wipe the ice and fire

In the end, Du Qingshao refused to consult a psychiatrist.In order to avoid receiving too much disturbing information, he also temporarily disabled social software, replaced it with an elderly machine, and slowly adjusted his state through training and rest until there was no more trouble before the game.

The competition went on as scheduled, and he got the quota as he wished.But as the saying goes, "a twisted melon is not sweet", it seems to be the same for him.

A total of 32 contestants participated in this competition. In the short program competition to enter the top 24, he only ranked tenth with 82.56 points due to a mistake in the opening quadruple jump. He failed to enter the "death group" that is most likely to compete for medals.Ma Jiabo and Song Tanghao, who were dispatched in the same field, also did not perform at their best due to various reasons, ranking ninth and No.14 respectively, but this result is not bad for Song Tanghao.

After being polished by various B-level matches in the past few years, his mentality has improved significantly, and when the veteran retires, he may be able to stand up as a last resort.This also reduces the pressure on Du Qingshao and himself.

But he didn't think so. It seemed that he didn't like this little bastard, so he took out that set of rhetoric again in the waiting room after the game, and provoked him sarcastically.

Having suffered the loss last time, Du Qingshao will never act rashly again this time.And fighting during the game, if something happens, it may be punished by a lifetime ban.

Seeing that he had been holding back and not responding, Ma Jiabo finally stepped forward and led him to the corridor, asking about his physical condition.

Du Qingshao said it was fine, even forgot to say thank you, and went back to the room to rest.

He thought a lot that night.He recalled that the media asked during the interview, "Are you confident in becoming the first men's singles player who has never finished on the podium in his career?" At that time, he gave the reporter a vague statement according to the coach's moderate statement, but in his heart he Why don't you want to challenge this myth.

He began to want to change the difficulty composition of the free skating again, and compared the small score tables of other competitors, he stopped writing halfway through the calculation because of the pain from time to time in his right shoulder.

But Du Qingshao was not reconciled, so he covered himself with a hot water bottle for a while, changed a piece of ointment, and ran to the corridor to practice the land triple axel while the other athletes were resting to find the feeling.

His jump on land was more secure than on ice. After several successful attempts, he finally regained his confidence and went back to his room sweating profusely.

Passing by the floor-to-ceiling mirror in the entrance, he subconsciously stopped and glanced at himself, whose bangs were wet on his forehead, who had not slept well for a few days and whose eyes were red, somehow he felt so strange.

From Du Qingshao, who had no burden at the beginning of the season, and even quarreled with teachers and coaches, to the unspeakable mood now, as the saying goes, "You can't live without being crazy." He feels that he is really... like a lunatic now.

The elderly machine placed on the table suddenly "buzzed" and vibrated.

He grabbed a towel from the bathroom to wipe off his sweat, and while walking towards the bed, he saw a familiar note on the small screen - the nasty little golden retriever.

"Hello?" He pressed the answer button and put on the most relaxed tone, "Good evening, teacher~"

"...My side is still in the afternoon." Finally hearing his voice, Luo Ming relaxed a little, and even jokingly answered an insignificant sentence before asking, "How was the game?"

"It's okay." He lied, "Why, can you also receive the broadcast?"

"It's because there is no broadcast, so I called you." After a pause for a few seconds, Luo Ming continued, "I tried to use the server to connect to your country's network, but I could only find some reports, because of permission issues, I couldn't see all of them. video."

His voice was trembling, playing with Du Qingshao's nerves as if nothing, and also made him feel the distance of [-] kilometers, and he unconsciously clenched his phone tightly.

"And I saw the results of the competition, your short program only ranked tenth..." Luo Ming hesitated, "Is it because of too much pressure? Or... other reasons?"

Du Qingshao had a headache when faced with this problem.On the one hand, he really wanted to find someone to complain about, to find a place for him to rest for a while.But after thinking about it, what kind of man is it to involve a patient with anxiety disorders in fear of himself.

"Then don't read it, just wait for my good news."

Luo Ming was quiet for a moment, and simply said: "Okay."

Du Qingshao wanted to end this topic quickly, looked up at the time, and said, "I'm going to sleep."

Not knowing if what he said just now was enough weight, Luo Ming obediently replied on the other end of the phone: "Good night."

The long distance and jet lag gave Du Qingshao a subtle feeling. Thinking of a movie he had watched before, he suddenly lowered his voice and said, "Good afternoon, and then I wish you good night and good morning."

Luo Ming was also taken aback by this sudden gentleness.

The phone was hung up after that, Du Qingshao got out of bed and took a shower, preparing to rest.

But at that time, he never imagined that the 2024 Four Continents Free Skating would become the most memorable event in his career.

The next day, according to the order of appearance, he was assigned to play in the third group.Before preparing for the game, the coach also told him not to make random changes anyway. The body is the capital of revolution.He also acquiesced to this plan, saying that he would complete it in accordance with the submitted program composition table with guaranteed quality and quantity.

But in fact, he has an indescribable panic, which is completely different from the energy of a newborn calf who is not afraid of tigers. Even the music he has listened to thousands of times feels strange.

Originally, he was able to find most of the beats, but now somehow he couldn't integrate into the music at all, as if someone had built an invisible barrier for him, he could clearly see it clearly, but no matter how he tried to catch it, he could only Comes with a sticky, suffocating membrane.

He had a sealing injection on his shoulder, and he didn't feel any pain for the time being, but he decided to change the jumping order and started with the most familiar four-and-three jumps on the outside.

The first jump successfully landed on the ice, which gave him a lot of confidence.He started to speed up, circling to the sidelines for his second quadruple jump, the jump he was most proud of.

Everything in front of my eyes turned into blurred light and shadow, and the way and speed of entry were so familiar, but at the moment of take-off, something flashed in my heart somehow.

Du Qingshao felt that he seemed to be off-axis, and subconsciously wanted to find a remedy to protect himself, but before he could react, his right hand was already propped on the hard ice.

In an instant, pain mixed with numbness pierced his nerve endings, accompanied by the force of valgus, and even heard a crunching sound.And the pain caused by this sound almost took away all his self-protection ability in an instant, and his body took advantage of the trend to roll over a small half circle and hit the hard ice surface.

"..."

The surroundings suddenly became quiet.

so cold...

Du Qingshao was lying on the ice, countless gray lights and shadows flashed in front of his eyes, like snowflakes on an old TV.But even if he couldn't open his eyes, he couldn't move, as if he was being held down in the icy water of the polar region, and he couldn't utter a single syllable with all his strength.

so cold.

He subconsciously moved the fingers of his left hand, trying to prop himself up from this cold place.

so cold.

Where exactly is he?

Suddenly, the ears caught the familiar music engraved in the bone marrow.The low-pitched first movement has been turned, and at this moment, soft music like a spring breeze is flowing in my ears, as if calling people who don't know where to go to go home.

This is the music of his game.

The music hadn't been paused, the bell hadn't rung in the referee's box.

The game continues.

Du Qingshao didn't know where the strength came from, and put his right hand in front of his chest, from lying on his side to kneeling, and then kneeling on one knee, and forcefully propped his body up from the ice with one hand.

tick, tick...

I slid a few steps forward by feeling, but I couldn't find the direction at all.He desperately opened his eyes, but his left eye seemed to be stuck, and he couldn't open it no matter what.It took him a lot of effort to barely open his right eye.

A blinding white flashed into his eyes, and the familiar ice rink was like a high-level Rubik's cube, turning into torn squares and double images. The thousands of watts of lighting overhead and the astonished eyes of tens of thousands of people pierced him nowhere to escape. shape.

Du Qingshao stood there at a loss, covering his eyes with his hands, desperately trying to avoid the light.

A suffocating dizziness came from the head, and the slender neck couldn't support the heavy head at all, and there was a sudden sharp pain in the place where the sealing needle had been injected on the shoulder, which was obviously no longer painful.

"Uh——" For a moment, he didn't know which wound to protect. The body that finally stood up was stripped of its support by the raging pain, and fell to one knee on the ice again.

"Du Qingshao! Can you hear me!" The coach who witnessed the whole process from the sidelines was frightened crazy.

But Du Qingshao may not realize what happened to him.

Because of the habitual dislocation of his right shoulder caused by perennial strain, his body lost its center of gravity, and the left side of his brain hit the ice directly.

There was blood under his body, and the blood sprinkled on the white ice rink was extremely shocking, and as he walked, even the silver Costen was stained with dots.

The little boy, who was in high tension and excitement, finally felt the pain belatedly. He knelt on the ice with his left hand hugging his shoulders. Get up and continue the game.

But this time, the Goddess of Fate did not favor him, and the one-in-a-million probability event did not happen.When the heat and cold collided, the ice under his knees seemed to be melted, turning into a puddle of warm and sticky water.His knees were stuck in the mire, and the coldness clung to his body, unable to stand up again.

The game music stopped completely.

"Du Qingshao, can you hear me?" The two team doctors and game staff who had obtained permission all rushed to his side. At the same time, the sound of the stretcher and the siren of the ambulance was getting closer.

Jin Cheng helped him fix the dislocated shoulder quickly, while Pan Lishu went around and opened his eyelids to observe the pupils.

In an instant, the light stimulated his eyeballs again.

"It's so bright..." A white light flashed in Du Qingshao's mind, and he avoided it uncomfortable.

"The reaction to the light is still there, so it shouldn't be a big deal." Pan Lishu raised his head and exchanged glances with Jin Cheng, gestured to the outside of the arena to ask the stretcher to enter the arena directly, and picked up the gauze from the medicine box.

"Am I bleeding?" Du Qingshao still couldn't open his eyes, he wiped his forehead by feeling, and smelled a faint smell of rust.

"Don't move, I'll send you to the hospital for examination later."

"No," he probably heard the sound of a stretcher being pushed in, and without knowing where the strength was, he raised his hand and grabbed the opponent's hand that was about to stop the bleeding, "I can continue the game. There are 3 minutes left, no matter what I do. can hold on."

"Hold on to your size!" Pan Lishu pulled his arm out of his hand, and stopped him in a soft but stern voice, "Du Qingshao, you have an 80% chance of concussion now."

"That's not 20.00%..."

"Don't be stubborn! Go to the hospital immediately for an examination. A concussion is really fatal."

Du Qingshao didn't believe in evil, and wanted to open his eyes, but he couldn't overcome the severe dizziness in his head after several attempts, so he sniffed uncomfortablely: "Help me up, at least let me go down by myself."

If he is really carried out, he will be worried.

But it was too late, and Du Qingshao never dreamed that the guy who was most worried about him at the moment used black technology to download the software of domestic live sports news. The fragile nerves and thin stomach have begun to boil.

Not moving at all, his beloved boy lay helplessly on his side on the ice with his back on his back for half a minute.

While Du Qingshao tried to get up again and again, Luo Ming's burning stomach wall also twitched with his trembling body, covering his mouth and retching again and again, tears mixed with vomit leaked from his fingers...

He really wanted to fly over immediately and hug him.