Ice skates forward, regardless of east or west.

1

"Put your hands on my waist."

Ling Wuwen stood on the ice, his back to Gu Xidong, his tone as calm as if he were directing a robot.

Gu Xidong stood behind her, his body stiff as a piece of wood.

His gaze fell on her slender waist, where the black training uniform clung to her curves, as if silently challenging his reason.

"I didn't say I wanted to practice pairs skating." His voice was dry, with a hint of resistance.

"This isn't pairs skating; it's core strength training," Ling Wuwen said without turning his head. "Your core strength is too weak to support the hang time required for high-difficulty jumps. The lifts force your core to tighten. And..."

She paused, then finally turned her head, her cold, beautiful face expressionless: "Didn't you think you were capable? You can't even lift a person, how are you going to compete on the field?"

Her eyes were full of contempt, as if to say: What, you're already chickening out?

Gu Xidong's face instantly turned bright red.

He couldn't stand being provoked, especially by this woman he couldn't understand.

"Who says I can't lift it?" He stepped forward through gritted teeth.

He took a deep breath, stretched out his hands, and placed them on her waist with a resolute air of facing certain death.

Through the thin fabric of his training uniform, the warmth and soft touch of her body beneath his palm sent a shiver through him. It was a long-lost sensation, the touch of a woman. Since his fall from grace, he had never experienced such intimate contact.

His hand froze uncontrollably.

"Retract your grip." Ling Wuwen's voice rang out above him, calm as if reciting a textbook. "Put your thumbs on your lower back, and your other four fingers against your external oblique muscles. Your hands aren't pliers, don't treat people like watermelons."

Gu Xidong's face turned even redder, and he hurriedly adjusted his posture.

"rise."

"What are you getting up for?"

"I'll count to three, then you push me up. Keep your weight on me, and keep your gaze perpendicular to the ice surface. Don't look around."

"oh."

"Three, two, one, go!"

Gu Xidong gritted his teeth, exerted force with his legs, and pushed his arms upward.

Ling Wuwen's body rose to the ground in response.

2

The lift in pairs figure skating is an action that extremely tests trust and teamwork.

At this moment, Gu Xidong's hands were supporting Ling Wuwen's upper thighs, her body weight completely entrusted to his arms. Her long hair fell down with the movement, the ends occasionally brushing against his cheek, carrying a slight tickle that went straight into his heart.

He could clearly smell the faint scent emanating from her, a mixture of sweat and cool fragrance.

This extremely intimate physical contact made Gu Xidong feel unprecedentedly embarrassed and uncomfortable.

His movements became mechanical and clumsy.

"Your right shoulder is too high, like a penguin's." Ling Wuwen hovered above him, giving orders from above. "Tighten your core! Gu Xidong, I'm a person, not a piece of wood! You have to coordinate with my shifting center of gravity!"

"Can you please stop moving?" Gu Xidong asked, panting heavily, his arms trembling slightly from supporting the weight for so long. "It's very strong."

"What did you say?" Ling Wuwen's eyes turned cold instantly.

"I mean, you're not on your balance!" Gu Xidong retorted stubbornly.

"Then practice until you're stable."

The next hour became Gu Xidong's nightmare.

Ling Wuwen seemed to be deliberately tormenting him, constantly changing the lifting posture. From holding him under the armpits, to supporting his waist, and then to the difficult cable lift.

Each change of movement was accompanied by close friction between the two bodies.

Gu Xidong felt like a puppet on a string, clumsily spinning, lifting, and lowering under her commands.

Sweat soaked through his training clothes, his breathing became increasingly heavy, and the muscles in his arms began to spasm from overexertion.

He started to get irritated.

He hated this feeling of being controlled, and he hated even more the ambiguous physical entanglement between men and women. It made him feel like a monkey being played.

"Rest." He finally couldn't hold back any longer, roughly put Ling Wuwen down, and turned to leave.

"Gu Xidong." Ling Wuwen's voice rang out behind him, carrying an undeniable air of authority. "Pairs figure skating is a waltz for two. If you don't even have the courage to dance with someone, you'll always be a loner, not a champion."

Gu Xidong stopped in his tracks.

He didn't turn around, but his shoulders trembled slightly.

3

"Again." He gritted his teeth and turned around.

His eyes burned with an indomitable spirit.

"This time, do a 'twist'." Ling Wuwen walked up to him, got into a gliding position, "I'll jump onto your hands, you catch me, then I'll spin, and you're responsible for catching the impact of my fall."

The "twist" is a highly entertaining yet extremely dangerous move in pairs figure skating.

Gu Xidong didn't speak, he just stared intently at her.

"Are you ready?"

"start."

Ling Wuwen suddenly accelerated and then leaped high into the air.

Her body traced a graceful arc in the air, like a light swallow, landing precisely in Gu Xidong's outstretched arms.

"Caught!" Gu Xidong was overjoyed and steadily supported her waist with both hands.

"change!"

Ling Wuwen's body began to spin in the air.

One lap, two laps...

Gu Xidong stared intently at her, his feet gliding across the ice, adjusting his center of gravity, preparing to witness her fall.

However, an accident happened.

Just as Ling Wuwen was about to complete his second rotation and prepare to retract his body and land on the ice—

A sudden, excruciating pain shot through Gu Xidong's left leg!

That's a sign of an old injury recurring.

His legs buckled, and he instantly lost his balance.

"Be careful!"

He cried out in alarm, trying to steady himself, but it was too late.

Not only did he fail to catch her, but due to his own loss of balance, he and she fell heavily to the side!

If Ling Wuwen had actually fallen, his head or spine would likely have suffered severe injuries.

At the critical moment, Ling Wuwen made a surprising reaction.

She didn't scream in panic, nor did she try to grab Gu Xidong for help.

She shoved Gu Xidong hard, using the reaction force to adjust her body angle in mid-air.

Then, she supported herself on the ice with one hand.

"Bang!"

Her palms and ice skates touched the ice at the same time, and her body, like a fully drawn bow, glided out a long, ear-piercing arc in an extremely dangerous posture.

This is a standard, textbook-level Spiral balance cushioning move.

She used her own momentum as a base to mitigate the enormous impact of the fall.

Finally, she knelt on one knee on the ice, supporting herself with one hand, breathing heavily.

4

The ice rink was deathly silent.

Gu Xidong lay sprawled on the ground, looking at the woman kneeling a few meters away, barely managing to steady herself.

He was shocked.

In that life-or-death moment of falling, a person's instinctive reaction is often the most genuine.

She didn't scream or cry for help, but instinctively made a professional move to protect herself that only top figure skaters would do.

Who is she?

Ling Wuwen supported himself on the ice and slowly stood up.

Her face was pale, and her forehead was covered in cold sweat.

Gu Xidong struggled to crawl over, wanting to see if she was injured.

"Are you alright? I..."

His words caught in his throat halfway through.

His gaze was fixed intently on her right hand.

The hand she had used to brace herself had a large patch of skin chafed raw by the rough ice, and blood was slowly seeping from the wound, staining the white ice red.

But what caught Gu Xidong's attention was not the wound.

Rather, it was the callus below the wound, formed from long-term friction.

The location of that callus is very special.

It's not on the fingers, nor in the palm, but on the side where the right thumb meets the palm.

That spot is where the heel of the skate makes the closest contact with the palm.

Calluses in that location will only form under one condition—

Wearing ice skates for extended periods, holding the ice with one hand, and performing large-amplitude spinning movements.

Moreover, it's the kind of rotation that requires extremely strong core strength and a very large range of motion.

For example, the Bellman rotation.

That's a high-difficulty move for female figure skaters, requiring them to raise their free leg high above their head, making their body resemble a blooming flower.

To perform this move and maintain balance, the skater must hold onto the heel of the skate with one hand and firmly press their body weight onto that hand.

Gu Xidong has performed the Bellman spin countless times.

He knew that cocoon all too well.

That was on his own hand; it had once grown the exact same thing.

5

"Have you seen enough?"

Ling Wuwen's voice pulled Gu Xidong back from his shock.

She was looking down at her hands, not even frowning, as if the chafed skin and the conspicuous callus were irrelevant to her.

She calmly took a tissue from her pocket and casually pressed it against the bleeding wound.

"You..." Gu Xidong's voice trembled, "Your hand..."

"It was just an accident," Ling Wuwen interrupted him casually, seemingly completely unaware of what that callus meant.

She turned around, ready to leave the ice.

"Wait!" Gu Xidong rushed forward and blocked her way.

His eyes were filled with confusion, shock, and a kind of anger at being deceived.

"That callus..." he pointed to her hand, "that's from doing the Biellmann spin! You've done the Biellmann spin?!"

Ling Wuwen's body suddenly stiffened.

She didn't speak, but just lowered her head, and the hand pressing on the wound trembled slightly.

"Who exactly are you?" Gu Xidong stared intently at her, his voice hoarse with excitement. "You're not an ordinary rehabilitation therapist, you're not an agent of some mysterious organization, and you're certainly not a sports reporter!"

"You're a figure skater!"

"And she's a top-tier female singles figure skater!"

"You've done the Biellmann spin! You have that 'Broken-winged Bird' scar! You can do a triple jump! You even know the technical details better than I do!"

Gu Xidong poured out all his doubts from the past few days in one breath; he felt like he was going crazy.

"Why are you pretending not to know me? Have we known each other before? Are you also a victim of that conspiracy?"

He asked a question that sent chills down his spine.

Ling Wuwen slowly raised his head.

Her face remained expressionless.

But those usually cold and sharp eyes were now churning with extremely complex emotions.

She looked at Gu Xidong for a very long time.

Gu Xidong thought she wouldn't answer anymore.

Then, she moved.

She did not answer his question.

She suddenly reached out with her injured hand and grabbed Gu Xidong's collar.

She pulled him closer until their noses almost touched.

She looked into his eyes and, word by word, in a tone filled with hatred and... a kind of desolate sorrow that Gu Xidong couldn't understand, uttered a name that made him feel as if he had fallen into an ice cave:

"Gu Xidong, do you remember... five years ago, the one whose ankle you broke at the World Youth Championships, and who never stood up again... Ling Qingya?"