CHAPTERS
Fang Xiao returned on a Saturday, with Beijing still blanketed in snow. The city, prone to summer floods and winter droughts, welcomed the dust-covered convoy with icy enthusiasm. Tang Shao lived near Wangjing. Fang Xiao dropped him off along with his thirty-plus pounds of souvenirs at Tang Shao's apartment building, then drove straight to a car wash near his own home. Even though the snow was still falling and the freshly washed car would soon be dirtied again by the filthy snow heavy with smog, Fang…- 63.1 K • Completed
- Gu Yiming used to think a week was short—just a few thousand bullets, and it would pass in the blink of an eye. But now, a week felt unbearably long—agonizingly so. When he was at the shooting range, it was manageable, but once he left, every second felt suffocatingly crowded. He couldn't think about anything else; his mind was completely occupied by Fang Xiao. Fang Xiao, Fang Xiao, Fang Xiao. And Fang Xiao's confession. Gu Yiming wasn't unfamiliar with confessions. He had developed late—short and…
- 63.1 K • Completed
- The shooting team's winter training location changes every year—sometimes in Henan, sometimes in Fujian, and sometimes they stay in Beijing. They generally don't go further north, or else the 50-meter shooters would cry—many of their events are semi-outdoor. When they stay in Beijing for winter training, the shooting team's meals are usually mediocre. It's said that with fixed budgets and Beijing's high prices, ensuring food safety and nutritional intake leaves little room for taste. Gu Yiming…
- 63.1 K • Completed
- The night before the selection trials, Gu Yiming returned from training to find a new friend request on WeChat. The sender's ID was "Xing Zongkai," with a pot of lily-of-the-valley blooming on an office desk as the profile picture. When Gu Yiming first started using WeChat, he used to accept every friend request indiscriminately. The result was his Moments feed becoming flooded with MLM advertisements until he could barely see any normal updates. Gradually, he stopped accepting requests from strangers.…
- 63.1 K • Completed
- Gu Yiming dragged his suitcase back to the Shooting Sports Center. This year's winter training was held in Beijing. The electronic shooting range at the training base hadn't opened yet, so Gu Yiming got an introduction letter from Qin Shan, retrieved his gun ahead of time, and went to the public shooting range. They used paper targets there—one box of pellets matched exactly five target sheets. Before Gu Yiming could finish one box of pellets, Qin Shan arrived and told him to seriously try a round to…
- 63.1 K • Completed
- On the way from Namtso to Lhasa, Tang Shao kept playing *Back to Lhasa*, and Gu Yiming's mind was filled with the endless laughter of the girls in the song. Unable to bear it any longer, he asked, "Are you from Lhasa?" Tang Shao lifted his chin proudly. "Spiritual homeland, understand?" Gu Yiming didn't understand. He stayed in Lhasa for three days. Though he enjoyed the fresh local customs, he didn't find Lhasa any more fun than the places they'd visited earlier. He liked Chaka Salt Lake,…
- 63.1 K • Completed
- After leaving Chaka Salt Lake, only Fang Xiao and Boss Zheng's cars remained in the group. The highway from Xining to Lhasa hadn't been opened yet, so they followed the Jingla Line forward, surrounded by the plateau scenery of yak-dotted grasslands. The elevated roadbed gradually leveled out, distant mountain ranges stretched ahead, and the long gray-white road cut through the grasslands, extending toward the horizon. On the day they reached Nagqu, they got lost shortly after setting off at noon.…
- 63.1 K • Completed
- The convoy stayed in Dunhuang for four days before two cars turned back toward Xi'an, leaving Fang Xiao, Boss Zheng, and a family of three—three cars in total—to continue along the Liuge Expressway toward Xining. The sunny weather that had accompanied them all the way suddenly turned foul on this stretch of highway. A fierce wind of five or six magnitudes swept up yellow sand, reducing visibility to barely a hundred meters. Fang Xiao turned on the parking lights and hazard lights, driving haltingly…
- 63.1 K • Completed
- On the first day the convoy stopped in Dunhuang, the weather was exceptionally fine. The autumn sunlight draped lavishly over the wilderness, the azure sky fading from the zenith toward the horizon, the yellow sand in the distance taking on an ambiguous pale hue—the boundary between sky and land was almost tender. After the Golden Week holiday, the tourist crowds at Mingsha Mountain had thinned. The desert was vast and boundless, like endless ocean waves. The convoy disbanded at the entrance of the…
- 63.1 K • Completed
- Whether shooting counts as a sport, Gu Yiming wasn't actually sure. As a non-confrontational form of competition, unlike the higher, faster, stronger ethos of track and field or swimming, shooting has its own paradigms and limitations. Even compared to other sports with established paradigms like gymnastics or diving, shooting is confined within rigid boundaries where all struggles are directed inward—a battle against oneself. What others see is merely an arm lifting and lowering, followed by the…
- 63.1 K • Completed
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