Chapter 409: NO．172: Uncle, I

NO．172: Uncle, I'm really crazy.

An elderly woman wearing gold-rimmed glasses was flipping through the documents in her hand at the desk.

She is over seventy, yet the diamond-shaped horse ears on her head are still trembling slightly.

Some of her dry, deer-hair-like long hair is casually tied up at the back of her neck.

Once hailed as the symbol of speed in Jidong, the pioneer symbol remembered by the world, the glory symbol of the Symbol-line horse girl.

Speed Symbol, she is already old, so old that even the innate authentic aging suppression of horse girls cannot show any effect.

Time has bent her spine, her eyes are no longer clear, her palms are wrinkled like the bark of an old tree, but only her cold gaze remains sharp as a blade.

One can imagine that on the Saichang back then, she likewise gazed upon all the competitors before the gate, commanding the entire racetrack with her will.

The horse girl who dominated the Tenno Sho Spring and consecutively won the Arima Kinen ought to have such an absolute bearing, exuding oppression.

Reigning amidst oppression.

But unfortunately, standing before her are two people who have been under her gaze since childhood, long accustomed to her look.

Even though they lived hardship under that gaze since youth, now both have their own respectable achievements; the only difference lies in the ranking of those achievements.

The horse girl's emperor and the chairman of the international logistics company— their worth is worlds apart.

Yet they both can remain calm under the old woman's gaze, which seems able to cleave flesh and bone.

Unlike the other humans and horse girls behind them, who either tremble or dare not even breathe.

The Speed Symbol actually rarely shows such a gaze in public, especially as her age grows, her once-cloudy eyes become even more restrained, to the point that commentators once called her as steady as a mountain.

But if that commentator were to see her now, he could only sigh that even within the mountain there lies a blade.

Perhaps in the Jidong lands there exists a secret method of nurturing swords with mountain stones.

The old woman has long practiced her qi cultivation, but occasionally something prompts her to revert to her original demeanor.

Take, for example, her idealist granddaughter, who yesterday swung a blade at the clan's gray industry, and moreover struck at her own good-for-nothing eldest son.

She actually wasn't very surprised that this day would come.

After all, these two are people she has watched grow up.

Whether it's the granddaughter who cannot tolerate sand in her eyes, or the son who grows ever slicker, ever more 'mature', ever more useless, she understands them both well, and knows all too well that a day like this is inevitable between them.

The Symbol family is a hugely vast presence, so vast that she often feels there are far too many redundant people.

Those with peripheral surnames, those related by marriage—when she was still young and the Symbol family was rising anew, they flocked in, clinging for gain, and were taken in for their own needs; to her now, they are all things that can be cut away.

After pulling the family back from the brink in a time of crisis, and now in her old age with an anticipated granddaughter, this elderly matriarch has become the Symbol family's observer who sees and knows the most.

Seeing everything clearly, she also sees the family clearly, along with her own ailment.

All can be cut away.

But why would she do this?

Clearly, the children's growth still needs a whetstone.

Even if it's just the level of a large lathe, that's fine—only thus can she forge a satisfactory successor.

In this overly bloated family, merely excellent offspring are insufficient to inherit the matriarch's position.

They cannot even survive within the Symbol family's accumulated wealth.

What the Symbol family wants is an emperor.

A true sovereign who can let the Symbol family change dynasties and be reborn.

Just like the chestnut-haired horse girl standing before her now, who placidly lays those documents before herself, stating the elders' industry crimes in a steady manner—though lacking any sharpness, she resembles herself with her edge restrained.

She already resembles a wise ruler in a prosperous age.

But that is far from enough.

What the Symbol family needs is not a wise ruler of a prosperous age, but a founding emperor in an age of chaos.

Even a tyrant would do, as long as his sharpness is fully exposed.

But compared to that, her uncle, her own son, that similarly brown-haired man, behaves just as steadily.

Even with solid evidence, and as the future matriarch said, when the industry should be reorganized and the surname stripped, he merely twists his smile slightly, suppressing the resentment in his eyes.

Such bearing is unnecessary, ah, Yuechi.

Things have come to this; if you endure any longer, there will be no chance left—yet a single gamble still holds some different possibility… beneath that blade‑sharp gaze lies deep disappointment.

It's not disappointment in her human‑born son; after all, she's been disappointed in him since long ago.

She is merely disappointed with this situation.

A middling blade is drawn, suppressing resentment like a restrained dagger.

A shortsword cannot outweigh a long blade; it can only be used for seppuku.

A long sword is drawn slowly and steadily, more like a drill than killing.

In outcome, it's merely two overly smooth fellows pecking at each other like weaklings, devoid of any ferocity or killing intent.

Although she had long anticipated their confrontation, this scene is not what she wished to see.

After just a few minutes, the Speed Symbol grew weary of the gaze and withdrew it, which truly let the Ludaofu Xiangzheng rest easy.

While clearly having victory in hand, she also did not let her grandmother have her way.

The feud between these two grandparents and grandchild has long existed; since the day the intermediary— the Speed Symbol's daughter, the Ludaofu Xiangzheng's mother, Tianmei Yue Shen— died unexpectedly, the conflict has become even more irreconcilable.

Even though it was an accident, the differing attitudes of both sides still caused the conflict to erupt completely.

In the end, the Speed Symbol wishes everything to go as she wants, while the Ludaofu Xiangzheng harbors a rebellious heart.

But if she truly wants to change the family, as a mere horse girl, her most likely path to success is to advance along the road planned by the other side.

Thus she falls into a stalemate.

Bound to the student council of Central Telesen, she seeks a path that lets her conscience be clear.

Before that, she did not wish for her grandmother's contentment, nor did she wish to be bound by the inner demon called 'emperor'; simply assuming the posture of the Ludaofu Xiangzheng would suffice to resolve this, though it also owed much to the advice and aid of Trainer Lin Dun.

Not wanting to set foot in the Saichang yet still seeking the power of the reform family, they simply purged and devoured from within the family—of course that was also the simplest possible choice.

But all along, she has faced many limits in cultivating manpower, and those who could be useful in this regard are exceedingly few.

But now, Trainer Aomo Lindun has appeared, in an unexpected self‑recommendation.

It's hard to believe this is something a trainer would do, whether in the content of the matter or the act of self‑recommendation.

Looking back, I definitely need to thank him properly—at least buy him a meal.

The student council president thought so, in a good mood almost wanting to throw out a few cold jokes.

But she also noticed this at that moment.

She noticed her maternal grandmother's kind smile.

That was a sudden smile, not a forced or even just a twitch of the corners of the mouth.

It was a genuine, cheerful smile that wrinkled her face, her joy seemingly greater than hers.

What this old man was gazing at was not herself, but the Moon Rush Symbol.

Her son, my uncle.

""

She also saw what her uncle was pinching in his hand; even her leg that had exerted absolute power and speed on the Saichang couldn't kick away the stack of cards and the strange tubular metal device in his hand at that moment.

Deep down, she was pleased with the person whose gaze had narrowed, the Speed Symbol—not just her Ludaofu Xiangzheng alone.

At the same moment, the Moon Rush Symbol was laughing deep inside, seizing the opening in the mindset shift of both the elderly and young horse girls.

He seized the initiative.

Hippolite Alien, Super Gob, Kyerlong Star Beast, Ampere Alien, Evil God Megalogo Juer...

Complete cards, reusable cards, single‑use cards—that stack of monster cards draws energy in the device called the Secret Key, from the cards' most readily mobilizable active state, colliding, fusing, and overloading within the short‑term energy‑storage chamber.

Finally——

——Explosion!

The twisted heart also came into view.