Chapter 66 Seeing People Through Chess

The humming sound dissipated extremely quickly.

The old man flicked his sleeves, and the prying power deep within the Chaos retreated like a receding tide.

But he did not immediately withdraw his gaze, instead staring fixedly in that direction for a long time.

"Your time is running out."

The old man turned his head, the gravity on his face not dissipating.

"The Heavenly Dao rules of that world have begun to reject your absence. The longer you stay here, the greater the price you will pay upon returning."

Chen Yuan had not yet had time to digest the fragments of memory that had just flooded in.

Gu Ziyuan, Jie Sect, Jinao Island—

These names swirled in his mind, like reflections on the surface of water, shattering at the slightest touch.

The old man gave him no time to digest them.

With a flip of his palm, the chessboard split into four pieces.

Four chessboards hovered before Chen Yuan, the black and white pieces returning to their places on their own, and four games began simultaneously.

"One mind, four tasks." The old man's tone was three parts faster than before.

"Do you not like to calculate? Then calculate until your brain explodes. But remember—calculation is a means, not the end."

Chen Yuan did not hesitate.

He placed pieces on all four boards simultaneously.

The first board, starting at the star point.

The second board, approaching the corner at the small eye.

The third board, invading at the 3-3 point. The fourth board—

There was no time.

The old man's white pieces fell almost right against his black pieces, with all four games advancing simultaneously, each requiring independent thought and judgment.

His calculation power was torn into four parts, and none of them were enough.

The tenth move. The first board collapsed.

The fifteenth move. The third and fourth boards were both in critical condition.

His hands darted back and forth between the four chessboards, golden light flickering incessantly on his head.

The Great Dao Golden Wheel hummed, like a machine being forcibly overloaded.

The twentieth move.

He gave up.

Not giving up the game, but giving up calculating.

If his brain couldn't keep up, then he wouldn't calculate.

He casually added a piece to the first board, not looking at the result, his hand already reaching for the third board.

His move on the third board was entirely based on intuition, and he hadn't even thought about why he placed the black piece there.

Then he discovered something.

When there wasn't time to calculate, the moves he made were actually more "alive."

Those pieces placed by intuition, without the support of precise calculation, carried an indescribable agility.

Like weeds sprouting from the cracks in a rock, they grew on their own without anyone watering them.

The thirty-sixth move. The second board.

His hand paused for an instant.

His fingertips held a black piece, hovering above the chessboard.

Below was the iron wall encirclement constructed by the old man's white pieces; his black Dragon had only two liberties left, and logically, it should escape.

He did not escape.

The black piece fell in a completely unexpected position—not to save the Dragon, but to lightly tap a piece three lines behind the Dragon.

The old man's hand stopped.

That black piece was not the most precise choice.

It even had obvious flaws in calculation; the white pieces could just charge and cut to eat it all up.

But it was "alive."

The moment it landed, the three black pieces around it, which had originally been discarded, suddenly responded, deriving three completely different paths.

Each had a follow-up, and each was a new world.

The old man stared at that black piece for a long time.

"This move is the chess of a 'person'."

His voice slowed by half a beat.

"It was not calculated; it was played naturally after understanding. Do you know why you were able to make this move just now?"

Chen Yuan shook his head.

"Because you were not thinking about how to win. You were thinking—where this chess piece 'wants to go'."

This sentence was like a key, unlocking a certain door deep within his consciousness.

Images flooded in.

Not blurry sounds, but complete images.

Jinao Island. Deep in the bamboo forest. A dusty stone table with a chessboard set upon it.

He sat at the table, opposite a Taoist with an arrogant face—Long-eared Dingguang Immortal.

The Zhenlong Chess Game fell, stirring the Heavenly secrets, and his opponent was trapped within it. His magic power was drained like a receding tide, his expression changing from disdain to terror.

High-spirited. Sharp and exposed.

He was laughing.

But at the edge of the scene, he saw the faces of onlookers.

There was fear. There was awe.

There was also alienation.

A group of Jie Sect Disciples stood outside the bamboo forest, and no one stepped forward.

The way they looked at him was not like looking at a fellow Disciple, but rather like looking at an unsheathed blade.

Then he saw a pair of eyes.

Fiery. Unconvinced. Carrying anger, but more than that, curiosity.

Bixiao.

Those eyes held no fear, nor alienation. When she looked at him, she was not looking at an "expert."

She was looking at a "person."

And at that time, he hadn't cared at all.

The images shattered.

Chen Yuan's hand hovered above the third chessboard, clutching a black piece, his knuckles slightly white.

"Was I too self-righteous before?"

The old man did not answer directly.

"What you were like before, recall it yourself and then speak. I will only tell you one thing—a chess player who only knows how to calculate cannot play chess with warmth. Chess without warmth is a dead game, even if you win."

The four games continued.

The fourth game ended.

One win, three losses.

That one win was not won by calculation power.

The old man had deliberately left a gap in the middle game, a piece of white chess with only a lone stone left; killing it would have expanded his advantage.

He did not kill it.

He held back a move, letting that lone stone survive.

Then, by using the life of that piece, he in turn brought his own surrounded position back to life.

Leave a line for others, and you leave a path for yourself.

The old man smiled.

It was not the kind of smile from before that was so faint it was almost expressionless; it was a real smile. Aged, resonant, as if coming from a very distant place.

"The child is teachable."

The old man reached out and tapped the white piece that had been left on the chessboard.

"The living space on the chessboard is the karmic connection in the human world. If you kill them all, you will also be cut off."

The fifth memory fragment arrived.

A gentle smile. Yunxiao.

The sixth fragment.

Mischievous laughter, jumping over to tug at his sleeve. Qiong Xiao.

The seventh fragment—

A voice exploded from the deepest part of his memory.

Majestic, vast, and impossible to look at directly. But when it landed on him, it carried a trace of softness that was almost imperceptible.

"Ziyuan, your talent for Way of Chess is extraordinary. But remember—the Dao is before the chess, and the chess is after the person."

Tongtian Sect Leader.

These three words were like a thunderbolt striking into the Chaos.

Chen Yuan jolted violently. The Jie Sect lotus mark on his chest shone brightly.

The golden light broke through the outline of his illusory figure, dispersing the Chaos Qi within a radius of ten zhang.

Jinao Island. Biyou Palace. Shangqing Immortal Arts. Senior Brother Duobao.

Everything was accelerating its return.

His illusory figure solidified to the point of being nearly real; his facial features were clear, his brows and eyes distinct, and the layer of grey mist of Chaos in the depths of his eyes was dispersed by the golden light.

But at the very moment the light was brightest—

A voice emerged from the deepest part of his consciousness.

Very light. Very cold.

"You are not Gu Ziyuan."

The light faltered.

"Gu Ziyuan has already shed his Mortal coil. You are Chen Yuan. You are a Mortal."

The light of the lotus mark began to flicker.

"Past life and present life—who is truly you?"

The voice was not loud, but it was like a nail, driven deep into the center of his Dao Heart, which had just begun to recover.

Chen Yuan's hand stopped above the chessboard.

The black piece at his fingertips did not fall.

The old man watched him without making a sound.