A broken robot needed fixing, but Zhou Yuang had no technician's license. He had to use the traditional method of machine repair.
Zhou Yuang reached out and patted Bourbon's little hands.
He knocked them away.
"Wrong!"
How could she use a smile like that?
Forget the Uma Musume in the Livestream Room—even Zhou Yuang couldn't keep his composure.
"Sorry..."
Bourbon's ears didn't droop when Zhou Yuang knocked her hands away. Instead, her long cowlick did.
Could that be where her real ears were?
With her cowlick drooping, Bourbon lowered her head.
"Required parameters missing. Unable to execute command [smile]."
As Zhou Yuang had said before, years of strict training were what had made Bourbon forget how to smile and turned her into a robot that only knew how to follow instructions.
Her love of robots had merely helped turn her into someone who ran only toward the goal of her dreams.
Bourbon lowered her head, trying to work out what to do.
Then a pair of warm hands touched her cheeks, still hot from her run.
"Master?"
Zhou Yuang lifted Bourbon's face in his hands. Such a bold move might have made another Uma Musume uncomfortable or sent her backing away, but Bourbon only raised the cowlick behind her headband. It curled into a question mark.
"That won't do."
As her trainer, he couldn't let his Uma Musume fall into this state.
Zhou Yuang held Bourbon's face and leaned closer.
He looked straight into her blue eyes.
"I told you before, didn't I? A smile isn't an instruction or an order. It comes from the heart. It's as free as a dream—not as precious as one, perhaps, but just as essential. Do you remember how you felt when you first watched that Triple Crown Uma Musume race?"
"I do."
That