Chapter 116 September in the capital, and more…
In September, Beijing still retained the lingering heat of summer. The afternoon sun made the asphalt roads scorching hot, but Ren Xiyao, standing at the entrance of the national team training base, felt a chill run down her spine.
The suspension ended on time on September 25th. As the date drew closer, she finally breathed a sigh of relief, feeling as if she could see a glimmer of hope. That day, she got up early to go to the training base to get her pass, changed into clean training clothes, and adjusted her skates, thinking that she could finally swipe open the base gates and hear the familiar sound of skate sharpening on the ice rink, just like before.
The clerk at the window typed on the computer for a long time, then looked up with a formulaic smile: "Ren Xiyao, right? Your information hasn't been updated in the system yet. The approval process might not be complete. Will you wait a little longer?"
"How long?" She clutched the mints that she had somehow slipped into her pocket, the wrappers creaking as she squeezed them.
"It's hard to say," the clerk said, bowing his head to organize documents, his voice muffled. "The leaders are busy with the new season's selection process and might not have time to attend to it. You can go back now, and we'll let you know if we have any news."
Three days passed. Every day she asked, and the answers were almost the same: "The system hasn't been updated," "The leadership hasn't approved it," "Wait a little longer." On the last day, she met Xu Xin in the corridor. Xu Xin lowered his voice and said to her, "Lin Shan has been asking about your situation these past two days, but the head coach hasn't told you. But I heard that Lan Hai submitted an application saying that your status during the suspension period is unclear, and asked the team to 'carefully evaluate' your eligibility to return to the team."
The most ridiculous thing is that Lan Hai actually knows best about her condition.
Ren Xiyao didn't speak, turned and walked out of the base. The sunlight stretched her shadow long, like countless invisible hands tightly gripping her. She should have known better; it wouldn't be so easy for it to "end." The shackles of the suspension were removed, but invisible ropes still bound her.
She could only continue to frequent that commercial ice rink associated with Lan Hai. The ice rink was the same as always in the early morning; the ice surface occasionally had small bumps that hadn't been smoothed out. Before skating, she would spend time smoothing the surface herself, but sometimes she would miss some spots. When skating over those spots, her knees would feel like they were being pricked with needles.
Her weight was slowly returning to normal. Her therapist adjusted her medication, and she forced herself to eat three meals a day, even if it made her want to vomit. The numbers on the scale finally stopped dropping, settling at a level that wasn't ideal but was at least enough to support her training. Drug testers asked her more than once, "Are you really a short track speed skater? How come you're so thin?"
She was battling against time, against those who wanted to keep her off the ice. She was simply unwilling to give up. She wanted to see just how far she could go.
In early September, when the registration notice for the Elite League came out, the first stop was in Harbin, at the Longcheng Club. The day she saw the notice, she stared at those five words for a long time, her fingers tracing the screen. It was a familiar place, a place where she could finally catch her breath, as if she had finally found a brief foothold.
After registering, she called Coach Zhang. This time he answered quickly, with the sound of skates gliding across the ice in the background. "Go! You have to go!" Coach Zhang's voice was a little excited: "You know the ice rinks in Harbin well, we..." He paused again, then said, "Just focus on the competition, don't think about anything else."
On the high-speed train to Harbin, Ren Xiyao sat by the window. The scenery outside the window changed from the city to fields, and then from fields to rolling mountains. She opened her training notebook, which was filled with training data from the past three months: the temperature of the ice rink at dawn, the hardness of the ice surface, the reaction time of each start, the angle of inclination on the curves... densely packed, like the words she didn't say aloud.
"Don't be nervous," he handed her a bottle of warm water. "Just think of it as a regular training session in Dragon City."
From the preliminaries to the finals, she entered three events, and she fought fiercely in each one. The 500m was extremely intense; she hadn't had systematic training for a long time, and her lane assignment wasn't ideal, so she only managed fourth place. The 1500m was her strong suit, and it was in this event that she achieved second place. Now, her points have placed her second. In the final event, the 1000m, the moment the gun fired, she almost instinctively sprinted off. At the first bend, she took the inside lane, feeling the breaths of the runners behind her. On the fifth lap, a Lan Hai teammate tried to overtake her from the outside lane. She gritted her teeth and accelerated, and a sudden, sharp pain shot through her old knee injury. She stubbornly refused to slow down, managing to create a half-meter gap.
On the final lap, she felt like her lungs were about to explode, and her vision blurred. The shouts of the spectators filled her ears, but she seemed unable to hear anything, her eyes fixed on the ice and the finish line. At the moment of crossing the finish line, she practically fell, lying on the ice for a long time before finally looking up. But the first thing she did was glance at the big screen on the ice rink. After the judges verified her time, she saw she was second, and only then did she breathe a sigh of relief. Now, her total points for the entire race placed her second.
It wasn't the best, but it was enough. She looked up and saw Coach Zhang clapping outside the barrier, his eyes red-rimmed, unable to hide his relief and heartache.
After the awards ceremony, she was icing her knee in the lounge when Coach Zhang knelt beside her and handed her a towel: "When you get back to the national team, go to the team and tell them your results are good enough. They'll handle the paperwork for you. There's a professional rehabilitation team for your injury..."
Before she could finish speaking, her phone rang. It was a message from the team's officer, with a photo of the "Supplementary Terms" attached. Ren Xiyao opened it, and her fingers suddenly froze.
"To ensure fairness in the selection process, the following supplementary rules are hereby added to the national team selection rules for the 2017-2018 season: the Elite League results will be based on the sum of the points from the first and second legs; all participants must submit a physical certificate issued by a designated medical institution within 72 hours before the second leg, confirming their fitness for high-intensity competition."
Coach Zhang leaned over for a look, and the towel in his hand fell to the ground with a "thud".
"This is...this is..." His voice trembled, "You were just injured, they designated Lan Hai and the cooperating hospital, this isn't..."
Before the coach could finish speaking, Lin Shan rushed in from outside, followed by Xu Xin and Xu Qinghe. Seeing Ren Xiyao like this, Lin Shan turned and ran out, but Ren Xiyao excitedly stood up and shouted for her to "Stop!" Xu Qinghe quickly stopped her.
Ren Xiyao spoke, her voice trembling, "Where are you going?"
Lin Shan stubbornly refused to turn around: "Ask the head coach why? Why were supplementary clauses suddenly added?"
"What's the point? Don't you want to stay in the national team either?"
Lin Shan's tears still fell. Xu Xin sighed beside her, his eyes also frighteningly red. Only Xu Qinghe came over, picked up the towel, and patted her on the shoulder as he handed it to her.
The atmosphere was tense. But in the end, Lin Shan stopped her tears first and said, "Don't give up, okay? Hang in there a little longer."
Looking at the national flag on Lin Shan's chest, Ren Xiyao felt an inexplicable envy. She smiled, though the smile looked forced, and said, "I don't plan to give up. There's still time, isn't there?"
Ren Xiyao slowly sat down and removed the ice pack from her knees. The icy water flowed down to her ankles, making her shiver. She should have realized this long ago; there was no such thing as "getting through the tough times." Being second in the first round was just giving the other party a more "reasonable" excuse to push her down again.
On the way to the Lanhai Club, her knee swelled up even more. She went to the team to apply for rehabilitation treatment, but was refused because "you haven't officially rejoined the team yet." Fortunately, the club's team doctor could help her, but the result wasn't good: "There's a slight tear in the ligament. It's best to rest and avoid high-intensity training."
But she couldn't stop. The second competition was just two weeks away.
Before the second leg of the competition, she went to Sanhe Sports Hospital as required. The doctor asked a few questions about her injury, squeezed her knee, and then told her to get an MRI. After the report came out, the doctor didn't show it to her, only saying, "The results will be sent directly to the national team. Go back and wait for our notification."
Sure enough, she received a call from the national team during training the next day. It was from an unfamiliar number, and the tone was as mechanical as a machine: "Ren Xiyao, according to the report from Sanhe Sports Hospital, your physical condition does not meet the requirements for the second leg of the competition. The team has decided to temporarily disqualify you from the competition."
“I want to see the report,” she said.
"The report has been filed; that's the rule." The other person paused, then added, "Take good care of yourself; there will be other opportunities in the future."
The phone call ended. Ren Xiyao sat on a plastic chair outside the ice rink. She recalled how she had fallen and gotten up again and again in the commercial ice rink in the early morning, how she had endured every minute and second in the commercial gym, and how she had suffered from insomnia day and night... It turned out that none of this could withstand a piece of paper, nor the invisible hand hidden behind the rules.
Her knees still ached, but the pain in her heart was far worse. She slowly took off her helmet, looked at the empty ice rink, and suddenly laughed—a laugh that brought tears to her eyes. Lin Shan had told her to persevere, everyone had told her to persevere. She wanted to persevere too, but why was it so difficult to do so at this moment?
Is it really that difficult to even qualify for a proper competition?
But time doesn't stand still at this moment. On the day the national team roster was finalized, after the press conference, public opinion shifted in a new direction.
"Sis, should we publish this article, 'Ren Xiyao's attitude is lax during the suspension period, and her condition is worrying'?" The intern came in with a coffee, and on the screen were "evidence" dug up by "fans": blurry photos of her training at a commercial ice rink were interpreted as "avoiding team management"; and candid photos of her eating with her family were interpreted as "not focusing on training".
The writer clicked send. She knew whose intention this was; the voices of those people she'd received on the phone these past few days had been nonchalant, saying things like, "Some athletes have poor discipline and need a good talking-to. As for public opinion, don't steer it towards the quotas; talk more about her 'moral issues.'"
The backend data jumped rapidly, and the hashtag #RenXiyao'sViolationDetailsDuringTraining# quickly climbed to the top of the trending searches. In the comments section, some people dug up an interview she gave three years ago, saying she was "too arrogant"; others compared her training volume with that of the young players from the Lan Hai Club, lamenting that "she has no intention of competing and is wasting the national team's resources." The writer closed the page, recalling the girl who bowed to the camera last winter when she won the all-around title for the second consecutive year, her eyes shining brighter than the lights on the ice rink.
Now, that light seems to have been extinguished, and her name is gradually fading from the Olympic candidate list to nothingness.
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