Era-Of-Disaster - Chapter 214

Chapter 214: Chess and Prison

The little boy Peter got injured, and although he forgot about it for a moment due to shock and fear, the pain came flooding back again now and he immediately started to cry. Some of the other kids tried to run away, shaking in fear, while some others looked at Momo with faces full of excitement. In just an instant, the entire classroom became as noisy as a marketplace.

“Shut up!” Momo immediately said.

Her voice wasn’t too loud, but everybody could feel the faint intimidating pressure coming from her body. In the next moment, everybody—including the teacher—all really closed their mouths and kept them shut. Sticking by Bai Yi’s side for a long period of time, Momo had also developed her own unique aura. This wasn’t a so-called disposition, but an aura—a kind of oppressive feeling that only evolved humans would give off.

At this time, the teacher finally reacted. “Peter’s injuries aren’t serious; quickly, send him to the medical bay.”

“It’s fine, Miss Momo knows how to hold back,” Alodia said. This teacher looked at the bright red blood flowing down little Peter’s neck and couldn’t believe, no matter what was said, that Momo knew how to hold back. Of course, he didn’t expect that what Alodia meant by Momo knowing how to hold back was actually… he won’t die.

The school wasn’t big, and Bai Yi very quickly came to know of this incident. Bai Yi didn’t know whether to laugh or cry; his daughter had created trouble before he could even leave the school. Fortunately, Bai Yi’s status wasn’t ordinary, and this place couldn’t be considered part of the peaceful world either, so this wouldn’t become a big issue after just some injuries. Everything was settled in a short while; little Peter was sent back to rest and the other kids continued with their lessons.

During the first few days, all the other kids kept a respectful distance from Momo. No, it wasn’t really out of respect, but more like fear. Momo seemed just like a ferocious carnivore to them, suddenly barging into a world of herbivores. Moreover, she didn’t know how to suppress her own aura, causing all the other students to tremble in fear.

Even the teacher was on his toes conducting their lessons.

Until…!

“Momo, you seem to be in a good mood today, why don’t you try to answer this question?” Over this period of time, this teacher had seemed to be quite afraid of Momo as well. Seeing her staring into blank space and seemingly thinking of something happy, he tried to make use of this opportunity to soothe the atmosphere in this classroom.

Momo heard his words and immediately stood up, walking toward the blackboard. The other students all looked at her from their seats, not daring to say a single word. On the blackboard was a math question that wasn’t too difficult—probably around the lower primary level in complexity. Momo went up and took a piece of chalk before starting to answer the question, and before long she wrote her answer down. However, her answer was wrong!

The teacher corrected her on the spot. “Actually, you should do it like this; use multiplication.”

“No, no, it should be like this.”

“En, you must do this step first.”

“Not right…!” The teacher continually taught her a few times, but Momo would answer the question wrong every time. By now, all of them could see that something was off. This incomparably cold and cool little girl, could it be that she was an idiot? A series of crows calling ‘idiot’ flew across all of their minds.

Finally, somebody couldn’t hold it in anymore and started to laugh, while Momo could only stand at the blackboard with her face red from embarrassment. After this incident, their attitudes toward Momo became more relaxed, and they finally didn’t feel that she was hard to approach anymore.

When she came back in the late afternoon and told Bai Yi what had happened, he immediately started laughing at her.

“See, who asked you to dislike studying? You really embarrassed yourself now. So, Momo is actually a little idiot, hahaha!” Bai Yi said laughingly.

“Daddy!” Momo hugged Bai Yi and started to whine. Actually, she really wasn’t a little idiot; it was just that she really disliked studying. Furthermore, she hadn’t had much time to study either in the Devil Isles.

“Sharpei and Pupu are probably smarter than Momo,” Bai Yi teased Momo.

“Daddy!” Momo really felt embarrassed now. Bai Yi didn’t continue to intentionally tease his daughter and ended the incident there. In reality, he was actually very worried about the problem of her interacting with the other kids her age. If Momo continued to be isolated by the other kids, Bai Yi would have let Momo give up on school after another few days. A long period of isolation coupled with an abnormal environment could very likely have made Momo become reclusive. Unexpectedly, idiocy had these kinds of benefits and actually let the others accept her easily.

The problem of Momo’s education was also put on track, and everything seemed to be developing in a good fashion. Bai Yi had nothing to do all day and just spent his time strolling around the urban district, observing this so-called autonomous region. Since Bai Yi did not have any official duties, he had a lot of free time and could spare the time to really understand this autonomous region.

It was really quiet; all the evolved humans seemed to be living a good life here, but Bai Yi still felt that something was wrong in the end.

Bai Yi walked to more and more remote places, and suddenly he saw a simple courtyard, with a few old men playing something like chess there. Feeling somewhat curious, he naturally walked into the place. Although these old men had assimilated with the activated cells, their changes weren’t too great, and they were all already very old. Even the youngest among them had a face full of wrinkles.

Two old men were playing an abstract strategy game called Go, while the other three watched quietly.

Go!

Bai Yi was slightly surprised and started to watch quietly himself after seeing it. Bai Yi didn’t really understand Go too much; he only knew the rules of the game and couldn’t even be considered to be an amateur. Seeing Bai Yi walk over, the five old men didn’t say hi to him, and Bai Yi didn’t say anything either, just silently standing by the side and watching the two old men play Go.

Suddenly, the old man on one side said, “Black loses!” At this time, the old man playing black also admitted defeat.

“Old Qin, you are really merciless!”

The two of them didn’t restore the Go pieces, and the old Asian man known as Old Qin only smiled and didn’t reply. At this time, everybody else finally turned their attention to Bai Yi. The few old men were all very curious; presently, there weren’t many people who could quiet down and play a game like this. The activated cells didn’t just bring about a change in strength, but also a change in thinking. As long as a person wasn’t too dumb, anybody would want to do something with this powerful strength. They could only live a quiet life because they were already old; even if they had assimilated with the activated cells, they were already in their elderly years.

But they could tell with a look that Bai Yi was still very young.

“First time seeing this youngster here,” the old man known as Old Qin said to Bai Yi in Chinese.

Bai Yi nodded. “En, first time coming to this place.”

“This place is very remote, it must have been hard for you to find this place.”

“Just a coincidence,” Bai Yi smiled and replied.

“You seem to have something on your mind?”

“Oh? Why do you say so?”

“I can tell; you seem very peaceful, but there’s a sense of frustration in your heart. The environment of Go is very serene, so it’s very easy to sense,” Old Qin said. Bai Yi looked at Old Qin opposite him in shock. It couldn’t be—don’t say that these few old men he met by chance were actually some peak experts?

“You know how to play Go?”

“I know, but I’m not skilled at it. I only learned it out of interest in high school, and only know the basic rules. Things such as joseki¹, tesuji, trend of the board, I’ve only heard of them before, and don’t understand them” Bai Yi answered seriously. Bai Yi’s answer was very genuine and like he said, he had only learned Go in high school, and just stopped after a while due to a lack of interest.

“Want to play a game?”

“I’m really just a beginner; I only learned it for like two months more than ten years ago and never touched it again,” Bai Yi reminded him again, trying to tell them that he was really just a beginner.

“It doesn’t matter, all of us here are all beginners other than Old Qin; we can’t even be considered to be a smelly chess basket²,” said the old Caucasian man who had played the game just now. Go had been the cultural essence of China from the start. In recent years, Japan had improved at it, but it had mostly just been circulating between China, Japan, and Korea after that, so these few old Caucasian men really wouldn’t be too good at it.

Bai Yi smiled. Wasn’t it just a game of strategy? It wasn’t like he couldn’t handle losing.

“Sure!” Bai Yi nodded.

“Do you need a handicap?” Old Qin said.

“No need; anyway, I’m really bad at this, so it doesn’t make a difference even if you give me one,” Bai Yi said honestly.

“OK!” Old Qin said and started to reach for a Go piece.

Bai Yi took white, and the two of them started to play a game of Go while the rest of them watched. They could tell that just like he had said, Bai Yi was purely a beginner. He hadn’t learned it for a long period of time in the first place, and after more than ten years of not playing it, it was already very good for him to even still remember the rules. Other than that, what made the other old men quite surprised was that Old Qin’s tactics were different from his usual way of playing, and he didn’t try to kill Bai Yi from the start.

Guiding Go³?

At the start, Bai Yi also thought that Old Qin was playing Guiding Go, but gradually, Bai Yi felt that that wasn’t right either. He started to seriously think about the state of play on the chessboard, his mind gradually becoming absorbed. Bai Yi really was a beginner, but at this time, his special energy started to circulate, letting him both enter a state of 100% focus and start to rapidly calculate the possible moves.

Slowly, Bai Yi’s mind became more and more absorbed into the game, and in the end, he even felt like he started to see an illusion. The chessboard seemed to become a world, the black pieces acting like a wide web trapping Bai Yi’s white pieces firmly inside a cage. This cage was somewhat vague, and if he didn’t look at it carefully he wouldn’t realize it existed at all. However, with Bai Yi being so absorbed into this game, he could sense the cage, and sense it extremely deeply at that.

Did they really settle down?

Bai Yi asked this in his heart, but the answer he got in the end was: no!

Tasmania became an autonomous region with plentiful resources and little danger. Although the United Nations had already made very good arrangements for them, Bai Yi still felt that life here was very stifled—even more stifling than living in the Devil Isles. They were an autonomous region on the surface, but living in this place just seemed like living in a bigger cage; they were still restricted here. It wasn’t a cage like a prison, but a cage as big as a small country, like Tasmania.

‘Pa!’

Bai Yi’s white piece landed, and due to the special energy in his body being too agitated, he instantly broke the stone chessboard beneath it into pieces.

***

Translator’s Notes:

1. These are all terms in the game of Go, which is a complex form of chess invented in China more than 2,500 years ago. It’s played with a 19×19 board but with just black and white pieces, similar to reversi. Joseki refers to a series of opening moves, while tesuji refers to a clever play/skillful move. It’s a pretty interesting game, I first got to know about it when I watched this anime called Hikaru No Go a long time ago.
2. Smelly chess basket refers to people who aren’t good at the game but still loves it very much.
3. Guiding Go is a way of playing Go by a stronger player who tries to uses the game to teach the other player something, instead of just trying to win the game.