After a while, in the still silence, a sound finally broke through.
Zhuang Weisheng was the first to withdraw his gaze from the board. He looked deeply at Yu Shao, then at Su Yiming, and turned to leave without saying a word.
Seeing Zhuang Weisheng leave, the others around finally woke as if from a dream.
Each one pulled their eyes away from the board, then like Zhuang Weisheng, couldn’t help but glance at Yu Shao and Su Yiming before silently trickling out one by one.
Lu Bo walked out of the match room and, after walking a bit down the corridor, suddenly stopped for so reason. He stared out at the torrential rain and no longer moved forward.
When he had arrived at this match room earlier in the morning, his face had been full of curiosity and anticipation. But now, with the ko fight settled and the ga finished, only a deep heaviness remained on his face.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
The downpour roared, and the raindrops hitting the ground sounded just like stones striking the board!
Ti passed, minute by minute.
Lu Bo stood in place for a long while before finally taking another step forward, striding ahead.
Inside the Go room, everyone left in silence with complex thoughts, but Xu Zi, Wu Zhixuan, Zheng Qin, and a few others still stood by the board, bearing witness to this ga.
Yu Shao silently stared at the board. After a mont, he reached out and pointed at a Black stone on the board, then spoke: “The problem... probably started with this move.”
Su Yiming looked toward the board, checking the stone Yu Shao was pointing at.
Yu Shao said, “Here, connecting and tiger’s mouth both looked fine, but the tiger’s mouth would’ve tightened liberties for White. Connecting gave White more breathing room.”
“Looking back now, yeah, that’s true.”
Su Yiming looked at the board and gave a slight nod. “When White launched that counter-kill on the upper Black stones, I couldn’t find a way out fast enough. I never expected you to go for a full-force kill.”
“But maybe, the clamp would’ve been stronger than the large jump.”
Shifting gears, Su Yiming pointed at a White stone on the board and said, “If you’d clamped directly, Black wouldn’t have had as many moves to work with. In this shape, a kill fight would’ve been better than a tangle.”
Yu Shao nodded slightly at the board, then reached out again, pointing to the two small knight’s moves that had thrown the ga into chaos, and asked: “Those two small knight’s moves... those weren’t improvised, right?”
“The 3-3 invasion followed by the small knight’s move, I’ve studied it before. But there are way too many branches—it’s crazy complex.”
Su Yiming placed stones on the board as he spoke. “The second small knight’s move I ca up with on the spot. It looked like a dead end, but I had this vague feeling—like there was a sliver of life hidden in that dead end.”
Xu Zi and the others watched silently as the two of them broke down and reviewed the ga, dissecting every single move. Any change to a single move could’ve completely altered the course of the match.
Before, over the board, both had been trying their hardest to destroy the other. But now, with the ga over, they were candidly revealing how they’d tried to kill one another.
In a way, this review was preparation—so that next ti they played, the other’s blade could pierce their throat...
.......
“Dmn it, this f**ing weather.”
A young man in sportswear had just walked out of the match room where the Go Sage preliminaries were being held. Seeing the stormy weather, he couldn’t help but curse out loud.
He’d just lost his ga by a half-point, and now he had to deal with this kind of crazy weather. Worst part? He forgot his umbrella. Classic bad luck—when it rains, it pours.
Jiangling’s weather was usually great, very livable. But storms like this hadn’t been seen in years.
The young man pulled out his phone and opened a rideshare app, but after waiting three or four minutes, no drivers accepted the request. So he switched to another app, waited a bit... still nothing.
“F***, can’t even get a ride?”
He had considered this might happen, but now that it actually had, his already sour mood grew even worse.
Just then, he noticed soone walking absentmindedly toward him from down the corridor—it was Zheng Qin. Even as he stood right in front of him, Zheng Qin didn’t seem to notice.
“Zheng Qin, 3-dan?”
Seeing Zheng Qin like that, the young man was surprised and couldn’t help calling out.
Zheng Qin’s thoughts were interrupted by the voice, and he finally looked up and noticed the young man.
He had a vague impression of him. They’d played a few gas before. If he rembered right, the guy was a 4-dan. When Zheng Qin had just beco a professional, he’d lost a ga to him.
But later, they t twice more—and Zheng Qin won both gas.
“Ying Guodong, 4-dan?”
Zheng Qin said uncertainly.
“Yeah, that’s .”
Ying Guodong nodded, his tone slightly wistful. “I heard you beat Feng Zhixong, 8-dan, the day before yesterday. That’s insane.”
“I rember when you first turned pro, you weren’t even my match. And now...”
Ying Guodong paused, giving a bitter smile, then said self-mockingly, “Now you’re out of my league.”
He had complicated feelings about Zheng Qin. After all, he’d seen firsthand how soone who used to be weaker than him had slowly surpassed him—until they beca unreachable. No one would feel great about that.
But now he’d co to terms with it. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be saying this to Zheng Qin’s face.
Zheng Qin was silent for a mont.
“Oh, right.”
Ying Guodong suddenly rembered sothing and looked at Zheng Qin with curiosity. “You didn’t have a match today, right? What brought you to the academy?”
“I went to watch the main player selection match between Yu Shao and Su Yiming.” Zheng Qin replied.
“Yu Shao versus Su Yiming? For main player selection?”
Ying Guodong suddenly realized. “I wanted to go see that ga too, but I had a match of my own today. So? How was it?”
Hearing that, Zheng Qin couldn’t help but recall the ga again. The sound of falling stones seed to echo in his ears.
Zheng Qin opened his mouth—but didn’t know what to say. In the end, he said nothing.
“What’s up?”
Seeing him like that, Ying Guodong looked confused. “Who won?”
Zheng Qin suddenly let out a long breath and asked, “Got a cigarette?”
“Cigarette? You smoke now?”
Ying Guodong was puzzled but still pulled out a pack from his pocket, handed one to Zheng Qin, and gave him a lighter.
“I don’t usually.”
Zheng Qin lit the cigarette, returned the lighter, then took a deep drag and slowly exhaled. “But right now... I just really wanted one.”
“What’s with the moody vibe?”
Ying Guodong chuckled, took the lighter back from Zheng Qin, lit a cigarette for himself, took a drag, exhaled the smoke, and asked, “So? How was that ga? Who won?”
Zheng Qin silently looked out at the torrential rain outside the corridor, at the gray, hazy world, and after a mont, he slowly answered, “Yu Shao won.”
“Yu Shao won again?”
Ying Guodong didn’t seem too surprised and smiled, “Looks like Yu Shao was just a cut above?”
Zheng Qin took a drag from his cigarette, a hint of confusion on his face, and said, “But in this ga, Su Yiming played a large-scale, unprecedented, incredibly complex joseki.”
The corridor instantly fell into utter silence.
“You’ve beco funny.”
After a mont, Ying Guodong said quietly, “You an Su Yiming ca up with a joseki as hard to solve as the Great Avalanche, the Demon Blade, or the Large Diagonal? And he still lost?”
Clearly, even though Zheng Qin wasn’t the joking type, Ying Guodong still didn’t believe what he was hearing.
Let’s be real—Go has thousands of years of history, countless players, endless masters, and in all that ti, only three famously difficult josekis have ever been established: the Great Avalanche, the Demon Blade, and the Large Diagonal.
If Su Yiming really had invented sothing as complex as those, how could he possibly have lost?
“It’s not as complex as the Great Avalanche, the Demon Blade, or the Large Diagonal.”
Zheng Qin paused for a mont, then said slowly, “It’s far more complex. The variations are practically impossible to calculate.”
The corridor inside the Go Academy fell even quieter.
Ying Guodong stared blankly at Zheng Qin, trying to spot so hint of a joke—but Zheng Qin just stood there, quietly smoking, saying nothing.
Sotis, when sothing is too absurd, it starts to feel... real.
After a while, Ying Guodong’s voice trembled slightly: “Zheng Qin... you—you’re not joking?”
“I might joke about other things, but never about Go.”
Zheng Qin took another drag, looked out at the pouring rain, exhaled slowly, then continued, “Teacher Zhuang Weisheng watched the whole ga from start to finish.”
“I couldn’t help but wonder—what was Teacher Zhuang thinking, after watching that ga?”
“If he had been the one playing Black, would he have won? If he had played White, would he have won then?”
“I think...”
Zheng Qin flicked so ash from his cigarette, paused, then continued, “Probably not either way.”
Hearing that, Ying Guodong was completely stunned.
“Japan’s Go world once said that after Higashiyama Kaoru, there were no more true prodigies. But from what I’ve seen, neither Yu Shao nor Su Yiming are any less than him.”
Zheng Qin took another drag and said, “Higashiyama Kaoru played many legendary, earth-shattering gas. The only reason Yu Shao and Su Yiming aren’t seen as equals is because they’re still new professionals, and...”
In the swirling smoke, Zheng Qin slowly continued, “...their opponents just aren’t strong enough.”
Ying Guodong’s head buzzed. He wanted to say sothing, but nothing ca out.
Their opponents aren’t strong enough?
Do you hear yourself right now?
They’re already about to enter the Title Match Main Tournant, for crying out loud!
“That ga... what exactly...”
After a long ti, Ying Guodong finally couldn’t help asking, “What exactly happened? What did it look like?”
“.....”
Zheng Qin fell silent.
“The position was too complex. Almost every two moves spawned countless branches, and each branch had more than a dozen variations.”
A long ti later, Zheng Qin finally spoke again: “When we reviewed it, we found that many of those long variations ended in very slight point differences—and they avoided all of them.”
“In that ga, they kept it balanced all the way until Move 55, when the connect move was played. That’s where the split finally happened, and Su Yiming fell behind.”
“But what was truly shocking was that even in such a complex board state, Su Yiming kept playing ghost-like brilliant moves—always finding the strongest local responses. The fight between over eight separate groups was dazzling and overwhelming.”
“At one point, I really thought Yu Shao was out of options. But his response... it was subtle and mysterious. He played an empty triangle tesuji, and in Move 84, he landed the killing blow.”
“Black tested the waters with two more moves, and seeing the ga was lost, he resigned.”
“The ga ended at Move 88.”
Hearing that, Ying Guodong’s eyes went wide. He blurted out, “Eighty-eight moves?! It ended in just eighty-eight moves?! From the way you were describing all those group fights, I thought it went on for two or three hundred!”
“Just eighty-eight.”
Zheng Qin shook his head. “Only eighty-eight moves. But this ga...”
He paused, then snuffed out the cigarette on the edge of a trash can and suddenly let out a slow, heavy breath.
Zheng Qin lifted his head, looking out at the downpour, a flash of daze on his face, and said softly:
“I stood outside the ga, gazing at heaven—and saw its mysteries laid bare.”
......
Yu Shao took a taxi back ho.
Though he rode most of the way, the rain was so heavy that the short sprint from the car to the building soaked his hair and clothes completely.
At the mont, Yu Dongming and Cai Xiaoi weren’t ho. The hotpot restaurant had finished renovations, so they’d gone back there recently.
Yu Shao took a quick hot shower, changed into dry clothes, and walked into his bedroom. He pulled out the four-legged Go table, took out his Go bowl, and began placing stones one by one.
Though they had already reviewed the ga once after it ended, Yu Shao still wanted to analyze it again by himself.
“Those two small knight’s moves... he figured them out on his own...”
Yu Shao stared at the board in front of him, his expression a bit complicated.
He’d played the 3-3 invasion countless tis in his past life and had encountered it just as often—but he had never thought of this particular sequence. Yet Su Yiming had discovered it first.
“The first small knight’s move—if you studied the 3-3 in depth, you could co up with it. But the second one... without AI assistance, pulling it off requires nothing less than a flash of brilliance.”
“His strength is growing fast.”
Yu Shao quietly stared at the board. After a mont, he reached into the Go bowl.
Clack.
He pinched out a stone and slowly placed it.
Tap!
Column 18, Row 9—Extend!
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