Chapter 1: I Transmigrated and Became a Coach?
Why isn't Xia Xia awake yet?
"I don't know. You said she was teaching the child, fine, but how did she end up in the hospital after falling?"
The soft murmur of conversation reached Xia Yuezi's ears, intermittent and barely audible.
She felt a slight headache, followed by a pungent smell of disinfectant.
This smell was familiar to the athletes, and even had a stimulating effect on their subconscious. Xia Yuezi immediately opened her eyes.
Before they could even check their surroundings, the two people talking noticed the movement on the bed and immediately came over, asking warmly, "Coach Xia, are you alright?"
Xia Yuezi woke up, but felt like she was still dreaming.
Coach Xia...?
When did she become a coach?
Wait, she hasn't retired yet!
The two men were not surprised by Xia Yuezi's confused yet slightly panicked look. One of the tall, thin men reached out and patted her shoulder, comforting her, "Take a good rest during this time, just think of it as a vacation."
Xia Yuezi recognized the man as Coach Wang Can, who had long since left the national team to coach at a club and whose family had close ties with the leadership of the figure skating program.
She opened her mouth as if to ask something, and Wang Can, receiving the signal, tightened his grip even more.
"Don't worry about Xiaoyan, her parents have taken her back to study."
Brother, who is Xiaoyan?
And what, don't you all recognize me? Have I been working for nothing all these years?
Xia Yuezi felt somewhat numb. A man who looked a little older walked over, bent down, and smiled kindly at her.
She was even more confused.
The person who came was her coach, Li Tan, who was also the head coach of the Beijing team. But now he didn't have a noticeable belly or a receding hairline. He looked younger than she remembered, just like when they first met.
Her lips parted slightly: "Coach..."
A sharp pain in her shoulder abruptly interrupted her.
Xia Yuezi turned her head to look at the culprit, but Wang Can was acting as if nothing had happened.
He said to Li Tan, "Coach Li, people from above will be coming to inspect tomorrow. Now that Coach Xia is awake, shouldn't we go back and make some preparations?"
Li Tan responded and then said a few more words to comfort Xia Yuezi.
The two reached the ward door, and Wang Can opened it first, gesturing for Li Tan to go in. In Li Tan's blind spot, the man secretly glared at Xia Yuezi.
Xia Yuezi: "?"
The room fell silent again. Xia Yuezi lay back on the bed and closed her eyes without hesitation, telling herself that this was just a dream and that everything would be normal when she woke up.
The moment her consciousness relaxed, a flood of memories that didn't belong to her rushed in.
It is now 2010. The Vancouver Winter Olympics have ended, and the Sochi cycle has begun.
The body originally belonged to a newly hired coach of the Beijing team, and Xiaoyan was one of her few students.
The original owner was not a native of Beijing. He was invited by Li Tan from Northeast China after retiring from the national bronze medal competition.
Because of the head coach's high regard for him, he inevitably faces exclusion from his colleagues in daily life. The first to bear the brunt is Coach Wang Can, and his hospitalization this time is also largely related to them.
The original owner fell while teaching jumping on the ice, but the students immediately went to ask for help. However, the group of colleagues waited for a while before making a call. Xia Yuezi also fell while playing music on the ice before she fainted, and that's how she "coincidentally" transmigrated.
Ouch... my head hurts even more.
As a coach, don't you know how serious it is to fall and lose consciousness on the ice rink?
It's no exaggeration to say that this group of people are treating human life like dirt!
Xia Yuezi couldn't sleep. Beside her hospital bed lay an old flip phone, discarded years ago. She tried dialing a number, but a mechanical female voice answered, "Hello, the number you dialed is not in service..."
After hanging up, she suddenly remembered that her parents had both changed their phone numbers, but she couldn't recall what their previous numbers were.
Xia Yuezi first went to the doctor's office for a stroll, and learned the bad news that she could not be discharged from the hospital for the time being. She returned to the ward with a forced smile and exhaustion.
In the bathroom, she stood in front of the mirror and looked at herself.
This face is completely different from before, and it doesn't fit the stereotypical image of a girl from Northeast China. Instead, it's the round-faced sweet girl style that's popular 18 years later. The pale complexion doesn't detract from the beauty; instead, it adds a sense of brokenness.
She reached out and pinched her cheek hard, as if to greet this new body and also to determine whether this was a dream or not.
Strictly speaking, Xia Yuezi knew the original owner of this body. In 2010, she was selected for the Beijing team, at which time the original owner was still working as a coach on the team, but she later resigned and returned to Northeast China, and we haven't heard much about her since.
Even so, Xia Yuezi felt extremely awkward at the thought of communicating with familiar people while wearing an unfamiliar identity.
But the fact that she has been able to hold the top spot in Chinese figure skating for so many years and snatch many medals from Russia, the dominant force in figure skating, shows that her mental fortitude is unmatched by most people.
In the women's singles event at this time, Asian athletes have been the most prominent, a trend that has lasted for two cycles, with the Vancouver Winter Olympics being the pinnacle of that period. It was also during this time that Japan and South Korea laid a solid foundation.
Unfortunately, we not only missed out on all the benefits, but also lost many promising talents. By the time Xia Yuezi took the lead, the family fortune had been almost entirely squandered.
Xia Yuezi's eyes darkened.
If we really can't go back, then we might as well take this opportunity to change the future direction of Chinese figure skating.
……………
Perhaps because her body had undergone a transplant, Xia Yuezi was discharged from the hospital quickly. The roads in Beijing hadn't changed much, and she easily found her way home.
The security guard in the residential compound lay back on a chair, glanced casually at the woman carrying a fruit basket, and pointed to the table next to him: "Go register over there."
Xia Yuezi fell silent.
This is so different from the security guard she remembers.
Because of competitions and training trips, she rarely goes home. In addition, the security system is upgraded from time to time, which makes the community security guards always think she is an outsider and insist on calling her parents to confirm.
Xia Yuezi completed the registration and stood in front of her own front door, feeling very complicated.
She clenched her fists tightly as she held the fruit basket, and with her other hand she raised it to gently knock on the door.
A short while later, an elderly woman with white hair poked her head out from the doorway: "Who are you?"
Xia Yuezi's hand trembled almost imperceptibly, and her voice was hoarse: "I heard that Uncle Wu fell down, so my mother asked me to come and see him."
The old lady pushed up her reading glasses, and the door opened wider, revealing the furnishings of the house, exactly as she remembered them. There was also a family photo in the living room.
"Girl, you've gone to the wrong building. Old Wu is in Building 3."
Xia Yuezi didn't pay attention to what her grandmother said; instead, she focused her attention on the little girl behind her who went into the kitchen to pour water.
Even from just a fleeting glance, Xia Yuezi could tell that she looked nothing like her younger self.
"Thank you, Grandma." Xia Yuezi lowered her eyes.
"It's okay."
The moment the old lady turned around and closed the door, Xia Yuezi heard a conversation coming from inside.
"LuLu, go do your homework, or Mom will scold you when she gets back."
"Grandma, I've finished writing."
At this moment, Xia Yuezi really wanted to cry.
Her grandmother passed away when she was very young, and the few memories she had left were reduced to the image of "telling her to study hard".
Looking back at that annoying behavior from the outside, everything seems warm and endearing when you become an outsider.
She placed the fruit basket at the door, wiped away her tears, and walked down the road. The August wind was still warm, yet also cold.
An unfamiliar ringtone came from her pocket. Xia Yuezi paused for a moment before answering the phone. It was Li Tan's voice on the other end: "Xia, where are you? Xiao Yan came to training today but didn't see you."
Xia Yuezi sniffed, calming herself down: "I just came from the hospital and got a little lost, but I'll be there soon."
Li Tan felt that she seemed a little strange, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what was wrong.
He said, "Then hurry up, don't keep people waiting."
Xia Yuezi hung up the phone but didn't turn off the screen. She hadn't looked at her phone carefully before because she was annoyed, and only now did she realize that the screen saver was a group photo from the National Championships awards ceremony.
The original owner stood on the platform with the bronze medal, holding up the flowers in her hand, her face beaming with a bright smile.
To continue working in figure skating after retirement, one either needs to have such good results that they can live off the sport for life, or they need to have an extremely high level of passion for it.
The original owner was clearly the second type. However, judging from her memories, her decision back then was very sudden, and at that time she had several promising female singles players under her control.
Xia Yuezi didn't think that the passion that hadn't faded over the past ten years could disappear so easily. Something must have happened. Combined with Wang Can's hostility towards her, it was hard for her not to think the worst.
She put her phone back in her pocket and walked towards the Capital Indoor Stadium, her steps firm and steady, as if she had made up her mind.
……………
Xia Yuezi met Xiaoyan at the Capital Stadium.
She was a skinny little girl, as thin as a monkey, wearing a black training uniform. She looked at people timidly and kept her head down, picking at her fingers.
She vaguely remembered the girl—a women's singles player who was forced to leave the team because she couldn't consistently achieve high difficulty levels. Later, she trained at the club at her own expense, but then encountered a developmental bottleneck and never made it out again.
In her twenty years on the ice, Xia Yuezi has only ever seen one South Korean athlete this thin, and that was due to excessive dieting to overcome developmental challenges, which ultimately led to anorexia.
Xia Yuezi is a power-type singles player. The developmental stage not only did not limit her, but also gave her more power, which can be considered a natural advantage. However, Yang Yiyan seems to be a speed-type player and a low-altitude player. If you are not careful, she can easily sink into the lake.
"Coach, are you alright?"
A crisp sound interrupted Xia Yuezi's thoughts, and she realized that Yang Yiyan had grabbed the hem of her clothes.
Clearly, due to her dependence on the coach, this girl is still haunted by the memory of the original owner's fall on the ice.
But Xia Yuezi's eyelids twitched when she heard this form of address. By biological reckoning, Yang Yiyan was two years older than her; by psychological reckoning, she was twelve years older than Yang Yiyan.
She sighed inwardly, then gently pulled Yang Yiyan's wrist with her other hand, her palm revealing prominent knuckles.
As Xia Yuezi led the person toward the ice rink, she gently comforted them, "It's okay, don't be afraid."
She stood by the barrier, took off her skate sheaths, and gently rubbed them together with her fingers, but her mouth didn't stop: "Don't be nervous, go up and jump a couple of times first, and see if your skills have deteriorated in the past few days since you haven't been on the ice."
Figure skating is a sport that places great emphasis on foot feel. Even if you don't go on the ice for several days, or even just a few hours, the jumps you've already learned can easily disappear.
If you get injured and need surgery, you'll have to start picking up the pieces again, just like a beginner.
Xia Yuezi turned her head and noticed that the person next to her hadn't moved. She asked in confusion, "What's wrong?"
Yang Yiyan blinked her clear eyes and said, "Coach, you didn't talk like this before."
Xia Yuezi's heart skipped a beat, realizing she had been exposed, but she forced a smile and continued, "How is it different?"
The little girl suddenly looked up, startling Xia Yuezi, who thought she was doomed. But then she heard her say, "That's the tone I'm talking about. It's always interesting to hear the coach speak."
As soon as Yang Yiyan finished speaking, she covered her mouth, her bright eyes looking at Xia Yuezi. Seeing that the coach hadn't come to his senses yet, she playfully stuck out her tongue and skated onto the ice rink.
Xia Yuezi understood.
The original owner was from Northeast China, so she naturally spoke with a Northeastern accent, something that Yang Yiyan, a girl from Beijing, had never encountered before.
Xia Yuezi herself is from Beijing, but she only went to train in Northeast China after joining the national training team, where she hung out with a group of athletes from the Northeast. Although her overall language system didn't change much, her commonly used phrases were still affected.
For example, what she just said.
Xia Yuezi rubbed her temples, reminding herself to pay more attention to her accent in the future, and to find an excuse like gradual change to correct it later.
She followed Yang Yiyan's path onto the ice, with a distance between them.
Hearing the sound of skating, she looked up and caught Yang Yiyan jumping. Her face immediately fell.
She really wanted to bring this girl's first coach over and ask him how he taught the LZ jump and F jump.
That was a perfect flat edge jump, and the OP's tiptoe was a bit too inward. Considering the treatment Chinese skaters receive, these jumps would be nothing short of phenomenal on the international stage!
If this happens at fourteen or fifteen years old, you can blame it on developmental delays, but at twelve years old... you can only blame your early childhood coach.
Fortunately, apart from the 2A turn to the triple slide, the other double jumps were all fine.
Xia Yuezi did the math and concluded that, given the training methods of this era, a girl of this age wouldn't be considered too bad with this kind of setup.
"Anything else? I remember teaching 3T."
Now that Xia Yuezi had accepted the role of coach, she naturally took Yang Yiyan's training to heart and even compiled a training manual based on the original owner's memories while she was in the hospital.
Yang Yiyan lowered her head and muttered softly, "It's lost."
Yang Yiyan was originally in Wang Can's group before being assigned to the original owner, and the process was not exactly honorable.
This girl couldn't learn the triple jump and fell far behind the other students. That's when Wang Can started to criticize Li Tan and pass this hot potato to the original owner of the body.
If you can't learn it in three weeks...
Xia Yuezi subconsciously looked at Yang Yiyan's legs, which were as thin as chopsticks.
The little girl has completed the required number of rotations, proving that she is capable of triple jumps. The fact that she keeps falling suggests that her leg muscles are unable to withstand the impact when landing on the ice.
Xia Yuezi tentatively inquired, "Are you starting to diet now?"
Yang Yiyan mumbled an agreement, wishing she could bury her head in ice: "Yes, because ballet requires a light body, but I also have muscles."
The last sentence was spoken so softly that Xia Yuezi almost didn't hear it.
She looked the child up and down with suspicion, but in the end, she didn't puncture the child's pitiful sense of self-esteem.
“Okay, but you still need to work on your muscles. I’ll go get the boom bar. You can slide around here a bit.”
She had helped her juniors train before, so she was quite adept at using these equipment.
The bar was placed on a chair outside the ice rink. After Yang Yiyan put on her gear, she jumped out along the skating path, and Xia Yuezi pulled the bar tight at the right time.
A 3T landed lightly on the ice.
Even with Xia Yuezi's discerning eye, she couldn't see anything wrong with it.
Does your leg hurt?
"It's alright." Yang Yiyan moved her ankle.
"Then let's continue."
While barre training can help athletes stabilize their jumps, overuse can lead to dependency and a loss of feel for the jump.
Xia Yuezi didn't plan to let her use it too much. If she wanted to master jumping, she had to work on all aspects of it.
A note from the author:
----------------------
Let me introduce the ages of the main characters in the story. The athletes in the story are not all-rounders and will have some shortcomings. The story is going for a serious tone and the timeline includes the Sochi and Pyeongchang cycles. Writing it any further would be too difficult and would be too much for the "older" characters, which would go against the original intention of writing this story.
Xia Yuezi: Original body born in 1988; Soul transmigrator born on November 7, 2000 (Power-oriented, mainly active in the youth group during the PyeongChang cycle, with 3A reserves, missed the PyeongChang Winter Olympics due to injury, returned at the end of the 2018-2019 season, started to do 4T, but because she missed the best age for doing difficult jumps, she can only stabilize the quadruple single jump, with difficulty configurations including 3A, 3A+2T, and 4T)
Yang Yiyan: June 8, 1998, 161cm, female singles competitor, her blade jump skill is maxed out, she is more inclined to speed-based movement, and is better at continuous loops. The author will correct the wrong blade later. Her performance talent is not high, but she has a strong sense of empathy. (By the way, there will be no quadruple jumps in the female singles in this article, because when the judges loosen up, Xiaoyan's age is no longer suitable for rolling with difficulty.)
Zhang Mengyi: Born April 15, 1996, 168cm tall, women's singles player. Overdevelopment during puberty may cause some struggles in her professional career.
Feng Simai: Born January 24, 1996, 183cm tall, male singles skater. His height makes his axis unstable, which limits some of his skating difficulty. He also lacks stamina. He follows the performer route. He took a year off from junior high school due to injury. He has excellent skating skills and can understand and express the meaning of the performance pieces on the ice.
Lin Ye: Born May 24, 1995, 172cm, male singles skater, jumper route, his skating spins are sometimes disastrous, and he might have some lapses in concentration due to the high difficulty of his program.
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