Chapter 87: Make Xu Nuo Go Find Lin Ruoxuan!

The entire room was completely silent, so quiet a dropping pin could be heard.

The several professional Go players looked at each other, all seeing the unconcealable shock in each other's eyes.

O Rissei 9-dan, actually lost to a high school girl!

And gave such a high evaluation!

Parallel to Go Seigen?

This is no longer a simple praise; this is almost predicting the birth of a legend!

Massive waves also surged in Xu Nuo's heart, unable to calm down.

Won... really won! And it was a win by slaughtering a large dragon in the middle game!

This old ghost is too strong!

To actually make a former world champion wholeheartedly convinced, and even give an evaluation of "parallel to Go Seigen"!

Isn't this saying he is unparalleled through past and present?

Who exactly is he?

Maintaining calmness on the surface, she bowed slightly, her tone still flat:

"Teacher O let me win."

O Rissei waved his hand, his smile even gentler.

He gestured for Huang Minghui to take out an already prepared envelope, inside which was neatly one million Yen in cash, and handed it to her with both hands:

"Xu Nuo-san, this is what you deserve. With the peerless talent and outstanding strength you have displayed, if you continue to mingle in the amateur Go world, it is truly a bright pearl covered in dust, a reckless waste of God's gifts."

His tone became solemn,

"Have you seriously considered becoming a professional Go player? With your strength, once you enter the professional arena, you will probably be able to stir up the Go pattern of the entire world.

If you are willing, Meien-san and I can jointly act as your referrers in our personal capacities, recommending you to participate in the 'Special Adoption for Outstanding Talents' examination."

(TL: "Special Adoption for Outstanding Talents" is a real fast-track system in Japanese Go for exceptional prodigies.)

O Meien 9-dan beside him also echoed with a chuckle:

"Yes, Xu Nuo-san. Over these years, our Chinese Go players residing in Japan, even Cho U, are gradually being suppressed by Nihon's native new generation. We really need fresh blood full of aggressive spirit like you to break the deadlock and revive our prestige!"

In Nihon, there are mainly two ways to become a professional Go player:

One is to step-by-step become an insei and participate in the annual professional examination;

The other is the much harsher "Special Adoption Recommendation Go Player System for Outstanding Talents," which requires the joint recommendation of top professional Go players and passing evaluation games against current Nihon super first-class Go players like Cho U, Keigo Yamashita, etc.

O Rissei's move was undoubtedly opening a shortcut to becoming a professional for Xu Nuo.

Become a professional Go player?

Xu Nuo actually wasn't very enthusiastic internally. She felt that hiding behind the internet, galloping freely relying on code and technology, seemed freer and more fitting for her hidden path of revenge.

But she knew she needed to ask for the "behind-the-scenes big boss's" opinion.

"Teacher, what do you think?"

Xu Yunzhou's voice sounded calmly:

"Haven't you always been thinking of taking revenge on Takemiya Susumu? Becoming a professional Go player, the opportunity to approach him has come.

However, regarding the problem of your unregistered identity, don't make it public first, I'll figure out a way to solve it."

Takemiya Susumu... hearing this name, Xu Nuo felt bitter in her heart.

Because he was not Xu Nuo's true enemy. Back then, when Xu Yunzhou pressed for answers, he was just a substitute she chose casually, a facade used to cover up the truth.

Could it be... I really have to walk down step by step, even changing my life trajectory, for that hasty lie back then?

Forget it...

A trace of helpless decisiveness flashed through her heart.

Since things have come to this point, I can only hide it from Teacher first, taking it one step at a time.

Xu Nuo raised her eyes to look at O Rissei and O Meien, her gaze still cold, her tone flat, unable to hear any huge fluctuation of joy:

"Thank you very much for Teacher O's high regard and profound love. However, becoming a professional Go player is a major decision concerning my life path. I need some time to consider it seriously and discuss it with my family, is that okay?"

O Rissei nodded understandingly, the appreciation in his eyes even greater. Not arrogant or rash, able to hold her composure, a good seedling!

"Of course you can, it should be so. I look forward to seeing your figure in the professional arena not long from now. Presumably, you will definitely bring an inspiring new breeze to the Go world that has been silent for a long time!"

O Meien also smiled and joined in the fun:

"Xu Nuo-san, I wonder if this old man has the honor today to also ask you to instruct me in a game? We'll also follow your rules, a koden of one million Yen!"

For top Go players like them, during the peak of their professional careers, their annual income easily approaches a hundred million Yen, sometimes even breaking a hundred million. This bit of prize money is indeed nothing.

It's just that, these words coming from a long-famous veteran 9-dan, and the object of them being a teenage girl... the scene was truly somewhat absurd.

It made the expressions of the several professional Go players watching beside them weird, yet they had nothing to say—after all, in the Go world, strength is respected, and that game just now already explained everything.

What was fatal was that Xu Nuo just nodded calmly. Without the slightest bit of humble declining that an ordinary junior should have, she directly responded:

"Okay."

Someone is rushing to give me money, do I have to hypocritically stop them? What she lacks is exactly money!

The ending had no suspense.

After O Meien 9-dan helplessly cast his stones and admitted defeat, the atmosphere at the scene could no longer be described as subtle; it was simply bizarre.

At this time, another old man who had been sitting in the corner all along slowly stood up.

As soon as he moved, even O Rissei subconsciously straightened his back.

This person's background was even fiercer. He was O Rissei's senior fellow apprentice, the Mount Tai and North Star of an even older generation in the Go world, Rin Kaiho 9-dan!

"Little friend Xu Nuo,"

Rin Kaiho's voice was vigorous,

"This old man... also wants to learn from you."

"!!!"

The entire room completely solidified.

Ultimately, under the numbness of everyone's worldviews being repeatedly refreshed, and the complex gazes looking at a "non-human monster," Xu Nuo carried the massive sum of three million Yen on her back and calmly left.

Walking on the bustling street, Xu Nuo gazed into the distance at the red Edo Tower towering into the clouds, the setting sun plating it with a layer of warm golden light.

(TL: Edo Tower clearly refers to Tokyo Tower.)

She couldn't help but ask softly in her sea of consciousness:

"Teacher, why... are you able to be so strong?"

Xu Yunzhou laughed, his laughter carrying the superiority of mastering core technology:

"The answer, actually you should have thought of it. Remember? Over a month ago, Google's AI 'AlphaGo' crushed the European champion Fan Hui 5-0. And the technology I master... is several generations higher than that first-generation AlphaGo.

Using this kind of weapon from the future to deal with current human Go players is naturally a dimensional strike, a piece of cake."

Xu Nuo suddenly understood, muttering:

"So that's how it is... technology, really can change and even conquer everything."

Xu Yunzhou's voice carried encouragement and planning:

"Mhm, next you properly prepare a bit, get ready to welcome your new life. Tomorrow we will set off for Kyoto. When I help you completely solve your identity problem, you can openly and honorably move out of that hellhole and begin a brand-new life belonging to 'Xu Nuo'.

When the time comes, I will teach you everything I know, as long as you want to learn, without reservation."

"Okay, Teacher..."

Xu Nuo responded, immediately feeling a trace of doubt again,

"It's just I don't quite understand, why do we have to specifically go to Kyoto?"

"Relying on technological means to solve identity ultimately cannot withstand deep investigation by interested parties; it's easy to be exposed.

In Kyoto... I have an old friend, our relationship is not shallow, we can go find her for help."

Xu Yunzhou was referring exactly to Lin Ruoxuan.

He remembered Lin Ruoxuan pouring her heart out to him in various ways today. She said she searched for him like crazy these past few years, walking through all the places they "together" went to.

Sitting until dawn under the starry sky of Dunhuang, almost freezing stiff on a snowy night in the Alps, kneeling for a long time without getting up in front of the Abu Simbel temples...

She said, just because back then when he was in Kyoto, he casually praised "the decoration of that ice cream shop is quite chic."

She actually really tracked down the heir of that century-old shop through multiple twists and turns and bought the whole thing.

What was even sillier was that she stubbornly demanded everything in the shop be maintained in its original state.

The wood grain of the bar counter, the ukiyo-e replicas on the wall, even the pruning angle of the maple tree outside the window... every single detail had to be frozen in the afternoon of early 2010, frozen in the instant he "existed."

Truly a... thorough fool.

Xu Yunzhou sighed at the bottom of his heart.

The current Lin Ruoxuan—at the end of 2015, after years of intervention and conditioning by a top medical team, her mental state had tended toward stability.

Then contacting her through the people in that shop, and asking her to utilize some resources to solve a "legal identity" problem for Xu Nuo, should be as easy as turning over a hand.