Zhang Sushang, full of sorrow, sneezed and huddled into a shivering ball against the freezing winds of St. Petersburg.
He was a boy of eighteen who had just finished sitting his college entrance exam and received an admission notice for the top university not two days ago. He had wanted to get his driver’s licence before the term started, but unexpectedly, his talent for driving was so poor that during his lessons, the entire car rattled to the point that both he and the driving tutor accompanying him threw themselves out of the car to vomit.
By the time he stood up again, he was on an antique train bound for St. Petersburg.
Originally, he had planned to go home after his lessons to drink his father’s chicken soup and run a few laps with Grayson, his family’s pet poodle, but now both his soup and his dog were one hundred years away in the future.
When he dug through the suitcase next to him, he found a letter written in traditional characters about breaking off relations with him. Based on the content, he inferred that when this body was in the process of preparing to study medicine at Leningrad State University in St. Petersburg, he rejected the child bride his grandmother arranged at the expense of breaking off contact with his family.
The good news was that Zhang Sushang had also applied to study medicine in his own time because he dreamed of being a neurosurgeon. The bad news was that this time period had no such thing as neurosurgery.
Fortunately, according to the letter included with the admission notice, someone would be there to pick him up once he got off the train.
It was currently 1926. Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote Sherlock Holmes, was still alive; Elizabeth II and the world’s first television would both be born in this year.
If he had a choice, Zhang Sushang actually hoped that the country he would study abroad in was England — if he was lucky, he might be able to get an autograph from Holmes’ father.
The young man, covered with a well-worn cotton jacket and cotton-soled shoes, hugged a dilapidated suitcase as he squatted in the train station and cried from the cold.
It wasn’t that he wanted to cry, but that February in Russia was too cold. Even he, a Northeasterner,1Northeast China refers to the provinces Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang; it’s the coldest region in China with an average daily maximum temperature of only 11C (51F), and is known to drop as low as -37C (-35F). couldn’t stand it.
Who knew how long he squatted there before a man who was wrapped up like a bear stood in front of him. Zhang Sushang looked up and found that the man wore an old fur coat, a felt hat, and tall boots, with the lower half of his face hidden behind his collar leaving only a pair of eyes so profound that Zhang Sushang instantly woke up.
This big brother muttered a string of words through his thick collar. Although his voice was quite hoarse and he coughed from time to time, Zhang Sushang could still understand him.
This man’s name was Alexei, and he was here to pick up Zhang Sushang. He asked Zhang Sushang to follow him as he explained that before the school term started, Zhang Sushang would be living in his house with him. After saying this, he grabbed Zhang Sushang’s suitcase and brought him out of the station.
Following behind him, Zhang Sushang stammered, “How, how can I let you do this? Why don’t I do it myself?”
Alexei didn’t say a word in response, he just kept his head down and walked.
Almost 30 centimetres of snow had accumulated on the ground, maybe only huskies and malamutes would like this kind of environment. Zhang Sushang, in his new chubby body with its awful physical fitness, didn’t take long to gasp in exhaustion. The white breath he exhaled fogged up the round lens of his glasses.
“Whoa!”
Zhang Sushang tripped and fell straight into the snow. At this, Alexei finally turned around, then picked him up with a single hand.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Repeatedly shaking his head, Zhang Sushang got up, wiped the snow from his face, and carefully cleaned his glasses using a corner of his clothes. “I’m fine, we can keep going,” he said.
Alexei nodded, grabbed his arm, and resumed walking. His tall body blocked most of the wind as they moved forward despite the wind and snow. Although cars had already been invented, let alone how expensive they were, a car might not even run in weather like this.
They walked for two hours before coming to an old building.
It was very typical of an early 20th century construction, with every brick and tile telling a story of simplicity. After going up a few snow-covered steps, Alexei took a deep breath, raised his hands, and charged the door with a cry of bear-like exertion. It took several tries for him to get the frozen door open.
This guy’s banging made so much noise that Zhang Sushang almost thought that the house was going to collapse.
The house wasn’t big, but there was a wood-burning stove that had quite a bit of soot in it. Alexei used a stick to rummage in it a few times, which soon revealed a few coals still bright with sparks. He became visibly happier as he piled more firewood inside.
Not mentioning whether his method of using coal and wood together was safe, the room did indeed get warmer.
There were two bedrooms in the house, one of which had evidently been recently tidied. Inside it was a modest wooden bed, a table half a person tall and its chair, and a large bookshelf filled only with a thick Russian dictionary and some newspapers.
Zhang Sushang dragged his luggage inside. When he caught sight of the dictionary, he stopped in his tracks, thinking that Alexei was a rather good person.
Because his dad was a figure skater, his grand-uncle was a figure skating coach, and he also practised figure skating, Zhang Sushang came into contact with quite a few Russians since his childhood and got along with them well. When he was thirteen years old, he came under the instruction of a famous coach named Vasily for a short time, and it was also then that he learned to speak Russian.
But it was a pity that strong athletes were as common as clouds in competitive sports and the required technical difficulty increased year by year. By the time Zhang Sushang reached fifteen years old, quintuple jumps had already come into existence2As of 2023, no one has successfully landed a quint of any jump type while on the ice — this Slate article is a good introduction on why it’s so hard. yet the best jump he had was a 3A. With his height also shooting up, in the end, he simply gave up skating in favour of studying and was successfully admitted into Tsinghua University’s Department of Medicine.
After he put away his things and left the room, he found that Alexei had already taken off his hat to reveal pale blond hair and a handsomely defined face. “Right, what’s your name? Sooshan?” he asked as he put a pot on the stove.
His Chinese wasn’t very accurate, so Zhang Sushang corrected him. “My name is Zhang-Su-Shang, not Sooshan, but you can call me Chyushka.”
This was his nickname in Russian, said to be named after a lion. It could also be translated as Chuka, but the pronunciation was closer to Chyushka.3Russian diminutives/short forms are eluding me, I don’t want to admit how long I’ve spent trying to work out how the author went from ‘Zhang Sushang’ to a Russian nickname that comes out sounding like Chika or Chuka or Tsyusha (秋卡, qiuka). Any Russian speakers out there, please give advice.
As they chatted, Alexei mentioned that there weren’t enough dormitories on the campus and the new building hadn’t been finished yet, so the professors asked some students to host international students as homestays.
Alexei was studying physics at Leningrad State University. He said he was twenty years old, but if one ignored his broad body and only looked at his face, Zhang Sushang would have believed that he was only sixteen years old.
“What are you majoring in?” Alexei asked.
“Medicine, I want to help people,” Zhang Sushang replied.
Alexei smiled and handed him a bowl of potato soup ladled from the pot. “It’s not easy to study in an unfamiliar place. It’s amazing that you can make up your mind to come here, and you’re good at Russian. Your future patients will thank you for your decision today.”
Zhang Sushang was now sure that this was a good person.
The evidence was that from entering the house until now, Alexei didn’t mention anything related to money. Zhang Sushang was very grateful for this because he really didn’t have any money right now.
The price for leaving ‘his’ family was that he almost ran out of money. He used to have some, but if someone wanted to go from China to St. Petersburg in this era, they would have to spend it all no matter how much money they started with.
However, according to the characteristics of this time, many students studying abroad would work part-time to support themselves as they studied.
Late at night, Zhang Sushang sat cross-legged on the wooden bed and sorted through ‘his’ belongings. He had books, pens, and ink, but the only thick piece of clothing he had was what he wore, which he would also have to use as a blanket at night.
As he flipped through these things, Zhang Sushang sighed. “How can I live like this?”
He missed his home, he really, really missed it. Zhang Sushang was an adopted child; he didn’t know his biological parents but held a very deep affection for his adoptive fathers. They had influenced his ice skating, and also his decision to study medicine. His biggest goal for the past eighteen years of his life was to become their pride.
He had tried all manner of methods to get home while on the train: the vomiting method, the dream method, even praying to various gods, but none of them brought him home. In other words, he may have to live out the rest of his life in this time. He missed his family.
However, even the oldest person in his family, Mr. Lu, was born in the 1940s — meaning at least sixteen years in the future, when this body would be 34 years old. His dad was born in the 90s. For the Zhang Sushang of now who was born in 1908, he would have to live to be at least 90 years old.
Ah, Dad, how can I live until 90 years old to meet the you who will be born many years later?
Zhang Sushang thought, let alone his inability to get food on the table, with his 180 cm height and 180 kg weight, he had to have fatty liver disease! He wasn’t healthy enough to reach 90 years old at all.
He was so worried that he couldn’t fall asleep for the whole night, and when he finally felt a bit sleepy near dawn, he heard banging coming from the front door.
Someone who didn’t know better might think that it was a sound effect from a horror movie.
Translator:
Dedicated to my brief foray into the Yuri!!! on ICE fandom.
You might be interested to know that the MC for this novel, Zhang Sushang, is the adopted son of the MC and ML for another of the author’s novels featuring figure skating and rebirth (Figure Skating: I’m More Suited for the Olympics, being translated by Ontimestory as of this publication). I don’t consider this a sequel because characters from that novel are only mentioned and don’t show up until the extras, but it definitely takes place in the same world.
- 1Northeast China refers to the provinces Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang; it’s the coldest region in China with an average daily maximum temperature of only 11C (51F), and is known to drop as low as -37C (-35F).
- 2As of 2023, no one has successfully landed a quint of any jump type while on the ice — this Slate article is a good introduction on why it’s so hard.
- 3Russian diminutives/short forms are eluding me, I don’t want to admit how long I’ve spent trying to work out how the author went from ‘Zhang Sushang’ to a Russian nickname that comes out sounding like Chika or Chuka or Tsyusha (秋卡, qiuka). Any Russian speakers out there, please give advice.