Chapter 1260: NO. 164: The One Who Exhausts the Way

NO. 164: The One Who Exhausts the Way

Although the horse girls' field, after long-term development, once had specific lineages such as Mejiro, Symboli, and Sakura, such families are still too tiny for the enormous base.

Although for professional researchers, everything of the horse souls in their homeland is built upon the chain of bloodlines, so the horse girl family's influence on the birth of certain horse girls is quite decisive, like a tag needed in a public recruitment of the boat tour; just as the existence of horse souls such as Symboli Rudolf and Sirius Symboli necessarily falls under the 'Symboli' lineage, this principle also applies to horse girls like Mejiro Zenno and Mejiro McQueen of the 'Mejiro' family.

But to the public eye, the horse girls they see come from any background, any family.

There are even cases like Ailisuzhi and Ailishuma, who share the same surname but have no blood relation.

Of course, if one insists on being strict, it's actually not completely unrelated.

If you, like Aomo, are willing to pay the cost of understanding another world, you can eventually find out that the horse souls they bear were, in life, given the same owner's name.

But this is clearly not included in the conditions for choosing the reincarnation of horse souls.

Suzi and Shu Zi Lao Shi were each born into unrelated families, yet they showed a bit of fate when dorms were assigned at school, becoming roommates.

Such dorm assignments are themselves quite random, like how the high school department's Aimu Zhiji and the middle school department's Zhen Jiling were paired together, while the middle school department's Xin Yuzhou could move in with another student who enrolled at the same time due to some reason causing a vacancy, in the dorm of Airu Wangxi (that's a name).

Moving on to the college department, many horse girls choose to commute or rent nearby, yet even so, Mihama Dormitory and Touto Dormitory still have the odd situation of college and middle school students sharing rooms, making you doubt whether all this can be taken for granted, or whether it's thanks to some dean's blessing.

No need to doubt, it is!

Whenever faced with such doubts, criticisms, and questions, the response of Dean Thus we output: Thus we output: QiuChuan never changes.

She says: "I am merely practicing the precepts of the three goddesses."

【Respect their opinions, also respect her opinions】

This clearly refers to the horse souls, and then to the horse girls themselves.

No matter which family the soul chooses as a child, and no matter what choices that child makes, respect is what they ought to do.

As for whether to support them, that's another matter.

Many people believe that horse girls are brought into the world by the three goddesses building bridges and pulling strings, protected all the way; many horse girls themselves think so, because it fits everyone's imagination of the goddesses' loving kindness.

But in fact, the three goddesses only open the door to pull the horse souls from another world; after that, it's up to the horse souls themselves to decide.

They decide whether to be born, and they decide which child's life to fulfill.

It can be said that, as fused-soul adults, the horse girls up to now have never experienced the miracle of soul-conflict problems, thanks to this freedom.

It lets every soul find a mirroring counterpart, and lets every destiny have a suitable beginning.

But it is only a suitable beginning.

How things will truly develop, the history of horse girls already has too many regrettable examples.

Gechengwangpai, who walked out of the rural fields, yearned for a free-spirited classmate due to her dislike of closed-off air and fixed notions; running to surpass her ultimately led to an ending far from contentment.

That grassland bears how many legends and how many regrets; nowadays, perhaps some eccentric will be willing to devote effort to investigate and organize it, no longer lying silent as before, but it will engrave those regrets deep into the bone—evidently only the parties involved.

In fact, Gechengwangpai has recalled that racecourse more than once.

At that time, the name of that race had not yet been replaced by revised regulations.

Continuing a several-hundred-year-old historical tradition, it was also called the Kaimon District racecourse of the Japan Cup; at the same time, there was that classmate, and another later rising junior who crushed all competitors.

That was a rare battlefield where the Triple Crown winners coexisted.

The goal long yearned for, pursued, and desired to surpass.

And the goal of repeatedly defeating oneself, which at the time was the focus of worldwide attention.

Besides that, countless outsiders gathered and jointly won the laurels; they could truly be called the world-conquering battle of that time.

On such a battlefield, she had lost several times, being called merely average; only by recently changing her race and running strategy did she gradually gain popularity and prize money, even barely defeating that classmate once, earning her the nickname 'Middle-Distance Gechengwangpai,' but in the end she still could not match the others in popularity.

Popularity tenth.

This is the result of the support she initially received.

Out of 18 contestants, she got tenth place in popularity, and being from the Kaimon District home turf, it can truly be said she was not favored.

Everyone's eyes were on the showdown between the two Triple Crown horse girls, as well as on the foreign horse girl lineups from the America region's G1 five-time winner, the Italy region's Derby champion, and the Canada region's G1 four-time winner; the final result of that battle was the sudden rise of the Eastern region's ace!

The Japan Cup, named after the former national title of the Eastern region, is actually a global tournament where foreign horse girls always win the championship; it's been too long since a domestic champion appeared.

Even foreign media gave it a side glance; the America region's horse girl magazine directly bestowed upon it the title 'Sovereign of the Far East,' which can be said to be the earliest publicity deciding Gechengwangpai's title.

Gechengwangpai's career turning point could be considered officially completed then—anyone looking at it would think so.

But she would not.

For her, winning this race was certainly blood-boiling and sleepless with excitement, but what truly decided her turning point in fate was what came after this battle.

But looking at the current situation, the result of that battle speaks for itself.

——

"As far as I know, the Arima Memorial after that is your retirement battle."

"Why do you address me like that……"

Being spoken to politely by a usually casual acquaintance feels awkward, and being spoken to politely by a guinea pig also feels awkward; when these two awkwardnesses stack together, Gechengwangpai, who had just kicked a wooden post to pieces, could only mutter while going to kick the new wooden post that had just been replaced by a mechanized transport chain.

"You can take it as a hint of entering a state, don't worry about it," said the guinea pig, then scratched the fur on its cheek, "but that's not important; what matters is whether you should still not rush to retire?"

Although Qianming's retirement in the same year as Gechengwangpai is also talked about with gusto, and even is an important node in fan creations, the fact that they were not actually retiring in the same month has been regretted by perfectionists, and there have been several explanations.

Naturally, the lowest-supported explanation is 'they actually don't want to retire,' because among horse girl fans there are many shipper enthusiasts, and pairing up rival ships is what they currently care about most.

Next is 'a beautiful ending'—retire while later results haven't turned ugly and while condition hasn't obviously declined, to preserve value—just as they see it as a wise move.

But nowadays, Aomo instead ought to give weight to considering that possibility.

"Ah… of course, Osu!" In speech comes a shout written as 'osu' and read as 'Osu!', Gechengwangpai delivers another kick, and nearby Sai Luo sternly points out, 'Don't relax! Don't mess up your breathing!'

And while she waits for the new wooden post to be filled, she continues: "The failure of the Arima Memorial is already bad enough; how can I, Osu! … give up."

Facing this, to others it sounds headless and tailless, at most a guess that the other side wants to keep winning; Aomo, however, falls into thought.

"In other words, have you come into contact with your own horse-fate burden?"