Chapter 164: Chapter 120: Thirty Years East of the River, Thirty Years West of the River, Don’t Bully the Young and Poor?
"The results are in! What’s Big Bro’s time?"
"48 minutes and 04 seconds—"
"AHHHH! Big Bro won!!! He beat that foreigner by a second!!!!"
"Oh my god, I have to take a picture and post this on my Moments right now!!!"
In Xianyun County, after Huang Chong clinched the championship by a thrilling one-second margin, Huang Lingshan leaped up from the sofa and started screaming her head off.
Yet Liang Xiaomei, who was sitting on a low stool, could only clutch her chest and let out a long sigh of relief as she watched her son’s nail-biting victory.
The glory of the gold medal was secondary; her son’s safety, of course, was her primary concern.
Especially during the final kilometer of Huang Chong’s ride. Watching the live broadcast, she was certain several times that her son was about to crash into a guardrail or a wall.
Her heart rate had skyrocketed, and her heart was in her throat the entire time.
"Phew—thankfully he finished the race safely!
That brat... why does he have to ride so close to the walls? The road is plenty wide, can’t he just ride in the middle?
Look how he scared me, my hands are still shaking!"
Liang Xiaomei’s eyes reddened. Though her words were full of complaint, her heart was fuller with joy than anyone’s.
This was the Asian Games! For her son to win a gold medal for China... to an ordinary person like her, it was nothing short of a dream come true.
Huang Xiaocong was also shaken, his scalp tingling from the thrill.
His adrenaline was pumping, but a chill also ran down his spine.
He’d broken out in a cold sweat, completely caught off guard. It was a million times more nerve-wracking than the wait for his college entrance exam results!
But that was the appeal of road cycling!
Thrilling, exciting, a race against the clock.
And victory is decided by the thinnest of margins—
"Auntie, Big Bro didn’t ride like that on purpose to scare you. He had to ride that way for the gold medal!
In terms of distance, his speed was too similar to the other guy’s. The only way to shorten his route was to hug the inside of every single turn.
On the straightaways, Big Bro actually lost a few seconds to him. If he hadn’t pushed himself to the absolute limit in that final kilometer, there was no way he could have retaken the lead.
But Big Bro is an incredibly skilled cyclist. You don’t have to worry about him."
Huang Xiaocong explained, trying to comfort his aunt.
Liang Xiaomei, having only graduated from elementary school, didn’t understand any of this talk about hugging the inside of a turn to make up distance.
But hearing her nephew say her son was very skilled, she finally felt much more at ease.
She truly never imagined that riding a bicycle could be so perilous, or that it was possible to go so fast.
During a slightly longer downhill section, she even saw the TV show Huang Chong’s speed, which was already approaching 80 KM/H.
That was much faster than her own electric scooter, even when she rode it around the county with the throttle twisted to the max.
"Oh, forget it. I don’t understand all this technical stuff. All that matters is that your Big Bro won the gold medal. For us, that’s the best news we could ask for.
Tonight I’ll cook a few extra dishes, and we’ll have a good celebration.
And since Xiaocong is back from Xiamen on break, Auntie will stew some pig’s trotters for you. You’re under a lot of stress from your studies, so you need to eat up!"
"Me too, me too! I want pig’s trotters too!!!"
The moment Huang Lingshan heard there would be a feast, she started clamoring from the sofa again.
In truth, as the family matriarch—and with their family owning a supermarket, making them relatively well-off—Liang Xiaomei was always generous and doting toward the younger generation, whether from the Huang Family or the Liang Family.
Which was why the younger kids loved to hang out at their house.
Of course, Huang Lingshan, as the only girl, was certainly the most spoiled.
For example, while her brothers went to the kitchen to help Liang Xiaomei prep vegetables, chop meat, snip the tips off river snails, or help Huang Yuda kill and pluck a chicken, she was the only one still sprawled on the sofa like a lump.
What was most infuriating was that she sat there like a crude old man, barefoot, with one foot propped on the other knee. She was busy using the new phone Huang Chong had given her for the New Year to argue with her classmates in the comments of her Moments post.
When she’d posted the photo of Huang Chong’s victory to show off on her Moments, her classmates who didn’t know him all thought she was full of it.
After all, how could a tiny, ass-nowhere place like Xianyun County possibly produce an Asian Games gold medalist?
No one believed her at all.
So, naturally, they all assumed that the little troublemaker had just joined some new sports star’s fan club and was making up relatives on her social media again.
...
It was undoubtedly a joyous day for the fans who had bought tickets and traveled all the way to Chun’an to watch the road race, now gathered on both sides of the finish line.
They had witnessed with their own eyes a China Team cyclist defeat the Asian King of Cycling to seize a near-miraculous gold medal.
As Huang Chong crossed the finish line, feeling like he was about to collapse from exhaustion, the sound of cheers and celebrations erupted around him like thunder.
"HELL YEAH!! CHINA TEAM!!!"
"We are the champions!!!"
"HUANG CHONG!!! YOU’RE A LEGEND!!! I’M YOUR BIGGEST FAN FROM NOW ON!!!"
A chaotic medley of shouts reached Huang Chong’s ears.
Some people knew him, some didn’t.
In any case, he knew he had clawed back precious seconds with those extreme turns in the final kilometer to win the race. A wave of relief washed over him.
Seeing him struggle to control his handlebars after crossing the finish line, looking utterly exhausted and on the verge of collapse, the professional event staff quickly rushed over to steady him and help him safely off his bike.
After getting out of the team car, Chen Junyi strode over to Huang Chong’s side, helped him sit down on a stool, and gently massaged his back, helping him stabilize his heart rate.
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