Chapter 64 One Wrong Move, Past Lives Like a Dream

In Chaos, there is no sunrise or sunset.

Chen Yuan did not know how much time had passed.

Ten days, a hundred days, or a thousand days—in this place where even time was too lazy to flow, counting was itself a joke.

He only knew that he had played many games of Go.

So many that he could no longer remember how many rounds he had lost; he only remembered that he had never won.

However, his illusory figure had indeed changed.

The initial cluster of light and mist, so blurred it was almost transparent, had now condensed into a complete human form.

Facial features emerged from the Chaos, their outlines gradually becoming distinct—a lean face, thin lips, and a pair of quiet eyes beneath the brow bones.

It was as if Chaos had acknowledged his existence, allowing him to possess a face within this void.

The old man sat cross-legged on the opposite side of the board and glanced at him.

“Today, we’ll play a different way.”

The old man reached into the stone jar and scooped, bringing out all the black stones and holding them in his palm.

With another flip, his palm was full of white stones.

The black stones in Chen Yuan's jar also changed color.

All white.

The black stones were gone.

“You and I will use the same color,” the old man said, pushing the white stones back into the jar.

“There are no enemies. In this round, you play against yourself.”

Chen Yuan remained silent for three breaths.

White against white. Every stone placed on the same board...

...was his own. With no offense or defense, no life or death struggle, then what was there to play?

He picked up a white stone and placed it on a star point.

The second move.

His hand hovered over the board and stopped.

The opponent was also white. Where should he move?

Whose territory should he surround? Whose corner should he attack?

Subconsciously, he wanted to cut, to set up formations, to construct a seamless sequence of moves—

Then he realized that all those instincts pointed toward the same enemy.

Himself.

Every optimal move he placed down was negating the optimal move of the previous step.

His left hand fought his right, trapping himself in a dead end.

The tenth move. His formation was in disarray.

The twentieth move. The white stones on the board were completely disorganized, like a heap of loose sand.

The thirtieth move. He stopped and stared at the endgame before him, suddenly realizing something.

He hadn't lost to the old man.

He had lost to that voice in his head—

The voice that was screaming every moment to win, that he must win, that this move could win.

That voice was too loud.

So loud that every stone he placed was not playing the game, but proving 'I can win.'

He closed his eyes.

The thirty-first move.

The touch of his fingertips on the stone was cold. He didn't think about the next move.

Nor did he think about the state of the board ten moves later.

He just... became quiet for a moment.

That voice was still screaming. Win. Must win. If I don't win, there's no meaning.

He ignored it.

The white stone fell.

No offense, no defense. No surrounding, no blocking. It simply landed in a 'comfortable' place.

The thirty-second move, the thirty-third move... he began to place them down one by one.

With every stone placed, that voice insisting on winning grew a bit quieter.

By the fiftieth move, the voice was almost inaudible.

By the eightieth move.

He opened his eyes.

On the board, the white stones had somehow arranged themselves into a perfectly natural shape—

Two fish linked head to tail, with a curved line in the middle dividing the board in two.

Taiji.

No one had taught him how to arrange it. No one had told him where to place the stones.

But the white stones had formed this pattern on their own.

The Qi of Yin and Yang rose from the board, circulating naturally where the black and white were distinct.

The feeling wasn't that he had arranged it, but rather that it had grown out of the board itself.

The old man's fingers tapped twice lightly on his knee.

“You just did something.”

Chen Yuan looked up.

“You let go of winning.”

The old man's tone was as flat as if he were saying the buns at the neighboring stall had gone up by two cents.

“That is why the board was willing to let you see its true form.”

The moment he finished speaking.

A surge of intense pain hit.

It wasn't physical pain—he didn't have a body to begin with.

It was as if a door deep within his consciousness had been kicked open, and a gale blew in, carrying fragmented images.

A cliff. Sea breeze. A lonely island.

A young man wearing the Daoist robes of a Jiejiao Outer Sect Disciple sat by the cliff's edge.

He held a black stone in his hand, staring blankly at the boundless sea. His Daoist robes were washed out to a pale color, and his cuffs were frayed.

Footsteps came from behind the cliff wall, and a gentle male voice rang out:

“Junior Brother Gu, why are you here alone again?”

The youth didn't turn around; he popped the black stone into his mouth and mumbled something.

The voice was unclear, but the tone was lazy, carrying a hint of lighthearted laughter.

The image shattered.

Chen Yuan froze on his prayer mat.

Those three words were still echoing in his ears.

“Junior Brother Gu.”

Gu—

His surname was Gu?

Chen Yuan suddenly raised his hand, his illusory fingers clutching tightly—but they grabbed nothing.

The image had already dissipated, like sand slipping through his fingers.

But that black Go stone the youth had held in his mouth, he remembered it.

He remembered it very clearly.

He could even feel the temperature of the stone resting on the tip of his tongue—it was cold.

“Is my... surname Gu?” His voice was somewhat hoarse.

The old man glanced up at him.

“You are not yet worthy of knowing who you are.”

The words were blunt. However, the old man's gaze lingered on his face for an extra moment, as if confirming something.

“Continue.”

The board was cleared. The black and white stones returned to their places.

Chen Yuan took a deep breath—even though he didn't actually need to breathe—

Forcibly suppressing the surging emotions in his heart, he picked up a black stone.

But from this move onward, his play changed.

It wasn't an earth-shattering change.

It was the kind of change that seeped out from the marrow of his bones.

His placements were no longer so tight.

In his previous games, every move was as if he wanted to nail it into the board, pressing hard at every step, leaving no room for air.

Now, he would intentionally leave some gaps in his formations.

Not flaws.

But breathing room.

Like the negative space between strokes in calligraphy; what is left unwritten is harder than what is written.

The old man noticed.

His white stones suddenly became fierce, each move more ruthless than the last, like a predator retracting the fur from its claws.

Within thirty moves, he slaughtered two of Chen Yuan's large Dragons; by forty moves, he cut off three of his retreat paths; by fifty, he ground his strategic stones into fragments.

Chen Yuan was beaten into a steady retreat.

But he didn't collapse.

Every time he was pushed into a corner, he could find a crack within the breathing room he had reserved.

It wasn't enough to turn the tables, but it was enough to stay alive.

The captured stones were dead. The stones that lived were still breathing on the board.

The ninetieth move.

The old man finished the game and looked up at him.

“Do you know where you have improved?”

Chen Yuan shook his head.

“Before, when you lost, the board was empty—not a single stone remained.”

The old man reached out and drew a circle on the board, encompassing the surviving black stones.

“Now when you lose, something of yours still remains on the board.”

“This is called preserving the Dao in defeat.”

The old man's tone was indifferent, as if he were speaking of a very minor matter.

“Losing a game doesn't matter. It is only when nothing is left after losing that it is a true defeat.”

Chen Yuan lowered his head to look at the board.

The surviving black stones were scattered in small groups; some occupied a corner alone.

Some huddled together; they had lost, but they were still there.

He suddenly felt that these stones were not like stones.

They were like people.

Staying on the board meant staying in the world. Only by remaining can one have the right to turn the tables.

The moment this thought crossed his consciousness—the third fragment came.

This time it wasn't an image. It was a sound.

Three voices came from the depths of Chaos, as if they had traveled through untold ages to reach his ears.

The first voice was gentle and steady, carrying the tolerance of an elder sister:

“Ziyuan, you forgot to take your medicine again.”

The second voice was fiery and pungent, exploding like a firecracker by his ear:

“Gu Ziyuan! If you dare to sneak out to play Go by yourself again, I'll break your legs!”

The third voice was soft and sweet, with a mischievous laugh:

“Senior Brother Ziyuan—I've hidden your Go stones! Come and find me~”

The three voices overlapped and intertwined; their faces were unclear, but their laughter was brighter than any light in the Chaos.

Chen Yuan's chest ached.

It wasn't physical pain. It was deeper.

The string at the very bottom of his Soul was plucked by something, vibrating so hard that his entire consciousness trembled.

He lowered his head.

On his illusory chest, a mark was slowly emerging.

A lotus flower.

The petals were blurred and the edges flickered, as if a brand carved into the depths of his Soul had been partially awakened.

The old man's gaze fell upon that lotus flower.

It lingered for a moment.

“The Jiejiao Lotus Seal.”

His voice was very soft, devoid of emotion.

But the stone in his hand spun three times before he set it down.

“You, child, have quite a few attachments.”

Chen Yuan looked up at him. His lips moved as if he wanted to ask something, but in the end, he didn't.

He couldn't say who those three voices belonged to.

But he knew—they were waiting for him.

In some place he couldn't remember, someone was waiting for him to return.

The moment this thought emerged, the Chaos seemed to warm by half a degree.

...

At the same moment.

Thousands of miles away, in the backyard of the Chen Manor in Zhaoge.

Chen Yuan's Physical Body lay on a bamboo couch, his face pale and his breathing as long and thin as silk.

Yunxiao sat kneeling by the couch, her left hand covering his pulse point.

Immortal power flowed into his Meridians like gossamer threads, maintaining the vitality of this empty shell.

She had maintained this posture for seven days.

Bixiao walked in from outside, her face grim.

“Sister, I’ve scoured every inch within three hundred miles. There’s no sign of Chi Jingzi. That dog has run off.”

Yunxiao did not answer.

Qiong Xiao squatted on the doorstep, her chin resting on her hand, her eyes red.

“Sister, can he still come back?”

Yunxiao's fingertips tightened slightly.

“He can.”

She didn't explain why.

But beneath her palm covering Chen Yuan's pulse point...

...a very faint lotus pattern was flickering on his skin.

That was the Soul Protection Seal she had personally planted.

At this moment, that lotus was glowing.