When Qin Shu sat down in front of that unnecessarily extravagant golden Go board, he originally assumed Lord Zhaoyuan had simply grown bored and wanted someone to accompany him in a little recreation.
At the time, he could never have imagined that playing Go with Lord Zhaoyuan would continue for an entire month before reaching a conclusion.
Qin Shu had never learned Go at all, and very few of his close friends truly knew how to play either. After all, the terrifying experts at Jiangcheng No. 2 High School who could actually enter Go competitions generally did not move in the same circles as someone as energetic as him.
So the first time Qin Shu lost to Lord Zhaoyuan, it took only two stones and five minutes.
Four of those minutes were spent by Qin Shu stalling desperately while thinking as hard as he could, only to think himself absolutely nowhere.
Lord Zhaoyuan was studying an ancient endgame record. It was fairly interesting, but unfortunately not particularly friendly to Qin Shu. His first loss and his tenth loss happened at almost the same speed.
Originally, the black and white stones battling across the golden board had been evenly matched, neither side yielding. The moment the black stones entered Qin Shu’s hands, however, they began scampering helplessly left and right, looking around in confusion before being beaten into complete disarray.
Qin Shu lost so badly that his competitive spirit ignited, and he completely forgot about Xuanming for the moment. First he undid the heavy cloak he had been wearing for appearances, then removed the golden hair crown that had been tugging uncomfortably at his scalp and tossed it somewhere out of sight. He rolled up his sleeves. Again.
Lord Zhaoyuan would not answer Qin Shu’s question, but he would pour tea for him and teach him how to play. Every time Qin Shu lost, Lord Zhaoyuan generously pointed out where he had gone wrong, then leisurely restored the board to its original configuration.
Qin Shu could tell Lord Zhaoyuan experienced no pleasure from winning. He still wore that unreadable expression. Perhaps he had another purpose.
On the second day, Qin Shu could survive for half an hour before losing.
He still lost horribly and became so exhausted he wanted to fall asleep on the spot, but Lord Zhaoyuan’s assessment of his comprehension was fairly high. He said Qin Shu learned quickly and was quite intelligent.
Praise. Qin Shu immediately felt a surge of adrenaline. His previous plan to shamelessly beg for a rest vanished without a trace, and he sat up at once, drank tea, and demanded another round.
By the second week, one game between them could last an entire day.
When their battles stretched late into the night, even Lord Zhaoyuan would pause to think. It was no longer a one-man performance from Qin Shu.
The third week…
For an entire week, they became trapped inside a single impossibly long game. Before placing any stone, they measured their thinking time in hours. Neither could find a way to end it early.
Qin Shu did not win, but Lord Zhaoyuan did not win either. They had forcibly created an unsolvable draw.
“…What do we do now?” Qin Shu reached over, picked up a bunch of grapes from the tea table, and swallowed the entire cluster at once, stem and all.
The enormous expenditure of energy and mental effort had left him completely incapable of caring about etiquette or personal image.
Lord Zhaoyuan did not care anyway. Once, after losing so badly that Qin Shu almost collapsed, he had climbed onto Lord Zhaoyuan’s enormous head and refused to come down for half a day. Lord Zhaoyuan had even conjured a soft blanket and gently draped it over him.
Today, however, Lord Zhaoyuan’s mood seemed slightly different. He did not immediately answer Qin Shu’s question. After a moment of silence, he breathed out a cloud that shattered the brilliant golden board into pieces.
“So that is the answer.”
“Mm?” Qin Shu had already started eating lychees, looking as though he wanted to stuff his entire mouth full.
“There is no possibility for Black to win this endgame. You cannot win. A draw is the only solution, and the best solution. Every other path is a dead end.”
Lord Zhaoyuan murmured softly, conjured a fresh pot of spirit tea, and placed it before Qin Shu. Then he continued, “I do not like this solution. But you have already done everything possible. If you cannot win, then you cannot win. The middle path is not unacceptable. At least it leaves a road to survival… Now you may ask what you wished to ask.”
“Mm… wait. Zhaozhao, are you using this game for divination? Something like observing the future movement of the Heavenly Dao? If so, why was I the one playing Black? Does assigning the roles mean something?”
Qin Shu stopped eating and forcibly swallowed the lychee in his mouth, then looked thoughtful. “You said I couldn’t win. But at the beginning, the two sides of this endgame were evenly balanced. There wasn’t much difference between the two sides on the board. The only completely different thing was the person playing each side.”
“You are correct. Only the players differed.” Lord Zhaoyuan looked at him. “Continue.”
“So Black is the one that can’t win, not me. You were the one who decided which side I would play. I didn’t choose that either. If you’d given me White at the beginning, would I have had a chance to win?” Qin Shu tilted his head.
“…It is not that simple. But you are correct.” Lord Zhaoyuan fell silent briefly before speaking slowly. “Warden Qin, you are indeed correct. A single unfinished Go position can reveal only one corner of the truth. Nothing in this world remains immutable for eternity. What I obtain from it can only ever be a small amount of enlightenment… Your opinion is itself part of that enlightenment.”
“So did I clear the level?”
Lord Zhaoyuan nodded.
Qin Shu immediately scooted closer. He stepped around the wreckage of the destroyed golden board, sat pressed against Lord Zhaoyuan’s icy body, and stretched comfortably. “A whole month of torture. Haa… actually, it was pretty satisfying. I almost don’t want it to end. So what enlightenment did you get from me?”
“I am too controlling.”
“…Huh?” Qin Shu jerked his head up and met the shen dragon’s perfectly calm red-gold eyes. He wanted to laugh. He endured for a very long time before successfully suppressing it.
“Controlling” was a word Qin Shu himself had taught Lord Zhaoyuan during one of their earlier casual conversations.
The eras in which they lived were simply too far apart. At first, their conversations occasionally stalled because neither could understand the other’s vocabulary or phrasing. It had taken a while for them to adjust.
Or rather, for Lord Zhaoyuan to adjust to Qin Shu.
Qin Shu suppressed his laughter and became serious again. “Seriously, Zhaozhao, I don’t think you’re that controlling. You’re not even as bad as I am. I’ve known you for so long. Usually you let me decide what we eat, what we do for fun, all that stuff. You almost never object.”
“If the matter is trivial, naturally I do not care.” Lord Zhaoyuan looked at him, his expression becoming slightly more serious as well. “You once mentioned that Jiangcheng No. 2 High School is not the end of one’s education. After completing one’s studies there, one must undergo another major examination in pursuit of higher institutions… Have I ever controlled your studies?”
Qin Shu: “…”
Awkward. That one… Yes. Very, very yes.
Even aboard an evening flight home, Pei Zhao would never let him off… Someone’s accumulated authority had become far too deeply established. When it came to schoolwork, Qin Shu was extremely obedient. He had absolutely no desire to discover what would happen if he failed to finish his practice exam papers.
Seeing Qin Shu remain silent, Lord Zhaoyuan already had his answer.
“I desire control over your future, and rather severely. Clearly, even several thousand years from now, I appear not to have repented.” Lord Zhaoyuan spoke faintly. “As they say, one’s fundamental nature is difficult to change. Warden Qin, I ask that you bear with me in the future.”
“What do you mean, bear with you? I like it when you control me.” Hearing what sounded suspiciously like self-reflection in his voice, Qin Shu actually became unhappy about it. “Zhaozhao, from now on, you absolutely cannot go controlling other people. Just control me. Otherwise I’m going to make a scene.”
This time it was Lord Zhaoyuan who fell silent.
He could not understand Qin Shu’s feelings at all. He also seemed unable to understand what sort of inexplicably strange relationship he and Qin Shu could possibly have several thousand years in the future.
Qin Shu evaluated his stunned reaction with the words, “You’re so cute.” Lord Zhaoyuan remained silent for a very long time, but after enough pestering from Qin Shu, he ultimately agreed.
The matter of the endgame puzzle was finally settled. Qin Shu had originally intended to go outside and show his face, if only to reassure Yi-12. After all, he had spent an entire week inside the prison. That was somewhat too long.
If that timid blue-faced little ghost suddenly suffered an anxiety attack and called a more powerful underworld official over to investigate… and somebody actually noticed something wrong… that would be trouble.
Lord Zhaoyuan, however, had no intention of immediately letting Qin Shu leave. He said they first needed to discuss Xuanming. He had promised to answer Qin Shu’s question, and now he had to fulfill that promise.
“All right, all right. Zhaozhao, you really are talented. Look at you, already controlling me like an expert…” An invisible force caught Qin Shu by the back of his collar and dragged him right back into place. He laughed, immediately sat obediently, and cleared his throat.
“I looked through a lot of material in the Scripture Pavilion. After arranging the timeline, I can more or less understand everything, but there’s one thing I can’t figure out. If Xuanming truly fell completely, then who is Xuanming now? And I don’t mean only in this era. It’s the same several thousand years later. I’ve never heard the name of some new god replacing Xuanming… It’s almost as if Xuanming never died.”
“Naturally. There will never be a new god.”
“Huh?”
“Once the structure of the world has completely stabilized, once the struggle for fortune has ended and the great order has been established, the number of gods can no longer change. There are only so many places available for godhood. Whoever claims one first possesses it.”
Qin Shu was deeply shocked. “So it’s the ultimate super-invincible iron rice bowl? Then did Xuanming die or not?”
Elio’s Notes: An “iron rice bowl” is a Chinese idiom for a secure, essentially guaranteed position or livelihood, traditionally associated with stable state employment.
Lord Zhaoyuan paused, apparently taking a moment to understand what an “iron rice bowl” meant. Only then did he continue quietly. “As long as the great order beneath heaven remains unchanged, the divine position of Xuanming can never be completely destroyed. Its existence is, relatively speaking, absolutely eternal…
“Even if Xuanming’s consciousness fell, the soul scattered completely, and nothing remained after being devoured by the Xiezhi except an empty shell, the fundamental nature of a deity remains immortal and indestructible. Only when the next great transformation begins will there be an opportunity for it to be utterly destroyed.”
“Xuanming’s consciousness is dead and only an empty shell remains, so it probably won’t come looking for revenge against me…” Qin Shu repeated the explanation softly, then asked, “Can an empty shell without consciousness still carry out a god’s duties?”
Lord Zhaoyuan nodded. “To my knowledge, Xuanming indeed possesses no divine soul at present. Every function encompassed by the divine position is instead controlled by the immense power of worship generated through incense and belief. In other words, it resembles a puppet, a puppet jointly maintained by human hearts and the laws of the Heavenly Dao.”
“A puppet… I understand. A rule-following, wish-granting robot.” Qin Shu considered this, unable to help feeling rather emotional about it.
The soul had been annihilated, yet the divine position left behind could not disappear. It still had to continue working for humanity for thousands upon thousands of years. Even suicide could not produce a clean death…
Thinking carefully, it was actually quite cruel. So this was the price attached to an undying form of godhood. Yet the one who ultimately received stable immortality was not necessarily the self who had once longed to become divine.
Elio’s Notes: The supplied raw contains two square placeholders immediately before the word meaning “undying/indestructible.” The exact missing Chinese cannot be reconstructed, so the translation preserves only the clear surrounding sense: Qin Shu is reflecting on the cruel price attached to divine immortality.
“Besides Xuanming, have other gods ever ended up like this?”
“Naturally. However, if a deity falls and its consciousness leaves a vacancy, countless powerful beings will attempt to seize that vacancy. They may even manipulate human dynasties and provoke endless wars for the sake of competing over fortune and earning the qualifications to claim the divine position.” Lord Zhaoyuan spoke calmly, revealing yet another secret that made Qin Shu’s scalp prickle.
The “powerful beings” in Lord Zhaoyuan’s vocabulary were genuine demigods. They stood only one short step away from true godhood, yet the laws of the Heavenly Dao restricted them from advancing further. And so long as they failed to become gods, one day they were destined to weaken and die.
That day might still lie extremely far in the future. But the certainty of eventual death was an anxiety, a pain, and an enormous shadow that could never be erased from the minds of sentient beings.
For immortality, even emperors would lower themselves. Cultivators who possessed more power and enjoyed more benefits than emperors would only become even madder. The bloody, merciless struggle had never truly ceased.
Lord Zhaoyuan did not care. When he mentioned those conflicts, however, his tone carried faint mockery. “They merely deceive themselves. Even if those madmen seize a divine position and are placed within grand halls and temples to receive worship, their cultivation will likely never advance another step. They will never attain true freedom.
“The principle lies plainly before them. The laws of the Heavenly Dao cannot be shaken. If one desires the power of a god, one must climb into the skin of that god. One must bury one’s true heart within the old shell another person left behind, obediently uphold ideals and rules one does not personally accept, and become the image of divinity the world expects… What pleasure is there in such immortality?”
Qin Shu nodded repeatedly as he listened and could not help feeling relieved. “As long as you aren’t interested in any of that, Zhaozhao. Anyway, I absolutely don’t want to see you trapped beneath some mask and forced to perform a version of yourself you don’t believe in.”
“I indeed have no interest whatsoever in becoming a god. However… other than Warden Qin, who believes me, I fear no one else does.” Lord Zhaoyuan spoke meaningfully. “I cause the slightest disturbance and am immediately accused of harboring wolfish ambitions. Everyone avoids me as though I were a tiger. No one offers me an opportunity to explain. They simply throw me openly into Zhoujue Yin Prison.”
“So that’s why.” Understanding dawned upon Qin Shu. “Then how am I supposed to get you out? There has to be some way to clear your name.”
“There is no need to exhaust yourself plotting. Warden Qin’s intention is appreciated, but the proper moment has not arrived. I cannot leave, and I do not wish you to endanger yourself for me.”
“The proper moment…” Qin Shu stared at the bloody reverse scales along Lord Zhaoyuan’s abdomen. “I don’t want to wait for some proper moment at all.”
“Once the struggle over the vacant divine positions has ended, my existence will no longer pose any threat. At present, my life is actually secure. If someone insisted upon cutting off my head now, they would possess neither proper cause nor justification. But if I secretly colluded with the Warden of Zhoujue Yin and conspired with you to escape this prison, then perhaps a perfectly justified campaign could be launched against me, and I might die directly beneath the Dragon-Head Guillotine.”
“…Zhaozhao, doesn’t it hurt?”
“If you are not ‘human,’ then once your cultivation reaches too high a realm, you will be constrained by the Heavenly Dao. During your heavenly tribulation, lightning may strike you for nine times nine, eighty-one days. When that happens, you will understand that these little chains feel to me no worse than ants crawling and itching. They are of no consequence.”
“Being itchy for that long would still be awful!”
“…They truly are of no consequence.”
Lord Zhaoyuan was extremely patient. He slowly broke the reasoning apart and explained it piece by piece. Only after tilting his head and confirming Qin Shu no longer seemed to harbor any plans of endangering himself did he continue.
“Coincidentally, Warden Qin, this struggle over divine positions may continue into your era as well. And according to what you told me, the world once suffered a calamity that severed Heaven from Earth, yet in the present age spiritual energy has inexplicably begun resurging… That is suspicious.”
Qin Shu rather gloomily stroked the dragon scales. He could not warm them no matter how long he touched them. Still, he silently rubbed the small patch beneath his palm and allowed the shen dragon’s cold temperature to spread into his own body.
Listening to Lord Zhaoyuan, he nodded. “Mm. I’ve asked quite a few cultivators. Right now nobody knows why spiritual energy suddenly began returning. And there are some people who seem to know more but refuse to tell me. Even the City God doesn’t really understand what’s happening. It’s unbelievably mysterious.
“Oh, right. There’s also that rumored hole in the world. You haven’t heard of that either, have you, Zhaozhao? Apparently even evil beings from the West have gotten involved. They seem to be secretly plotting something.”
“As expected… A new great transformation is about to begin.”
“Wait, seriously?!” Qin Shu froze. The hand rubbing the dragon scale stopped, and his eyes widened. “You mean what I think you mean?”
“Continue.”
“Mm? Oh…” Qin Shu hurriedly put his hand back.
Only then did Lord Zhaoyuan appear satisfied. He spoke with leisurely emotion. “True chaos is coming. Humanity’s supreme position may no longer remain secure. When the struggle for fortune begins again, calamity will inevitably follow like a shadow. The iron rice bowls you described will soon become brittle pieces of porcelain that shatter from a single blow. Gods will fall.”
Qin Shu fell silent. The revelation was simply too shocking. For a moment, he had no idea how to respond.
Lord Zhaoyuan, of all people, seemed to become interested. “Would you like to become a god, Warden Qin? I can teach you.”