The True "Me"

Kitasan Black herself could not explain why.

Ever since Anjing Zhen had shown her that line of red text, it felt as though a red-hot branding iron had been dropped into her heart, keeping an unprecedented urge boiling within her.

After that, during breaks between classes and training, whenever she saw—or even merely thought of—that front stretching across the Eurasian continent, its destination pointing toward an unknown shore at 4,000 meters, it felt as though an invisible hand had clenched around her heart. Then came the same surging excitement she felt at the sight of festival lights or the sound of stirring music.

Her love for festivals and music felt innate, something flowing through her blood.

Then was this almost instinctive yearning and trembling she felt toward that long front line—one so daunting that others might shrink from it—also something she had been born with?

Whenever she felt uncertain, she could not help thinking back to before and after her debut.

Back then, nearly everyone around her had said she was better suited for short distances. Even she herself had firmly believed it, and had secretly felt sad that she could not compete in races like Teio-senpai's.

Yet as she ran on, let alone short distances, the races she entered had grown longer and longer, already bearing no relation to that initial "assessment."

Now, the Overseas Expedition Anjing Zhen had planned for her had pushed the very concept of "long distance" to heights even she had never imagined.

So this—was the real "me"?

And beyond her doubts was the passion and heat ignited by that possibility.

That passion and heat were so intense that for several nights in a row, she tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep until very late, only to wake again early in the morning.

Whether