I Really Didn’t Mean to Play Go!
Chapter 325: In the Hall of Go—Are There Any Buddhas Left?

Late at night, in a cluttered rental apartment in the capital city.

A bespectacled young man sat in front of his computer, staring intently at the screen. He was watching the game record of today’s Ten-Dan Title Match, and his face was filled with deep shock.

“As expected of Zhuang Weisheng, 10-dan. The complexity of this joseki... it even... even surpasses the previous three most difficult josekis in Go!”

Countless variations of the pattern flashed through the young man's mind as he tried to calculate them. The deeper he analyzed, the more his scalp tingled. He was awestruck by the sheer depth and vastness of this joseki.

For a moment, he even felt as if he were standing in a vast ocean, powerless against the raging flood!

To challenge the heavens as a mere mortal was an act of defiance—an impossible feat undertaken anyway. To play such a joseki was like waging a magnificent, thunderous war against the heavens!

“Huuuh…”

After a long time, the young man finally snapped out of it, exhaling a long breath and muttering to himself, “Looks like I’ve got something real to teach in my next class.”

He was a teacher at a well-known Go training center. He had once been a dojo trainee, almost making it through the promotion to pro rank, but eventually gave it up and became an instructor instead.

Now that Zhuang Weisheng had played such an astonishing game in the Ten-Dan Title Match, as a Go teacher, it was his duty to analyze the game thoroughly and explain it in detail to his students.

This was destined to be a game that would shake the entire era!

Moments later, the young man closed the game record and started browsing online comments about the match.

Almost all netizens were just like him—thrilled by this astonishing game. Everyone was passionately discussing the various lines and shocked by the emergence of a brand new, seemingly simple joseki!

“Hm?”

As he scrolled through posts, one particular thread caught his attention and made him pause.

“This joseki… was it really first played by Xie Joseki and Yu Shao? Is it called the ‘Storm’ or the ‘Mini Storm’?”

Reading the thread title, the young man blinked in surprise. A moment later, he chuckled, but still instinctively clicked into the post.

The post didn’t say much—just that the joseki had first been played by Xie Joseki and Yu Shao during the Main Player Selection Tournament of the Team Tournament. Since it was pouring rain that day, it was dubbed the “Mini Storm,” and later, also called the “Storm.”

Attached to the post was a game record.

The young man didn’t think much of it, but still opened the game record to take a look.

As he watched, his expression slowly changed, growing increasingly serious.

The entire apartment suddenly went quiet.

The deeper he watched, the quieter he became—until you could hear a pin drop.

Watching that game, vivid images of the two players placing stones emerged in his mind, and his expression gradually shifted.

Before long, he had finished going through the entire game.

“This…”

The young man stared blankly at the concise but tightly-woven game record, his mouth slightly agape, unable to utter a word.

The moves in this game were nothing short of divine.

Every move from both sides seemed like a dance of life and death, like heaven and earth twisting upon themselves. One move could plunge White into doom, yet the previous move could spell disaster for White instead!

In just over forty moves, the board was littered with the corpses of fierce fighting—only a desolate ending remained at the conclusion!

This was not a game played by nobodies. The two players who played this were anything but ordinary.

Nor could this have been faked. Without true Go strength, one could never create such a match. This was a peak battle between life and death!

One fought to live, the other to kill—just like the black and white stones on the board, utterly distinct and opposed!

In fact, in terms of killing intensity, this game might even surpass the legendary clash between Zhuang Weisheng and Zhu Huai’an!

“Could it be…”

A thought surged uncontrollably in the young man's mind.

This unprecedented, large-scale, complex joseki—was it really first played by Yu Shao and Su Yiming? Was it actually true?!

“But… how could that be?!”

“If Su Yiming really discovered the Great Storm joseki through deep research… then he used it in this match, and yet lost to Yu Shao in just over eighty moves?!”

The young man took a deep breath and closed the game record, not quite believing it. He began searching online for more information about this Main Player Selection Tournament.

He wasn’t the only one. Everyone who had seen this game record began searching for information on the tournament.

Many verified the facts through different sources. Eventually, a professional Go player confirmed: this large, complex joseki was indeed first played by Yu Shao and Su Yiming. The entire internet fell into stunned silence.

And not long after, the internet exploded.

The young man stared blankly at the computer screen, his mind ringing.

It was real.

Though part of him already believed it—after all, a game this exquisite couldn’t be fabricated, and no one with the skill to invent it would ever bother to do so—he still couldn’t believe it.

Su Yiming had introduced such a groundbreaking joseki, yet was defeated by Yu Shao’s eighth move in response?!

Riiiing!

Suddenly, the young man's phone, placed on the desk, rang.

He finally snapped out of it, picked up the phone, and glanced at the caller ID. It was a colleague.

He answered.

Before he could say anything, an anxious voice rang out from the other end: “Mr. Wang, did you see that game between Yu Shao and Su Yiming—”

“I saw it.”

Wang cut him off before he could finish. “How could I not have seen it?”

“So you know?”

His colleague audibly swallowed. His voice was trembling. “The Great Avalanche… even the Great Avalanche has fallen!”

Wang froze. “What? The Great Avalanche?”

“You didn’t see it?”

The colleague quickly realized. “I’m not talking about the Storm joseki game—I mean the one that just surfaced, the one they played in the Promotion Tournament!”

“Promotion Tournament?”

Wang was even more confused. “What Promotion Tournament?”

“Just go check it out!”

Even through the phone, Wang could hear the urgency in his colleague’s voice. “Hurry, go look now!”

Still puzzled, Wang turned on speaker mode and placed the phone back on his desk. He opened his browser and searched for “Yu Shao,” “Su Yiming,” and “Promotion Tournament.”

Soon, he clicked into the top trending post. It merely stated that this was a game played by Yu Shao and Su Yiming during the Promotion Tournament, followed by a simple game record.

Wang opened the record and began reviewing it.

After just a few moves, he froze.

“The Great Avalanche?”

A few more moves in, and he was stunned.

“That move... the standing play?”

He frowned, confused.

“The Demon Blade?”

A few more moves in, and confusion gave way to disbelief.

The Demon Blade was dead—everyone knew that now.

Still, considering this was a game from the Promotion Tournament, Wang didn’t think too much and kept going.

When he finished the entire match, he still felt puzzled.

Clearly, Su Yiming had used the Demon Blade formation, allowing Yu Shao to secure a large corner and ultimately lose the game.

Had one not known the Demon Blade had already been refuted, this game might seem perplexing. But knowing it no longer worked, it wasn’t surprising anymore.

Also, what did this have to do with the Great Avalanche?

Both players had started a Great Avalanche formation in the lower-left corner. But Yu Shao chose to stand down instead of fully committing, seemingly giving up some ground.

Wait a minute!

Wang suddenly realized something—his brain felt like it had just been smashed by a hammer!

What if… that standing move didn’t actually lose anything?

He stared again at the variation in the lower-left corner—and horror slowly crept across his face.

His vision blurred.

Thick!

Thin!

Judging by today’s modern understanding of thickness versus thinness—the Great Avalanche no longer held any inevitability. Even if it was fully played out, the side that initiated the Avalanche ended up with the worse deal!

The thickness shift caused by a 3-3 invasion was like a bullet, and it had just struck the Great Avalanche squarely in the forehead!

“The Great Avalanche... it’s gone too...”

Wang stared vacantly at the screen, whispering, “How… how could this be?”

The Demon Blade is dead. The Great Avalanche has fallen!

Of the three most difficult josekis in Go, two are gone. Only the Large Diagonal still lingers on, barely clinging to life!

Silence.

A deathly silence.

Just days ago, as a Go teacher, he was still teaching his students the complex variations of the Great Avalanche.

And now…

Everything he taught was about to be overturned.

The Great Avalanche, like the Demon Blade, would be relegated to history!

From the ruins of the Avalanche and the Blade, arose the Great Storm—a joseki far more complex than any of the three hardest patterns in Go!

“Did you hear it?”

Wang stared blankly at his screen and asked.

“Hear what?” came the voice from the phone.

“You didn’t hear it?”

He asked, “Didn’t you hear... the sound of an era being crushed?”

His colleague on the other end was speechless.

For a Go teacher, the collapse of an entire Go paradigm hit the hardest.

Because it meant—everything they’d taught until now was wrong.

Back when the 3-3 point first emerged, it was teachers like them who questioned it the most.

“He only needs one more win to reach the Main Tournament of the Title Match.”

Wang stared at the TV screen and said blankly, “And he’ll walk into the hall of elite Go players—accompanied by the sound of an era being shattered.”

...

...

The fact that Su Yiming and Yu Shao had first played the Great Storm joseki was already earth-shattering.

But—

When the game they played in the Promotion Tournament was revealed, an even more shocking truth shook the world:

The Great Avalanche had fallen!

Sometimes, destruction is more powerful than creation.

The incredibly complex Great Avalanche had buried countless players, from amateurs to title holders. Nearly every Go player had once been buried beneath its snowy weight!

When the snows of the glacier started tumbling, the roar was deafening. The biting winds left everyone feeling small and helpless in awe of its might.

But now, if the Avalanche never truly existed—then every classic game played around it suddenly became a ridiculous joke.

The three great “unsolvable” josekis were like three great Buddhas standing in the hall of Go—radiant and revered by generations, their power unquestioned.

No one in history had ever exhausted their variations.

But now, two Buddhas had already crumbled!

Many couldn’t help but think the same thought—

If both the Avalanche and the Demon Blade are invalid...

Then what about the Large Diagonal?

Could it be… it’s not valid either?

The Large Diagonal, with its endless responses when answered frontally, was called the Thousand Variations of the Large Diagonal.

In ancient Japan, a Go player once used it during a Challenge Match, producing three miraculous moves and causing his opponent to vomit blood on the board!

That game was later known as the most tragic match in Go history.

But... is the Large Diagonal still valid?

Normally, no one would question it. But now, after the fall of the Demon Blade and Avalanche, everyone couldn’t help but have this absurd thought!

No one wanted to think about it—but they had to.

If… the Large Diagonal also fell...

Would there be any Buddhas left in the Hall of Go?

Once again, everyone recalled what Yu Shao had said during the opening ceremony of the Team Tournament:

“Before me, no game could truly be called a masterpiece.”

Now, reflecting on those words—there was no arrogance. No pride.

Only loneliness. Only sorrow.

—

In Jiangling, inside a villa.

A 15 or 16-year-old boy finally looked away from the computer screen and turned to the middle-aged man beside him.

The man was stout and stocky, with a large face and thick brows—but his aura was calm and unshakable, with a sharpness that challenged all around him.

“Dad.”

The boy hesitated before speaking. “Your next opponent in the National Master Tournament Preliminaries... is Yu Shao, 2-dan.”

The man kept staring at the screen. After a long silence, he finally said, “If he plays the Small Point, and I approach the corner, and he gives me the chance to use the Large Diagonal... then I will play it.”

“Dad?”

The boy was startled. “But he almost never plays the Small Diagonal!”

“Yes, he rarely does,” the man finally looked away and said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s his weakness.”

“Even if you really want to win this game, using the Small Diagonal might not give you the best chance…”

“…Even if you really want to win this game, using the Small Diagonal might not give you the best chance…”

The middle-aged man finally turned his gaze from the TV screen, his voice calm and steady:

“That's exactly why… I want to use it.”

The boy was stunned. “Why?”

The man’s voice carried a weight that made the air feel heavier:

“Because if even the Large Diagonal dies… then Go, as we know it, will be completely different.”

His eyes reflected the faint glow of the screen as he muttered,

“We used to say, there are infinite possibilities in Go.

But now I realize—maybe it wasn’t infinite.

Maybe what we had… was just what little was left to us by those who walked before.”

He stood up.

“In my generation, we once dreamed of reaching the Hall of Go,

but I never imagined it might collapse before we got there.”

His tone was neither regretful nor angry—just solemn.

He turned toward the window. Outside, the wind rustled the trees.

The night was silent, deep, and vast—like an eternal Go board.

Inside that silence, the man whispered, almost to himself:

“If the Large Diagonal really falls…

then everything we once revered…

was never sacred at all.”