Ice skates forward, regardless of east or west.

1

The press conference was delayed by forty minutes.

The staff adjusted the position of the nameplates three times.

The first time, Gu Xidong's nameplate was placed in the center; the second time, it was moved to the left; the third time, it was removed and replaced with newly printed blank cardstock.

The press box was crammed with 217 people.

The aisles were packed, the back row of people were squatting against the wall, and cameramen carrying equipment were crowding the entrance.

Someone taped a recording pen to the top of a long pole and stretched it over the heads of the people in the front row toward the podium.

All the overhead lights are on.

The light made the three empty chairs on the stage scorch.

When Gu Xidong walked out from the side curtain, his left knee was stiff.

Each step landed half a beat slower than the right leg, the soles of the shoes pressing against the floor, making short, sharp scraping sounds.

He sat down in the first chair on the left.

Not in the center.

The press section was silent for two seconds.

Then the sound of the shutter clicked like hail hitting a tin shed.

He didn't avoid the camera.

The pupils contracted to a point in the continuous flash of light, and the eyelids did not blink.

After the light went out, a white spot of light remained on his iris, and he looked at that afterimage.

The staff pushed the microphone toward him.

He bent down to adjust the height of the microphone stand.

He turned the metal knob with his fingers; the first turn was too tight, the second turn was slippery, and the third turn was aligned with three fingers below his chin. He did this thousands of times.

He looked up.

"Starting today," he said, "I'm temporarily retiring."

No one asked a question from the press section.

The pen tip hovers above the paper; pressing it down will puncture the fibers. The voice recorder's red lights flash in clusters.

"I need time."

He paused.

His left knee was extended under the table, with his Achilles tendon resting on the chair crossbeam.

The old injury site is twitching slightly; it's not pain, but muscle memory confirming the cessation signal.

"To fix my knees," he said, "and my life."

He pushed the microphone out an inch.

Get up.

The chair slid back half a meter, the wheels rolling over the floor with a soft sound that everyone heard.

Someone in the press section stood up.

It wasn't asking a question. It was just standing there watching him.

The second person to stand up was an older reporter, his badge strap hanging from his neck down to his lower abdomen. He turned off the recorder and put it in his pocket.

The third, the fourth, and the fifth.

The press conference only truly began when there were more people standing than sitting.

2

"Mr. Gu, may I ask—"

"Who is that lady?"

The problem took a turn midway.

A young male reporter held the microphone over the front row of security guards and pointed it towards the edge of the side curtain.

Ling Wuwen stood there.

She wasn't dressed formally. She wore a grey hooded sweatshirt, but the hood wasn't up, and her hair was casually pulled back, with stray strands falling around her temples.

The fabric on the left shoulder bulged slightly, and the edge of the bandage peeked out from the neckline by half a finger's width.

She walked toward the podium.

Her sneakers glided smoothly over the wooden floor, each step steady. She walked to the chair Gu Xidong had offered, but didn't sit down.

She was standing.

Support yourself on the table with both hands, lean forward slightly, and aim at the microphone.

"I am Ling Wufeng," she said, "and also Ling Wuwen."

The reporter, Xi Jingde, could hear the dripping sound from the air conditioner's condensate drain pipe.

"My brother died on the operating table three years ago."

She tucked stray hairs behind her ears. There were traces of iodine on the tips of her left fingers, which turned light brown after drying.

"I'm the one who survived."

No one asked any further questions. No one flipped through the notes.

At that moment, more than two hundred people realized that all the previous background investigations, character profiles, and relationship diagrams about "Ling Wuwen" needed to be thrown into the shredder.

She straightened up.

He removed his hand from the table and reached into the inside pocket of his hoodie.

I took out a transparent document bag; the corners were worn, and the opening was sealed with three layers of tape.

She tore off the tape.

Remove the first page.

The paper is yellowed, lined, and written in blue fountain pen. The ink has bled in several places, and the edges show ripples from water seeping and drying.

She held the paper in front of the camera.

September 9, 2017.

She read it aloud.

It's not like reading aloud from a textbook. It's about emptying your mind and letting another person's voice flow from your throat.

"After training today, the team doctor asked me to sign an informed consent form for a new drug trial. He said it's a recovery agent developed by a collaborative laboratory of the International Skating Union, which can shorten the postoperative recovery period."

She paused.

"I signed it."

Someone in the press section covered their mouth.

"I know what they're doing to me."

She turned to the second page.

There are fingerprints on the edge of the paper, dark brown in color; it's blood. It oxidized to this color after drying.

"But if my death could bring about even the slightest change..."

She stopped.

It wasn't a sob. It was that every word that followed seemed to get stuck in my throat for a long time.

I accept.

She put the paper back on the table.

He spread his hand out, palm up, and placed it next to his brother's handwriting.

The siblings' palm lines are different—her lifeline is shorter than Ling Wufeng's, and it forks at the end.

“Three years ago,” she said, “my brother told me in our last phone call before the surgery: Don’t seek revenge. Take him home.”

She lowered her eyes.

"I brought it back."

No one applauded from the press section.

The flashes all went out at that moment.

It wasn't that the photographers turned it off intentionally; they simply forgot to press the shutter. The red light was still on, but nobody remembered what they were photographing.

Ling Wuwen sealed the document bag and folded it.

Stuff it back into the inner pocket.

The zipper is zipped all the way up.

3

Someone in the fourth row raised their hand.

She was a middle-aged female reporter, and her ID photo was from ten years ago.

She didn't wait for the microphone to be handed to her before speaking.

“Ms. Ling Wuwen,” she said, “you just said ‘not for revenge.’”

"Yes."

"Then why did you come back?"

Ling Wuwen raised his eyes.

The overhead light burned like two incandescent bulbs in her eyes. She didn't flinch.

"The ice rink can't talk," she said.

"The referee's record sheet doesn't speak. The tampered medical records, the deleted surveillance backups, the bribed eyewitness testimonies—none of them speak."

She paused.

"But I will."

The female reporter did not press further.

She closed the interview notebook and put the pen back in the cover slot.

"Thank you," she said.

Sit down.

Ling Wuwen did not respond to "You're welcome".

She turned and walked toward the side of the stage.

As he passed by Gu Xidong, he remained standing in the same spot, his left hand resting on the back of the chair.

She didn't stop; her shoulder brushed against his arm, the edge of the bandage rubbing against the metal strap of his watch, making a very slight scraping sound.

She stepped into the shadows.

The side curtains hung down behind her, almost without curvature when still.

4

When the press conference was declared over, there were still people who hadn't asked any questions.

The staff began tidying up the table signs.

The blank cards were removed and piled into a cardboard box. Gu Xidong's name tag was at the bottom, with only half of the character "Gu" showing.

The reporters stood up, packed up their equipment, and unplugged the power.

Someone walked past the podium and looked down at the table.

Copies of Ling Wufeng's handwritten diary are still scattered around.

The staff didn't have time to collect it. Some people stopped and bent down to decipher the blue ink writing.

Page 3.

"My mom called today. She didn't know I was in the hospital. I told her I was in Beijing for training and the signal was bad, and I'd call her again next week."

Page 4.

"My knee hurt all night. I had three painkiller injections, and the nurse said she couldn't give me any more. I asked her how many milliliters of blood a person has. She didn't answer."

Page 6.

"Surgery tomorrow. I didn't tell her."

The last page.

The corners of the paper were curled up, and the folds broke into four lines.

There is only one line of text.

Ling Wuwen:

Live to see spring for me.

5

The parking lot is at the back entrance of the venue.

Gu Xidong sat on the edge of the steps, his left leg stretched out, his back against the concrete pillar.

The ice skates were placed beside my feet, the laces tied in a slipknot, not yet untied.

Ling Wuwen came out of the door.

She clutched the stack of photocopies in her hand, the edges of the paper rolled into a tube and crumpled.

She sat down next to him.

The steps were cool.

The ground temperature at the end of October seeped into my skin through my jeans.

She placed the paper tube on her lap, her fingertips twirling the curled corners of the paper.

Gu Xidong didn't look at her.

"Your brother," he said, "I saw him in Changchun at the 2017 National Championships."

Ling Wuwen turned his head.

He asked me something.

"What?"

How to stabilize the axis during a quadruple Axel jump?

Ling Wuwen remained silent.

"I said, lock your left shoulder when you jump, and don't look back at the landing point."

He paused.

He said he knew.

Across from the parking lot, the last broadcast van turned off its roof lights.

The driver got into the car, started the engine, and the diesel engine emitted a plume of black smoke as it warmed up.

Ling Wuwen lowered his head.

The paper tube slowly unfolded in her palm and bounced back flat.

The edges curled up, and the ink flaked off into fine powder at the creases.

"He learned it," she said.

Gu Xidong did not answer.

He bent down to tie the laces of his ice skates.

He stopped halfway down his left knee. He braced himself on the edge of the step and took a deep breath.

Ling Wuwen reached out his hand.

She took the shoelace from his hand, threaded it through the first aluminum eyelet, straightened it, and tied a knot.

The second aluminum hole.

The third.

She tied the knots very slowly. She pulled each knot twice to make sure it wouldn't come loose.

She put the tied ice skates back at his feet.

"The ice truck will come again tomorrow," she said.

Gu Xidong looked at the shoes.

"I know."

He stood up.

His left knee wobbled slightly as he put his weight on it. He steadied himself, the soles of his shoes grinding against the fine sand on the concrete floor with a rough, scraping sound.

Ling Wuwen was still sitting on the steps.

She folded the photocopies, crossed them in half, and stuffed them into the inner bag.

"Spring is coming soon," she said.

Gu Xidong walked towards the parking lot exit.

His shadow stretched long under the streetlights, disappearing into the darkness before his body.

He didn't turn around.

She didn't have any either.

The wind came from the north, sweeping away the last fallen leaf from the steps. The leaf tumbled in mid-air, revealing wormholes on its underside.

One after another.

Like an ellipsis.