Nian Le rented a small green bike to ride back to the villa. After putting a pot of soup on the stove, he began reviewing today’s Go game.
The little girl’s talent was truly impressive if she kept it up, her future potential was limitless.
Huo Weiran seemed to have no appetite that day; he didn’t come down for lunch. Nian Le left the meal at his door, but when he returned an hour later to retrieve it, the dishes hadn’t been touched.
In the afternoon, Nian Le reheated the food. As he sat at the dining table, he saw Huo Weiran quietly come downstairs, holding something in his hand.
When Nian Le was seated, Huo Weiran met his eyes, set a music player on the table, pressed play and a mournful song began to play.
“My husband, by my parents’ command and the matchmaker’s word, I was to marry that official as his wife…”
Picking up his chopsticks, Nian Le looked at his younger brother and tasted the beef with scrambled egg he had made. He wasn’t sure why Weiran suddenly wanted to listen to music while eating.
“Marriage is beyond one’s own choice…
When the wedding chamber curtain is drawn,
The groom is gone, leaving me alone,
Cursed be this feudal fate — new joy feels like a burial…”
The music grew louder. Seeing Huo Weiran staring straight at him, Nian Le assumed he wanted to try the food, so he used the serving chopsticks to place a piece of beef in his bowl.
Huo Weiran looked down at the beef, his lips moving slightly before he lifted his head.
“Do you think this song sounds nice?”
“Not bad,” Nian Le smiled at his brother, surprised he liked this kind of music.
Huo Weiran stared at Nian Le’s smiling face for a long while.
Did he… not understand the lyrics?
Even after living in Australia for years, Huo Weiran could still hear the song’s strong criticism of feudal arranged marriages!
Maybe he hadn’t made the message clear enough.
Halfway through the meal, Huo Weiran reached for the player and swiped the screen. The song restarted but now only one line played, looping endlessly:
“Cursed be this feudal fate.”
“Cursed be this feudal fate.”
“Cursed be this feudal fate.”
Nian Le glanced at him. He had seen people replay songs before, but this was the first time he’d seen someone replay just one line.
Though puzzled, he respected other people’s hobbies.
After who knows how many loops, Nian Le finished his meal at his usual pace, cleaned up the dishes, and found Huo Weiran still watching him. He smiled gently.
“Are you full?”
Huo Weiran pressed his lips together, seemingly restraining some emotion, gripping the player tightly. After turning off the music, he stood up abruptly and strode back to his room.
Watching his brother’s strange behavior, Nian Le thought for a moment, then decided to stop thinking about it.
Having never gone through a rebellious phase himself, it was only natural he couldn’t follow the logic of someone in one.
Huo Weiran had never felt like this before.
It was as if he had punched into cotton, the other person seemed completely unbothered, ignoring all protest, even smiling back.
The look Nian Le gave him was like one given to a disobedient puppy — patient, kind, yet firmly in control.
Huo Weiran clenched the player in his hand, veins tensing along his arm, unable to calm himself for a long time.
After loading the dishes into the dishwasher, Nian Le pressed an acupoint near his ear, then took a walk around the second floor where he unexpectedly discovered a laundry room.
Inside were several washing machines of different sizes. He photographed each one and identified which were for bedding and which were for clothes.
He stripped the guest bed, loaded the sheets and duvet cover into one washer, and put his clothes in another. After a few minutes of study, he got both machines running.
Just as he was about to leave, he turned and saw Huo Weiran standing at the door, one arm holding a bundle of clothes and bedding.
Huo Weiran said nothing, his gaze sliding away from Nian Le’s.
“You can pause the machine,” Nian Le said. “I don’t have much laundry, want to wash them together?”
Huo Weiran stood still, his expression cold and full of resistance.
A bit of a germaphobe, and a bit rebellious.
Nian Le understood and stepped aside to let him in.
Huo Weiran glanced at the running machine, dropped his clothes into the laundry basket, and, as if to draw a clear boundary, pushed another basket farther away from Nian Le’s things.
Watching this, Nian Le began to understand why the Huo family often had headaches over him.
It only took one hand to operate the washer. When Nian Le’s laundry finished, he hung the clothes up to dry. When he returned, he saw that Huo Weiran had already started his own load.
With one hand, he loaded and unloaded clothes, poured detergent into the dispenser, and later, though the washer-dryer combo had nearly dried them completely, he still chose to hang the garments carefully. Using one hand, he hung up shirts and sheets and even on his way upstairs, he couldn’t help glancing back at Nian Le several times.
He could do with one hand what others needed two for.
Meeting Huo Weiran’s gaze, Nian Le raised his hand and gave him a few claps.
Very good self-reliant and resilient, full of potential for greatness.
Hearing the applause, Huo Weiran froze mid-step, caught off guard by the genuine admiration in the other’s eyes. Then he quickened his pace upstairs, shut the door behind him, and locked it.
It was just doing laundry and hanging clothes yet Nian Le’s expression made it look like he had accomplished something remarkable.
Huo Weiran touched his face, feeling an inexplicable irritation.
He had heard applause countless times before, cheers that shook the mountains, waves of roaring crowds, one after another, deafening. He had grown used to it.
But for some reason, that simple compliment just now carried a strange sense of embarrassment, making his ears and cheeks burn uncontrollably.
After several deep breaths, Huo Weiran calmed down. Maybe this was one of the man’s tactics to offer well-timed encouragement and emotional affirmation. A clever person wouldn’t fall for such a trap!
The next morning, Nian Le made breakfast, and to his surprise, Huo Weiran came to the dining table on time. He ate in silence, picked at his food, and deliberately avoided eye contact.
Nian Le paid no mind to his younger brother’s small gestures. After breakfast, he left right on schedule, rode a shared green bike out of the villa district, and headed to his second match, refreshed and ready.
This time, his opponent was a middle-aged man who had arrived even earlier. Seated at the table, the man stood up the moment he saw Nian Le, greeted him enthusiastically, and handed over a business card.
Nian Le took the card — the name printed boldly in the center: Zhang Yuanyang — the owner of a used appliance recycling business.
“Not just old appliances! I take used clothes, used phones too,” the man said animatedly. “If you’ve got anything to sell, just give me a call I do home pickups!”
Noticing a few nearby players glancing over, he cheerfully went around handing out more cards.
Truly, the life of a small business owner was never easy, one had to promote oneself everywhere.
Nian Le tucked the card away. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed another table nearby, a similar card lay discarded on the floor. The player sitting there was another middle-aged man, dressed in understated luxury with an expensive watch gleaming at his wrist — dignified, proud, and impeccably put together.
Zhang Yuanyang noticed the fallen card too. Without hesitation, he bent down and picked it up, brushing off the dust despite the disdainful looks around him.
A few players stared at him and suddenly wondered had the cards they received been picked up from the ground, too?
Realizing this possibility, Zhang Yuanyang froze, the card in his hand suddenly feeling like a hot potato neither keeping it nor discarding it felt right.
“I think a relative of mine has an old freezer,” came a clear, gentle voice.
Zhang Yuanyang looked up, the young man across from him was smiling.
“Boss Zhang, could I have another card?”
“Of course, of course!” Zhang Yuanyang quickly took out a fresh one and handed it over. In full view of everyone, he reluctantly tossed the fallen card into a nearby trash bin.
The surrounding players looked away, and Zhang Yuanyang sat back down, feeling a warm sense of gratitude toward the young man who had saved him from embarrassment.
“My daughter designed and printed those cards for me,” he said in a quieter tone, eyes bright with pride. “She studies graphic design pretty popular field these days.”
Nian Le smiled faintly and nodded as he glanced down at the card in his hand.
“You’re a good kid,” Zhang Yuanyang chuckled. “Now I’ll feel bad if I beat you.” He rubbed his hands together, excited.
Nian Le’s gaze dropped briefly to the man’s fingertips — thick calluses from years of playing Go.
Old-time players often developed such marks where they gripped the stones; once, one could even gauge a player’s skill by their calluses. But with online Go and touchscreen play now common, such hardened fingertips had become rare. Few in the entire hall likely had such well-worn hands.
“Let’s enjoy the game, Boss Zhang,” Nian Le said mildly, amber eyes calm and steady.
“The third Yi Xin Cup preliminary, Round Two, begins now!” announced the referee.
Zhang Yuanyang glanced at the youth before him and pressed the game clock.
Nian Le had black this round and opened with a star-point and small point. White mirrored his play. He followed with a low approach, to which Zhang countered with a sharp pincer. Nian Le responded with a solid jump, a clean, AI-style sequence.
“Young man,” Zhang chuckled, stroking his chin, “you saw my calluses and thought I don’t know how to use the internet, didn’t you?”
“Too bad for you my daughter downloaded all the Go software for me and even found me a bunch of AI match videos!”
When Go AI first appeared, it shocked the Go world devastating especially for professional players.
But after the initial resentment faded, many learned to use AI as a stepping stone, pushing the game to new levels. Younger players, in particular, were heavily influenced by it.
Still, AI had its weaknesses in highly complex situations, it struggled to evaluate subtle positional value and lacked individuality and creativity.
Eyes glinting, Zhang Yuanyang intensified the fight, steering the game into increasingly tangled shapes.
Well, it seemed the uncle kept up with the times too.
Nian Le smiled faintly, placed a black stone with a crisp click, stabilizing the lower-left corner.
The battle escalated there. Zhang’s expression grew heavier, the young man’s moves diverged completely from his expectations. Even in chaos, he played boldly, with some moves so unorthodox yet precise that they seemed beyond even AI’s grasp.
Two hours passed. Zhang wiped the sweat from his forehead, feeling as though he’d fallen into a maze. Glancing at the clock, he shook his head and tried to reanalyze the board sensing, faintly, that someone might be watching him but when he turned around, he saw nothing.
For a full four hours, after the final stone was placed, Zhang Yuanyang slumped weakly into his chair and pinched the bridge of his nose.
He went through the counting and signing in a daze, and even after his opponent left, he was still replaying the game in his mind until someone tugged lightly at his sleeve.
“Hello, Uncle.”
A little girl stood before him, speaking softly and carefully. “Uncle, did you win?”
“No.” Zhang Yuanyang nearly burst into tears. That young man had shown no mercy, he’d played him so hard his head was still spinning.
“Uncle, what’s your level?” The little girl took out a small notebook, ready to jot it down.
“Amateur 7th kyu.” Zhang Yuanyang wiped his face. “If I weren’t so old, I’d definitely go take the pro exam!”
“Uncle, you can do it!”
Xueqi made a little cheering gesture and started to walk away, but suddenly thought of something. She came back with her notebook.
“Uncle, can I ask how many points did you lose by?”
Zhang Yuanyang raised his hand, making a “six-plus-one” gesture.
“Seven points?” the girl asked, writing it down.
“Lost by six and a half,” Zhang Yuanyang sighed weakly. He had the faint feeling that the other player could have beaten him by more, but the final count really was that margin.
As the rush hour crowd filled the streets, Nian Le pedaled her little green bike, realizing she was already half an hour late for the dinner time she’d agreed on with Huo Weiran.
She’d promised not to let him go hungry, but the tournament had dragged on far too long. She decided to make an extra dish tonight maybe that would make her rebellious little brother forget she was late.
Nian Le hurried up to the villa, keyed in the temporary passcode, and heard sounds coming faintly from the kitchen. When she got closer, she saw Huo Weiran tipping a plate of sliced meat into the pan with one hand.
The moment the meat hit the oil, it splattered violently flames shot up from the pan, and a burst of white steam rose straight toward the ceiling.
Without hesitation, Nian Le rushed forward, snatched up the lid, and clamped it over the wok. She turned off the gas, spun around, opened the faucet, and grabbed Huo Weiran’s wrist, putting his arm under the running water where the oil had splashed him.
Huo Weiran instinctively tried to pull back, but her grip only tightened.
“Don’t move,” Nian Le said steadily.
“You need to rinse it for a while.”
[mfn] If you enjoy my translations, you can show your support by leaving a comment or donating to my Ko-fi. It will be much appreciated. Thank you! [/mfn]
