After dinner, the two of them briefly discussed the next phase of the training plan. Before long, it was time to rest.
"Then it's settled," Wuyou said as he got ready to leave. "Get some good sleep tonight. We're training again tomorrow."
But before he could step out, yesterday's scene played out once more—
Only this time, it was gentler.
As mentioned before, Mr. C.B. was like a drifting cloud: unbound, ungraspable. If you wanted to get close, the only way was for the cloud to float over of its own accord.
And now, that soft, warm white cloud had wrapped Wuyou up completely.
Feeling the plush warmth against his back—and the scorching breath at his ear—Wuyou lifted a hand and lightly brushed the hair by her cheek.
Such tenderness made Mr. C.B. tremble for an instant, then relax immediately.
Now she finally understood why Oguri Cap loved Wuyou's touch so much.
It was gentle and warm—intimate, but never vulgar.
It was… addictive.
"What's wrong, C.B.?" Wuyou asked softly.
"I want a nickname too…" Mr. C.B. murmured.
"What?"
"You call Rudolf 'Luna,' but you only call me 'C.B.'…" Her voice was muffled, her face buried at the side of his neck. "I want a different nickname too."
Her hot breath washed over his cool skin, as if it could fog it into a thin, shimmering mist.
Wuyou drew in a slow breath. Once he'd calmed down, he began thinking seriously.
C.B.… no, that wasn't unique enough.
Xiao Ming… no, that sounded weird.
Xiao Qian… Representative… none of those counted as a special nickname.
Wuyou knew he was hopeless at naming things. In that moment, he honestly felt like his "super brain" wasn't super enough.
While he was still struggling, he heard Mr. C.B. chuckle softly.
She released him, gave his shoulder a light pat, and said with a smile, "Alright~ If you can't think of one right away, then take your time and think of it later. I'll wait."
Then she walked him out.
She listened carefully, and only when she heard the door next door close did she lean against her own door and slowly sink down to the floor again.
Mr. C.B. thought… she was acting a little strange.
She was supposed to be a carefree cloud, never bound by anyone.
But a cloud that was too free could lose its direction—until it drifted into being lost.
Wuyou was her "anchor."
She brushed her bangs back and rested her head against the cool door.
The door behind her was thin—thin enough that an Umamusume could smash it open.
And yet it was also thick—thick enough that only when it was closed could she finally say what she truly felt.
Did Mr. C.B. really care that much about a "special nickname"?
No…
What she wanted was only one thing—
"I just… want you to have me in your heart…"
...
A cloud with no restraints rarely met someone it truly loved.
Its steps were too fast. Its dreams too free.
But once it did meet that person, it would rather give up even its most precious freedom—if it meant staying by its beloved's side.
In sunshine or rain, in winter or summer.
Only… the day this "cloud" fully realized that her heart already belonged to someone—
That day still seemed a little far off.
...
"I'm home."
Wuyou, as usual, greeted the empty room out of habit.
Even if no one answered, it was part of his "ritual" of returning home.
After a quick wash and a change of clothes, he sat back down at his desk and finished up the training plan he was preparing for a fan.
Scratch, scratch, scratch…
The pen glided lightly across the paper, producing small, soft sounds.
As he wrote, Wuyou reviewed Mr. C.B.'s training session from today.
Judging by the results, it had gone well—better than he'd even expected.
Still, he couldn't help sighing. "Skill training… should be a core requirement for trainers."
The trainer world these days had truly declined.
What he taught Mr. C.B. today—how to "actively use the ankle"—was not some revolutionary breakthrough.
It was simply the right prescription for her specific traits.
If he used game logic as an analogy, what he taught her could be considered a "skill."
And yet, such basic, targeted training was somehow treated as novel—something people found surprising, even astonishing.
Wuyou couldn't help shaking his head.
Too many modern trainers were obsessed with visible stat gains like stamina, endurance, and speed. They wanted to treat an Umamusume like a machine built out of numbers.
They crammed identical high-intensity workouts into every schedule, while ignoring each Umamusume's unique physique and movement habits.
And fewer still bothered to deeply study the "skill" dimension—the question of how to run more intelligently.
From a certain perspective, what they were doing wasn't completely wrong.
After all, Umamusume were, in a sense, "stat monsters."
And the strength of a stat monster was precisely that it could brute-force its way through anything—if the numbers were high enough, you could crush even the fanciest mechanics.
But people forgot one thing: even the highest numbers had limits. And your opponents were also stat monsters.
When everyone reaches that ceiling, the "skills" they ignored would become the deciding factor.
Just like Mr. C.B.
Her talent was as light and free as a drifting cloud. She had the endurance for middle-to-long distances, while also possessing speed and burst power on par with front-runners.
But if you only strengthened her already outrageous stats—without teaching her how to control her landings and shift her center of gravity—you'd be wasting the agile potential of her body.
In Wuyou's view, any Umamusume who made it into Tracen Academy, the central elite institution, already possessed outstanding talent.
The fact that so many trainers couldn't learn to make proper use of that talent—
That was the true definition of squandering a gift.
"No wonder the Chairwoman needs me to step up…" Wuyou muttered. "How are you supposed to train properly with idiots like these?"
Even Wuyou, normally mild-tempered, couldn't help letting something harsh slip out.
But to change the current situation, his now-reset career record wasn't nearly enough.
He needed to assemble his team quickly—and lead his Umamusume to startling results in both individual races and team races.
"…Sigh. A long road ahead."
After another sigh, he finally finished the fan's training plan and scheduled a courier pickup for tomorrow.
When he tapped his phone, a computerized female voice announced the time:
22:40.
So much had happened today that even Wuyou felt exhaustion rising in a slow wave.
He packed up and lay down on the bed.
But with his head on the pillow, he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd forgotten something…
Beep. Beep. Beep.
"This sound… is it a DM notification from the streaming app?"
The moment he opened the app, messages flooded in—pouring out like a "reward" after a male high schooler came home from two weeks of boarding school.
Only then did he remember…
He hadn't posted a leave notice today.
He casually opened one message, and the voice system automatically began playing them in sequence:
Poor Little Cutie: Radish Bro, no stream today either?
Mod · Grassland Virtuoso: Radish Teacher taking the day off again?
Luna: Trainer? You're not streaming today?
Wuyou: …
You think I'm not streaming today for no reason?!
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