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

Chapter 282 Prelude
"Nineteen routes crisscrossing the land, a illustrious name among the young!"

"The towering peaks hold the black and white, the magnificent chess pieces determine the fate of heaven and earth!"

It wasn't just one person, or even ten, but hundreds or thousands of enthusiastic voices converging into a tsunami of sound, crashing against the massive stadium walls wave after wave, the echoes buzzing and making eardrums tingle.

Xiong Chong's heart pounded in rhythm with the music. His eyes widened as he looked out at the sea of ​​flags, banners, and heads.

Seeing the crowd of fans holding flags and various banners, Xiong Chong, who had come from abroad to watch the game, was a little intimidated by the scene.

Although he knew that Lee Jun-hyuk had a large fan base, he was still very impressed to see him in person.

Lee Jun-hyuk has so many fans, and they're all so crazy about him.

However, this is indeed normal. Lee Jun-hyuk has been the world's number one for a long time. Even though he has begun to experience the ominous effects of old age, it is impossible for the fans he has accumulated to leave him so quickly.

In any case, those loyal fans who are attracted by his countless masterpieces and conquered by his glorious achievements will never abandon their king just because of a few unfounded "ominous predictions".

Just like a top celebrity who has a group of loyal fans who never abandon him even when he's down on his luck, and even when he's working on a sewing machine, there are still many people waiting for him. So what about Lao Li? This is at most a "minor flaw at the peak".

In terms of popularity, Lee Jun-hyuk is currently the most popular Go player in the world.

In other words, it's quite simple: the world's number one chess player is the one with the most popularity in the world.

In competitive sports, being bad is the original sin, being strong is the right thing to do, and even the strong humiliating the weak is often seen as a matter of course.

If humiliating the loser doesn't work, then what was the point of me becoming stronger?

People often say that China's top player is arrogant and attacks others. To put it bluntly, the top player from the neighboring country used to make many aggressive remarks, sometimes not even targeting any one person, but directly attacking all Chinese chess players.

Back then, all I could do was resent my family members for being so useless, for not being able to give them a good beating and knock them down.

The saying goes, "If you're bad at it, practice more; if you can't handle it, don't play."

This kind of thing is completely understandable. What's incomprehensible is the disgusting double standard, especially when the double standard doesn't even apply to one's own family. Being infinitely tolerant of "outsiders" while being infinitely harsh on one's own people is truly repulsive.

And to put it bluntly, if you want to create a fan culture in the sports field, you need to have at least some real talent.

Just like many people dislike dice, but in fact, dice's strength is still in the top tier. It's just that he pulled off a big upset in a few key games. There are few players with similar strength, both domestically and internationally. The so-called genius boy, Box, is also a famous dice fanatic.

Moreover, the fan circles of several champions in Chinese table tennis throughout history are actually quite large and quite intense. One reason why the dice are so disliked is that the voices of fan circles are amplified infinitely in the Internet age, and new generation fan circles are also specially cultivated due to the policies of certain people.

The most important problem is not that he lacks ability, but that his dominance is far inferior to that of his predecessors. In essence, it's still a matter of lacking ability.

The other kings are either the longest, the fastest, the most comprehensive, or the most stable, while the biggest similarity between dice and kings is that they both have the surname Wang...

Not to mention the constant criticism and accusations of dirty serves.

Of course, these are all essentially the same problem: insufficient strength.

Winning just one World Cup has already made a lot of people joke that they've been a die-hard fan of dice for a long time. If they could actually win all three major tournaments, there's a high probability they'd be able to clear their name later.

This is what competitive sports are all about.

The winner is king.

This was the first time Xiong Chong had ever experienced such a high level of popularity for an offline international competition, especially with various fan groups providing enthusiastic support outside.

Xiong Chong also quietly retreated into the crowd of Yi Zheng's fans, following behind and waving a flag and shouting a few words.

Although Yi Zheng's fan club is smaller in number, its influence is by no means weak. Many fans tightly clutched fans and small flags printed with Yi Zheng's Q-version portrait, with the words "Boundless Journey" and "Chess Over the World" written on them.

Female fans shouted even bolder support slogans: "The younger generation surpasses the older generation, senior Junhe, please step down!" "Yi Zheng, give the world a little shock!"

One fan even made an exaggerated light board with red lettering on a black background: "Yi Zheng has arrived, all gods must step down!"

The atmosphere was so lively that it made the early summer temperature seem insignificant.

However, although the fans seemed quite crazy offline, conflicts were still in the minority, after all, there were security personnel, and everyone was relatively rational in real life.

Of course, the situation is completely different online.

In real life, I'm timid and submissive, but online, can't I strike back with full force?
"What the hell do you mean, some random guy on the street trying to scam my world's number one Lee Jun-hyuk oppa! What champion are you? Just some worthless Chinese title!"

"Li Junhe is just a nobody. He was beaten so badly by AlphaGo, yet he still has the nerve to call himself the world's number one. Doesn't he know who the world's number one really is?"

"Who knows if AlphaGo is even human! That's just a conspiracy by ChunChun to piggyback on Lee Jun-hyuk's fame!" "Lee Jun-hyuk's fans, stop bragging. ChunChun actually customized the championship when they won the Asian Cup. Look up how Lee Jun-hyuk won that championship."

"Stop spreading rumors! Li Junhe has been the world's number one player for ten years, and his world ranking is number one. Don't try to take advantage of me!"
"Don't you know what happened to that last 'American genius' who tried to scam us? Lee Jun-hyuk is a god; anyone who dares to go against him will meet a bad end!"

"So you're maintaining your world number one ranking by grinding newbie scores in Silla, huh?"

"Silla Go is the best in the world!"

"From an objective point of view, Yi Zheng is too young. It would be very difficult for him to defeat Li Junhe 9-dan, who is in very good form and has a lot of experience."

"Stop bragging. Li Junhe's winning percentage in official competitions this year isn't even as high as Yi Zheng's, and Yi Zheng is only seventeen years old! Do you understand what it means to have a promising future?"

"I love Yi Zheng! I love Yi Zheng!"

"Yi Zheng, Mom loves you!"

"No male mothers! No male mothers!"

"Zhengzheng, Auntie doesn't want you to try anymore!"

Since last night, when the Muyefox Go platform prematurely released the link to the game room between Yi Zheng and Li Junhe, the chat channel in the game room has been constantly buzzing.

The scrolling comments in the comment section are beyond description; they're practically an explosive "spray"!
The sheer volume of information refreshed every second rendered the naked eye completely unable to track it, only able to perceive a chaotic flow of colorful characters.

There's no way around it; Go, as an intellectual sport with a truly global impact, has fans active 24/7 in every time zone of the world.

As the match was about to begin, the chat messages in the room were refreshing so fast that they were almost impossible to read.

Backend programmers must feel like their heads are about to explode, since they have to perform real-time maintenance to prevent problems from occurring.

Watching the numbers in the backend continue to rise wildly, Xiao Wang, a young programmer with hair almost turned into a bird's nest and bloodshot eyes, stared at the peak alarm on the screen, his voice trembling with tears: "Holy crap... these numbers... it feels like they're going to break the platform's all-time records for single-game viewership and concurrent online interaction... my hair is saying goodbye to me..."

A middle-aged programmer named Lao Zhang, standing next to me with dark circles under his eyes and a coffee cup he was about to crush, chimed in with a tired and somewhat numb tone: "There's nothing we can do about it. After all, it's a battle between the old and the new, with the newcomer challenging the champion. It's definitely worth watching."

"Last year or the year before, the World Cup final wasn't this high... wasn't that a battle between the old and the new?"

The programmers on the backend must be having a headache. Even when Ethan challenged Lee Jun-hyuk during the World Cup, the buzz wasn't this high.

The match between Yi Zheng and Li Junhe, starting with Yi Zheng's explosive remarks yesterday and the frenzied reporting by various media outlets, has quickly become a clash between the new and the old eras.

Various royalists and revolutionaries have already been engaged in a heated online battle.

The online debate is fierce, with fans of the new and old generations already locked in a fierce battle, and this topic is trending on various platforms.

The traffic and popularity are absolutely off the charts!
It's tough on the programmers at all companies; while others are showing off, they're losing their hair.

The staff setting up the site inevitably kept talking about this topic.

"We've been saying that Ethan would be the future number one, but now I'm increasingly feeling that our Yi Zheng will surpass him!"

"Ethan's a piece of trash. I even supported him before, and he seemed to be on a roll. But after he got a runner-up finish in the last World Cup, he hasn't had a single decent result in international competitions. Garbage!"

Career-oriented fans are just that realistic; if there are no achievements, they'll unfollow and turn against you!
"The main problem is that they lack ambition. They don't dare to fight or take risks. They clearly have the world's top strength, but they keep participating in junior competitions. They don't dare to compete with the world's top players. With this kind of ambition, they are destined not to reach the top."

"They got completely thrashed by Yi Zheng in a junior tournament, with an overall score of 2-0. They couldn't even beat the fish properly, hahaha!"

"The main reason for this buzz is Yi Zheng's amazing talk yesterday. I was so excited watching the video, I was like, 'Holy crap! It's time for the legend to end!' How did he come up with that?"

"You watched a video, but I saw it in person yesterday."

When I heard that, my adrenaline surged, and I instantly became a fan. It felt so good! I can now confidently call myself Yi Zheng's fan!

"That sentence is nothing compared to Yi Zheng's statement: 'Li Junhe's future achievements will depend on when he meets me!' That sentence made me so happy!"

A complete victory declaration, full of wild and outrageous language—it's straight out of a wish-fulfillment novel! To put it bluntly, no screenwriter could come up with such awesome lines!

Several staff members were discussing animatedly, their excitement overflowing, as if Yi Zheng were already walking towards them with the trophy in hand. That sense of shared pride filled the small preparation area.

Listening to the staff members talking about Yi Zheng, Jiang Mobai, who had arrived early to wait, had a bitter expression on his face.

(End of this chapter)