He stood in the second highest position, with a snow-white ice rink and dazzling incandescent lights in front of him. Accepting the long and short lens flashes of media reporters and the sea of ​​cheers and flowers from the audience.

He was still standing on the podium of the Olympic Games before Ling Ran passed through the book.

Everyone’s faces were filled with smiles. No matter how disappointed Ling Ran was, he forcefully pulled up the corners of his lips.

The medal hanging around his neck is silver-white, shining softly, and it was won at the highest S-level event like the Olympics, so it’s not bad at all.

But comparing it to the champion Mikhail next to him, an eighteen-year-old kid who had just been promoted from the youth group to the adult group won the gold medal in his first Olympics.

Ling Ran felt a little uncomfortable.

It would be fine if he just stumbled occasionally, but he has lost count of how many silver medals he has won.

There is an entire wall of medals in his home, and without exception, they are all silver, with no gold medals at all.

Because of this, he is nicknamed the second child among ice fans.

That’s not a good nickname.

In competitive sports, don’t you rush forward desperately, hoping to stand at the top of the podium and watch the national flag of your country being the first to be raised with the national anthem accompanying in your lifetime? Who wants to be second when you can be first?

Originally, Ling Ran thought that figure skaters’ career life was short. Athletes of the same age as him had been retiring one after another in the past two years, so he could still win a gold medal even if he endured it.

But he didn’t expect that the emerging little athletes would compete more powerfully than the others.

He was so stunned that he was beaten to death by a fledgling youngster in front of the whole world.

Although only half a point away.

This is so embarrassing.

Ling Ran glanced to the side without leaving any trace.

Gold medal. Golden. Who doesn’t like it? He doesn’t ask for more, just one piece is enough. At least he should be able to get it before the end of our career, right?

But he is already twenty-five years old, and he cannot wait until the next Olympics to retire.

He will never get another chance.

Ling Ran was trying his best to control his facial expression, when Mikhail, who won the championship, came over and said in broken Chinese: “Ling, I watched you…the competition video…growing up. I didn’t expect… …We…stand together!”

Ling Ran pursed his lower lip, trying to force out a graceful smile.

But these words are too heartbreaking.

He twitched his lips for a long time, but he couldn’t laugh.

Ling Ran had a cold appearance, with a straight nose and thin lips. When he wasn’t smiling, his dark and thick eyelashes would droop down to cover his eyes, giving off an alienation that would make people feel distant.

Mikhail was a little embarrassed at this time.

Ling Ran didn’t mean to appear cold at him intentionally. Seeing that the child’s face fell, he could only reach out and quickly put a hand on the other person’s shoulder to comfort him.

Unexpectedly, the other party turned out to be quite mature and immediately became more extreme. Before Ling Ran could take his hand back, Mikhail hugged him tightly.

Mikhail hesitated but still spoke in the common language.

“Ling! If your flexibility was better, you would get more points, and this gold medal wouldn’t be mine! Your jump is great! The sharpest blade I have ever seen!”

Ling Ran was hit by another arrow in the knee.

But Mikhail told the truth.

He rubbed his waist and couldn’t help but let out a long sigh in his heart.

Even though the figure skating program is complemented as a musical beauty, it essentially consists of three components: spins, jumps, and pace.

He has no problem jumping at all, and can even perform the most difficult 3a (Axel Triple Spin) on the flat ground.

The pace isn’t too bad either. He can pick up the twists, knots, shuffles, mohawks, etc. effortlessly, and never stumble with the blade.

But it just happened that he suffered a big loss in terms of flexibility.

Due to poor flexibility, the simplest squatting and turning cannot be performed beautifully. The leg raised in mid-air during the rotation cannot be straightened. Trying to make the leg perfectly parallel to the ice surface is simply a daydream.

He couldn’t even think about things like the Biellmann spin that required holding his toes with his hands.

Even the donuts he circles with his body when he spins are angular squares! It’s just so unsightly!

Lack of flexibility affects aesthetics and emotional expression and becomes a flaw.

It’s not that Ling Ran didn’t work hard.

The first thing he does when he gets up every morning and evening before going to bed is to stretch his muscles and press his legs. He even goes to a dance class for further studies. However, his bones are very hard. His teacher just shakes his head when he sees him stretching his legs and even explicitly says that he wants to refund the tuition fee.

Ling Ran was very decadent during that period. He spent all day in the dance studio and didn’t even want to get on the ice.

In the end, Ling Ran’s coach Xue Linyuan couldn’t stand it anymore, so he made an exception and packed some beer and fried chicken to talk to him, fed him a lot of words of wisdom, and encouraged him to the sky.

If God closes a door for you, he will open a window for you. Instead of making a fuss about your inherent weakness in flexibility, it is better to firmly master the skills you have already mastered and maintain your advantages.

After all the hard talk, Ling Ran was finally persuaded to come out.

After that, Ling Ran trained even harder.

Every day he is the first one on the team on the ice and the last one off the ice.

Even the ice maker in the rink who was responsible for smoothing and repairing the ice every day before they arrived knew him.

But after so much effort, even if all the difficult jumps arranged in the program could go without any problems, and even if he steadily outperformed all the contestants in terms of jumps, steps, and program arrangement, he still could only win the silver medal.

Some people even joked on the Internet that Ling Ran might as well change his name to the cashier. He won silver medals in every competition, and even the championship that dominated him changed several times.

Thinking of this, Ling Ran even began to feel that whether the game came or not would make no difference to him personally. He had already won the Olympic silver medal four years ago, so it was not unusual at all.

If he hadn’t been the only one in China’s vast land, and the talent pool underneath hadn’t caught up, he might have retired a long time ago.

Coach Xue Linyuan was waiting for him at the exit of the ice rink. One look at Ling Ran’s expression and he knew that the little ancestor was unhappy again.

Of course, Xue Linyuan knew why Ling Ran was unhappy, and he was also depressed.

He has dealt with many athletes.

As for Ling Ran’s physical condition, he is about 178cm tall, with a slim waist and narrow hips, a slender frame, a thin layer of muscles sticking to the bones, and a face that is so charming that one could kill for it. No matter how you look at it, you are a good prospect in figure skating, but why is it so difficult in terms of flexibility?

Maybe this is life, no one is perfect!

Xue Linyuan stepped forward to greet him, and deliberately waved his two thick and fat arms, trying to block the media behind him, so that Ling Ran would not be poked in the heart by those sharp-tongued reporters again, and would spend the whole night again in the dance studio when he went back couldn’t come out.

Maybe the food of the national team is good, Xue Linyuan has been developing horizontally in the years since he retired as an athlete and became a coach. Now he is trying to open his arms like a fierce mother chicken protecting her chicks. It is a bit funny and comical but also somewhat touching.

Ling Ran blinked, and his originally heavy mood suddenly began to feel lighter.

He pondered about it a little bit.

A silver medal is also a silver medal. How many people want to get it but still can’t get it?

He just doesn’t know where China’s next men’s figure skating gold medal will be after he retires. It will take a few more years.

He tried his best to persuade himself to ignore the lingering regret and sadness in his heart.

The audience began to leave one after another.

Ling Ran was also in a hurry to leave. Seeing the other two chatting and laughing behind him, he simply kicked his right foot and jumped from the left front outer blade, and in the middle of the rabbit’s jump, the falcon swooped down, and he completed the most difficult 3a jump.

(T/N: As soon as the rabbit jumps, the falcon swoops down. A metaphor for doing something very easily and effortlessly.)

The landing was clear and crisp, as easy as breathing and drinking water. It was clean and beautiful, which made the audience and fans inside and outside the venue scream wildly.

Ling Ran didn’t mean to show off, but among the six jumps required in the competition, only jump A was forward. He wanted to exit quickly, so naturally he could only choose to jump forward.

He has been on the ice for more than ten years, and some of his movements have become muscle memory. As soon as his mind moves, his body will glide.

The gold and bronze medalists who were left behind him did not feel dissatisfied at being robbed of the limelight. Instead, watching a textbook 3a at such a close distance, made the two young athletes applaud cheerfully.

You must know that on the official website of the International Skating  Union (ISU), Ling Ran’s competition videos are directly used as the standardized teaching of this part of 3a. Although they are all standing on the podium, the details of the jump are still not as good as Ling Ran, who is often posted on the official website for people to watch.

Ling Ran, who had already left the ice rink, didn’t care or had any idea about these things.

He is used to being a loner, and other than training, he doesn’t care about these details.

Ling Ran took off his skates and carefully wiped the teeth on the front of the skates with a towel. He turned it upside down and inspected the U-shaped inner and outer blades.

After making sure that there was nothing wrong with his precious skate, he stared at it for a while, then pressed his cheek against the cold blade, wrapped it in a soft sheath, and put it into his backpack, as if he were handling a treasure.

He wiped his face somewhat roughly.

He wanted to take the skates from his last Olympic Games back and put them with the other medals.

Xue Linyuan urged from the side, “There will be a celebration party later, let’s go back and take a shower?”

Ling Ran pursed his lips and nodded.

He turned around to pick up his skates.

But when he looked back the next second, he found himself sitting on the floor of a practice room with clear windows and floor-to-ceiling mirrors, surrounded by a group of people speaking menacingly.

The leader, a kid in his mid-teens, maybe sixteen or so, pointed at his nose and shouted, “It’s him, he’s the one who scratched Brother Zhong’s training uniform! He’s just jealous that Brother Zhong can be in the C position!”

Ling Ran turned around and saw a young boy with thin arms and legs reflected in the floor-to-ceiling mirror.

Wearing a black skull-printed T-shirt, low-waist jeans, exaggerated red hair, and heavy makeup full of sequins. It was somewhat similar to his original appearance, but he had pure black eyes with inturned corners and elongated ends. The creases on the thin white eyelids are deep and narrow, and the eyes are filled with water and misty. When he looks at people, he seems not to be conscious but also seems to be extremely focused and affectionate.

The most important thing is that no matter how thick the makeup is on the young man in the mirror, his eyebrows and eyes are all childish, and he is only fourteen or fifteen years old at most.

He had just celebrated his 25th birthday last month.

Ling Ran frowned, and countless plot fragments were stuffed into his mind.

End of the Chapter 1.