The white light on the Go board had shifted from intense to a suffocating frequency. Due to Ruyi’s “self-mutilating” attack, a massive Logic Blind Spot had opened up on the northern side of the board.
“Round Three: The ‘Load-Bearing Wall’ of Overseas Assets,” Wan Changqing announced. His holographic image was flickering, becoming translucent, yet his posture in the armchair remained unshakable. “Dashan guarded the old. Ruyi broke the game. This final move… Xiaotian, it’s yours.”
Xiaotian stood by the board, his legs trembling like a sieve in a winter wind. He looked at the heavy obsidian stone, then at Dashan and Ruyi standing in the shadows.
“Big Brother… Sister… I can’t,” Xiaotian whimpered, his voice cracking. “I have no soldiers. I have no needle. I can’t calculate anything. I’m useless.”
“The algorithm says you are a being driven solely by ‘Survival Instinct’,” Changqing said, his tone carrying a rare hint of mockery. “Your fear level is the highest. So, I have prepared the simplest game for you: Just place this stone, admit that you are inferior to me, admit that you are willing to be an eternal, never-growing-up ‘Digital Pet’ in my algorithm… and I will give you the key to the overseas trust. You can continue driving your sports cars in New York. You can squander forever. No one will ever bother you again.”
Dashan said nothing, merely watching his younger brother with cold, unreadable eyes. In the backyard shadows, Madame Shen gently plucked the broken string of the Huqin. Zzzt… It sounded like a warning. Or perhaps, an encouragement.
“Digital Pet…” Xiaotian whispered.
He reached out a trembling hand. His fingertips brushed the cold obsidian stone.
In that instant, a memory flooded back. He remembered being a child, locked in a pitch-black study by Wan Changqing, forced to recite economic theories from Dream of the Red Chamber. When he couldn’t recite them, he was made to kneel on the blue bricks. Back then, Wan Changqing was exactly like this holographic projection now:高高在上 (high above), not even looking at him, staring only at the K-line charts on the screen.
“Father,” Xiaotian suddenly said, lifting his head. Tears still glistened in his eyes, but beneath them burned a resentment accumulated over years of being plundered—a fire that finally outweighed his fear. “You say I am a weakness.”
CRACK!
He slammed the stone down. The impact was so heavy it sent a visible fracture through the marble floor of the Go board.
The stone did not land on a ‘living’ point. Nor did it land on a ‘dead’ point.
It landed squarely in the very center—right on top of the chaotic mess Ruyi had created, directly into the “Core Loophole” that Changqing was frantically using his remaining computing power to repair.
“You!” Changqing’s image lunged forward, his composure shattered for the first time. “You are destroying the system’s self-healing logic!”
“I don’t care about your logic!” Xiaotian panted, staring死死 (fixedly) at the cluster of pixels. “I just wanted to know: if I smash this spot into dust, will you finally look at me? I am trash. Trash doesn’t need to win. I just want you to know… your algorithm missed one thing.”
He leaned over the board, his voice dropping to a terrifying whisper.
“A scared child who decides to stop running… becomes the darkest thing in the room.”
As the stone settled, every light in the Old Residence flickered on simultaneously with a ghostly brilliance.
The rhythmic white pulses began to convulse like a dying fish. Outside the wall, Zhao Tianqi’s scream pierced through the thick wooden doors—he could feel it. All his overseas capital arrangements, due to Xiaotian’s utterly illogical “stomp”, were now frozen in an unclearable Logic Death Loop.
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched Dashan’s lips.
He understood. Wan Changqing had lost. Not to strategy, not to madness. But to the one thing he never deigned to look at: his so-called “Weakness”.
[SYSTEM ALERT: CORE INTEGRITY COMPROMISED.]
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
[SOURCE OF DAMAGE: USER "XIAOTIAN" - CLASSIFICATION: UNDEFINED.]
[ERROR: CANNOT CALCULATE INTENT OF "GIVING UP".]
[STATUS: CRITICAL SYSTEM FAILURE. SELF-HEALING DISABLED.]
[MESSAGE FROM CORE: "I SEE YOU... SON."]
The hologram of Wan Changqing froze. The pixels slowly began to drift apart, like sand slipping through an hourglass. The god was dissolving, not because he was defeated by a stronger god, but because he was finally seen by his smallest child.
[CURRENT SCORE: WAN FAMILY (3) - EVERGREEN AI (0)]
[GAME OVER.]
[INITIATING FINAL PROTOCOL: REBOOT TO FACTORY SETTINGS? Y/N]
Inside the hall, silence returned. But it was no longer the silence of fear. It was the silence of a long-overdue dawn.
Xiaotian, the 'useless' brother, just delivered the K.O. punch! ?? He didn't win by being smart; he won by STOPPING RUNNING.
"A scared child who decides to stop running becomes the darkest thing in the room." — Chills! ????
The AI couldn't calculate 'giving up'. It broke the system! ???? And for the first time, Father saw him.
Next Chapter: The Finale! The system is asking: Reboot to Factory Settings? Will they erase Father forever? Or try to save the fragment of humanity left? And what about Zhao Tianqi outside?
Question: Was Xiaotian's move brave or reckless? What would you do in his shoes? ????
