Chapter 1396

NO. 12: Those Who Listen to Confessions Must Not Confess (Then Everything in the Dream Collapses)

Students' duty is to study; horse girls' duty is to study and run. Even after truly stepping onto the racetrack, the school will to some extent reduce the weight of liberal arts and sciences scores, allowing them to focus better on their career competitions and better focus on various training items.

But—

Even if middle‑division horse girls truly sign trainers early or enter the formal high‑speed phase early, the proportion of their academic scores does not drop.

Because they are more 'ignorant,' before understanding the racetrack they need to understand everything that makes up this world—from the natural laws of matter, chemistry, and source energy construction, to geography, mathematics, language, and the wisdom humanity has distilled, and finally politics and history, to grasp humanity's long‑matured struggle nature; middle‑division children must build the foundations of all this.

—Rushing to do so before entering the most sentimental, most self‑conscious late‑middle‑school period.

Even if they likewise have worries, they will not be overly diverse.

Even if they hold overly one‑sided views, it will only elicit a knowing smile, quietly saved for her to see again in college.

This age group retains the purest expectations and love of childhood's end, and also has free time, ample sleep, and good interpersonal relationships.

And abundant energy and a healthy body.

This is a far more vigorous stage than high‑schoolers, and indeed there is no reason to lower academic benchmarks—let alone the many who have not signed trainers and are merely pure middle‑school horse girls.

For them, study remains the main occupation.

To counter the stereotype that horse girls lack advantage in clerical‑intellectual work, the chairman vigorously promoted cultural development, letting talents such as Pipa Chenguang and Dream Journey emerge from it, yet it still does not stop there.

The middle‑division's horse‑ear girls have always been seen as the embodiment of purity, and girls like Bei Bu Xuan Ju, Li Jian Guang Zuang, and Xiao Lin Li Qi were early selected to appear on publicity magazine covers, serving as a collective side‑profile and as representatives of their peer group.

The horse‑racing world's complete education and publicity chain can cover from childhood to adulthood.

This also makes it nearly impossible for the countless horse girls to escape the influence of the horse‑racing atmosphere, becoming part of that colossal falsehood‑like life.

Within such a part, they are easily molded and naturally become the cute, lovely image in the public's eye; no matter how unexpected or unfortunate, most are like a rice‑bath child whose heart remains kind.

It is akin to a complete, exquisite doll‑shaping industry.

In childhood, one could not escape this framework; only in high school did one finally get those opportunities, coming into contact with the reality outside the ivory tower of the all‑through‑recommended truth, goodness, and beauty.

And it was precisely at this time that these girls truly began to diverge in line with social realities—some became listless and unmotivated, some grew resentful and jealous of the world, and some simply cast aside their restraint to break the rules, adding various not‑so‑positive shades to the image of the horse girls.

This also led many industry experts to declare instead—before high school, the horse girls were absolutely well‑behaved, cute, and kind, the very condensation of sugar, spice, and everything nice.

Such a conclusion amounts to a kind of objectification, a boastful praise of one's own creation, revealing arrogance and ugliness, and naturally invites all sorts of criticism and censure; yet regardless, this sarcastic concept remains etched in many people's minds, becoming part of their stereotypical image of horse girls in junior high.

But since this beauty is shaped by the great environment created by collective will, if any step goes wrong, that image naturally acquires a gap, doesn't it?

Aomo originally had no intention of breaking that stereotype, after all, the whole set of macro‑environmental influences on the horse girls is essentially civilization itself.

It is the social division of labor, the legal system, the political system, and a whole set of social behavior norms that constrain and educate you from birth to death.

This is civilization, inherited like genes; without family and social education, the bestiality flowing in the blood will run rampant, turning everything into chaotic patterns.

Aomo did not intend to be an enemy of civilization, nor did he regard artificial beauty as false; indeed, to further that beauty, he was happy to contribute some effort.

But perhaps precisely for that reason, he ended up creating a girl who runs counter to the stereotype.

「Karen is also cute today, huh~☆ Please remember to include 「#Zhenjiling」 when you retweet, okay? 」

——【CurrenChan/Zhenjiling】

Whenever he saw that black‑ear headset icon with a little red bow perched on the gray hair, Aomo would get a bit of a headache.

He could easily guess it, and through countless exchanges he gradually became certain—that in his own missing memories, there must have been a part devoted to shaping that cute little girl.

At that time, she was probably still an elementary school student, no older than twelve.

So just what, exactly, was I teaching this little kid?

Teach her how to polish her own cuteness, teach her to have a sense of disguise, and then teach her, in this process, to recognize a part of the world's reality?

What a mess…… and yet it's exactly the sort of thing I would do.

God grants talent to people, whereas demons usually lack such power.

One can only choose those with deep obsessions and give them a push so that those obsessions may blossom.

If that child possesses awakening, then respond with support commensurate to that awakening.

Counterfeit goods are not necessarily inferior to the genuine; moreover, the genuine itself already contains artificial components, being the product of macro‑civilizational interference wrought by countless people.

It is a gem forged by the combined strength of both, challenging civilization and the myriad raw stones cast by nature.

Clearly, judging by the present appearance, both my past self and she succeeded back then.

It is a victory, but still only temporary.

That girl has only just entered junior high; the road ahead is still long, and surely neither she nor my former self would be satisfied with a fleeting victory—indeed, from the moment she first sought me out, I had gradually come to realize this about Aomo, yet I also did not intend to keep intervening.

Dreams are glass‑like gemstones; although sparkling and moving, they still cannot withstand excessive carving.

Once a crack appears, the likelihood of shattering multiplies, eventually turning into shards that pierce the bone; each time one recalls its whole form, the marrow‑deep ache grows sharper, until a few tears are squeezed out.

Be it pain, regret, or unwillingness—all these patterns, even little Aomo has seen far too many.

Unlike the horse girls shaped by vast social trends, human civilization itself has never been tolerant toward humanity.

That sharpness and bitterness, lacking any minor‑protection, likewise became part of the interference that shaped Aomo Lindun.

He does not intend to intervene in such interference, yet Zhenjiling indeed cares greatly about his presence.

Perhaps this is what happens when interference is no longer an abstract concept but takes on a concrete form—the awakened insight‑bearer's reaction. —At that time, Aomo still thought this was a very valuable independent observation sample.

Thinking that perhaps at some point I could still gather other variables for reference, and eventually draw some conclusions in the field of anthropology.

However——

Aomo is most accustomed to, and least able to accept, the unwanted accidents he does not wish to see—they never fail to show up.

After a few months of half‑heartedly establishing a sibling‑like relationship, that joke had already mingled among the countless jokes at the banquet, and it did not disappear with the day's end.

It's hard to imagine that, over the past two and a half months, the person who most frequently brought up that day, both openly and covertly, was the second‑youngest girl present.

What is this? Is your challenge to pursue the ultimate cuteness meant to be verified by another intervener?

Aomo admits that this, too, indeed counts as a kind of stage‑proof.

If even Aomo Lindun can be captivated by it, then the perfection of that cuteness is truly no small matter.

Yet the conclusions drawn from those nineteen online exchanges and five offline meetings all point to a single, utterly simple purpose.

This is also a stage‑wise conclusion.

Although the child's blind affection expression is also a normal state, only needing time to prove it, but the awkwardness and subtlety of getting along, who would he tell it to?