Even during the off-season, Xi Ming naturally wouldn’t slack off on training to maintain his competitive form. School and practice filled his daily life, and his weekly days off were spent with family and friends. Before he knew it, the national team training camp was right around the corner.
“Did Ouyang and the others give you a hard time again?”
On the day before the training camp officially began, Zhao Zhengchang took one look at Xi Ming, who was being dropped off by Xi Yu while yawning, and knew exactly what had happened.
“Yeah, it’s not like it’s their first time, but they still insisted on seeing me off and stayed over at my place making a ruckus all night.” Xi Ming shook his head helplessly. “They just use it as an excuse to mess around.”
Because the training camp required staying in the national team dormitory without going home, every time Ouyang Hao and the others would make a fuss about “seeing Xi Ming off.” Yes, every single time. This wasn’t Xi Ming’s first time at the national training camp. it was something he’d grown used to, and his friends never tired of seeing him off.
“Isn’t that great? Having such good friends.” Zhao Zhengchang thought it was rather nice.
Xi Ming wasn’t a lively person by nature, and occasionally he even seemed a bit zen. However, his friends all loved to tease him, and Zhao Zhengchang felt that when Xi Ming got annoyed by their antics, he actually looked more like a kid his age.
Naturally, Xi Ming had no idea his coach thought he didn’t seem like a fifteen-year-old, or he would have argued that his personality was calm and steady wasn’t that a good thing? Besides, among the four of them, Gu Fu was the one who least resembled a teenager; when assigning roles for performances, he was only suited for the scheming, deep-dark villain type.
Fortunately, Xi Ming didn’t know what Zhao Zhengchang was thinking, so the innocent Gu Fu managed to protect his reputation and wasn’t casually slandered by his unscrupulous friend.
Xi Ming, however, was reminded of something by Zhao Zhengchang’s words. “Speaking of friends, Yu Jinghui he’s in the training camp too, right?”
“What are you talking about? Of course Yu Jinghui is there he’s a national team member.” Zhao Zhengchang gave Xi Ming a strange look.
Xi Ming waved his hand without explaining, but a few familiar faces crossed his mind, and he suddenly felt that his days at the training camp would be quite lively.
Although everyone on the team always teased Xi Ming for calling himself an ordinary figure skater, Xi Ming genuinely believed it. After all, right now he was just an unremarkable presence among the men’s singles skaters in China nothing worth paying attention to.
And Xi Ming felt this state was perfectly fine. With Qi Yu and Yu Jinghui leading the way ahead of him, he could just skate happily.
Of course, it would be even better if he could qualify for international competitions and compete on the same ice as those top-tier skaters.
“So, we just get the chance to train together, and you’re this happy?” Xi Ming blinked, noticing the subtle glances from passersby landing on him. He turned to look at the person standing beside him who was causing all this the junior ace of men’s singles, Yu Jinghui.
“Mhm, I really want to train with you.” Yu Jinghui said immediately upon hearing this, even giving an emphatic nod, then flashed a soft, gentle smile while staring at Xi Ming.
Looking at Yu Jinghui’s somewhat sweet and innocent smile, Xi Ming inexplicably felt a bit choked up.
Xi Ming certainly didn’t dislike Yu Jinghui in fact, with a personality as docile as Yu Jinghui’s, it was hard for anyone to dislike him. Xi Ming just never quite understood why Yu Jinghui seemed to like him so much, never hiding his attitude of wanting to be close to Xi Ming.
He also valued Xi Ming greatly, having once said in front of reporters that his most important rival was Xi Ming.
When he’d said that, Xi Ming had still been one of those skaters who occasionally had meltdowns in competition, always failing to perform at his actual level. He hadn’t achieved any particularly outstanding results in junior competitions either. Although his paper-level skills were about the same as Yu Jinghui’s, not many people actually considered Xi Ming a rival to Yu Jinghui.
Many people, because of Yu Jinghui’s closeness to Xi Ming, assumed they were friends who had trained together since childhood. But in reality, before Yu Jinghui entered the national team at thirteen, he’d been a junior teammate in the Heilongjiang provincial team. At most, they’d crossed paths at a few competitions, barely exchanging more than a few words.
It was only after Yu Jinghui joined the national team and transferred to the same school as Xi Ming that since they could share part of the commute the two began leaving early together for training and finally started to get familiar.
Still, having someone like you is better than having someone dislike you. If it weren’t for Yu Jinghui’s soft personality and the careful yet eager way he acted around Xi Ming, which often made Xi Ming feel like he’d gained a little follower, Xi Ming wouldn’t have bothered thinking about when he and Yu Jinghui had become close.
“Ah, we’re at the rink.” Yu Jinghui’s voice snapped Xi Ming back from his wandering thoughts, and the two walked toward the ice rink together.
Today was the day before the official start of the training camp, set aside for athletes from all over the country to check in and gather, so no training was scheduled everyone could rest or train on their own. Xi Ming lived locally, arrived quickly by car, and it didn’t take long to settle into the dormitory.
So he dragged Yu Jinghui, who had come over to chat, and planned to hit the ice for a bit of practice.
“Oh, right, Brother Qi is here today too this should be around the time he’s on the ice.” Yu Jinghui finally dug out from the back of his mind what he’d originally wanted to tell Xi Ming, but he’d forgotten it earlier because he was too excited to see Xi Ming and think about training together.
“Why did you stop?” After Yu Jinghui spoke, he noticed Xi Ming’s steps falter slightly and turned to look at him, thinking he might suddenly have something else to do.
“It’s nothing, I just suddenly remembered I didn’t tell Coach Zhao before I left.” Xi Ming continued walking forward as if nothing was wrong.
“It’s fine, there’s nothing going on today, and if Coach Zhao needs you, he’ll know you’re on the ice.”
Yu Jinghui’s words drifted past Xi Ming’s ears as he spaced out. Qi Yu, huh like Yu Jinghui, he was “trouble number two” among the training camp participants.
Because of the preparation for the training camp, the rink was nearly empty now. When Xi Ming and Yu Jinghui reached the boards, they spotted Qi Yu almost immediately. He seemed to be practicing his new season’s program, and his coach, Yang Wu, wasn’t with him instead, an assistant coach from the team was there.
Qi Yu didn’t seem to have noticed them. As Xi Ming and the others approached, Qi Yu turned into his crossover start and was about to enter a jump.
Xi Ming saw Qi Yu’s jump entry steps clearly a Salchow jump (S jump).
Xi Ming had naturally watched Qi Yu’s competition videos more than once. As a senior men’s singles skater with world-class competitive ability, Qi Yu’s jumps possessed a captivating blend of power and beauty. And seeing it up close like this, it was even more so.
Qi Yu launched high into the air, his body spinning rapidly one rotation, two, four!
The astonishing height and distance right before their eyes, and at the moment of landing, his body opened up, the free leg swept back an elegant, beautiful landing, a successful 4S. If this were in competition, the jump’s execution score would probably be quite good too, Xi Ming thought.
In fact, this jump had never appeared in Qi Yu’s official competitions.
While the two of them were absorbed in the jump, Qi Yu turned around, spotted them, stopped, waved, and skated over to the boards.
“It’s you two.” Qi Yu rested his arms on the boards, smiling as he talked to them. “Here to watch my training?”
“We were bored and came to skate just happened to catch your training, Brother Qi.” Yu Jinghui answered obediently.
“Perfect timing, I just finished my session.” Qi Yu said. “Let me be your temporary coach, then. I’m also serving as the assistant coach for the men’s singles at this camp, so consider this an early warm-up.”
Compared to Yu Jinghui, whose eyes went wide in surprise, Xi Ming didn’t show any unexpected expression.
The training camp group they were in consisted of young junior skaters, and Qi Yu was the only senior skater on the roster it was hardly surprising he’d double as an assistant coach.
“Originally, Uncle Feng said to have Jiang Jun do it, but that guy claimed he wasn’t good with kids and insisted on sticking with the senior skaters.” Qi Yu shrugged helplessly. “So I got roped into it.”
“Another reason is that the Russian foreign coach for our group is the jump coach you trained with during your overseas stint, right?”
Although Qi Yu did genuinely like kids and always got along with them, the teasing, kid-talk tone he used with Xi Ming was exactly why Xi Ming brought up the real reason.
“Exactly!” Qi Yu didn’t deny it, instead taking the chance to ruffle Xi Ming’s hair, clicking his tongue in regret when Xi Ming dodged.
Then he smiled again and said to Xi Ming, “Didn’t expect you to pay that much attention to me, little junior. A lot of people don’t know Aleksei was also my coach.”
Of course most people only knew that during his overseas training, Qi Yu had followed the famous Russian figure skating coach Igor Ivanov. As for the team’s assistant coach, Aleksei Alakh, only those who’d watched Qi Yu’s interviews would know about him.
In just a few words, Qi Yu expressed deep gratitude for Coach Aleksei Alakh, who had helped him immensely during his time in Russia.
Xi Ming wasn’t among those who didn’t know this, of course. Because the current figure skating world was completely unfamiliar to him even with his memories from the first fifteen years of his life Xi Ming had recently reviewed a lot of materials to understand today’s skaters and the current landscape, and Qi Yu was naturally one of the key figures.
But Xi Ming certainly wasn’t going to tell Qi Yu that he’d watched nearly all of his competitions and interviews. He just rebutted the nickname, “Don’t call me little junior my coach isn’t Coach Yang.”
“But my enlightenment coach is Coach Zhao,” Qi Yu said, taking advantage of Xi Ming’s distraction to quickly poke his cheek. “So that makes me your senior fellow disciple, right?”
Even so, Qi Yu was never seen calling Zhao Zhengchang’s other students his junior fellow disciples.
That’s why Xi Ming called Qi Yu Trouble Number Two just like Yu Jinghui, who inexplicably acted so close to him, Qi Yu’s outgoing and impulsive personality was the type Xi Ming wasn’t good at dealing with.
Just as the three of them finished talking and Xi Ming and Yu Jinghui were putting on their skates to step onto the ice, another small group was led in. They looked like they were there to familiarize themselves with the rink ahead of time. Just as Xi Ming and the others noticed them, they too spotted the people on the ice.
“Wow, it’s Qi Yu.”
“It’s Yu Jinghui”
Soon, people noticed the skaters on the ice, and the fame of the two beside Xi Ming naturally drew a lot of attention.
Xi Ming watched the group that came up to talk. Faces familiar or unfamiliar, all brimming with energy without exception.
At that moment, Xi Ming felt it clearly again: the training camp had begun.