The Regressor's Ice Is Golden - Chapter 34

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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034.

Six in the evening.
The university student who had powered through an assignment all night on the fuel of rage over a favorite’s downfall unfortunately had one more two-credit class in the afternoon.
By the time class ended, she was barely holding it together.
The one small mercy was that she could catch the six o’clock shuttle bus.
‘Thank you for ending class early, Professor…….’
The student rested her head against the bus window, her mind a void.
She didn’t want to think a single thought on the ride home.
But she had to get home, so sleep wasn’t an option.
And anyway, too much caffeine had left her unable to sleep even if she wanted to.
So like always, she plugged in her earbuds and opened YouTube.
She was scrolling mindlessly through Shorts when something caught the algorithm’s attention.
It was a competition video of some figure skater…….
‘Short hair?’
The student found herself watching that Short carefully, without meaning to.
It was a brief clip of a young figure skater performing consecutive jumps.
But wasn’t it normal, when you landed the first one, to tap your foot an extra time before the second jump?
With combination jumps, that is.
This skater had taken off again the instant she landed the first jump.
Curiosity sparked through the fog of exhaustion, setting her tired mind back in motion.
Without thinking, the student followed the link from the Short and went to the full video.
Before an ad could play, the video thumbnail flashed past.
[A Young Tango’s Challenge!]
……Some corny line like that.
The moment the ad ended, the skater appeared on the ice and the broadcast began.
{Now, here comes our representative from South Korea, Kim Ha-seol. This is her first Junior Grand Prix competition, and she’s thirteen years old. She took the silver medal in the Selection competition.}
{Yes. Her coach is Park Chae-ram, and the choreography is by Park Chae-ram and……, Cha Jin-hee. The music is Astor Piazzolla’s Allegro Tangabile.}
In the center of the white ice, the skater took her opening position.
One arm held behind her back, her palm open, her hand slightly shading her forehead and one eye.
Then the arena erupted with tango’s distinctive sound—rough where a violin would be smooth, neurotic where an accordion would be mellow.
The arm shading her forehead swept through the air in a sharp arc.
To an achingly bright rhythm, the skater’s choreography unfolded.
She quickly built her speed, gliding along the edge of the rink before moving into position.
The first jump, and then—another jump the instant she landed!
It was the same thing she’d seen in the Short.
{Yes, Triple Lutz, Triple Loop! Clean landing.}
‘Wow.’
The skater landed lightly and continued her glide.
Looking closer, she was wearing a two-layered skirt.
A brilliant blue underlay was whipping around with every movement the skater made.
Like a deep blue flame.
Then the skater turned backwards.
The student, who knew nothing of Mohawk turns or three turns, opened her eyes wide.
The skater maintained her rushing momentum, lifted her left foot, switched to the other edge, and skated backward.
She planted her airborne foot and launched herself upward.
{Triple Flip! Another success.}
And the moment she landed, she threw herself back into the air.
The skater landed with her body bent low to the ice and began spinning in circles.
Spinning while holding her ankle, then arching her waist to the side, reaching out a hand, tilting her head to gaze at the ceiling…….
She moved through motions that made you doubt the limits of human flexibility, then unlocked the rotation by pressing one knee to the ice.
{Flying Sit Spin, ending with a difficult flourish. Should earn the highest level.}
{Yes. Followed by a Step Sequence.}
The moment the woodwind melody—whose name she didn’t know—ended, piano notes burst through harshly.
And in that instant, the skater’s eyes met the camera.
“!”
Before the student could even think about those fierce, blazing blue eyes, dazzling choreography erupted.
The skater spun rapidly with her hands on her waist, moving forward without a moment’s rest, her steps flowing into one another in quick succession.
When she pushed off the ice and rose, the accordion shrieked harshly; when her torso swung wide, she paused for a breath, crouching low.
{Rocker, counter, loop turn. Bracket counter, another twizzle and illusion.}
{All the clusters linked together.}
White trajectories traced across the ice in unbroken succession, each one falling precisely on the beat.
The shrill melody was trampled with deliberate force, then she rose again.
It was a cyan-bright blaze—a kind of madness.
After the choreography swept through in a torrent, the skater reset her position.
She looked ahead this time, then switched her feet and snapped into the air.
{The final jump—Double Axel in the second half! All jumping elements are complete.}
{Next comes the Camel Spin.}
She begins in a T position, spinning with her foot pulled toward the back of her head, then lifts it overhead as she continues to turn.
{The last element. Change Foot Combination.}
And now she begins to spin through nearly every position that has appeared so far.
Arching her back, pulling her foot up to grasp it, crouching low to the ice, springing upright.
The moment she releases the final rotation, a cacophony of instruments shatters through the speakers.
And bang!
The music ends, and the skater’s dance ceases with it.
A close-up of the skater’s face in her ending pose fills the screen.
Applause erupts from the audience in the broadcast.
{Clean! That was Kim Ha-seol of South Korea!}
{She executed every element flawlessly. An outstanding debut performance.}
The skater’s face glistening with perspiration, she relaxes and catches her breath.
Only after she bows to the audience does the university student finally release the breath she’s been holding.
‘Wow…….’
{Overall, that was a polished, high-quality performance. All non-jumping elements received the highest level in real time.}
{Yes. And most importantly, those were the most difficult technical jumps—Triple Lutz, Triple Loop. The hardest combination in this entire competition, and she executed it beautifully.}
The skater steps off the ice and embraces her coach.
While the replay footage rolls, the university student blinks her eyes.
Only then does she realize she hasn’t blinked once.
‘That’s incredible……. Seriously.’
For someone whose entire figure skating experience amounted to watching Yu-na’s Olympic performance in elementary school, the university student swallowed hard.
Even watching it again, she’d found herself slipping into a daze, but this was striking in a different way.
It’s only natural that witnessing someone’s exceptional talent makes you lose your mind.
Shortly after, the coach and skater appear on screen seated before the scoreboard.
{So, given such an impressive, clean performance, we can certainly look forward to the scores.}
{67.71! Kim Ha-seol takes the lead confidently!}
‘Is that high?’
Yu-na’s Short Program score had been in the high seventies, after all.
The university student, who knew nothing of Junior Program Components benchmarks, tilted her head in confusion.
The video ended, but she still couldn’t resolve her question.
So she began scrolling through the comments.

-Wow she stomped those steps like she was trying to break through the floor, scared me half to deathㅠㅠㅠㅋㅋㅋㅋwhat is this
-The determination of someone who’s gonna shatter a medal case if she doesn’t get a medal
-First time I’ve ever felt overwhelmed watching a junior skater…
-So this is why the algorithm pushed this to me, am I really getting this for free

From the comments, it didn’t seem like she’d been the victim of any biased judging.
Someone would have pointed it out if that were the case.
Slightly reassured, the university student scrolled down further.

-Thought figure skating was done after Yu-na…but this is wild
-Yu-na set the bar too high for everyone…back then the sport was barely developed in our country, there wasn’t even proper athlete protection…more
└Comparing to Yu-na here really…ㅋㅋㅋisn’t it unfair to compare a middle schooler just debuting in juniors to a legend
└That’s exactly why we shouldn’t make these comparisons—the eras are different
-Yu-na had elegant, delicate beauty, while Kim Ha-seol has this overwhelming, forceful brilliance….

……Yeah, comments like that make sense.
To be honest, she can’t complain—she thought of Yu-na first too.
‘She was definitely overwhelming…….’
The university student glanced out the window and began gathering her things.
The shuttle bus dropped the students off at a shopping district near the dormitory area.
The university student who’d chosen a tonkatsu restaurant for dinner immediately picked up her phone.
‘How do you even become a figure skating fan, anyway?’
Maybe she could just start by digging through their social media accounts. That would be a start.
Wasn’t learning the unknown the point of research?
Whether it was idol group members or fan chants, the breed called ARMY memorized everything without fail.
So this ought to be manageable too.
What the university student didn’t yet know was that this would be her first time supporting an athlete.
She had no way of predicting which controversy her new bias would resurface in next.
Not that it would be bad news, exactly, but she couldn’t gauge how far the backlash might spread.
It was the people who dwelled in deeper waters who caught the current first.
Those who’d watched figure skating for years, who’d naturally seen the Selection competitions.
The kind of people who obviously knew where the athletes came from.

-Am I the only one who heard “coach/choreographer/instructor” and went “???” on screen? (screenshot of athlete/coach/choreographer intro)
-Wait, didn’t Cha Seo-hee’s twin sister retire during her Novice days?
-What? Cha Jin-hee’s the choreographer?

It didn’t take long for the community posters to piece together what was really going on.

-Cha Jin-hee, Cha Seo-hee’s twin sister, choreographed Kim Ha-seol’s program—her supposed rival!

To be precise, what had originally been Roxanne had been rearranged into Tanghaville, and the choreography was so thoroughly overhauled it amounted to almost a complete rewrite.
Nobody knew all the details, but regardless.

-So she left her own sister alone and made choreography for the rival instead??? lmaooo
└What rival? These are just two kids with the same skill level being pitted against each other lol
└└At this point I can’t even tell if you’re a Cha fan or a Kim fan anymore ㅋㅋㅋ
-Jin-hee was good during Novice too but had to quit because of her ankle…ㅠㅠㅠ
-So you’re telling me a middle schooler choreographed that…?
(comparison gif: Selection Competition Step Sequence / Junior Grand Prix Thailand Step Sequence)
-But she’s still in middle school, how is she even active…? Didn’t they say they were prioritizing her education?

People spent that evening trading speculation and heated commentary back and forth.
It was juicy material, after all!
The Selection results alone had sent dopamine surging through the community, and now with family drama layered on top, the whole narrative turned explosive.
And the sports journalists, perpetually starved for clicks, didn’t hesitate to seize the moment.
These were the headlines that poured out that evening.
[‘Figure Skating Prospect’ Kim Ha-seol Places 1st in Short Program at Junior Grand Prix Round 1… Chasing Medal Glory in Free Skating on the 30th]
[Is Cha Seo-hee’s Twin Sister Kim Ha-seol’s Choreographer? ‘Sisterly Showdown’ in Figure Skating]
[TK’s Cha Yong-jin’s Younger Daughter Takes on Figure Skating Choreography?]
As a result, Coach Park Chae-ram watched her protégée sympathetically, the student practically bleached white from being wrung dry by reporters all evening.
“Want some water?”
Ha-seol accepted the bottle quietly instead of answering.
“Your English is pretty good, by the way. When did you pick that up?”
“During breaks I’ve been using Twin Apple…”
“Oh, that language learning app.”
So she hadn’t spent every waking moment in the Thailand dormitory just training.
In any case, Coach Park sent her straight to the shower the moment they returned to the accommodation.
Once Ha-seol emerged, Park switched on the hair dryer and gently dried her short, damp hair.
“The federation people all seem to be expecting a lot. They’re calling you a dark horse, appearing out of nowhere.”
Her damp bobbed hair swayed softly under her fingertips.
“Does it feel like too much pressure? You never used to enjoy being the center of attention like this.”
“Coach…”
Ha-seol tilted her head back to look at her mentor and laughed quietly.
“I’m an attention-seeker—why else would I keep skating?”
“Hm-heh.”
Left with nothing to say, Coach Park laughed heartily and finished drying away the last of the moisture.
“Fair point. Let’s rip it up again tomorrow, yeah? Heheheh.”
And Ha-seol made good on that promise.
The Returner’s Ice: Golden Chapter 34
E-book Publication Date | June 5, 2026

Author | Corcarolli
Publishers | Heo Heung-beom, Park Geon-won
Published by | Potence

Address | [04783] 9th Floor, 11-8 Yeonmujang Street, Seongdong-gu, Seoul
Phone | 02-6320-8500
Fax | 02-6320-8585

UCI | G720:N+A101-20260514092.0034
List Price | 100 won

© Corcarolli 2026

This e-book is protected under copyright law.
This e-book is published under contract with the author, and unauthorized reproduction, copying, distribution, and sharing without written consent from both parties is prohibited.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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