Chapter 25 Going Home: The Taste of Home, I Know
Due to her eldest disciple's injury and the other disciples' final exam preparations, Xia Yuezi had so much free time after returning to China that she was practically growing hair.
She sat in her office, a notebook covered in scribbles on the table in front of her, but the notebook's owner's mind had wandered off somewhere else.
Xia Yuezi has been having trouble sleeping these past few days, not because she's suddenly finding herself with nothing to do, but because she's thinking about what Lin Ye said about Yu Qian's hand injury being quite serious.
Traditional Chinese medicine therapists make a living by using their hands, and like figure skaters, they suffer from occupational diseases such as arthritis and tenosynovitis.
Since she transmigrated, the original owner's memories have gradually faded. Now, all that remains is the basic ability to recognize people and find her way around. She only has more memories of those with whom she had a slightly closer relationship.
Yu Qian's hands were among them. In addition to recurring occupational diseases, she also suffered from frostbite on her hands and ears every winter.
The simultaneous occurrence of both will only make this winter more unbearable.
Xia Yuezi stood in front of the old residential area carrying various tonics. The security guard glanced at her, but remained sitting in the heated security room, holding his teacup.
She bought a weekday train ticket and arrived home in her neighborhood around 5 p.m. by taxi. There weren't many young people along the way, and a few wisps of white smoke drifted out of the tenement building, which dissipated soon after.
The door was covered in rust, and the doorbell had stopped working due to years of disrepair. Xia Yuezi didn't use her key to open the door, but stood at the door and gently knocked.
As soon as Yu Qian opened the door, she saw Xia Yuezi standing at the entrance, carrying various gift boxes in her hands, looking at her with a somewhat nervous expression.
"Why are you here?"
Xia Yuezi lowered her head, and before she could speak, she heard Yu Qian say again, "It's chilly outside, come in first."
The underfloor heating was on, and the temperature was noticeably different as soon as you stepped inside. Yu Qian found a pair of slippers in the shoe cabinet, hesitated for a moment, and then placed them by the door.
After the original owner's father passed away unexpectedly, his work unit took back the public housing. This house was purchased with insurance money and subsidies at that time, and its layout still retains the appearance of the 1990s.
Xia Yuezi put the tonic aside and noticed that Yu Qian's knuckles were bent and swollen, and her hands were trembling slightly when she picked up the shoes.
The two sat in the living room, speechless. Xia Yuezi picked up a glass of water, the steam rising from it blurring her vision. Gazing at Yu Qian's indistinct figure, she broke the silence.
"Um, is your hand alright?"
Yu Qian paused for a moment, then gently rubbed her knuckles, avoiding the question: "Was it Lin Ye who told you that?"
She could tell that Lin Ye and Xia Yuezi had a good relationship.
Xia Yuezi touched her nose, knowing she couldn't hide it from Yu Qian, so she simply admitted, "Yes, I also bought you mugwort patches and a physiotherapy device. Your joints will feel better after using them."
Although Yu Qian had said she didn't need Xia Yuezi's support, Xia Yuezi couldn't really ignore it. The original owner's maternal grandparents were getting old and had many underlying health conditions, and Yu Qian couldn't support them alone forever.
Yu Qian turned to look at the pile of gift boxes by the door, her eyes filled with complex emotions, yet a smile graced her face. Even after all this time, she still didn't know how to treat this stranger who had taken over her daughter's body.
Her subconscious avoidance led Yu Qian to bring up another question: "Is Xiaoyan's leg injury serious?"
Although she didn't go to the finals in person, she saw a lot of videos and posts on her computer.
“I went to see her a couple of days ago. Her mother said that the bone has started to heal and the brace will be removed in a while. However, she definitely won’t be able to start training before the National Championships.”
In other words, Yang Yiyan is destined to miss this National Championship.
The National Championships is an annual showcase of training results from all provinces in China. Provincial leaders bring out their best talents to demonstrate their abilities, and the level of importance attached to it is no less than that of any international competition. If a particular event has exceptionally strong athletes, foreign athletes or fans may even tune in to watch.
For example, the national figure skating championships in Russia and the United States attract many figure skating fans every year, who even create a separate thread on forums.
As darkness fell outside the window, Xia Yuezi, who had taken three days off to come back and take care of her, was left in the living room by Yu Qian, who didn't want to send her away. She went to cook.
Xia Yuezi, thinking about Yu Qian's difficulty moving her fingers, put down her water glass and followed her to the kitchen, only to be stopped by Yu Qian's question: "Can you cook?"
Recalling her experience of training abroad, Xia Yuezi silently sat back down in her original seat.
Because she couldn't get used to the food abroad, she always brought a lot of homemade seasonings from the team with her when she went abroad. Of course, these were for the few trainees who could cook. Whether she could return to China alive depended entirely on whether these people were willing to help her.
While Yu Qian was busy in the kitchen, Xia Yuezi wasn't idle either. This house was a two-bedroom apartment, and she went into the original owner's room, which was also the room where she would stay tonight.
The original owner had been away from home for a long time after retiring from the military. Apart from the lack of bedding, the room was fully furnished, and there was no dust on the floor, indicating that it had been well-maintained.
Most of the things in the room were taken to Beijing, with only photos still stuck to the walls with tape.
From her early childhood when she started learning to skate, to her teenage years when she gradually grew up, and finally standing on the podium for the last time, Yu Qian was by her side for every moment of her growth.
The sound of oil and vegetables boiling in the pan filled my ears—a sound that should have been a homely one, provided... the person in the photo really was her.
Three days is neither a long nor a short time.
At the train station entrance, Xia Yuezi looked back with her bag on her back, and Yu Qian was standing behind her waving. There was a plaster on her hand, but the redness and swelling had subsided.
Xia Yuezi initially wanted to take Yu Qian back to Beijing for a proper visit, but Yu Qian declined, saying, "As people get older, their bodies inevitably develop problems. Besides, there are many things to do at the hospital, and regular check-ups are necessary. My contract with the team hasn't expired yet, so I don't have that much time."
These few words clearly showed that the stubborn old lady was unwilling to go to the hospital. Xia Yuezi couldn't persuade her otherwise, so she had to return to Beijing alone.
She glanced at Yu Qian, who was still standing there, and silently walked forward with her bag on her back. The train lurched along the tracks, and Xia Yuezi looked at the tracks beside her, as if her relationship with Yu Qian had also embarked on a different path.
To finalize the training roster more quickly, this year's National Championships are scheduled for mid-December.
Unlike the loose scoring of previous years, the referees at this year's National Championships were very strict and scored strictly according to the referee manual. They caught many irregular jumps, including those by Zhang Mengyi and Jiang Shuyu. The women's singles scores dropped sharply compared to previous years, but this did not have a significant impact on the final list.
In the men's singles event, Lin Ye achieved a triple A and a quadruple T for the first time in a competition, scoring 250 points and giving Chinese figure skating fans a much-needed boost.
Feng Simai scored a triple A in both the short program and the free skate, and with her superb skating and expressiveness, she scored more than 220 points, ranking second only to Lin Ye.
The two head coaches of the Heilongjiang and Beijing provincial teams stood in the stands, watching the two young men on the podium, and smiled with great satisfaction, feeling that my country's men's singles was finally showing some improvement.
There is only one spot for each event at the Youth Winter Olympics. Considering that Lin Ye's lower and upper limits are equally amazing, and that he just competed in the Grand Prix Final not long ago, in order to keep him in good physical condition for the upcoming competitions, the Skating Association ultimately decided to give the spot to Feng Simai, who has a more consistent performance.
This is the first Youth Winter Olympics, and many countries have sent their top-seeded athletes. However, it is also possible that some countries with abundant talent reserves have only selected athletes that they believe can easily sweep the podium, but who are not particularly outstanding domestically.
Like Russia. You could say they value this competition, since all the participants are young kids; or you could say they don't, since those kids are all well-known figures in the youth group.
Yang Yiyan's leg fully recovered before the start of the Youth Winter Olympics. She watched the games in front of the computer while drinking bone broth cooked by her mother.
The absence of Andrei in this men's singles competition allowed the two Asian skaters, Feng Simai and Fujiwara Yoshino, to fight neck and neck, leaving the other European and American skaters far behind, which is quite a rare occurrence in figure skating.
Both had the same short program setup, but Feng Simai's performance was slightly better than Fujiwara Yoshino's, allowing him to pull ahead by about one point in the short program.
Feng Simai was warming up on the sidelines, glancing at Fujiwara Yoshino on the ice out of the corner of his eye.
He lifted his left foot, and the time it took to build up power for his glide was longer than before. Xia Yuezi's eyes darkened slightly. Only a T-jump relied on the left foot to touch the ice, but a 3T wasn't worth Fujiwara Yoshino spending so much time building up power.
The time spent gliding and charging up will also be counted towards the GOE bonus.
Fujiwara Yoshino pressed hard on the ice, his entire body instantly tightening. Feng Simai's eyes widened, and he stopped stretching his arms outward.
This is a 4T (4-times total), and although he didn't stay in the game, it's a full week, so the score will be terrifying.
A basic score for a 4T is 10.3. If you fall and get a full GOE, you still have 7.3 points, which is more than one point higher than the basic score for the highest-scoring triple loop.
The men's singles event only introduced the quadruple jump at the end of the last century. Starting from the Turin cycle, the quadruple jump became more popular, and it became even more popular afterward. Even so, very few athletes were able to successfully jump the quadruple jump. Most athletes relied on triple A to improve their scores.
After Fujiwara Yoshino fell on 4T, he put 3A on his second jump. Xia Yuezi glanced at the Japanese coach next to her and thought that they sometimes really trusted their athletes.
Falling on the first jump has already affected the athlete's mentality. If they fall on the second jump, they might have to leave the competition with a string of marks on their record.
Fujiwara Yoshino's final score was 143.87, and with her short program score, her total score reached 218.56.
Feng Simai took deep breaths at the entrance, knowing that surpassing this score meant he couldn't afford the slightest mistake.
Xia Yuezi stood behind him, patted his shoulder, and encouraged him, "Don't put pressure on yourself. Just skate the same way you skated at the National Championships. Skate for everyone to see."
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