Chapter 1450 (2/2)

Even Lyra and Stan, the least understood pair, made Huang Li nervous. Lyra also didn’t appear recently in any sort of discussions, but that was because she was nominally the VIllage Spirit of Donnyton. She was the first Village Spirit that seemed capable of existing outside of the Village and actually fighting. Viewers were left baffled by her unflappable and unhurried victories to reach the top 8.

It was rumored that she made a deal with someone high up in the Seventh Cohort to transform herself into more than simply being a Village Spirit. Yet during all the matches, her image was dense and well-controlled. Which made her a figure that Huang Li felt great wariness toward.

Li clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles popped. No matter how he thought about it, he would fail. He was a failure. And that failure-

“Ack!” Huang Li grunted and staggered a half step forward. He twisted around and looked at Huang Shou primly holding his his knobby cane with both hands. With a wince, he straightened. “...is there something you need, grandfather?”

“A grandson who listens,” Huang Shou said without any irony. Then he inclined his head toward the dinner table. “Ever since you have seen that bracket, you have not been able to eat or even produce a single productive thought through your your thick skull. I look at you now and wonder if you are the same young man who won us the prior match-”

“I know.” Huang Li whispered. His hands were tingling like they were coming to life after being numb. So even Huang Shou sensed that he had lost something precious in the prior match. “I… I know.”

Huang Shou snorted. Then he raised his cane to jab at Huang LI’s stomach but paused. After considering for a bit, he appeared to think better of the violent action. So he revered his grip on his cane and brough the larger, knobbed head around in a baseball bat swing that hit Huang Li’s thigh with enough force the limb spasmed.

Caught rather off guard, Huang Li collapsed. While he was on the ground, Huang Shou rolled his shoulders. “My grandfather was the greatest Go player that I have ever seen, even to this day. The current me could not give him a worthy match even with a seven stone handicap. Randidly Ghosthound has enough personal strength and force that the Village he simply associated with in his earlier days now has enough clout to dominate the list of Earth’s most powerful people. Can you guess what these two individuals have in common?”

For a while, Huang Li just blinked and rubbed the sore spot on his thigh. His thoughts truly had been in chaos since they had won their previous match. He had drifted around without any weight, stunned and reeling. The great achievement became a weight around Huang Li’s neck that he couldn’t support. That strike by his adoptive grandfather had shocked him awake.

But these questions… Huang Li shook his head. “I do not know.”

“Guess,” Huang Shou opened his mouth just enough for the frosty word to slip out, then resumed his near-perpetual frown. But Huang Li didn’t miss the way that Huang Shou’s hands choked up on the can in preparation for another swing.

Li released a large sigh. Still, his training from the Huang Family was deeply engraved in him. It had been since he became Captain of Zone 7’s guard, but interrogations like this had used to be quite common for him. He shifted his legs to be folded underneath him in a respectful posture. “...from what little I know of both, they were both very well respected men-”

There were a split second where Li detected Huang Shou’s movements and could have dodged the vicious strike. His adoptive grandfather had hid his high Stats very well, but even so, Huang Li had higher base specs. But ultimately, Li pressed his lips together and allowed the strike to hit his face.

With an aching jaw, Huang Li turned and listened to Huang Shou. The older man’s eyes were dark and flinty. “Your first thought is to talk of other people’s opinions of them? Are you a newspaper or a gossip?”

Li’s breath came out threw his nose and tried a different answer. “They both earned the respect and admiration of their peers.”

“Actually, my grandfather was rather universally criticized and avoided. He had an irascible temper and couldn’t accept even the slightest sign of disrespect. His tongue was vicious. I often believed that had it not been for my interest in Go, he wouldn’t have even bothered to allow me to visit his estate. The old man would derive great enjoyment from keeping the gate shut in my face… but as you truly did not ever know him, I will not count this against you. Try again.”

How generous. Very quickly, Huang Li’s flash of annoyance was suppressed beneath his practicality. The wheels of his thoughts began to quickly whirr to life. Li’s mind felt even more clear in the wake of the second strike. It suddenly occurred to him that these were not normal attacks; there was a Skill hidden in their movements, one so subtle that Huang Li had missed its activation.

An entirely different sort of bitterness emerged in Li’s heart as he considered the truth that Huang Shou was doing this currently in order to help him. The method was rough, but the old man wasn’t just lashing out randomly. So Huang Li did his best to consider the question posed by his grandfather; what did these two people have in common?

As Li’s emotions began to calm, something else occurred to him; despite his high standards, Huang Shou wouldn’t give him an impossible task. Because Li didn’t know anything about this previous Huang Grandfather, the answer would lay with what he knew about Randidly Ghosthound. So, what did the Ghosthound have in common with this former patriarch of the Huang Family? A man who that Li knew nothing about aside from the fact he was very good at-

That line of thoughts made Li paused. Almost reflexively, he spoke to Huang Shou in a question. “How much did your grandfather play Go?”

Huang Shou tapped the base of his cane twice against the ground. “I cannot think of a time that I saw him when he wasn’t playing Go. That board… was the most important object in his life.”

“...then what unites them is dedication to their pursuits,” Huang Li said with confidence. As his emotions calmed further and his thoughts cooled, it was like his mental state was being filtered. The mess of his mind was purified and streamlined, the silt and pollution of the past few days being stripped away. Li’s expression turned increasingly serious as he considered the internal chaos of the last twenty hours; the usage of that Sky-Slaying Slash was more dangerous than he thought.

Setting aside the emotional reaction, using that amalgamation of images while Huang Li’s image had been partially wounded by Blackhand’s energy resulted in some foreign elements bleeding into his image. Foreign elements that affected Huang Li’s mental state.

Of course I am a failure. I am just a simple man who was raised to this point on the backs of my predecessors. Why would being a failure bother me? That’s not the point. Huang Li released a much lighter breath. The point is to contribute, so those that follows can achieve even greater things.

“Well, I suppose that is close enough,” Huang Shou allowed. He tapped the base of his cane twice more on the ground. “But in this case, it is better to remember that both men were obsessed to the point of being isolated from the world. Never forget the steps you took to get to this point. The Go my grandfather constantly played or the battlefields the Ghosthound has traversed to reach this point… Do not turn your back on your prior efforts. The masses have coined the term Legend and put you in that category… but you are the most recent and the most eye catching of a dozen such individuals. You are still the soldier from Zone 7. That is all you are… and that is your strength.”

Li’s mouth twitched. That was… probably the longest speech he had ever heard from Huang Shou. And he couldn’t deny it was something that he had needed to hear at the moment. They sat in silence then for almost ten minutes. Huang Li pressed his fingers against the windows of the housing and felt the chill of the outside world creeping through the glass. Small snowflakes drifted downward, dancing lazily with each other on their journey to the ground.

Eventually, Li flexed his hands to disperse the numbness in his fingertips and spoke. “...although I don’t think the Ghosthound is quite so isolated as you say. He is currently hosting the tournament, after all.”

Huang Shou snorted. “The altar that young man worships at is power. This whole arrangement is an edifice to that power. Aside from protecting the participants… have you seen the Ghosthound do much else? I wouldn’t be surprised if he was also constantly training on the side during the matches. The obsessed… don’t easily waiver.”