Chapter 19 – Grinding

Half a year—even in Gu Yiming’s concept of time—was a considerably long period. He thought about his agreement with Fang Xiao, feeling quite conflicted, but still faithfully observed the people around him. The winter training was semi-closed, and apart from coaches and support staff, the shooting range only had Gu Yiming’s teammates and substitute players selected from the youth training team.

He saw the girls on the team secretly feeding breadcrumbs to magpies, their tightly bundled figures resembling the plump birds around them, their bellies so round that their downy feathers pressed flat against the grass. He encountered new members of the skeet shooting team—though they didn’t even know each other’s names—but on New Year’s Day, they trained together in the fitness room and, at the sight of snow, were dragged out shoulder-to-shoulder to build a snowman. Once, he forgot his earplugs and went back to his room to fetch them, only to find his usually cheerful roommate Li Yeqing skipping training, hiding under his blanket and crying.

He talked to many people—teammates, members of other teams, coaches, assistant coaches, even the gatekeepers, cleaners, and the kitchen staff. Gu Yiming wasn’t good at conversation, but he learned from Tang Shao that often, chatting didn’t require him to speak much. As long as he responded appropriately at the right moments, the other person could smoothly carry the entire conversation. He learned that Xie Qingyun came from a poor family and that his father-in-law only allowed him into the house after he won an Olympic gold medal last year and received a provincial reward of one million yuan. He also learned that Qin Shan had retired years ago due to lumbar muscle strain and deafness in his right ear—not because of the pain itself, but because the loss of balance it caused made it impossible for him to maintain a stable shooting posture.

These were things the old Gu Yiming wouldn’t have deliberately paid attention to. The debates he’d seen on WeChat moments—about emotion and reason, dreams and reality, radical or compromising viewpoints—when applied to real life, turned out to be so ordinary that they could be spoken casually or narrated softly without needing an exclamation mark.

Gu Yiming told Fang Xiao: “I can’t find anyone I could like.”

He said it earnestly, without any intention of brushing it off. The emptiness in his heart that once resembled a Bodhi mind was now covered in moss and dust—yet it still couldn’t stir any romantic feelings. He saw the myriad virtues of people around him but stubbornly believed that Fang Xiao was the only one for him.

Fang Xiao wasn’t expecting Gu Yiming to shift his affections in just a week either. He coaxed gently: “What about your teammates? None of them suit your taste?”

Gu Yiming thought for a long time before answering honestly: “My taste is you.”

Fang Xiao raised an eyebrow and said: “What about before you met me?”

Gu Yiming thought it over: “Someone like Gigi Lai¹One of the leads in “The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber”. I liked her as Zhao Min.”

Fang Xiao nearly laughed. He pressed further: “What about in *that* way?”

Considering Gu Yiming was already nineteen, even if he had no experience, he probably understood the basics. Fang Xiao cut straight to the point: “Sexually. When you masturbate.”

Gu Yiming didn’t reply for a long time.

Since officially joining the sports team, he had lived in dormitories. Shooting was a niche sport with few athletes, and boarding students were even rarer. He had moved dorms countless times, sometimes sharing with teammates, sometimes with coaches, but he’d never encountered peers or elders who could discuss such topics openly. He had secretly read some books in the library, but the physiological education from the last century was unrealistic in both frequency and scale—Gu Yiming couldn’t relate. Because of this, he always felt ashamed after masturbating, believing it was something bad that should be hidden. He never expected Fang Xiao to bring it up so openly, making his face burn and his heartbeat uncomfortably fast.

Gu Yiming replied: “No one… I don’t think of anyone.”

Fang Xiao was trying to figure out Gu Yiming’s sexual orientation. Sensing his discomfort, he pressed on: “Gender? Do you fantasize about boys or girls?”

Gu Yiming said: “…Neither. I just touch myself.”

The lights were already off, and he curled up under his blanket, typing while rolling onto his side. The taboo topic stirred restlessness in him, but he was too shy—even behind a screen—to chat casually while getting hard. He frowned and tossed around for a while, but it didn’t help, so he tried changing the subject. Scrolling up, he saw his own messages. What he had been thinking about was Fang Xiao. But Fang Xiao wasn’t like Zhao Min at all. He was more like Yang Guo—outwardly gentle and sentimental but cunning and stubborn underneath, capable of being ruthlessly rational when cold.

He asked Fang Xiao: “You’re nothing like the type I like. Why do I like you?”

Fang Xiao replied: “Maybe you don’t like me. Maybe it’s just a misunderstanding.”

Gu Yiming didn’t think that was the case, but he couldn’t convince Fang Xiao.

He took the initiative to befriend several teammates. Li Yeqing was delighted, saying he had finally wised up, and quickly introduced him to some girls on the team. Shooting was a sport with almost no gender disparity—in fact, the current women’s world record for the 10m air pistol was a full 4 points higher than the men’s. Gu Yiming enjoyed exchanging shooting experiences with more people and sincerely respected his teammates’ achievements, but he never felt the same flutter he did with Fang Xiao. It was all Fang Xiao’s fault. Gu Yiming’s heart was already entrusted to him—how could he have any energy left to flutter for others?

While Gu Yiming remained emotionally unmoved, Li Yeqing—the gossip king—must have spread some rumors, because one day, Qin Shan came to chat with him specifically, telling him not to feel burdened about dating. The coaching team didn’t encourage relationships within the team, but they wouldn’t interfere if one developed.

Gu Yiming said that wasn’t it. At the very beginning, there had been a few seconds when Fang Xiao genuinely angered him—for always misunderstanding him, arbitrarily assigning him pitiful roles, and deciding for him that he couldn’t distinguish between affection and dependence. He had wanted to leave this person who refused to communicate with him on equal terms, but he couldn’t bring himself to. Fang Xiao simply didn’t understand, so Gu Yiming stopped expecting him to magically know everything. He wanted to communicate with Fang Xiao.

Gu Yiming didn’t like talking, but listening was easier. He had already developed the patience for it. Fang Xiao made him angry but also happy; he made him sad but also joyful. Fang Xiao brought him entirely new experiences—fresh and deeply moving.

It was like when he first started learning to shoot, practicing grip, balance, and endurance every day until his back stiffened without any sense of accomplishment. But Gu Yiming knew deep down that it wasn’t a bad thing. The gun wasn’t out to harm him, and Fang Xiao didn’t dislike him. What he loved was, in a way, welcoming him in return. He wasn’t being discarded. He had solid ground to stand on.

Gu Yiming told Qin Shan: “I am in a relationship, but it’s not with anyone on the team.”

Qin Shan let out a surprised “Hah!”

After speaking, Gu Yiming felt a little embarrassed and added: “I’m pursuing them, but I haven’t succeeded yet.”

Qin Shan nodded understandingly: “When it comes to young people dating, the team doesn’t interfere in principle—as long as it doesn’t affect training.”

Seeing that Gu Yiming didn’t intend to continue the topic, Qin Shan shifted to business: “Xiao Gu, your performance in last month’s selection trials was decent. You can push harder in next month’s second round. The selection trials for the last three legs of the World Cup are in April—you’ll need to fight for a spot then too.”

This wasn’t something Qin Shan would have said to Gu Yiming before. An athlete’s mental balance was as important as their physical balance. The old Gu Yiming placed too much weight on shooting, so Qin Shan had always urged him to think about other things. Now, things had changed.

Gu Yiming nodded: “Understood. I’d also like to participate in some other competitions.” He still remembered his goal of winning more championships. He hadn’t placed in a while, and his subsidies were meager. Domestic competitions didn’t offer much prize money, but every little bit counted.

Qin Shan agreed: “This year’s championship is also the national team’s selection trials, so you’ll definitely participate. You can also ask the Zhejiang Provincial Team to register you for the championships. Competing more will benefit you right now.” He then smiled at Gu Yiming: “Xiao Gu, it seems dating really does affect your mindset.”

Gu Yiming thought for a moment before answering: “My shooting mindset hasn’t changed—just my competition mindset.” But he couldn’t quite articulate how it was different. Gu Yiming had only competed in one selection trial recently—far from enough to discuss competition mentality.

“Coach Qin, have you ever hit a bottleneck?”

“Of course I have. Back then, the only one without bottlenecks was Zhao Xue from the air rifle team. From winning his first Asian Games gold at 24 to retiring at 33, he never left a competition empty-handed. You used to be a bit like him. But he didn’t stay on as a coach after retiring—he ended up becoming a PE teacher at a university.”

“Genius doesn’t last a lifetime,” Qin Shan said. “Talent runs out. Once it’s gone, if you can still compete, it’s no longer just about natural ability. Zhao Xue’s special skill was forgetting himself the moment he stepped onto the field—his heart rate never exceeded 70 during a match, and pulling the trigger was as easy as drinking water. I was like that too before I turned 24. Then I competed in the Olympics at 24, fighting for the first gold, and immediately fell apart. The pressure was too much, the responsibility too heavy—my hands shook on the last two shots, and my T-shirt was soaked with sweat.”

“After that, there was no choice. You can’t pretend pressure doesn’t exist—you have to learn to adapt to it, fight it, train under it. At that year’s Olympics, on the last shot, my heart rate soared to 140. I was dizzy, oxygen-deprived, focused only on that one shot. At that moment, nothing else mattered—just me and the gun, not even the target. When I put the gun down, I was completely deaf, my ears ringing violently. Many people comforted me, saying it was a physical issue, but I knew—that shot was my fault. I had buckled under the pressure.”

Gu Yiming knew about that incident. Qin Shan’s last shot had been a 6.8—a terrible score.

“Some people think that once you buckle, you can never stand back up. That’s not true. The more you dwell on pressure, the more it weighs on you. You can’t deliberately ignore it—instead, you have to shoot a ten even under the greatest pressure. Maybe that’s why the team kept me as a coach. Are athletes like Zhao Xue good? Of course—exceptionally good. But they’re rare. Most people’s natural gifts aren’t enough to last a lifetime—they have to learn to adapt.”

Qin Shan looked at him with a focused gaze. “Xiao Gu, you have to adapt too.”

Whether one adapted well or poorly was another story—one of survival of the fittest. Competitive sports had their own inherent cruelty. Both of them knew this, but Qin Shan wouldn’t say it outright in front of an athlete.

In the end, Qin Shan said: “Shooting isn’t like skiing or gymnastics. Coaches don’t know more than you do. No one understands your performance better than you. If there’s conflict, ask. If there’s pressure, acknowledge it. Burying your head in the sand is useless, Xiao Gu. Just make sure you’re true to yourself.”

True to yourself.

Gu Yiming chewed on those words. He, too, should be true to himself.

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  One of the leads in “The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber”