Chapter 1923: NO.543: Believe, for you have looked back on your footsteps

NO. 543: Believe, for you have looked back on your footsteps.

NO. 543 Believe, for you have looked back on your footsteps.

Horse racing is basically something every world has. But turning four‑legged animal friends into two‑legged humans who nonetheless grew tails and long ears is another matter entirely.

So the racecourse always has plenty of spectators from other worlds.

The racecourse of Heaven's Gate City is even more occupied by otherworldly spectators, making up most of its audience profile; one can still catch a glimpse of the shadow of the Border Gate District racecourse from over forty years ago.

By comparison, the purity of the audience at Changchang City's racecourse is somewhat lower.

Although there will still be transmigrators who come by reputation, the mainstream audience here are outsiders from this world.

Or rather, extraterrestrials.

Changchang City is one of the federation's several major external ports. It boasts few Heavenly Gates but many Star Gates, shouldering one‑eighth of the federation's trade within the Star Alliance.

Precisely because of this enormous trade volume, disputes and conflicts are by no means few.

Compared to the huge volatility of danger posed by transmigrators—who might directly be a cosmic cancer or be like Bi Ze, a fragile person with no enhancement or cultivation foundation—the criminals of this world, whether earthlings or extraterrestrials, all have a fairly high lower limit.

So while the audience profile's purity is low, the intensity of the racecourse defense war is considerably higher.

Although it lacks the Heaven's Gate City's frequent record‑breaking astonishing upper limit, here the fact that crimes occur steadily guarantees that criminal strength won't be too weak, thus ensuring a stable and high‑frequency confrontation route quality.

Whether one comes to do business, to travel, or is short on funds and plans to find a way to make money within the law, one must have confidence in pure violence.

Even if this confidence comes from others—by hiring bodyguards or clinging to powerful thighs—you still must have at least some!

Precisely for this reason, Changchang City cannot relinquish the hosting rights of the Chrysanthemum Prize.

On this grand stage of Changchang where confidence brings you forth, each year's Chrysanthemum Prize is like a city‑wide military review, displaying the city's security capability and proving that the confidence of citizens and visitors can also stem from the police, the Teqiju, and the Safety Bureau.

Only by doing so, only by proving this point, can there be a possibility of increasing the number of outsiders without bodyguards, allowing the ancient slogan 'Heaven's Way is constant, happiness endures' not to become a hellish joke.

And over the past several hundred years, although there have often been fluctuations, they have indeed achieved this, yet it is obviously not a perfect fulfillment.

Thus they are even less willing to give up the right to host the Chrysanthemum Prize.

At the same time, they leave no stone unturned in preparing security for the Chrysanthemum Prize.

After all, although the association would like to focus on publicity, it must prioritize the athletes' lives above all. Moreover, over the past several hundred years there will always be a period when a group of people appears, trying to change the venue of the Chrysanthemum Prize.

The association's attitude toward this is also vague, and that vagueness itself feels like a crisis to the racecourse. Because Changchang City's racecourse has long been under a death order from the government, and moreover has been assigned multiple security departments to support it, its managers do not want any blemish that could be turned into material for impeachment, so they dare not be the slightest bit negligent.

Aomo once suspected that the reason his report ticket to the association sank like a stone was that the association believed Changchang City's racecourse security was already among the best of the five major racecourses and therefore not worth excessive worry.

But even if Changchang City's racecourse exerted all its effort, it would be at most the full strength of the city's range—and even that would have to be discounted, for Changchang City cannot over‑concentrate on the racecourse while neglecting surveillance of the whole urban area.

Otherwise, once the Chrysanthemum Prize opens, the area outside its venue becomes a criminal carnival—what would you have guarded then?

Before anything actually happens, hoping for the whole city's strength to unite is ultimately a luxury.

Any protection that isn't in place at the first moment is merely mending the pen after losing the sheep—utterly useless for trainers who cannot afford losses, right?

Moreover, the city's full strength may not even match the mighty net that Aomo once mobilized the association to set up.

But now that things have come to this, discussing those ideas that failed to reach consensus is pointless; Aomo, who has accepted the reality of self‑reliance, only regrets that the Beast King cannot come over in the near future.

Although He indeed will not make a move, even occasionally uttering a few sentences counts as help; that kind of 'ge'‑type being's offhand remark is always a secret beyond ordinary people's reach, and as a chat partner it is of maximum value.

It's a pity that He truly agreed to that side's cooperation and will go develop some kind of gamified micro‑cosmos project.

By contrast, the low‑profile Ultraman on Gechengwangpai, after returning home for a visit a few months ago, took on a diplomatic mission and came back, still hanging off Gechengwangpai‑ge as a resident old uncle, and in this preparation can also serve as a fighting force.

But before that……

Aomo scratched at the light screen, sharing the regulations on mercenary ability registration with the neighboring chat room, then tapped the other windows' replies with lightning‑fast fingers.

After letting his comrades each go prepare, in the following minutes he successively received four little girls in decisive‑outfit gear; thus, as the head of the mercenary agency's security roster, he should stand by, while the activated role becomes that of the trainer's duties.

At this moment he follows behind the four horse girls, while the whole team also falls at the rear of the advancing large formation, yet his presence is so high that other squads' horse girls and trainers cannot ignore him.

Perhaps it is simply because he has been silent all along, making him seem out of place with everyone.

Generally speaking, he ought to say something just like his peers who reunite with their assigned horse girls, and because he faces four horse girls, what he says should be at a super‑double level.

Those who have already won once naturally encourage themselves; those who have not yet won ought to encourage themselves. The Triple Crown, as the aspiration of the vast majority of horse girls when they debut, once filled the entire view of the classic‑year horse girls, but facing the final showdown before any scattered crown has been won, the anxiety and urgency of those who have not yet won is naturally something that, no matter how much you pump up, should be taken for granted.

But should one say it that way?

It's not that he cannot manage super‑double talk; it's just a trivial line chat. Although he refused to become the operator for Renlong and Hongshe, having monster cards gives him strength, and especially here there is Chazuo—achieving a long dream‑like moment in an instant of daze, something he often felt under Ling's manipulation in the past, and the Manchester Chazuo here can also produce a similar effect.

But it is neither long‑lasting nor stable.

Yet, in terms of pre‑race communication with the horse girls, it is sufficient.

However, it is unnecessary.

There is no need to follow the usual way, for he is not an ordinary trainer, and his subordinates are not ordinary horse girls.

The Triple Crown is not their endpoint; rather, it is the beginning agreed upon by the trainer and them, just as the trainer also, at the same time, made a post‑Dream Cup appointment with the four senior‑year members under a shelved hint.

This has little to do with the race itself, yet it is closely tied to their careers and is even a part of the horse girls' dream of forming the classic cohort.

As for the race itself, those four horse girls who early on encountered the forefront senior predecessors on the track will not have their eyes blinded by the classic‑year goal.

They will, more than once, while running alongside Qianming's representative, Ludaofu Xiangzheng, Narihaku Shirojin, and Sirius Xiangzheng, imagine their own future.

They imagine how close they could get to their ancient‑horse‑year selves, and further imagine what kind of life their future selves will have lived through by then.

They lack nothing in long‑term aspirations, yet they also have no immediate worries.

Because they do not think they will lose.

Although they clearly understand their teammates' strength, they also possess the confidence to challenge the opposition, so what they want to say to the trainer, and what they want to hear from the trainer, have nothing to do with the racecourse itself, but are a retrospective look at the past and an expectation of the future after victory.

These contents, while they were still in the changing room, while they were looking at their own reflections in the mirror, they had already conveyed to the trainer via the soon‑to‑be‑discarded phones and terminals, and also received the trainer's replies.

Reading through the record feels like a sporadic chat that would give paparazzi nothing explosive, yet it is precisely those casual talks that have steadied their steps at this moment.

But it does not mean they should just stay silent with the trainer all the way to the exit; walking this is like everyone's warden, making those ahead tread extra carefully, while they constantly feel someone behind them chasing them.

At least, before the Senlinbaoxue could not help but sigh and issue another challenge, Aomo clearly understood that he still had to fulfill the basics of a trainer's work.

Or put another way, that part belonging to ordinary human sentiment must not be lacking.

"Come on, everyone," he said.

He spoke calmly and without worry.

"Just as you expect, I also look forward to the victor among you."

It seems the champion will surely appear among them, and can only appear among them.