Go: Is the portable old man the nine-time champion?

Chapter 178: Steal half a day’s leisure

"Zheng, you're doing life and death problems again. Take a break, okay?"
Stop messing around, okay?! We're out for barbecue, so stop using your phone to do endless practice problems. Focus on eating your skewers, or I'm getting scared!
I'm really worried you'll ruin your brain! Go play some games and watch some movies, Zheng! I'm talking to you, aren't you listening?!

Miao Jun's face fell as he watched Yi Zheng eating lamb skewers while working on life-and-death problems. "I dragged you out here to treat you to barbecue so you wouldn't have to stay in your room practicing chess all the time."

So you've been working on life and death problems ever since you came out? Didn't I just waste my barbecue treat?
Stop practicing! I'm begging you!
"I'm dead! It's all your fault. Stop bothering me, okay?!"

Looking at the incorrect answer displayed on the life-and-death question website, Yi Zheng said something with some displeasure.

I have to say, the difficulty of life-and-death problems is getting higher and higher these days. I can get seven out of ten wrong. It's unbelievable.

No, is this my problem? It must be Miao Jun who's bothering me!
He died again, it's all your fault!

Miao Jun looked heartbroken: "I only said a couple of things to you and you're already annoyed! All I want is for you to get some rest. All I see you doing all day is practicing dead-end and life-ending puzzles. If you keep doing this, you'll have to pay the bill!"

"We're not going to have the Agon Kiriyama Cup in a couple of days, so even if we have to cram at the last minute, we still have to learn."

Upon hearing this, Yi Zheng put his phone away. Since someone was treating, he waved his hand and called the owner over: "Bring another thirty skewers of lamb, some grilled vegetarian chicken, and a serving of grilled eggplant."

"We need some kidneys! You guys really don't know how to eat! You don't even eat kidneys when you have barbecue!"

As Mr. Ke watched the sizzling, oily barbecue, he couldn't help but swallow hard. He could even smell the aroma of the barbecue, but he couldn't get a single bite.

This is torture, so incredibly torture! I promise I won't come out with you guys next time we eat out! But wait, if I didn't come out, I wouldn't have been able to see the movie.

Yi Zheng rolled his eyes when he heard this. Young people are strong, when did they need to eat kidneys to nourish themselves?

Do decent, strong men eat kidneys? Do you? I certainly don't. Don't you know what you're up to by eating kidneys? Despicable!

"It was incredibly tough. I didn't even make it to the main tournament. In the last game, I ran into Qi Ling, and he completely crushed me. That guy was like a mad dog, relentlessly chasing and biting me until the very end."

Miao Jun leaned back on the bamboo chair at the barbecue stall, looking utterly dejected. The other two members of the "Three Musketeers" had made it to the main tournament, while he was the only one who lost to Qi Ling in the final round of the main tournament. It could only be said that the opponent's impact was simply too strong.

Qi Ling plays chess like a madman.

Qi Ling: I just want to kill you, or be killed by you!

Yi Zheng nodded in agreement upon hearing this, recalling that he had played training games with Qi Ling when he was in the national team.

Yi Zheng's assessment of him was that this guy was like a madman, demanding to fight right from the start, not caring about anything else, just doing it.

You say I'm in a bad situation? No problem, we'll stick to each other and kill you. If you make even the slightest mistake, I'll crush you.

Yi Zheng has a good win rate against him, but Yi Zheng doesn't want to face him in official matches at all, because playing against him is too unpleasant.

Unfortunately, in an interview after the season ended, Yi Zheng said that he least wanted to face Qi Ling, a 6-dan player, but he was immediately drawn against him in the draw right after the interview.

Yi Zheng deeply understands what metaphysics is; the more you talk about something, the more likely you are to encounter it.

"However, Qi Ling is not the strongest among them this time. Apart from Senior Brother Yun, the strength of the others is also in the first tier under the title."

Yun Linglei also took time out of his busy schedule to participate in this competition, explaining that he was short of money recently and wanted to earn some prize money to spend. Considering that Senior Brother Yun had recently been embroiled in another scandal, Yi Zheng thought it was perfectly normal for him to be short of money.

But if Yun Linglei heard this, he would probably get angry immediately. Do I need to spend money to pick up girls? Junior brother, your concept is wrong. Money is for women to see, not for women to spend, okay?

Many of the remaining people are also strong individuals who have won titles in the past.

To be fair, apart from a few regional titles in East China, South China, and Northwest China that have been able to maintain their dominance, the titles in other regions are frequently rotated every year.

Even if you don't have to start from the beginning of the tournament to win the title, and you only need to sit in the challenged position, there's still a risk of being kicked off.

After all, many of those holding titles are not that much different from others in terms of the vast realms depicted in fantasy novels, so it's quite normal for the title to rotate among different people and for it to come to my family this year.

It's funny, Yun Linglei's record in the Chess Saint Tournament isn't very good, but he always manages to hold the lead in the highly competitive East China region, even achieving a six-peat.

Meanwhile, some other players who couldn't hold onto their titles actually performed better than him in the Chess Saint Tournament.

It's quite absurd, considering that the number and quality of chess players in East China are theoretically the highest in the country.

Yun Linglei was able to retain his title under these conditions, but he still managed to achieve good results in the Chess Saint Tournament.

Yi Zheng thought about the other people, and none of them were weaker than Qi Ling, some were even stronger.

However, it's normal to face anyone; if you want to win the championship, you have to defeat all your opponents.

If you expect weaker opponents to upset others and then be eliminated by you, you can forget about achieving any results.

Sometimes, even if you draw a really good draw, you might still lose and then blame it on the packed schedule that caused you to perform poorly.

"It feels like there aren't many matches lately, but I'll be flying around again next month."

Yi Zheng took a big bite of the freshly served lamb skewers. The second division league is a good competition, but it requires traveling around to participate.

Sitting to the side, Shi Yuhan could only shake his head and sigh helplessly. As his roommate, he was currently the one who was having the worst time.

Although they were ranked in the same year, the gap between the two sides was too big. Yi Zheng felt that Chu Fei was overworked from participating in the competition, while he himself had no competitions to play and could only stay alone in Lin'an. He even felt that the temperature in the room had risen after Yi Zheng left.

I've signed up for all the tournaments I could, but I still don't play many games each year. I even participated in the qualifiers for one tournament this month and was eliminated.

I live right next to Yi Zheng, so am I still a marginal rider?
Is my future just a dream...?

The world of Go is just too deep for me to grasp.

But seeing Yi Zheng taking out his phone to work on life and death problems while Miao Jun was in the bathroom, Shi Yuhan couldn't help but grit her teeth.

The scariest thing in this world isn't someone more talented than you, but someone more talented than you who works even harder.

hateful!

Yi Zheng, I'm exposing you! I'm not sleeping tonight, I'm going to do life and death problems all night!
(End of this chapter)