Super Gene Hunting Ground

Chapter 1216 - 1206: Endgame

After a burst of commotion, everyone sat down.

Looking at the number one Grandmaster of Witch Star’s Go world standing at the podium up front, Yang Xiao was completely dumbfounded.

This person was just too familiar to him, you could even say he used to miss her a lot.

The number one Grandmaster of Witch Star’s Go world on the podium was precisely his senior sister, Chen Rong, daughter of Xuanming Country’s Go Sage, Chen Guohua.

Yang Xiao’s heart was about to jump out of his chest; he was so worked up he could hardly contain himself.

The senior sister who had suddenly vanished from the world years ago had actually appeared here on Witch Star, hundreds of light years away, and she was the head of the Great Dragon Empire Chess Institute, the number one Grandmaster of Witch Star’s Go world.

This—

What the hell was going on?

Standing on the podium, Chen Rong casually swept her gaze over the people below and started lecturing.

"Hello everyone, my name is Chen Rong, I’m the head of the Great Dragon Empire Chess Institute,

entrusted by the Emperor of Great Dragon, I’m here to give you a lecture on Go.

In your eyes, Go is a tool and means to cultivate spiritual power,

but in reality, Go is an art, a philosophy of life.

The ultimate purpose of playing is to experience the ’Dao’ of perfect harmony within it, to pursue the shared perfection of Go and life..."

Chen Rong spoke fluently and with ease. The moment she opened her mouth, everyone was stunned. From Chen Rong’s words, they came to understand the true essence of Go, which was very different from how they usually understood it.

Watching his senior sister lecture, Yang Xiao’s thoughts instantly went back to when he had first met Chen Rong. At that time, she had just taken over as the one responsible for teaching him Go—humble and kind, beautiful and poised, always giving him the warm feeling of a girl-next-door big sister.

After Chen Rong disappeared, he missed her terribly, and never imagined he would see her here today.

Most people on Witch Star learned Go mainly from the perspective of offensive and defensive techniques, with the goal of cultivating spiritual power. Very few explained the inner meaning of Go the way Chen Rong did.

Her lecture gave everyone a feeling like clouds parting to reveal the sun and moon; some long-standing knots in their hearts suddenly unraveled.

Applause rang out from time to time in the hall, and sometimes she even drew knowing laughter from the crowd.

Before anyone realized it, Chen Rong had talked for over an hour.

"Alright, that’s it for today’s lecture. Goodbye."

With that, Chen Rong rose and floated away, leaving behind a hall full of reluctant gazes.

The Eldest Prince Wanyan He slapped Yang Xiao on the shoulder and said excitedly:

"Hearing the Grandmaster talk like that is better than me playing Go for three years. This trip was totally worth it!"

Yang Xiao gave a faint smile:

"If you could study Go under her for two years, your improvement would be even greater."

Wanyan He sighed and said:

"We don’t have that kind of luck where we’re from. I’ve heard that even the students and instructors inside the Chess Institute don’t get to see the Grandmaster every day. If you want to play a game with her, it’s extremely hard.

And besides, the Grandmaster is aloof by nature. Lots of people have offered high prices to invite her to play, and she turned them all down."

...

Su Xiao was sitting in the first row. After Chen Rong left, he stood up and muttered:

"Sigh, she talked for ages and not a single useful thing. We study Go to cultivate spiritual power—how great would it be if she’d talked about some concrete Go techniques instead of all that useless stuff. Total waste of time."

Bai Ming, standing next to Su Xiao, just looked at him speechlessly.

The next day, eight people in total—Yang Xiao, Wanyan Hong, Su Xiao, Bai Ming and the others—entered the finals. According to the rules, everyone had to play one game against each of the other seven opponents, their wins and losses recorded, and the final ranking based on the number of wins.

Because the finalists were all fairly strong, these matches were also a great chance for the other participants to watch and learn, so everyone arrived early at the competition hall to grab good seats and watch.

According to the schedule, there was one round in the morning and one in the afternoon. Each person had to face the other 7 players, so the finals would run for four days.

As for who would win the championship, the biggest favorites were Yang Xiao and Su Xiao.

Yang Xiao was the dark horse, and Su Xiao was the white horse.

Wanyan Hong and Bai Ming were both strong contenders for the top three as well, while the other four candidates were relatively weaker.

The first day of the finals went smoothly, with no surprises. Yang Xiao defeated two opponents.

On the second day, Yang Xiao again defeated two opponents.

On the morning of the third day, the opponent Yang Xiao drew was Bai Ming.

When the two had played up to the 186th move, Bai Ming resigned.

On the afternoon of the third day, Yang Xiao drew Wanyan Hong.

"Brother Yang, how about I just resign this one directly?" Wanyan Hong knew he wasn’t a match and said this to Yang Xiao.

Yang Xiao waved his hand.

"How could that be okay? Go shouldn’t be about winning and losing first. If all you think about is the result, why bother playing Go at all? Besides, don’t you want to fight for third place?"

"Third place?"

"Yeah. Yesterday, Bai Ming and Su Xiao played a game—Bai Ming lost, Su Xiao won. This morning Bai Ming lost to me again. He’s on a two-game losing streak now, while you’ve only lost once, to Su Xiao. If I let you win this one, you can overtake Bai Ming and get third place."

"Ah? Is that... is that really okay?"

Wanyan Hong was thrilled inside, but also a bit embarrassed.

As the third-place finisher in the finals, he would get three chances to play against the number one Grandmaster, at times of his own choosing. That kind of opportunity was incredibly rare.

But if Yang Xiao threw him a game, he really did feel a bit embarrassed about it.

"But Brother Yang, if you give me this game, won’t that put you at a big disadvantage when you face Su Xiao?"

"Heh, I don’t care about first place. Second is fine too."

For Yang Xiao, as long as he made it into the top three, he’d have the chance to meet Chen Rong alone, and that was enough.

As for the empty titles of first or second, he really didn’t care.

In the afternoon match, Yang Xiao deliberately lost to Wanyan Hong.

Although everyone could tell that Yang Xiao had intentionally thrown the game, there was nothing they could do about it.

Watching from the sidelines, Bai Ming was furious.

"Yang Xiao, you deliberately gave Wanyan Hong a win—what’s that supposed to mean?"

"Which eye of yours saw me deliberately give him a win? Wanyan Hong’s Go skills are very high. I’m no match for him; that’s perfectly normal!"

"You—"

Bai Ming was livid, but had no way to argue.

"Hmph, you’d better pray you don’t lose to Su Xiao tomorrow. Otherwise, with two losses, you’ll have the same record as me."

Yang Xiao smiled faintly:

"No problem. Worst case, we just play an extra tiebreaker. I’d love to experience the chess skills of Director Bai."

"Hmph, I’m not necessarily worse than you!"

"Of course. It’s not like I think I’m stronger than you."

Yang Xiao chuckled, completely unconcerned.

On the next day, Yang Xiao had only one game left, against Su Xiao.

Wanyan Hong also had one game remaining, but his opponent was much weaker than him. Barring surprises, his win rate was basically one hundred percent.

The main attraction today was the match between Yang Xiao and Su Xiao, the showdown everyone had been looking forward to for days.

If Yang Xiao won this battle, then both he and Wanyan Hong would each have only one loss and could share second place.

Since Bai Ming had lost two games, he could only rank fourth.

If Yang Xiao lost to Su Xiao, then he’d have two losses, tying Bai Ming’s record. The two of them would be joint third and would need to play a tiebreaker to decide who got third and who got fourth.

Yang Xiao and Su Xiao sat down across from each other at the board.

Su Xiao gave a cold, sinister smile and said:

"Yang Xiao, you’re the biggest dark horse of this exchange tournament. This old man truly admires your Go and your spiritual power. For our match, how about we change things up a little?"

Yang Xiao was taken aback.

"How does Director Su want to play?"

"Simple. I’ll set up a life-and-death problem, and you can choose either black or white as you like. No matter which side you pick, if you can beat me, it counts as your win. How about it?"

"A life-and-death problem?"

Yang Xiao’s heart gave a jolt. Dammit, not playing by the script at all.