Ice skates forward, regardless of east or west.

1

One year later, Tromsø, Norway.

69 degrees north latitude, 350 kilometers inside the Arctic Circle.

Gu Xidong stood on the edge of the fjord, looking at the snow-covered peaks on the opposite bank.

At three o'clock in the afternoon in December, the sun had already sunk below the horizon, leaving only a dark red line on the horizon.

In another month, the polar night will fully descend, and the sun will be invisible here for two consecutive months.

He wrapped his down jacket tighter and turned to walk toward the ice rink in town.

It's called an ice rink, but it's actually an open-air area behind the community center.

In summer it's a football field, but in winter, if you pour water on it, it turns into ice.

There was no roof, no seating, only a few dim lights illuminating the ice surface.

More than twenty children are waiting for him on the ice.

They ranged in age from five to fifteen, with blond, brown, and red hair, and eyes of various colors. When they saw him, they chattered excitedly.

"Coach Gu!"

"Are we practicing spins again today?"

"I learned how to skate yesterday!"

Gu Xidong smiled, put on his ice skates, and skated onto the ice rink.

He had his third surgery on his left knee a year ago.

The doctor said this should work, but forget about jumping.

If the meniscus is worn out too much, any high-impact exercise will completely ruin the leg.

He can accept it.

Being able to walk normally, jog slowly, and glide—that's enough.

"Line up." He clapped his hands. "Warm up first, run ten laps around the track."

The children lined up obediently and followed behind him as they began to glide.

The youngest girl was named Ida. She was only five years old and skating wobbly, but she never cried.

She slid over to Gu Xidong's side, tilted her little face up, and asked:

"Coach Gu, were you a champion before?"

He looked down at her.

I guess so.

"Then why aren't you competing anymore?"

He thought about it.

"Because I've found something more important."

Ida didn't understand, but nodded and continued gliding away in a crooked manner.

2

Life in Tromsø was simple.

I get up at seven in the morning, make coffee, and bake bread.

Outside the window, the sky is gray or the night is pitch black—depending on whether the polar night has arrived.

From nine to twelve, I teach children to ice skate. The smallest class has five children, and I start by teaching them how to stand.

The largest class, with a dozen or so boys, had already started practicing simple spins and jumps—of course, he only dared to watch from the sidelines and didn't dare to demonstrate the jumps.

We had lunch at the community center.

Fish soup, bread, cheese—almost the same every day.

He became familiar with the townspeople, who called him "Gu." They knew he was from China and that he was from the "Ice Blade Foundation," but no one asked any further questions.

I have time this afternoon to go to the library to read.

He couldn't understand Norwegian books, but the library had a shelf of English novels, which he borrowed and read one by one.

Sometimes I go for a walk along the fjord.

Walk along the coast for an hour, look at the mountains on the opposite shore, watch the occasional reindeer pass by, and see the sky slowly darken or lighten.

The days and nights here are different from elsewhere.

I always talk to Raven at 7 PM.

The sound of ravens came from the phone, sometimes clear, sometimes intermittent.

"The satellite signal in Northern Europe is really bad."

Where are you?

"Geneva. That Volkov has come up with something new again, about the flow of funds. I'm following up."

"Any news about her?"

silence.

"No," Raven's voice trailed off. "She left that nursing home a week ago. Nobody knows where she went."

Gu Xidong looked out the window. The last ray of light before the polar night was disappearing, leaving only a dark purple line on the horizon.

"It's good that she's awake."

"Aren't you going to look for her?"

"I won't look for her," he said. "She'll show up when she's meant to."

The raven remained silent for a few seconds.

"You're quite optimistic."

"It's not that I'm easygoing," he said, looking at the sliver of light outside the window. "It's that I trust her."

After hanging up the phone, he sat by the window, watching the night completely fall.

The nights in Tromsø were long, but he didn't find them unbearable.

Because every day, there are children waiting for him to teach them how to skate.

Every day, there are new books to read.

Every day, there's a chance he might meet the person he wants to see around some corner.

3

That day was December 15th.

The polar night has been going on for a week now.

The sun has completely disappeared, leaving only two or three hours of dim blue light at noon each day—not daytime, just a little brighter than night.

When Gu Xidong returned from the ice rink, he found a package at the door.

The box is made of kraft paper, about the size of an A4 sheet of paper. There is no sender or address, only a printed recipient label: "Received by Gu Xidong".

He paused for a moment, then bent down and picked it up.

It's very light.

He went inside and opened it.

Inside was a pair of ice skates.

Brand new, custom-made. Black upper, silver blades, and dark blue laces—his favorite color.

He picked it up and looked at it; the shoe size was exactly what he wore.

He turned the sole of his shoe over.

Two words were engraved on the sole of the shoe.

Chinese.

"forward"

His hand froze in mid-air.

He recognized the font. Those were the same two characters engraved on his ice skates from five years ago.

But those shoes were destroyed in the ice rink explosion, leaving only a fragment of the sole, which he still kept in his drawer.

He examined the other shoe.

The inside is embroidered with a pattern—the aurora borealis.

The aurora borealis, embroidered with green, purple, and red silk threads, flows across the black shoe surface.

Gu Xidong held the shoes and sat by the window, remaining motionless for a long time.

Outside the window was the darkness of the polar night.

A few lights flicker in the distance; they are the windows of houses in the town. Further away are fjords, mountains, and unseen snowfields.

He looked down at the shoes, at the two words, and at the aurora.

The corners of her mouth slowly curved upwards.

"Is that you?"

He asked softly.

No one answered.

But he smiled.

Because those shoes could talk. They said: I'm still here. I remember. I'm still on my way.

4

December 21st, Winter Solstice.

The darkest night of the polar night is also the night when the aurora borealis is most active.

As evening approached, the town came alive.

The residents put on their warmest clothes, brought hot coffee and blankets, and headed to the lake.

That's the best place to see the aurora borealis—the lake is wide open, there's no light pollution, and you can see the whole sky when you look up.

Gu Xidong did not go with them.

He waited until everyone had left before putting on his new ice skates and walking alone in another direction.

On the other side of the lake, there is a natural ice surface.

He discovered it in the summer.

Where a stream flows into a lake, it freezes into a flat expanse of ice in winter. No one has ever poured water on it or used it for skating; it's completely natural.

He walked there, put on his ice skates, and stepped onto the ice.

The ice surface was uneven, with cracks in some places and air bubbles in others.

But when you step on it, you can feel that natural, primal coolness—not the artificial coolness of a venue, but the coolness of the earth itself.

He raised his head.

Then he saw the aurora.

At first, it was just a pale green on the horizon. Then that green slowly spread, turning into a band of light that stretched across the entire sky from east to west.

Next is purple.

It seeped out from the lower edge of the light band, like paint dripping into water, slowly spreading.

Then comes red, on the outermost layer, as thin as a veil.

Green, purple, and red intertwine, flowing, swirling, and changing in the night sky.

Gu Xidong stood on the ice, looking up at the light.

He has seen the aurora.

I saw it last winter. But I've never seen anything like it—so bright, so close, it seems like I could reach out and touch it.

He lowered his head and began to glide.

very slow.

The ice skates cut through the natural ice, making a unique hissing sound.

The sound was crisper and louder than the one from the stadium.

He skated one lap, two laps, three laps.

There is no music. The aurora is the music. There is no audience. The heavens and earth are the audience.

He saw it when he was on the fifth lap.

In the brightest part of the aurora, where green and purple light intertwine, there is a shadow.

A human figure.

It was very small and far away, but you could tell it was human-shaped.

She danced, twirled, and leaped in the light—every movement was so familiar, so clear.

Ling Wuwen.

Gu Xidong stopped.

He looked at the shadow.

She was jumping, jumping in the light, jumping so freely, so lightly, as if she had never been injured, as if the five years of pain had never existed.

He raised his hand, wanting to touch her.

But when you put your hand into the light, you only touch air.

The shadow paused slightly, then slowly turned around and looked at him.

He couldn't see the face clearly. Only the outline. But he could recognize that outline even with his eyes closed.

He said softly:

"I know you're here."

The shadow didn't move.

But then the aurora suddenly became brighter, with green, purple, and red intertwined, as if in response.

Then the shadow slowly dissipated, merging into the light, into the night sky, and into every flowing color.

Gu Xidong stood there, looking up at the light.

He smiled.

Tears slid down from the corners of my eyes, freezing into fine icicles on my face.

But he smiled.

Because those shoes told him: she was there.

Because that light told him: she was there.

Because she had told him: I'm always there when you're dancing.

5

That night, Gu Xidong skated on the ice for a long time.

Long enough that the aurora began to fade, long enough that the first sliver of dark blue appeared on the horizon—

That was a light unique to the depths of the polar night; it wasn't dawn, but simply the brightest moment in the dead of night.

He skated back to the shore, changed out of his skates, and sat on a rock.

The lake was as still as a mirror, reflecting the last rays of the aurora.

In the distance, the town lights twinkle; those who came to see the aurora have probably already gone home.

He looked down at the ice skates.

The word "Forward" on the sole of the shoe was faintly visible in the dim light.

He recalled what Ling Wufeng had said five years ago while lying on the ice: "Skating forward on the ice isn't about making you forget the past, it's about letting you carry the past with you and keep skating."

He recalled Ling Wuwen dancing under the aurora five years ago.

He remembered the anonymous package, the shoes, and the shadow.

He looked up and watched the last glimmer of aurora disappear into the night sky.

Then he stood up, hugged Bingxue in his arms, and slowly walked towards the town.

After walking a few steps, he stopped and looked back at the ice surface.

The ice surface was covered with the marks he had left—circles upon circles, crisscrossing, shimmering faintly white in the dim light.

Those traces will be covered by fresh snow tomorrow, flattened by the wind, and disappear as if they never existed.

But he knew they were still there.

Beneath the ice. In his memory. In his heart.

He turned back and continued walking.

Ahead lay the lights of the town, his little house waiting for him, and the children he would teach tomorrow.

It's just the daily routine, one day after another.

It's a wait that lasts year after year.

But he wasn't in a hurry.

Because those shoes are there.

Because that light is there.

Because she said: I will appear when it's time to appear.

So he waited.

Keep waiting.

I've been waiting.

Until the day when ice skates glide across the ice again.

When she emerged from the light and stood before him.

When he finally uttered those words he had waited five years for—

Welcome home.