I Really Didn’t Mean to Play Go!
Chapter 23: Komi and Shen Yi

The next day.

As soon as Yu Shao walked into the classroom, he noticed that something seemed off with Zhou De. The guy was grinning from ear to ear like an idiot.

"Old Zhou, did you have a seizure or something?" Yu Shao asked.

"Can’t you say something nice for once?" Zhou De rolled his eyes before proudly announcing, "I’m telling you, after yesterday’s intense battles, I’m now a noble Platinum player again!"

Yu Shao was stunned. "No way, for real?"

This team that always dragged their rank down actually managed to rank up for once?

"When you weren’t around yesterday, we just kept winning," Zhou De said smugly. "This proves that you were the one holding us back all along. Without you, I’d have reached Diamond ages ago."

"Where’d you guys get the money to hire a carry player?" Yu Shao asked skeptically.

"What do you mean? We didn’t hire anyone—it was pure skill that got us up the ranks."

Yu Shao stared at Zhou De intently, his face filled with disbelief.

Seeing his expression, Zhou De couldn’t hold back his frustration. He snapped, "Yu Shao! First, you don’t believe I can learn Go. Now, you don’t believe I made it to Platinum. How much do you look down on me? Can’t stand to see your bro doing well, huh?"

"I didn’t say I didn’t believe you," Yu Shao replied calmly, pulling out his English textbook. "Didn’t I tell you yesterday that I believed you could learn Go?"

"Does that look like you believed me?!"

"Doesn’t it?"

"Absolutely not!"

Yu Shao tried to nod seriously, but the thought of Zhou De, with his muscular build, sitting primly and playing Go was too much. He couldn’t hold it in and burst out laughing.

"You just wait!" Zhou De felt insulted. He had originally planned to give up on the headache-inducing Introduction to Go: 38 Lessons, but now, fired up, he yanked the book out of his desk with determination.

"When I master Go, I’m going to crush you so hard you’ll be calling me dad!" he declared, flipping through the book angrily.

"Seriously, bro? Going that far?" Yu Shao pretended to look worried. He teased, "Listen, buddy, I’ve never doubted your intelligence, but honestly, maybe you should set a smaller goal first. Like, I don’t know, earning your first hundred million?"

"Just wait. You have no idea what it means to be the Shen Yi of Jiangling." Zhou De snorted coldly.

"Shen Yi?" Yu Shao blinked in confusion. "Who’s that?"

"You don’t know Shen Yi?"

Zhou De looked just as stunned. His eyes widened as he exclaimed, "Yu Shao, I can’t believe I almost fell for your act of knowing Go. You’re risking your life for conduct points, aren’t you?!"

"I do know how to play!" Yu Shao said, feeling a little perplexed. "What, do I have to know who this Shen Yi guy is to play Go?"

"Of course you do! He’s the Go Sage, bro!" Zhou De raised the Introduction to Go: 38 Lessons book in his hand and continued, "Even I just started learning Go and I know who Shen Yi is. Let me ask you, do you know what komi is?"

"Isn’t that obvious?" Yu Shao nodded, looking puzzled. "Of course I do."

"You know what komi is but don’t know Shen Yi? That’s impossible!" Zhou De said, still skeptical. "Fine, then tell me—what is komi?"

"In Go, since black goes first, it has an inherent advantage. To ensure fairness, black has to compensate white with a certain number of points at the end of the game. That’s called komi, or ‘compensation points.’"

Yu Shao continued, "For example, if the komi is 7.5 points, then at the end of the game, if white has 50 points, black must score at least 58 points to win."

After explaining, Yu Shao suddenly froze.

Wait… what is the komi in this world?

He realized he didn’t actually know. In his games with Zheng Qin, he had automatically assumed a 7.5-point komi, as that was the standard in his previous life’s Go rules.

That 7.5-point komi had been determined after countless games by top players, deemed the fairest value possible.

"You actually do know?" Zhou De said, surprised.

Zhou De seemed confused. "Then how could you not know Shen Yi? After all, the book says that the komi rule came into existence because of him!"

"Oh?" Yu Shao frowned slightly and asked, "What’s the story?"

"The book says that more than a hundred years ago, there was no komi rule in Go. Shen Yi was a Go player from that era," Zhou De explained.

He thought for a moment and continued, "He learned Go as a child and was obsessed with it his entire life. After mastering the game, he swept through the Go world of his time."

"Shen Yi lost a few games in his youth, but by the time he reached the age of 23 and achieved peak mastery in his skills, he never lost another game—whether playing black or white."

"And then, he began to feel lonely. The loneliness of having no opponents. To seek defeat, he introduced the komi rule, arguing that black had an inherent advantage at the start and proposed a 4.5-point komi."

At this point, Zhou De shook his head and clicked his tongue. "Seeking defeat? Man, that guy really knew how to show off. Absolutely incredible."

Yu Shao listened quietly, not interrupting.

After a brief pause, Zhou De continued, "Then Shen Yi invited all the renowned Go players of his time to play under the komi rule. He said that if anyone could beat him playing white while he played black, he would give away his entire fortune."

"When this news spread, it caused an uproar worldwide. Countless renowned Go players came, either for fame or for fortune, to play against Shen Yi. But do you know what the result was?"

Zhou De suddenly leaned in close to Yu Shao, his face filled with mystery.

Yu Shao looked at Zhou De with mild exasperation. The answer was practically written all over Zhou De’s face—why was he trying to act like a riddle master?

Still, to humor Zhou De, Yu Shao pretended not to guess and asked, "What happened? He didn’t lose?"

"Exactly, he didn’t lose—not a single game!" Zhou De exclaimed, his excitement overflowing. "Despite the 4.5-point handicap, Shen Yi didn’t lose even once!"

"Later, Shen Yi said that 4.5 points weren’t enough and that black still held the advantage. So, he proposed a new rule: 7.5 points of komi. Again, he declared that anyone who could beat him under this rule would receive all his wealth."

"At that point, the Go players weren’t playing for fame or money anymore. They were playing out of anger. They felt like Shen Yi was looking down on them. I mean, with a 7.5-point handicap, surely they could win!"

"But the results left everyone in silence. Even with a 7.5-point komi, no one in the Go world at the time could beat Shen Yi!"

Zhou De was getting more and more animated.

"And then, Shen Yi introduced a 10.5-point komi rule, which drew even more top players to challenge him. But, without exception, every single one of them failed in the end."

"It wasn’t until a renowned Go master of the time, Fang Xin, appeared that someone finally managed to beat Shen Yi."

"Well… saying he beat Shen Yi isn’t entirely accurate," Zhou De added with a hint of sentimentality. "Because the game wasn’t over yet. Just as Fang Xin was about to win, he… resigned."

Hearing this, Yu Shao was slightly taken aback.

"Hey, Yu Shao, do you want to know why he resigned?" Zhou De asked, looking at him smugly, clearly enjoying the chance to show off.