The Huaihe Cup Women's Go Championship
Before my mind could even catch up with the situation, sharp teeth tore into the skin of my lip.
The faint taste of blood and the searing pain snapped my consciousness wide awake.
I wanted to tear that detestable face apart. I wanted to twist that smiling expression into something ugly.
With my current strength, I could not change the outcome of this game. I knew that fact down to the bone, and that was exactly what made the humiliation burn so much hotter.
What enraged me even more was that they treated Go as nothing more than a means to an end. That ugliness — shunning any fierce struggle, coveting only the fruit of victory — made my stomach turn.
Fine. Let them take today's win. But I would carve into them, deep and unforgettable, exactly what kind of suffering a victory like that demands.
The emotional brain, hands clamped around the wheel of my thoughts, gripped it hard and floored the accelerator. Driven like this, I would crash before ever making the corner. But emotion is good fuel — and an emotion this blazing, all the more so.
Don't fight it.
Don't try to steer it.
Simply help it along, so it travels well.
Think. The stones in my hand. My emotions right now had no intention of picking and choosing their methods. The time available for thought was limited, and my body was a wreck. What was the best course of action I could take?
I had two styles of play carved into me. One I knew so thoroughly it lived in my marrow — comfortable, efficient, and utterly without innovation. It did not improve. So I had deliberately split it apart, refusing to be swept along by inertia. I abandoned efficiency and pursued discomfort.
Shin Changmo's Go was wrong. Ryu Seoa's Go would be wrong too. But if it could be less wrong, that was enough. There is no correct answer in Go. Perhaps not even an artificial intelligence that had reached godlike heights on the board could ever arrive at one. Little by little, a little less wrong each time — that is how the Go world must advance, forever.
And so Ryu Seoa's Go meant finding a compromise within the Go of Shin Changmo — a style that had, at the very least, been good enough to win international titles — and reaching for something new within it. Innovation does not always spring in a good direction, so improvement could never be guaranteed, and hunting for that compromise cost extra time and mental energy. Unfamiliar, it reacted slowly and was at times inconsistent. Unoptimized, it was full of gaps and wasted motions.
Yet I embraced every one of those flaws and kept forging a style that was Ryu Seoa's alone — because discomfort and pain were the only means that had ever led to development and growth.
But with only my remaining focus and thinking power available, there was no reason to stubbornly keep doing what I had always done.
I tightened my resolve and took up the sword I had let fall from my hand. I thought of how to strike, with the smallest possible movement, where it would hurt the most.
Shin Changmo's Go had once been the strongest in the world. Now that the Go world had advanced less far than it would in his time, it would be stronger still.
Time remaining: 59 minutes. Five periods of one-minute byo-yomi. Enough. More than enough.
To a professional player, time is precious. More is always welcome, but more than necessary is never needed. A professional's reading speed is faster than an amateur could imagine — reading ninety percent of the variations in five minutes, or ninety-five percent in ten, or grinding for hours until one hundred percent converges. The meaningful difference between them is nil. What matters is decision. Among the many choices that all look good, which do you choose? Quick decisions demand less time; slow decisions demand more.
In that respect, Shin Changmo possessed a remarkably firm system of judgment — swift and bold, and in most cases correct.
The limits of the body. Part of my consciousness wailed, begging to abandon this pointless exercise and rest — but a pure, blazing emotion that kept burning even with my mind scorched hollow kept my spine ramrod straight.
None of my moves held any brilliant secret technique. I had neither the leisure nor the spirit to search for one. Shin Changmo does not rely on dazzling brilliance. His victories never needed it. Upright, orthodox moves — by endlessly stacking up correct plays to the point of tedium, victory is seized.
Thinking along the grooves of habit and instinct, the sensitivity at my fingertips only sharpened as time flowed, chasing the Go that befitted Shin Changmo's conviction.
My opponent wavers, but I do not. My opponent shrinks, but I am unchanged. My opponent is thrown this way and that, but I remain detached.
A kind of sword dance repeated until it sickened — supple and unhurried, yet relentless. The keen edge of the blade draws closer and closer to my opponent's throat.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Hui Yun, 5-dan, looked at the girl before her.
Blood traced along the girl's jawline and dripped, drop by drop. But the girl paid it no mind, her gaze fixed only on the board.
The smallest presence among everyone gathered here — yet radiating the most overwhelming aura of any of them.
It had been a long time since anyone could bear to meet the girl's grey eyes. To confront those sharp pupils, like staring into a fathomless abyss, felt as though it would shred one's mind to ribbons.
"Hnngh…."
Her breath caught. Breathing was an ordeal.
How had it come to this?
The provocation. This was immediately after Hui Yun, 5-dan, had played it.
Ryu Seoa, 1-dan — a girl who, despite being younger, drew more attention in some circles than Hui Yun herself. It had grated on her, this brat barely past ten years old making a name for herself from her very first tournament.
Unlike Hui Yun, who had climbed her way up by defeating Lee Na-ye, 9-dan — the tournament's de facto strongest player and the favorite to win it all — Ryu Seoa, 1-dan, had advanced past a European amateur and Cheng Meiliang, 4-dan of Taiwan, whose form swung wildly from day to day. The only genuine opponent she'd faced was Tsugaru Nonoha, 5-dan.
As if to prove she'd simply gotten lucky, Ryu Seoa's Go had been dreadful. So, in the spirit of mockery, Hui Yun had playfully dropped a single stone to provoke the girl.
The clack of stone on wood, and the smell of blood spreading through the air.
She'd wanted to make the girl furious, and by the looks of it, she had succeeded spectacularly. The girl already looked unwell; if she lost her composure mentally as well, the championship was as good as Hui Yun's. And watching an overhyped brat disgrace herself and crumble would be a bonus on top.
Hui Yun, 5-dan, met the girl's gaze with a smile brimming at her lips.
Well then. What will you do?
Hui Yun had used barely thirty minutes of her clock. An hour and a half remained, plus five one-minute byo-yomi periods. The girl, by contrast, had already burned through more than twice that.
If anything, Hui Yun thought, she hoped the girl would thrash with all her might. The more she struggled, the more wretched her defeat would become — and the more nakedly the gulf in their skill would be laid bare.
After ten minutes of deliberation, the girl's move came: an ordinary play. Measured against that murderous glare, it was remarkably unaggressive.
Hui Yun examined the girl's move with mild curiosity and answered with a suitable response. The instant her hand left the board, Ryu Seoa, 1-dan, placed her stone. Ordinary again — but perfectly balanced, a move with nothing to fault.
Her winning position was already secured, so there was no reason to get dragged into the girl's no-time psychological warfare. Hui Yun, 5-dan, unhurriedly spent her clock as she replied.
Ryu Seoa's turn. No time spent again.
As this cycle repeated, their remaining time crept toward parity.
Ryu Seoa, 1-dan's Go was unmistakably different from before. No gaps. No weaknesses. Perfectly consistent. Devoid of flair or finesse, yet so efficient that a closer look drew gasps of admiration.
Then the girl stopped playing instantly and began to spend her time. Each move landed with the ponderous weight of a blunt hammer blow.
The advantage still belonged to Hui Yun, 5-dan. But she could feel her composure steadily slipping away.
Her opponent's reading had caught up with hers long ago. Hui Yun was spending twice as long to answer each move — and even so, the losses kept piling up, one after another.
She had never felt this even against Lee Na-ye, 9-dan, at full strength. Never known this kind of pressure, even against male professionals. This was something she had never faced before — something a tier above.
But it had to be an illusion. Once she steadied her mind, the moves would come into focus again.
"Kkh…."
The girl's hammering did not stop. Neither excessive nor weak — a perfectly constant force. But at a tempo terrifying in its speed.
That was when the suffocating feeling began. If she wanted to win from here, she could not stop. She had to keep thinking, keep thinking — but the process had become pure torment.
This had been a game she could have won playing at half effort, cruise-control easy. Why it had turned into this, she could not understand.
Clack.
And Ryu Seoa, 1-dan, did not grant her even the luxury of a stray thought.
Her breathing was so labored it neared asphyxiation. She gulped great lungfuls of air and forced her thoughts onward, chasing the girl's intent. Fully understanding it within the time given was impossible. But she had to minimize the damage, somehow, however she could.
She had once held an overwhelming lead in her hand. If she could just keep thinking, victory was assured.
"One, two, three…."
When she came back to herself, she was buried in byo-yomi. A pressure that made her want to vomit. The problems Ryu Seoa, 1-dan, posed were ones that could never be solved within a single minute.
How many moves were left? How much longer did she have to hold on before this game ended?
At some point, Hui Yun, 5-dan, found herself longing not for victory, but simply for the game to be over.
Hyperventilation set in. Her vision blurred at the edges. What kept her upright was the last shabby scrap of pride she had left. Tears welled up from the agony — she could no longer even judge the position, could no longer tell who was winning.
The endgame drew to its close.