but a normal sharing of experiences, and the provincial team coach hadn’t expected too much from a little child who’d only been in school for half a year.
Who would’ve thought that in less than a minute, the coach would straighten up in his chair, staring straight at the child dancing as much as he liked on the ice.
His blades scored a full arc on the ice. When he jumped, his blades scraped up flecks of frost, chasing after his feet like white butterflies.
The provincial team coach watched the entire program. He didn’t even ask anything about him before first opening his mouth and saying, “Next year, the provincial team is recruiting. Tell him to come.”
Not surprisingly, as soon as he left the ice rink, he was locked into the washroom by a few people led by Xue Yibo.
Chi Xiaochi only knew a brief outline of the circumstances leading up to it, and the ultimate ending.
Dong Ge suffered mental trauma and was admitted for psychiatric treatment.
One winter day, Dong Ge, now skinny to the point of becoming totally unrecognisable, was accompanied by a caretaker out on a walk. When the caretaker went off to take a personal call, the muddled him noticed that the hospital had an ornamental lake, and the lake was frozen over.
……The ice was really thin.
As a system-certified B-rank difficulty world, Chi Xiaochi felt that this scenario was more acceptable than that fucking A-rank.
He Changsheng’s companion smiled gently, then turned and said to He Changsheng, “Look, ”a.”
His voice was really pleasant.
It was his voice just now that had successfully prevented the possibility of this group being beaten up.
He Changsheng looked at the bullying children, his gaze slightly cold. He was silent.
That person walked into the crowded and dirty toilet, and asked amiably, “What were you guys doing just now? Were you all playing a game?”
This way out was given just in time. Xue Yibo immediately started nodding incessantly.
He said, “In the future, don’t play these kinds of games anymore. Do you hear me?”
After that, he pressed on Dong Ge’s shoulder and raised his voice, “I know Dong Ge, he was my neighbour in the past. You guys take good care of him, okay?”
Xue Yibo and the rest’s mouths fell open in surprise.
Xue Yibo stuttered out, “Fan-ge? ……He, he never mentioned it before……”
Even Dong Ge showed some astonishment. “You……”
Fan-ge smiled warmly. He lowered his head and whispered to Dong Ge, “You might not remember me anymore, but I know you. Your family ran an ice-skating rink, when you were young, you especially liked to play with a little yellow dog.”
Chi Xiaochi choked slightly.
An indescribable feeling pervaded his heart.
He asked, “Liu-laoshi, Liu-laoshi, which one of them is the target this time?”
Only after choosing to “accept the world information”, would the relevant information of the target be displayed on the digital display before Chi Xiaochi.
061 had said before, the task target appeared in Dong Ge’s life when he was 11 years old.
And choosing this time to let Chi Xiaochi take over for Dong Ge proved that that target had a high chance of appearing today.
061, “……En?”
Chi Xiaochi was silent for a moment, before asking, “……Liu-laoshi, you weren’t daydreaming just now, were you?”
061 hesitated for a moment, then said gently, “Sorry.”
He Changsheng took another deep look at Dong Ge, seeming to not want to stay here any longer.
He said, “Lou-ge, let’s go.”
Those two words ruthlessly shot a bullet into Chi Xiaochi’s heart. A deafening echo echoed in his chest, making his ribs throb slightly with pain.
At the same time, 061 spoke.
His tone was a little different than usual, sounding very strange, “……He’s this mission’s target. Lou Sifan.”
The author has something to say:
New world!!
sere: oh mah gawd. ALSO baum noted this but the protag’s name in chinese (lit. winter song) is MUCh better sounding, but the pinyin is terrible so admire the beauty of Chinese and the obvious connection to skating
baum: haha yeah whenever I see Dong Ge I can’t help but think of…. *ahem* XD