Chapter 922

Kashiwada Ken, 48 years old, two-time Olympic champion, namely the 2004 Athens Olympic champion and the 2008 Peking Olympic champion, also a famous national hero, known as the "Judo Emperor".

However, that was over a decade ago; after retiring, Kashiwada disappeared from public view. He previously served as a visiting professor of women's judo at Kyushu Nursing Welfare University in Kyushu, but one day he abruptly resigned.

Based on Kashiwagi Jin's deduction, Uesugi Muneyuki's file investigation, and Eirina's statement, it is clear that he exploited his Olympic champion aura and visiting professor position to aggressively enforce unspoken rules on underage female trainees; those who resisted, like Eirina, were simply dismissed, but such behavior was bound to cause trouble eventually.

Likely, the Japan Judo Association and local forces, considering his status as an Olympic champion and national hero, suppressed the incident to avoid negative publicity, but it is evident that the judo community and university professorship could not allow him to continue.

"Is this your world?" Uesugi Muneyuki said in a deep voice.

Kashiwada did not answer, nor did he deny it; his smile deepened. He turned and walked toward the depths of the palace, his stride relaxed, as if strolling through his own living room: "You guessed right. But guessing right and achieving it are two different things. You stand in my world—what do you think you can do to me?" "What does that mean?" Uesugi Muneyuki showed no change in expression.

Why isn't this guy panicking?

Kashiwada and Shosuke Menou almost thought the same thing.

"You can only be proud now!" Kashiwada spread his arms in the Desire Palace, as if embracing the entire space.

His voice echoed between the deep red curtains, each sentence more impassioned than the last, like molten lava long suppressed finally finding a crack: "You ask why I am like this? I'll tell you why. I won the Athens Olympic gold medal, then the Peking Olympic gold medal. In judo, I am among the world's top."

Time gone never returns~past events~only可回味~

When Kashiwada spoke of this past, his eyes gleamed, his mouth corners lifted, his whole being bathed in flowers and applause. So-called: morning tilling fields as a humble laborer, evening ascending the emperor's jeweled hall—princes and ministers are not born, a man must strengthen himself.

Without enduring bone-chilling cold, how can plum blossoms fragrance? Ten years at the window, no one asks; a single rise to fame, his name spreads far.

Yet, wishing to turn heart toward the bright moon, alas, the bright moon shines only into the ditch!

"I won the gold medal! I became an Olympic champion! I am the Judo Emperor!"

"But so what? So what?!?"

The light and vigor on Kashiwada's face were quickly shrouded by gloom; he seemed intent on fully venting his anger.

"What do you think I gained? I won the championship, took endorsements and work, my salary only ten million yen a year. Ten million! After paying various taxes and fees, insurance and training splits, agent cuts, I take home only 6.85 million yen annually!"

"And you? How much do you earn a year? I know! Your Metropolitan Police Department salary! University of Tokyo salary! TV appearance fees, totaling 14 million yen, and you still avoid tax, taking home 10 million yen! You sit in your office, glance at a few corpses, write a few reports, and earn more than me, an Olympic champion!"

"Is this fair? This is unjust!"

"I am already an Olympic champion! I earn only this much a year—on what basis? Why?"

"Do you know? When I earned only 4.5 million yen a year, baseball players like me were already making hundreds of millions. Football players, hundreds of millions. Tennis, hundreds of millions. Me? I devoted my life to judo, to this country, and then they told me: 'You're a good athlete, but you can't make money.' Social respect? What use is that? Can it pay rent? Can it free you from worrying about the next meal?" "My QNMLGB honor, my QNMLGB respect! This is not what I wanted!"

"And you, you people!" Kashiwada glared at Shosuke Menou behind Uesugi Muneyuki, fire in his heart, resentment in his eyes: "Why? On what basis?"

"On what basis did I study ten years in cold windows, yet you divorce, raise a good family, and spend millions yearly on pets? Meanwhile, I have to pinch pennies for a simple Western meal! I am an Olympic champion! Olympic champion!!"

"This has nothing to do with you being an Olympic champion, you corpse-dismantling murderer and rapist." Uesugi Muneyuki said coldly: "Moreover, judo was never a high-value gold medal; judo is basically only practiced by Japan, Korea, France, Russia, etc., with many similar events like Brazilian Cuban jiu-jitsu athletes filling in."

"Oh!" Shosuke Menou suddenly understood: "I recall judo only became an official Olympic event at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, then was abolished after my country hosted it, not restored until 1972; thereafter, whenever my country was strong, judo events increased; when weak, they decreased."

"Moreover, judo competition format is chaotic, rules vague, referees subjective, the International Olympic Committee itself is a mess." Uesugi Muneyuki complained. The Olympics have many events, many gold medals, but not every gold medal holds equal value.

Take diving, for example.

Among American college students, 80% have tried diving, yet none treat it as a profession; semi-professionals who train one month before competition are already considered quite professional, so they naturally cannot match a country that can field a dedicated diving team training year-round in closed conditions.

Thus, the value of Olympic diving gold medals is genuinely hard to assess; in fact, historically, all Olympic diving gold medals combined are worth less than Niu Xiang's 110-meter hurdles gold medal.

Track and field, the father of sports!

The Sports Bureau itself knows this, so when the gray plane returned home, it should have been Hikari walking out first shining brightly, but after Niu Xiang won, they immediately changed it to let Niu Xiang come out first.

Next in value should be Pan Zhanle's 100-meter freestyle gold and the women's volleyball gold; some think women's volleyball more important, others think Pan Zhanle more important, there is debate, so we won't rank them here.

Thus, so-called judo gold medals are just that; if judo had seven events, Japanese winning three or five would be no problem.

Kenya also hopes the Olympics will add "half-marathon," "three-quarter marathon," "four-fifths marathon," "five-sixths marathon," "six-sevenths marathon," etc., a series of long-distance events.

But Uesugi Muneyuki understands Kashiwada's mindset.

How to put it? Kashiwada's mindset is typical of small-town exam-takers: to him, all difficulties and obstacles should and must end at the moment he wins an Olympic gold medal.

He never imagined what to do after winning Olympic gold.

If one Olympic gold medal isn't enough, just win another!

But with two gold medals in hand and an annual income of only ten million yen, this is truly unbalanced for him; and most importantly, the public does not understand his suffering.

Put in terms everyone can understand, it's like an NBA player: all fans believe an NBA player's first pursuit should be the O'Brien Cup.

Yet, in reality, an NBA player's first pursuit is always salary, salary, salary; second is tactical position—whether they can play comfortably on the court; third might be the championship.