The work of the Go master

But it was all for naught; those who wanted to play were ruthless.

Taking a deep breath, Ke Zhiguang pushed open the glass door and entered the Go room.

The first thing that greeted him was a lucky cat figurine displayed on the counter.

The shelves in front of the counter are stocked with Go-related magazines, life-and-death problem sets, introductory reading materials, and so on.

The indoor environment was pretty much as he had imagined. Chessboards were arranged in an orderly fashion, and the people who came to play chess were indeed a group of old men, with few middle-aged people. The air was filled with the smell of cigarettes, and behind the smoke were a pair of deep-thinking eyes with furrowed brows.

It was filled with murderous intent, and in a sense, it was like an internet cafe from a past life, only the noise level wasn't as high and the age demographic wasn't as young.

Ke Zhiguang stood quietly at the edge of a Go board, chin in hand, staring intently at the board. No one could tell that he knew nothing about Go.

The sound of pieces being placed came from all directions, sometimes accompanied by the crackling of electricity, perhaps some kind of lightning effect.

However, there aren't many special effects overall, so it's clear that the players here won't be able to make any good moves.

But besides the special effects on the chessboard, Ke Zhiguang also seemed to see... a fox?

There was an elderly chess player with a bewitching white fox perched on his shoulder; calling it a fox spirit would be more accurate.

The fox demon also realized that Ke Zhiguang was looking at him, and gave him a flirtatious wink.

Oh.

This is the feeling of being electrocuted.

That damn fox spirit is so sweet.

Symbolic Spirit: White-tailed Fox

[Note: Be careful of their moves outside the board; keep a close eye on the game.]

A strange message appeared next to the fox spirit, turning into a dialog box.

Symbolic spirit?

Looking around, you can see that almost every guest has a symbolic spirit beside them, just of different kinds.

One chess player had a purple venomous snake wrapped around his arm, perhaps implying that this person played a ruthless and vicious style of chess?

Symbolic Spirit: The Serpent

[Note: Their most effective tactic is entangling and maneuvering attacks.]

There was also a chess player wearing sunglasses, with a small white mouse lying beside him, but the mouse was carrying a... tattered basket on its back?

Does this imply that the person is a terrible chess player?

Symbolic Spirit: Basket Mouse

[Note: In short, he's a terrible chess player.]

Is he really such a terrible chess player?

Ke Zhiguang nodded with some understanding. With the help of this convenient cheat code, he felt that he could understand many things even without knowing chess.

At this moment, the sunglasses-wearing, incompetent chess player snorted angrily, pushed open the chessboard, pulled out a ten-thousand-yuan bill from inside his clothes, threw it to his opponent, and left. His opponent accepted it with a smile.

This is gambling on chess; the stakes aren't low, with a bet of ten thousand.

It's truly the bubble era; people don't value money anymore.

It is indeed a heavy world of black and white, of winning and losing, perhaps with a touch of gold symbolizing wealth, but the warning I just heard probably didn't refer to this level of competition.

Rather, it is a purer, more enduring battle of victory and defeat.

"Please come and register, guest." A girl's voice suddenly came from behind the counter. The guest she was referring to was clearly Ke Zhiguang.

"Ok."

Ke Zhiguang turned a corner and came to the counter, his gaze naturally falling on the girl behind the counter.

She was wearing a black and white school uniform suit, which accentuated her clean and well-proportioned figure. Her two ponytails flew down like swallow wings, falling behind her shoulders. If I remember correctly, this is not the era when double ponytails are popular. This hairstyle became popular back in the time of Sailor Moon from "Sailor Moon". As for when the anime was released, Ke Zhiguang did not research it.

Perhaps they are children who come to work after school; judging from the style of their school uniforms, it looks like a prestigious private school.

Several noir curtains printed with chess scores hung from the ceiling in front of the counter, obscuring half of the girl's face, making her appear mysterious and alluring.

The only downside is that it's only about the size of a destroyer.

It needs to be replenished.

"Interested in papaya milk?" Ke Zhiguang blurted out instinctively, mentioning this health product that could help her increase her size.

"Huh?" The girl behind the noren curtain was stunned, and her hand trembled as she wiped the chess pieces.

"It's nothing, just cross out the last sentence... I'd like to learn Go. Do you offer lessons here?" Ke Zhiguang adjusted his glasses, which weren't even visible on his nose, and calmly corrected his lines, signing his name on the registration form as he did so.

What level of instruction?

"The most basic and enlightening."

Upon hearing this answer, the girl sighed helplessly: "I say, sir, as someone who knows absolutely nothing about Go, you were watching the game with far too much concentration just now, weren't you?"

"There's nothing I can do, it's just a matter of talent and interest. Maybe for me, learning Go is just as simple as picking up memories again. Anyway, I... have quite a bit of potential." Ke Zhiguang responded deeply and slowly, as if reciting a poem, yet with exceptional confidence.

To match his declaration of "quite promising," he even held up his finger, making a tiny gesture.

A tiny bit contains a universe.

The girl choked.

She has seen people who want to get free Go lessons.

But I've never seen anyone falsely claim to have talent in order to get free Go lessons!

The girl took another look at the other person's fairly handsome face... and the somewhat smug smile on his face, and stiffly said, "Are you sure you don't want to add a 'maybe' before your 'quite promising'?"

"No, absolutely no, that's a fait accompli." Ke Zhiguang stared straight ahead with unwavering determination, a confident smile always playing on his lips.

The memory that you believe in your own memory and that you have a talent for Go is correct.

A few seconds later, the girl showed a defeated expression: "Okay, it is my responsibility to provide instruction for those who are interested in learning Go... but by the way, it is also my responsibility to discourage casual players who only have a three-minute attention span."

"Please take care of me."

The girl grabbed a chessboard from the edge of the counter and brought it to her, along with two boxes of chess pieces, with a thud, as if she were about to hit someone.

Huh? Did I say something wrong? Why does this person look so angry?

Ke Zhiguang wondered to himself.

"This is a free course, so it will be very basic. Please listen carefully."

Immediately afterwards, the girl placed a piece on the chessboard. Her fingers were exceptionally fair and beautiful, making her perfectly suited for both playing chess and playing the piano.

In Go, Black moves first, and each stone has four liberties...

She started teaching Go through the noren curtain without telling the student's name, like using a ten-minute break between classes to dismiss a student who asked a question.

Touch, eat, doubles, long, break, stick, move, clamp, tiger, side, stand, capture piece...

She would present a diagram showing the changes for each term she used, and she did so very quickly.

Further down the line, more advanced terms like squeeze, pounce, stab, jump, point, small knight's move, large knight's move, split two pieces, and so on emerged, and the pieces moved from the center of the board to the edges and corners.

Continuing on, life-and-death patterns such as two eyes living, curved three, straight four, and knife handle five also appeared.

Ke Zhiguang's intuition told him that the course content was far beyond the syllabus...

Indeed, some departing customers passed by the counter, saw the contents of the chessboard, and shook their heads with helpless smiles. Although they didn't say anything, Ke Zhiguang could understand their unspoken message—this was practically discouraging newcomers.

"That's it, understand?" The girl finished her lecture and looked at the other person's expression again.

Ke Zhiguang stared intently at the chessboard without saying a word, maintaining this focused demeanor from beginning to end.

Complete calmness and focus.

Recalling what I had just learned.

Like a hunter lurking on the snowy plains, patiently and coldly waiting for its prey to appear.

A flood of information rushed into his brain, and a chessboard unfolded in his mind. He practiced making moves on the chessboard in his mind.

It was less about learning and more about reminiscing.

Everything feels strangely familiar.

"I understand roughly." Ke Zhiguang nodded after a while, his thumb and forefinger still tightly gripping his clean jaw.

"Alright, here's a question for you, consider it your final assignment. If you can't do it, you can come back tomorrow," the girl said, the subtext being, "Get out of here tomorrow too."

"Close your eyes, wait for the questions to be displayed, and then answer them in ten seconds," she said.

"Okay, got it."

Ke Zhiguang closed his eyes, and the sound of setting up chess pieces came from in front of him. Within seconds, the chess pieces were set up.

"Black moves first. How do you escape from White's encirclement? You need to not only play the correct move for Black, but also the best response for White. Do you understand?" the girl said.

"I want to target both black and white simultaneously, is that right?" Ke Zhiguang asked tentatively.

"That's right... So, open your eyes, ten-second countdown."

When Ke Zhiguang opened his eyes, he saw a problem on the chessboard at the center. In his memory, problems in the center of the chessboard were usually for beginners. It seemed that the girl in front of him wasn't too outrageous.

Black is positioned at the center point, with two white stones pointing towards the lower left. To the right, three white stones are positioned in a flying formation, effectively blocking Black's path to development.

In Ke Zhiguang's vision, a cute-looking chibi-style little devil is holding a small sword and waving it at him from afar, looking quite smug.

Judging from the special effects alone, it has a child-friendly feel and is suitable for advertising educational devices, where users can simply tap on anything they don't understand.

Forget it, I'll just use a lighter. There's no learning machine in the current timeline.

[Difficulty: 8K]

The dialog box reminded me.

"10, 9, 8..." Just as Ke Zhiguang was pondering, the girl suddenly started counting down, pressing him step by step.

Every second that passed, the beam of light in Kezhiguang's eye flickered once.

"7, 6..."

Finally, a strange spot of light appeared on the chessboard in his eyes.

Five seconds had just passed when Ke Zhiguang made his move.