For some reason, Chi Mianmian suddenly remembered a bizarre story her master had once told.
Her master’s master, her grandmaster, had once taken in an extraordinarily gifted young disciple. It was said that the child was born into a family of Go players and inherited excellent genes. When he was only one year old and did the traditional “grabbing ceremony,” the only thing he picked up was a white Go stone.
Before the child was even two and still couldn’t speak clearly, he already knew how to play Go. Wearing split-crotch pants, he could go back and forth with adults at the board without losing ground. When the grandmaster saw him, he was stunned, took him in as a personal disciple, held him in his arms every day to teach him, and adored him beyond measure.
After teaching the child day and night for three years, the grandmaster let the little disciple play matches against the other disciples, and even declared that for every game the child won, he could pull out a handful of his master’s beard.
At first, the other disciples thought it was just for fun to play against a child, so they deliberately lost and let him tug at the master’s beard. But half a month later, they discovered that even when they played seriously, they still couldn’t beat this little junior brother. By the time the master’s beard had been completely plucked clean, the number of games they had won could be counted on one hand.
You had to know that the grandmaster’s disciples were, at worst, all professional first-dan players at the time. The child was only five years old, his talent was nothing short of monstrous.
Later, during casual conversation, the grandmaster told everyone that the idea of pulling his beard after a win had actually been proposed by the little disciple himself. He knew that his senior brothers and sisters had long coveted their master’s beard, so he deliberately set that condition, counting on them to intentionally lose at first. That way, he could familiarize himself with everyone’s playing styles and patterns.
Once he understood how they played, he could figure out countermeasures and victory would naturally be within reach.
At such a young age, the little grand-uncle already knew how to make use of human nature, and he never fought a battle unprepared. Naturally, he was undefeated. The grandmaster often took him out to show him off, and every time, he managed to make his old friends green with envy.
The most famous incident was when a friend of the grandmaster found a rare, obscure Go manual containing an endgame that simply couldn’t be reversed. Several old men gathered together to study it for a long time. Just then, the little disciple, only five or six years old passed by. He stood beside the arranged endgame, held an apricot in his hand and took a few bites, then picked up a white stone to accept the challenge. In just three to five moves, he freed the white stones from what had been a “trapped dragon and caged beast” position.
The old men exploded with excitement on the spot. One after another, veterans of the Go world, they all wished they could snatch the child into their own schools. The grandmaster, meanwhile, let the little disciple ride on his shoulders as they went home. Whenever he mentioned it to others, his pride was sky-high, his nostrils practically pointing at the sky, if he’d had even a single beard hair left, it would have been flying upward.
“And then?” Chi Mianmian still remembered how her master’s eyes had glowed with uncontrollable excitement when telling the story, as if the brilliant future of Chinese Go rested entirely on that little grand-uncle.
“And then…” Her master’s expression slowly darkened, his face filling with a sorrow and gloom Chi Mianmian had never seen before.
“He left.”
“Where did little grand-uncle go?” Chi Mianmian asked out of curiosity but the moment the words left her mouth, she suddenly thought of her grandmaster’s increasingly gaunt figure over the years, his smile that never appeared, and the small black-and-white portrait placed in the study. She immediately understood.
The fate of geniuses is always a cause for sighs.
“Never mention this little grand-uncle in front of your grandmaster,” her master warned repeatedly. Chi Mianmian couldn’t help but feel regret for him. Looking again at the stern, unsmiling, rigid grandmaster, she seemed to understand his loneliness over the years and why he never took in another disciple.
Chi Mianmian pulled her thoughts back to the present and studied the board in front of her. She couldn’t help wondering: between the young man before her and that prematurely lost little grand-uncle, which one was more inspired?
Holding a white stone between her fingers, Chi Mianmian didn’t know where to place it for a long while. In the current state of the game, no matter how much she struggled, it was already meaningless.
After gazing at the board for a moment longer, Chi Mianmian took two white stones from the bowl and placed them on the edge of the board.
She resigned.
The referee came over to record the result and frowned when he looked at Chi Mianmian.
“Chi Mianmian, 3-dan… your face—”
Hearing this, Chi Mianmian raised her hand and touched her face, only to realize that the rash had spread there at some point.
“Just an allergic reaction,” she said. As her senses fully returned, she immediately felt the itch. She quickly took the confirmation sheet and signed her name, then gave Nian Le a big smile.
“You’re really amazing. I rarely lose this convincingly. Want to be friends?”
“My name is Nian Le,” Nian Le said, pointing to the nameplate beside him, his gaze gentle.
“I’m Chi Mianmian. What’s your Weibo username? I’ll follow you when I get back,” Chi Mianmian said, scratching her neck as she walked out with him.
“I don’t have Weibo,” Nian Le replied, then gave a string of numbers. “This is my WeChat ID. You can add me there.”
“Very few young Go players don’t have Weibo these days. Why not register one?” Chi Mianmian continued scratching the back of her hand.
Nian Le smiled faintly and stopped in front of the large screen displaying the match results for the second day, looking at the win–loss record above.
“I’m not a professional Go player. My rank is amateur 3-dan.”
“Amateur… 3-dan?” Chi Mianmian froze mid-scratch, her eyes widening in disbelief.
An amateur 3-dan, beating a professional 3-dan into total submission?
No, wait. Last year she had competed in the World Women’s Professional Go Championship hosted by the Little Japan and won second place. This year, she was competing again in the one hosted by the Koreans. Chi Mianmian was confident she could place again. If she took second place once more, then according to the rules, the two runner-up finishes could be converted into one championship, allowing her to be directly promoted to professional 5-dan.
By that logic, she herself could practically be considered a quasi–5-dan.
Chi Mianmian scratched her head, feeling her CPU overheating. If this ever got out, her master would definitely knock her head full of bumps.
She stood there dazed for a moment, then quickly hurried over to the staff, borrowed a pen, and spoke with a tense expression.
“Say your WeChat ID again. I have to memorize it properly!”
Nian Le repeated it, watching as Chi Mianmian wrote on the back of her hand and along her arm, then lifted her head solemnly.
“I can guarantee that as long as you don’t run into an old monster like my master, you’ll definitely make it to the top eight. You might even go farther than me, lie low and get famous, woof woof woof!”
“Thanks for the good wishes,” Nian Le said with a slight smile. After saying goodbye, he watched Chi Mianmian scratch at herself as she hurriedly got into a car.
Unlocking a small green shared bike, Nian Le returned to his residential complex. As soon as he arrived, he saw the Huo family’s driver standing at the villa gate, holding two large bags of groceries and looking around helplessly.
When the driver spotted Nian Le, his eyes lit up instantly. He hurried over, beaming.
“Student Nian.”
All the previous grocery runs had been handled by this driver, and after so much time, Nian Le had become quite familiar with him.
Seeing the driver’s hands full, Nian Le quickly stepped forward and took the bags.
“There should still be ingredients in the fridge for tomorrow,” Nian Le said, a hint of confusion in his eyes. He didn’t remember sending any message today.
“It was requested by Young Master Huo,” the driver said, grinning as if he’d won the lottery. “Young Master Huo personally messaged me this morning—I was shocked!”
After thinking for a moment, Nian Le realized that the “Young Master Huo” the driver was referring to was Huo Weiran.
“Then why didn’t you go inside?” Nian Le asked as he carried the bags into the villa’s courtyard. “He should be at home.”
“I rang the doorbell,” the driver said helplessly. “Young Master Huo probably doesn’t want to see me. He didn’t open the door.”
“Maybe he’s on the second floor and didn’t hear it,” Nian Le said gently, with a mild smile.
How could the driver not hear the consolation in the young man’s words? But he also knew that every floor had an intercom. Ringing the doorbell twenty times would wake even a hibernating bear, which would crawl out of its den and slap the person ringing the bell.
But Young Master Huo was different. If he were a bear, he would just listen coldly, memorize the visitor’s face, and then come out next spring to deliver several times the number of slaps to whoever had dared to ring the bell like that.
Yet he couldn’t not hand over the groceries. Given Madam Huo’s temperament, if she found out he hadn’t taken proper care of Young Master Huo, this high-paying job would be gone in minutes.
The driver glanced at the door and lowered his voice awkwardly. “Student Nian, you don’t know this is actually pretty normal.”
“What do you mean?” Nian Le asked, listening attentively.
“Before, when Old Master Huo celebrated his birthday and wanted to see Young Master Huo, he even sent a check, saying it was for travel expenses. In reality, it was eight figures enough to charter several planes. But Young Master Huo just clipped the check into a book and mailed it back, refusing to show his face even once.”
“A lot of people know about this, so it’s not really revealing employer secrets,” the driver said quietly. “Young Master Huo has a difficult temperament and doesn’t get along with most people. Even Madam Huo finds it hard to deal with him.”
“It’s fine,” Nian Le said calmly. He still remembered the temporary password, prepared for his younger brother’s potential rebellion at any time.
He walked up to the villa door and was just about to set the groceries down and enter the password when the door suddenly opened with a click. A hand shot out, firmly grabbed Nian Le’s wrist, and yanked him swiftly into the house.
The driver hadn’t even had time to react—his vision blurred, and Student Nian was gone.
Like prey in a nature documentary, captured cleanly and decisively, disappearing in an instant, something you’d need slow motion to even see clearly.
The driver rubbed his eyes, stared at the tightly closed door, then at the empty space where Student Nian had been. For a moment, he genuinely couldn’t tell whether he’d just hallucinated.
