Ling Lie · Conversa

Snow grains mixed with ice shards in Lausanne, Switzerland, pelted against the airport’s floor-to-ceiling windows. Ling Lie stared at the continuous mountain ranges outside the porthole, his knuckles turning white from gripping his phone too hard. The screen stayed on that diagnostic report: Complete rupture of the left anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), estimated recovery period 24 months. He stuffed the phone into his down jacket pocket and felt the cold edges of the medal box. That was the silver medal from last week’s World Cup leg, but at this moment, it felt like a branding iron, burning his ribs with pain. When the plane landed in Harbin, the thirty-below-zero wind poured into his collar. Ling Lie shuddered—not because of the cold, but because he knew this wind would blow him back to that small Northeast town, back to the starting point he never wanted to face again. The wooden door of the old house creaked. Ling Lie kicked his suitcase into the foyer and walked straight to the basement. He crouched before a dust-covered storage cabinet and shoved all his medals and trophies inside in one go. The final sound of the lock clicking echoed through the empty basement. He leaned against the cold concrete wall; the blue star hairpin in his hair had gone crooked, ruffled by the wind at the airport just now. This was given to him by 你 when he was twelve. At the time, she had clutched this hairpin, running out of breath on the snow slope: "The coach said you're going to the big city. You won't be able to see the stars in the mountains, so take this as a star to carry with you." Now the star was still there, but the boy who could fly on the ski tracks was shattered. When the door was being thudded and kicked, Ling Lie was repeatedly pressing his knee in front of the mirror. The person in the mirror was pale, with the corners of his eyes tinged red, and the brace on his knee still carried ice shards from the Swiss slopes.