Ice skates forward, regardless of east or west.

1

Wang Zhenguo opened the folder.

He moved slowly. First page, second page, third page—the edges of the papers blew white under the spotlight. His hands didn't tremble.

Page 47.

He raised his eyes, his gaze passing through the hearing area and landing behind the half-closed glass door of the VIP box.

"Zhou Wentao," he said, his voice low. "March 12, 2018, Zurich, Switzerland. You received two million US dollars in transfers from offshore accounts controlled by Ye Shen."

Someone in the private room stood up.

"Three days later," Wang Zhenguo continued.

"Gu Xidong suffered an 'accident' during training before the free skate competition at the Japan Grand Prix. He completely ruptured his left anterior cruciate ligament and suffered a grade III tear of his medial collateral ligament."

He closed the folder.

"You manipulated the time of the accident, arranged for the ice inspectors to be reassigned, and deleted the backup of the training ground's surveillance footage."

Zhou Wentao stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window of the private room.

His face was expressionless. Only his lips moved.

The flashbulbs in the press box went off at that moment.

More than thirty cameras were raised simultaneously, the sound of shutters clicking like machine gun fire.

Someone knocked over a chair, someone stepped onto a table, and security guards were pushed into a corner. The microphone was pointed towards the private room.

"Mr. Zhou, do you plead guilty—"

"What exactly is the purpose of the two million dollars?"

"What is your relationship with Ye Shen?"

Zhou Wentao took a step back.

His hand groped for the doorknob, turned it, but the door wouldn't open—someone was blocking it from the outside.

He turned around and looked down through the glass.

On the ice rink, Gu Xidong sat on a bench in the changing area, his left leg outstretched and his hand on his knee.

He didn't look at the box. He bent down to tidy the laces of his ice skates, his fingertips pressing against the silver leather, against the old mark from three years ago.

Zhou Wentao forced a laugh out loud.

very short.

2

"You don't understand."

When he spoke, the press section fell silent.

The microphone was pulled low. The shutter clicks were sparse.

Zhou Wentao leaned against the door frame, his body half-turned towards the camera and half-turned towards the empty private room.

His hair was messy, his tie was crooked, and the reflection from his glasses obscured his eyes.

"What do you think this is? A clean and tidy playing field? A fair and just vote?"

His voice came from deep within his throat, dry, cracked, and hoarse.

"Without that money, the Chinese Skating Union wouldn't even have been able to secure the broadcasting rights for the World Championships. Without those 'lubricants,' the judges would have thrown us out of the ISU like rags long ago."

He took a step forward, pointing his finger at the air, at the lenses.

"How does FINA operate? IAAF? Go investigate. Do you dare to investigate?"

No one answered.

His throat bobbed.

"I've worked in sports management for thirty years. I started as a waiter in the athletes' village. Do you know how you survive in this industry without money, connections, or powerful backers?"

He took off his glasses and wiped them with his sleeve. The more he wiped, the blurrier the lenses became, so he simply threw them on the ground.

"Gu Xidong!" he shouted at the ice rink, his voice piercing. "You think you're the only one with a injured knee? You think you're the only one who's suffered? Who in this industry hasn't been injured? Who hasn't been sacrificed?"

Gu Xidong stopped tidying his shoelaces.

He didn't look up.

Zhou Wentao's breathing trailed off in the empty stadium.

"You idealists," he said finally, his voice suddenly dropping in dejection, "don't understand at all."

The entire room fell silent.

Only the low hum of the air conditioning ducts could be heard.

3

The sound of ice skates cutting through the ice rang out at that moment.

Very light. The first time.

Gu Xidong stood up, pushed off the ice with his left foot, and landed on the edge of his right. He didn't look at anyone—not at the VIP box, the press box, or the judges' box.

He skated toward the center of the ice rink.

The second time. The third time.

Ice shards rose up behind him, tiny, silvery-white, like shattered glass.

There is no music.

There was a fraction of a second of hesitation in his body as his left knee bent. He adjusted his center of gravity, cutting deeper with the outside of his ankle, gliding out in an arc.

Someone in the press section stood up.

The security guards forgot to stop them.

Zhou Wentao was still standing at the door of the private room, his fingers digging into the wood grain of the door frame.

Gu Xidong began to slow his pace.

Right anterior lateral, left anterior medial.

He crouched low, left arm extended forward, right arm extended backward. This was the first step he took when he was three years old and learning to ice skate. The coach held his hand and led him around and around on the ice.

He sped up.

A sharp electric shock shot through his knee on the fourth step—not pain, but an alarm bell ringing from an old injury. He didn't slow down.

We've reached the takeoff point.

He pushed off the ice with the outside edge of his left foot, swung his right leg, and his body was airborne.

Spin.

One lap, two laps, three laps, four laps—

The only sound in the air was the wind whistling as the ice skates spun.

His arms were close to his body, his toes were pointed, and his head remained centered.

The silver performance costume cast a blurry shadow under the spotlight.

Ice falling.

The right rear outer edge landed on the ice, and ice flowers splashed out in a half-meter arc at the tip of the blade.

His knees settled to cushion the impact, and his left knee wobbled slightly upon touching the ice.

He steadied himself. He slid out. His arms outstretched.

still.

Gu Xidong stood in the center of the ice rink, his chest heaving, and the white mist he exhaled dispersed in the lights.

He raised his right arm, pointing his index finger at the camera lens directly in front of him.

"This is what figure skating should be like."

His voice wasn't loud, but the microphone was clipped to his collar, and every word carried throughout the venue.

"It's not a deal. It's not a conspiracy. It's not about sacrificing someone, betraying someone, or breaking someone's leg in exchange for a vote."

He lowered his arm.

"It's evidence that people can fly on ice."

4

Applause erupted from the edge of the press box.

The first person to applaud was a young female reporter. With her camera still on her shoulder and her hands unavailable, she tapped the side of the camera with the heel of her palm, making a dull thud.

The people next to her were taking pictures.

Then comes the back row, the front row, and the opposite row.

The applause, initially scattered, grew into a sustained roar. Some people stood up, some whistled, and some rolled up their notebooks and banged them on the armrests of their chairs.

Zhou Wentao's figure disappeared behind the glass of the private room.

The security guards then came to their senses, pushed past the reporters, and squeezed through the door.

The door to the private room was locked from the inside. Someone heard the sound of flushing water, followed by the thud of the toilet seat falling off.

Wang Zhenguo remained seated in the hearing box.

He didn't applaud, put the folder back into his briefcase, and zipped it all the way up.

His gaze fell on the ice rink.

Gu Xidong did not respond to the applause.

He looked down at the ice, at the marks left by the ice skates when he landed—

Four clear, clean arcs extend from the takeoff point to the exit trajectory.

He touched the ice shavings inside the arc with the tip of his shoe.

Then he turned around and slid towards the barrier.

Ling Wuwen stood outside the barrier.

She was wearing an oversized gray sweatshirt with the hood pulled low, revealing only her chin.

The sweatshirt fabric bulged slightly at the left shoulder – the bandage was too thick.

She was holding the baby carrier with her right hand.

The child in the basket was awake, eyes half-open, little fists raised to the side of his face.

Gu Xidong slid to the barrier but did not step over it.

He bent down, placed one hand on the edge of the partition, and reached into the basket with the other, touching the child's fingers with his fingertips.

The child grasped his index finger.

Very tight. About the size of a fingernail, semi-transparent.

"He saw you jump," Ling Wuwen said.

"He's only been here five days," Gu Xidong said in a low, hoarse voice.

"He opened his eyes."

Gu Xidong didn't speak. His index finger was still held in the child's palm.

The applause from the press section finally subsided.

Some people started packing up their equipment, some whispered messages on their phones, and some walked around security towards the ice rink.

The first person to approach was a young female reporter.

She held the microphone over the barrier, not pointing it at Gu Xidong, but lowering it towards the ice.

"Mr. Gu," she said, "was that a quadruple Axel?"

"Yes."

"No athlete has been able to perform this move in official competitions."

Gu Xidong did not answer.

He straightened up and gently pulled his index finger out of the child's palm.

"I just wanted to prove," he said, "that it can be clean."

He slid off the barrier, his back to the reporter, and toward the gradually lighting exit indicator.

The four arcs on the ice are still there.

One by one, the spotlights went out.

The darkened ice surface resembled a deep lake. The arc sank into the shadows, and the ice shards at the edge of the blade slowly melted, seeping into the ice layer, just like all the traces that had ever been left on this ice.

The ice-sprinkling truck will be pushed through here tomorrow morning.

New ice covered the old marks. Everything was as smooth as ever.

But at this moment, those four arcs are still there.

Like the transparent silhouette left in the air after a person takes flight, it becomes visible once the eyes adjust to the darkness.

The child in the basket yawned, his fist clenched, and his five fingers slowly curled in the air.

Ling Wuwen looked down at him.

"Your father," she said, "just flew once."

The child's eyelids drooped.

At the end of the corridor, Gu Xidong's figure disappeared around the corner.

He limped a little when he stepped with his left leg, and each step was a fraction of a second slower than his right leg.

He didn't turn around.