F1: The Making of a Racing God

Chapter 134 A mere expectation, I can bear it on my shoulders.

Not only this VLOG edited by Gan Mengning, but also the episodes she collaborated on with Speed ​​Partners and Movie Hurricane, Shu Long has never watched them.

Given his somewhat narcissistic nature, he would have wanted to click on the video to see how others were praising him after posting it, but his finger hovered over the small video window for a long time without the courage to click.

Shu Long gave himself a high-sounding excuse, saying he was worried that he would become complacent and lose himself by indulging in the praise of others.

But in reality, he knew the real answer perfectly well from the beginning, and it could be summed up in two words—fear.

He missed the podium at the last race because he regrettably missed it, so he didn't want to face the disappointment and expectations of his home fans.

Baku won the podium, but he was also afraid that he would have to shoulder more expectations.

Human desires are endless. He may have finally managed to take third place at this race by taking advantage of the terrain, but at the next race, the fans' expectations for him will directly become winning the championship.

Shu Long could guess that there were many voices supporting him in China, and that a large number of people would attribute his current achievements to his talent. He also knew that many people would try to "create a god" for him.

In this way, if Shu Long's performance fails to meet people's expectations, the "talent theory" faction may attribute his failure to "not working hard enough and wasting his talent," while the "deification faction" may spread the idea that "he is just temporarily out of form and will definitely be like this or that in the future."

As we all know, the mid-tier teams' R&D capabilities gradually widened the gap between them and the top-tier teams, and even the teams behind them were slowly catching up.

Let alone competing for the championship, even the podium, which was once something we could only dream of, seems to have gradually become something "unattainable" and "out of reach".

This is exactly what is meant by a high opening followed by a low closing.

Once you've imprinted the image of "success" into people's minds, then no matter what difficulties you encounter later, besides encouragement and sympathy, disappointment will never be absent as well.

Regardless of which one it is, in the final analysis, it all represents the expectations placed on the dragon. And once those expectations fall on its shoulders, its name becomes pressure.

Shu Long didn't want his driving to be tainted by too many things.

He hopes that he races on the track because of his love for speed, not because of other people's expectations.

Or to put it more dramatically, it's for the hope of China's motorsports industry and even China's automotive industry.
This responsibility was far too heavy; to be honest, he didn't think he could shoulder it alone.

As a driver, he only knows how to drive, and he's only good at driving.

Carrying too much of the "empty, grandiose" stuff that even you yourself don't believe, you might eventually lose sight of what you truly want.

So aside from the inevitable information about the paddock that can be seen on the internet, Shu Long has been consciously avoiding any content in China that mentions his name since the last season.

But in the end, he found that it was all in vain.

Even if he deliberately avoids external pressure, his own desire to constantly strive for further progress is actually putting endless pressure on himself.

Others' expectations? Shu Long can simply ignore that.

But the desire that came from the depths of his heart meant that he could never deceive himself with the lies he made up.

Perhaps from the age of seven when he put his hands on the go-kart steering wheel, he had already made up his mind about one thing—no one should be able to get ahead of him on the track! He wouldn't allow anyone to get ahead of him either!

Perhaps as he has grown older and gained a deeper understanding of motorsports, he has learned to let go of some unrealistic obsessions.

However, this doesn't prevent him from rationally maximizing his racing benefits while also feeling very emotionally annoyed when he sees other cars ahead of him.

There were no complicated feelings of love or hate, just simple dissatisfaction.

He doesn't have any special advantages in car manufacturing. Why would he want to join a big team like Red Bull? Isn't it just to gain the right to at least compete on equal footing?

Even if reality cannot achieve complete equality, at least we won't have to feel that suffocating sense of helplessness.

This undoubtedly leads to another vicious cycle.

Even if Shu Long wants to be pure, in order to "go further," unless he gets incredibly lucky, he can only learn to be "utilitarian."

If you don't have an opportunity, you have to find one yourself. If you have an opportunity, you have to fight for it. If you have no desire or ambition, you have no right to compete for the championship on this asphalt battlefield.

Since we can't change the current situation either way, we might as well learn to stop the internal strife first.

After hanging up the video call with Gan Mengning, Shu Long lay awake until 2 a.m., unable to fall asleep. He simply got up, grabbed his phone, and skillfully opened a video that he had put in "watch later" for several months.

"Hello hello~ Today is April 10th. I just had breakfast and now we're off! Can you guess where we're going today?"

The video begins with Gan Mengning playfully making a "yeah~" gesture towards the camera in the mirror, then turning to look at Shu Long, whose face has been blurred out by her virtual avatar.

At that moment, he was still busy stuffing fried dough sticks covered in rice flour into his mouth, too busy to speak, and just gave a thumbs-up to the camera.

"Sigh~ But I guess the viewers can probably guess where we're going, since the video title will probably say it at the end."

Upon hearing this, Shu Long subconsciously exited the video and glanced at the title, only to find that it had completely spoiled the plot.

Aside from the nonsensical "Here it comes!" and "I just crouched down and saw it" style of A-B at the beginning, as well as those cyber-simps who spammed "cute" and called her "wife", just as Gan Mengning said before, there were also many Leeuwenhoek-like people in the barrage who noticed that her posting time was Shu Long's birthday.

Seeing this, Shu Long was still a little scared, fearing that these cyber detectives might actually find some solid evidence from these clues. Fortunately, Shu Long's role as the boyfriend in the video was not very prominent, just a short segment at the beginning. The rest of the time, he appeared in the video as "F1 driver Shu Long," and there was no need to censor his identity.

As for whether the censorship might be a bit suspicious, Gan Mengning, as a virtual content creator who doesn't want to show her face, also covered her face with another emoji, "Dou Ke," in the video, so it wasn't particularly abrupt.

But in fact, for a while, many people in the live chat were speculating that "Dou Ke" might be Shu Long's mysterious girlfriend who didn't want to be revealed to the public.

Upon closer examination, there are actually quite a few suspicious points. First of all, everyone knows that "Dou Ke" has only recently come of age and is a freshman who is still learning to drive after finishing the college entrance examination last year.

Shu Long's age and birthday information are publicly available online, making it easy to see that the two are actually the same age.

However, a few things are rather confusing. It is unknown when Shu Long obtained his driver's license. According to the conventional thinking of most netizens, he should have obtained his driver's license as soon as he turned 18, and he should have spent the rest of his time traveling around the world with Red Bull.

Longtime fans can guess that Gan Mengning's current boyfriend is the childhood sweetheart she met at driving school. At this time, Shu Long should not be in the country, so an alibi based on information gaps was naturally brought out.

Furthermore, there are photos circulating online of Shu Long's mysterious girlfriend, Chen Tingya, who was chatting with Shu Long in the Little Red Bull P-room at the time.

Otherwise, how could we say that netizens are always so resourceful?
Not only did this photo leak out, but experts also used the content produced by Teng Weifeng to trace the clues and discover that Shu Long and Chen Tingya were actually elementary and junior high school classmates, which further confirmed the speculation of many people.

Unexpectedly, Chen Tingya, who was once rumored to be Zhang Jinhua's girlfriend by that big mouth, has been rumored to be Zhang Jinhua's girlfriend again after so long.

Even though Teng Weifeng and Chen Tingya have already made a special clarification on this matter, in the eyes of a large number of netizens, this is just "protesting too much," and the more they explain, the more suspicious they seem.

This created another conflict between Chen Tingya and Gan Mengning regarding their household registration status, which ironically cleared Gan Mengning of suspicion.

It's clear that most of the people who have doubts are newcomers drawn in by the F1 incident. Gan Mengning doesn't even need to defend herself; a large number of long-time fans have already helped explain and refute her claims.

The debate ended much faster than Shu Long had imagined.

Most people probably think that the gap between a race car driver and a virtual streamer is really too big. The idea that they are completely unrelated seems absurd. In addition, since the other party has presented so much evidence, things have quieted down a lot for a while.

Regardless of the truth, things circulating online eventually seem like the truth.

Moreover, compared to these, the barrage of comments was quickly drawn to the membership ticket of the Weichang Paddock Club that Gan Mengning showed, with the screen filled with "Rich woman, hungry~" floating by in a line.

When the video showed Gan Mengning pretending to be an ordinary fan, squatting at the entrance of the paddock for a long time, and finally rushing up to cheer for him when he finally saw him, she was met with a listless slap on the little red bull hat by Shu Long, which quickly blew her away. The barrage of comments was then steered in another direction.

Some complained about the strong "Shulong Class" vibe, some gushed about his good looks, and others envied Gan Mengning for being able to get so close to him; no one continued to doubt the relationship between them.

Many people are analyzing it using some kind of micro-movement psychology, saying that when Shu Long went over to take a photo, he clearly deliberately kept his distance from "Dou Ke," which is obviously the kind of behavior where he already has someone he likes and just wants to avoid suspicion.

really interesting.

It can only be said that humans are indeed the most adept at convincing themselves. If Shu Long hadn't been the one involved, he would have almost been convinced by the well-reasoned analyses in the comments.
The following long passage is rather bland, recording Gan Mengning's observations and experiences at the paddock club. Shu Long never actually saw what the so-called fans wanted to say to him.

However, from the qualifying rounds all the way to the main competition, Shu Long was indeed moved by Gan Mengning's hoarse cheers and shouts of encouragement outside the violently trembling screen. He regretted that he couldn't give her a big hug in front of the whole world after the competition that day.

When Shu Long missed his home podium by a mere 0.07 seconds, Gan Mengning's tearful voice as she read the result to the camera touched the softest spot in Shu Long's heart.

He swiped his finger a couple of times, opening the chat window that was still on his girlfriend's page in the background. His finger hovered there for a long time, not knowing what to send.

Finally, he took a deep breath, swallowed the sob that was stuck in his throat, and returned to the video interface where the commentator was congratulating Shulong P4 with a hint of regret.

"Archaeological excavation during the Baku podium era!"

"We are not disappointed by this result; we are only proud of you!"

"A group photo to commemorate your birthday! This is a birthday gift from all your fans. Happy birthday!"

The dense text scrolled by in strings, and if you didn't block out the comments, you couldn't even see what was on the screen.

This online community, a temporary gathering place for people with shared interests, suddenly seemed to have become a wishing well with great popularity, but none of the content here was for their own benefit.

Shu Long's lips twitched slightly in embarrassment. He raised his hand to turn off the bullet comments, only to find that the screen on his phone was now shrouded in another layer of blur.

She stared wide-eyed, blinked hard a few times, and finally saw Gan Mengning waving goodbye to everyone in the last part of the video.

This is a mess.
I glanced at the comments section and found that the most upvoted comments were all lengthy monologues. Many people recounted how they got involved in racing and what kind of encouragement Shulong gave them.

There was no empty talk about representing the country to win honors; instead, the words were filled with genuine feelings.

Shu Long, his face half-covered, flipped through the book for a while, his expression showing a lot of embarrassment, but his confusion and unease gradually faded away without him realizing it.

Fine.

In any case, this is the path I decided to take. What's wrong with me carrying the expectations behind me, catering to your gaze a little, and acting as a guiding light?

Even if it only becomes a topic of conversation for everyone during their leisure time, it would be a small way to give back to this silent support.

When the checkered flag fell in Q3 of Saturday's Hockenheim qualifying session, Shu Long listened to Hamelin's report on his P5 result in the TR, and felt calmer than in any previous race.

It will rain tomorrow!
(End of this chapter)