Monday, July 15. The brief overseas vacation ended yesterday morning, and from today onward, it was back to the busy life at the farm.
Far beyond expectations, Baozu's Champion Horse Award selection ended with what could only be called a Grand Slam haul.
Even so, the atmosphere at the farm remained much the same as usual.
For one thing, this year's breeding season had already ended. For another, the breeding strategies for the next two years had been decided long ago, so there was naturally no reason to make temporary adjustments based on these awards, which had almost no value as a reference for breeding.
That said, the farmhands still made a cake out of carrots and apples to celebrate Baozu.
Baozu, whose bearing had become slightly more mature after becoming a stallion, widened his eyes like a child, his face wearing the adorable expression of someone asking, "Is this really for me?"
The cake was far larger than the one used for his birthday celebration, so Baozu naturally couldn't finish it all by himself. Whether it was Better Next Time, who had poked his head out from the stable across the way and watched longingly, Noah, who pretended not to care while drool quietly dripped from the corner of his mouth, or Pegasus, who genuinely wasn't all that interested in carrots, every stallion who had worked hard throughout the quarter got a share.
Just as the farmhands finished celebrating, gathered the empty plates, and were preparing to leave, the sound of a bucket being shaken came from a stable near the exit.
"Hey, hey! What about mine?"
As if protesting those words, Chongli—whose neck wasn't even particularly long—stretched it out of the stable as far as he could, like a giraffe, and stared toward the stallions who had each