As this game reached its final moments, Wei Yuan suddenly played two terrible blunders in a row. Just when the tide was about to turn, Monk Qiuyue was visibly displeased and said sternly, "The way of Go lies in sincerity, in an upright heart and true intent! Throwing the match like this is simply outrageous! This poor monk concedes!"
Monk Qiuyue then cast aside his stones and resigned.
Stunned, Wei Yuan could only admit his fault and promise that he would give his all from then on. Only then did Monk Qiuyue's expression soften slightly, after which he silently chanted sutras, deeply repenting for the crisis in his Zen mind moments ago.
Wei Yuan finally realized that holding back before a national grandmaster like this was tantamount to pointing at their nose in open provocation.
Yet deep down, Wei Yuan felt a small touch of grievance. He truly hadn't yielded intentionally just now; those two moves were simply his genuine skill, roughly enough to trade blow for blow with True Monarch Xuanyue.
With that match concluded, Mister Chenzhou stepped up to take his place.
Mister Chenzhou's Go was entirely different. His style shifted unpredictably: at times solid and profound, at times ethereal and fleeting; sometimes imbued with transcendent celestial grace, and sometimes bursting with worldly vibrancy. It centered above all on limitless variation and following his heart's whim.
Wei Yuan's board shape finally looked a bit more respectable. His placements were consistently surprising, yet upon deeper reflection seemed quite sound.
As the game progressed, Mister Chenzhou's expression grew increasingly solemn. He could already feel the pressure. Wei Yuan clearly played a cluster of unreasonable moves, yet pieced together, they pressed down so heavily that Chenzhou could barely breathe.
Several times he tried to bait Wei Yuan into a blunder, even deliberately yielding vital points to Wei Yuan, but Wei Yuan remained unmoved. You play yours; I'll play mine.
In this match, both sides played like lightning. Drenched in sweat, Wei Yuan was forced to manifest a red beam of light above his head to vent the heat.
Within Ten Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains, the mortals had already exceeded a hundred thousand. Moreover, within Qingming, large numbers of Xu family youths and sacrificial offerings were being urgently sent to sleep, while several follow-up main forces were also pulled back into the barracks to stand on standby.
The board in this game was locked in an intense stalemate, each side gripping the other with vice-like tenacity. Watching from the side, True Monarch Xuanyue felt his blood boil. He knew every move was brilliant, yet had no idea why it was brilliant, wishing he could take their place on the board while itching to blurt out a word or two of guidance.
Swept up in excitement, True Monarch Xuanyue grabbed Seventh Elder and said, "Little Qi, come, come, come! Let the two of us have a match."
Seventh Elder did not fear him in the least, saying coldly, "Old Thief Chunqiu, playing with you will only drag down the floor of my Go skills. If you can't understand this game, don't disturb my viewing. Go stand to the side!"
True Monarch Xuanyue was furious, yet could not lash out. It was not that he feared the Bao family, but that he took Bao Yun into consideration. As the saying went, love me, love my dog—the True Monarch now looked upon Bao Yun as his very own granddaughter.
Seeing that Seventh Elder was about to utter more insolence, True Monarch Xuanyue waved a broad hand and summoned Bao Yun. The words "Old Thief Chunqiu" in Seventh Elder's mouth were swallowed right back down.
Seventh Elder went back to watching the game, so Xuan Yue had no choice but to pull Bao Yun into a match. Bao Yun, for her part, handled it with effortless ease—one moment letting Xuan Yue suffer a narrow defeat, the next letting him scrape a hard-fought victory. This greatly inflamed Old Thief Chunqiu's enthusiasm for the way of Go, convincing him that he possessed quite a natural talent for it and had merely neglected to put in the hard practice.
On the other side, the match between Mister Chenzhou and Wei Yuan had reached the very endgame. Wei Yuan played airtight, and the half-point margin between them could not be bridged no matter what. In the end, Mister Chenzhou was defeated.
The next game fell once more to Monk Qiuyue, while Chenzhou sat beside them with closed eyes in deep contemplation, reviewing the previous match.
Having played one game against Wei Yuan and watched another, Monk Qiuyue now felt full of confidence. His opening strategy shifted, exhausting every possible variation; within his moves, one could glimpse traces of world-renowned matches such as the Rotted Ax Handle Game, the Blood-Vomiting Manual, and the Path to Ascend Heaven.
This game reached a standard Monk Qiuyue had never attained in his life, and the more he played, the more pleased he felt. But suddenly, Wei Yuan completely ignored a group of stones locked in brutal combat and dashed off to place a stone in the corner before returning to resume the fray.
These moves made the monk's face turn green and his Zen mind fracture, stirring an urge to scold.
Monk Qiuyue forced down his fury and launched a fierce assault on that group of Wei Yuan's stones, determined to teach Wei Yuan what a colossal blunder it was to dare play elsewhere during a game against him.
Monk Qiuyue's personal state of mind was exceptionally profound; it was only over the Go board that maintaining composure proved difficult—his last lingering flaw.
Both sides continued to slaughter each other with heads down, leaving Mister Chenzhou watching with a solemn expression, while Seventh Elder fretted one moment and gnashed his teeth the next. The flames of battle soon spread from one corner across the entire board, drawing steadily closer to the stone Wei Yuan had played away from the fight.
Monk Qiuyue's hand suddenly froze in midair, his entire body rigid. A moment later, cold sweat poured down in sheets!
Only now did he realize that no matter how he played, he could not bypass that stone Wei Yuan had placed elsewhere. The path ahead was completely cut off!
Could this stone have been laid with such far-reaching foresight?
Monk Qiuyue could not bring himself to drop his stone no matter what. Seventh Elder looked perplexed, having thought of several responses and feeling that things couldn't possibly be so difficult.
True Monarch Xuanyue was in high spirits as he traded moves with Bao Yun, hooting and hollering as though engaged in a battle beyond the heavens against a peerless opponent.
At this moment, Mister Chenzhou suddenly sighed. "The game is decided. Why cling to it?"
Monk Qiuyue experienced a sudden awakening. His spiritual terrace became crystal clear, and he promptly threw down his stones in resignation.
Seventh Elder was dumbfounded, unable to understand how he had lost when Monk Qiuyue clearly held the upper hand on the board.
Mister Chenzhou said slowly, "This is a world-renowned masterwork!"
What none of them knew, however, was that the move just now hadn't been calculated by mortals at all. Rather, Maiden Yin-Yang had used the method of karmic luck to divine that karmic luck was densest at that spot, and so a stone had been played there.
The next game fell to Mister Chenzhou again, producing yet another rare master game. Mister Chenzhou was suppressed across the entire board and resigned in the mid-game.
Several games passed. Within Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, the fundamental method by which mortals deduced the Go board had been overhauled three times, while also being optimized multiple times specifically against Qiuyue's and Chenzhou's playing habits. By now, the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World was entirely different from when the matches began.
Maiden Yin-Yang was steadily revealing terrifying potential; by now, her deduction speed was not the least bit inferior to that of a True Monarch. Spurred on by her, several great immortal plants also began to improve. The spirituality of the entire Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World climbed steadily.
Chenzhou fell back in defeat, and Qiuyue took over. Qiuyue was bested, and Chenzhou stepped in.
In the blink of an eye, they reached the seventh match. Qiuyue and Chenzhou had suffered six consecutive losses, so starting from this game, the two joined forces.
Once they joined forces, the situation shifted abruptly.
Wei Yuan played at the 3-3 point, and Mister Chenzhou directly attached a stone right against it. Both sides began fighting fiercely from the very start straight to the end. Then Qiuyue and Chenzhou fell into a dispute over how a certain move should be played. Neither willing to yield, they fetched another board; each played Wei Yuan according to his own move, and both ended up defeated.
After three such chaotic games, they arrived at the tenth match.
In the tenth game, the playing style shifted abruptly. Wei Yuan still played here and there, consistently using moves not found in any game record, but all aggressive, suffocating killing intent had vanished. His placements were as placid as water, sluggishly accumulating a tiny advantage, which he then maintained in utter tranquility until the end of the game.
Mister Chenzhou and Monk Qiuyue looked ashen. Throughout the entire match, they hadn't held even half a chance of victory. At this point, the two finally understood: their Go skill was simply no longer on the same level.
There was no longer any need to play further; the match concluded here.
Mister Chenzhou stood and bowed deeply to Wei Yuan, saying, "To witness the entire process of a Go Immortal descending to the mortal realm and undergoing rebirth through nirvana today is truly a grand event for the contemporary Go world, as well as Gu's great fortune. Upon my return, I shall compile these games into a manual for future generations to admire!"
Monk Qiuyue likewise bowed deeply and said, "In learning there is no precedence; the accomplished is teacher. This poor monk has benefited immensely from these ten matches, and my state of mind has found completion. It is only fitting that I address you as Mister."
Wei Yuan was stunned. Never in his wildest dreams had he expected such high praise. Hadn't things gotten a bit out of hand?
After all, his true Go ability was merely slightly better than his ancestral master's; he couldn't beat any player with a known reputation.
Seventh Elder was also shocked, never imagining these games had reached such heights—Go that he could not understand in the slightest.
And to put it in terms from the world beyond the heavens, True Monarch Xuanyue had originally prepared a bellyful of words to mock Chenzhou and Monk Qiuyue, but seeing them in such a state, he felt embarrassed to speak them.
The plume of flame spurting continuously above Wei Yuan's head only now began to slowly die down. Within Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, a full two hundred thousand mortals had been mobilized; though exhausted to the bone, every single one of them had experienced a tremendous elevation.
The ten matches against Chenzhou and Monk Qiuyue had squeezed out all the potential of the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World. At this moment, its spirituality was seething, having already completed a good fraction of the dharma idol's Spirit Nurturing Realm.
Afterward, these ten games were compiled into a Go manual. The first three games of this manual still contained flaws and oversights, retaining much worldly flavor, but in the subsequent six games, slack or sluggish moves vanished almost entirely. Every single game was magnificent beyond compare, hailed as the peak of what mortal players could ever achieve.
Yet the tenth game was completely distinct: every stone was placid, yet every stone was icy cold, untouched by worldly sentiment—like an immortal looking down upon the mortal world. It was no longer Go that normal mortals could play, transcending the mundane to enter the sacred.
When all ten games were placed together, the world saw the entire process of a Go Immortal breaking from the cocoon to become a butterfly, descending gracefully upon the mortal world.
Because the shapes in these ten games were mostly rigid and ugly, it was named the Scribbles Manual, drawing upon the imagery of a young child doodling freely with natural innocence, prompting a reconsideration of all previous standards for evaluating Go shapes. From then on, it stood alongside the Rotted Ax Handle Game and the Blood-Vomiting Manual as world-renowned masterworks.
That, however, is a tale for later.
Chapter 441