Ice skates forward, regardless of east or west.

1

I wish I could die in your place.

That sentence, like a curse, like a will-o'-the-wisp, lingered in Gu Xidong's mind for three whole days.

Ling Wuwen didn't mention that day again. She reverted to being that cold, unapproachable, devilish coach.

She didn't point the ice pick at him again, but her gaze, colder than an ice shard, was like a net, leaving him nowhere to hide.

Gu Xidong knew he had to do something.

Passive acceptance will only lead him to completely ensnare the bloody web woven by this woman.

He wants to fight back.

He wanted to find her weakness.

As night fell, the lights in the abandoned factory were turned off one by one.

As usual, Ling Wuwen went to a corner outside the factory to make a phone call alone; that was her only "private time."

The opportunity is here.

Gu Xidong, like a nimble cheetah, slipped out silently through the side door of the ice rink.

His target was clear—the black SUV that Ling Wuwen had parked at the back gate of the factory.

That was her territory, a place she had never allowed him to approach.

He pulled on the car door.

It wasn't locked.

This, however, made him wary.

Everything went too smoothly.

This doesn't seem like the style of Ling Wuwen, who is always on guard.

But he had no way out.

He climbed into the back seat and, by the moonlight, began his search.

2

The car was clean and had a faint, cool fragrance, just like the scent on her body.

She had no cosmetics, no private diary, and not even a single extra piece of clothing.

There was only an old, rusty metal box that looked quite old, carelessly tossed in the corner of the back seat.

Gu Xidong picked up the box, his heart pounding faster involuntarily.

He opened the box.

There was no lace lingerie as one might imagine for women, nor any love letters.

There was only a pile of musty, yellowed old newspaper clippings.

He picked up a card.

The headline on the front page struck him like a bolt of lightning, leaving him momentarily stunned:

A prodigy emerges, winning gold at the World Junior Championships! — Gu Xidong, the new hope of Chinese figure skating!

In the photo, he is wearing a bright red competition uniform, holding the trophy high, and smiling as brightly as a naive and arrogant young man.

That was five years ago, the day after winning the World Youth Championship.

He continued flipping through the pages.

The clipping below takes a sudden turn in style.

Shock on the field! Favorite to win, Gu Xidong, suffers unexpected injury, potentially missing out on Olympic selection!

Gu Xidong's road to comeback is fraught with difficulties; where is this former genius now?

"Black Swan" Broken: Gu Xidong Withdraws from Competition Due to Injury, Professional Career May Be Over

It's all his fault.

It's all about every moment of his fall from the peak to the bottom over the past five years.

These clippings were carefully cut out, not a single one was left out, and kept in this box.

Besides the newspaper clippings, there were also several rusted figure skating competition badges.

He picked one up.

That was a commemorative badge from a commercial game that he had casually thrown away years ago.

He picked up another one.

That was a souvenir he casually gave to a fan when he won his first national championship.

How did these things get here?

His hands began to tremble slightly.

At the very bottom of the box lay an old-fashioned videotape, lying quietly.

Those long-obsolete, black, rectangular cassette tapes.

3

Gu Xidong picked up the videotape.

The videotape's label had been torn in half, leaving only a black corner.

But it was that very corner that made his blood freeze instantly.

At the cut where the label had been torn off, there was a trace of blue ink.

That's the tail of a letter.

A writing habit he knew all too well, a habit he had all along.

His fingers trembled as he gently traced the mark.

That letter is "D".

Those are the initials of the pinyin for the character "东" in his name.

He had a very peculiar habit: when writing the letter "D", he always liked to add a tiny, upward hook at the end.

That was his own unique handwriting.

He marked this videotape!

However, he had absolutely no recollection of it.

When did he put his name on a videotape and give it to a woman named Ling Wuwen?

Or rather, how did this tape end up in her hands?

He suddenly remembered the chaotic celebration party five years ago after winning the World Youth Championship. He had drunk a lot and was in a daze. He vaguely remembered a casually dressed fan handing him something…

Memories are like looking through frosted glass; you can't grasp them no matter what.

Holding the videotape, he felt as if it were a red-hot iron, burning his palms painfully.

4

"What are you doing?"

A cold voice rang out from the car door without warning.

Gu Xidong suddenly turned around.

Ling Wuwen stood there.

She didn't know how long she had been standing there. One hand was still on the car door handle, and the other hand hung at her side, tightly gripping her phone.

Her face was deathly pale in the moonlight.

There was no anger, no shock in her eyes, only a kind of... a deathly despair that Gu Xidong had never seen before.

The two looked at each other.

The air inside the car seemed to freeze.

Gu Xidong held the videotape, his palms sweating profusely. He knew he had been caught, but he didn't feel guilty; instead, he felt a sense of absurdity, as if fate had played a cruel trick on him.

"These words," he said, holding up the videotape, his voice hoarse, "are mine."

This is not a question, it is a statement.

Ling Wuwen did not answer.

She just watched him quietly, looking at the metal box in his hand and the videotape in his hand.

That look was as if he were looking at a dead person.

"What's in here?" Gu Xidong stared intently at her. "What exactly is in this iron box?"

Ling Wuwen's lips trembled slightly.

She finally spoke, her voice as soft as the wind, yet carrying a chilling edge.

"It's you."

She only said two words.

Then, she reached out and stiffly took the iron box back from Gu Xidong's hand.

She closed the box and hugged it tightly to her chest, as if she were holding some rare treasure, or perhaps some deadly bomb.

"Gu Xidong," she looked at him, her eyes vacant, "some things, once seen, can never be undone."

"You'd better get off the bus now and pretend nothing happened."

5

"I'm not getting off the bus."

Gu Xidong stood in front of the car door, blocking her way.

His eyes were filled with madness.

"Explain yourself!" he roared. "What's in that metal box? Whose tape is this? Why do I recognize that handwriting? Who are you?!"

He bombarded her with a barrage of questions, like cannonballs.

Ling Wuwen held the iron box, his body trembling slightly.

She looked at him, for a very long time.

It was so long that Gu Xidong thought she was going to use silence to resist him again, just like before.

She suddenly laughed.

That was a smile that was uglier than crying.

"Do you want to see it?" she asked.

Gu Xidong was taken aback, then nodded: "I want to see."

"it is good."

Ling Wuwen opened the car door and took out an old-fashioned video recorder that had long been abandoned from the trunk.

She placed the video recorder on the hood of the car and plugged it in.

Then, she picked up the videotape, her finger stopping just as she was about to press the button.

She looked at Gu Xidong with pity in her eyes.

"Gu Xidong, do you remember what you said to a girl five years ago, the night you won the World Junior Championships, when you were drunk?"

Gu Xidong's mind went blank.

He doesn't remember.

He really doesn't remember.

Looking at his bewildered face, Ling Wuwen's smile deepened.

She pressed the play button.

The video recorder emitted a buzzing sound.

The small screen on the hood flickered a few times and then lit up.

The image is blurry; it was taken from a hidden camera angle.

The image shows a hotel room.

A young man, shirtless, lay on the bed, seemingly drunk and fast asleep.

That was him five years ago.

A girl in a white dress sat on the edge of the bed, holding a video camera and pointing it at him.

She had her back to the camera, so her face was not visible.

She reached out and gently stroked the cheek of "Gu Xidong" on the screen.

Then, she leaned close to the camera and whispered a sentence into it.

Because the microphone wasn't on, the sound was very soft, but Gu Xidong could understand what she was saying by reading her lip movements.

She said:

"Gu Xidong, from this day forward, your life belongs to me."

The image freezes on her face with that eerie smile.

Although that face was younger than it is now, and although it was covered in exquisite makeup, Gu Xidong still recognized it at a glance.

That was Ling Wuwen.

No, she wasn't called Ling Wuwen back then.

Her name is Ling Qingya.

There was no hatred in her eyes in the video.

Only that kind of... almost insane, morbid, possessiveness.

Gu Xidong felt ice-cold all over, as if he had fallen into an ice cave.

He looked at the girl in the video, then at the woman in front of him who was holding an iron box and had a blank look in her eyes.

He suddenly realized that he thought he was rebelling against a devil.

Little did he know that he had fallen into a huge, five-year-long trap woven by this woman, starting five years ago.

And he was the only unsuspecting prey in that trap.