Lanke Chess Edge
Chapter 146: Gathered Together

However, the more pieces in his hand, the better. It would be great if Du Heng could become a chess piece, but Ji Yuan would not deliberately seek out the other eight warriors.

Success in chess could not be forced, and those who could succeed as chess pieces all had their own special qualities. To put it bluntly, it was all up to fate. The chivalrous contract between Lu Shan Jun and the Nine Young Warriors was also fate.

“Hey, hey, hey… don’t regret that move, definitely don’t regret it later!”

“No, I was distracted just now, that move doesn’t count! It doesn’t count!”

The two old men next to him started arguing, drawing Ji Yuan’s thoughts back as they went off again.

It was normal for one of this pair to regret their move, and the other to not let them change it. However, Ji Yuan particularly liked watching these two old men play chess in the past couple days, because the two old men were indeed chess masters, the kind that were unrivaled in this entire chess hall. However, it was difficult to determine the actual quality of their play.

Whenever one person wanted to take their move back and the other didn’t want to let them, the two had an interesting solution.

“Okay, okay, I won’t argue with you. Let’s follow the old rules!”

“Come on then!”

So the two of them stopped arguing all of a sudden, and just kept going according to the current situation on the board.

For experts, it might take them ages to make their next move, or they might be able to play several games of chess in one day. In the current situation, it look more than half an hour for the two of them to finish this game of chess.

The old man who regretted his move kept struggling, while the one who wouldn’t let him change refused to give any headway at all. By the end of the game, it seemed to all the outsiders like the winner had been decided. However, the two of them were in conflict, and had to play to the end.

Ji Yuan looked around and saw that more and more people were gathering to watch the game, because everyone knew that an interesting scene was about to take place.

“Hahahaha… I win again. How could I have allowed you to take back your move?”

“Hmph, replay, replay!”

The two old men bickered with a couple words, put away the chess pieces, and began to review the game on the chessboard. They actually returned to the point where they had been arguing about taking back the move, but this time allowed the move to be undone.

“Watch this, if I hadn’t been distracted and made the wrong move, you’d be dead!”

“Bullshit! Let’s wait and see!”

The two old men started playing chess according to this different state. This time, the game went in a completely different direction than before. The old man was arrogant, while the other responded cautiously. The emotional change was very interesting.

For those watching the game, the change between these two possibilities was exciting, and could even stimulate the emotions of the spectators.¹

It might be boring for those who didn’t like chess. After all, sometimes one side wouldn’t make a move for a very long time, making it tedious to watch. However, everyone in the hall liked chess. The battle on the chessboard was a silent war, and this game of chess was quite exciting.

The two old men’s chessboard was different in Ji Yuan’s eyes. When others looked at the chessboard, it had 19 vertical and 19 horizontal lines, where the black and white pieces fought for more than 300 points.² However, that was not the case in Ji Yuan’s vision.

The chessboard overlapped constantly with his inner world, and the territory across which the black and white pieces could spread was infinite. What they were fighting for was no longer that small piece of Qi. When the two sides competed across the chessboard, the changes in Yin and Yang were displayed along with each move. The process of the two old men competing with each other evolved into a process of mutual growth in Ji Yuan’s eyes.

Therefore, Ji Yuan was experiencing the mystery of the game on two levels: the first was the regular chess game, while the second was the spiritual game in his mental world. Naturally, the latter was more exciting than the former.

In the end, it was the other old man who won. Naturally, the two old men had another quarrel, and some chess enthusiasts standing to the side also commented.

“No more, no more, we have to go home early for New Year’s Eve.”

“Yeah, I haven’t bought Spring Festival couplets yet!”³

“Let’s find some of those scholars who are taking the exams to write it, pick a good one!”

“That’s right!”

Someone left the chess hall, chatting.

Ji Yuan, who had come back to his senses after the previous chess game, looked around the chess hall. Many people had left without him noticing. He had only spectated a few games, but it was already afternoon. The waiters were packing up tea cups, chess boards, and other items, while some other waiters were putting up couplets and hanging red lanterns in the hall.

“Mr. Ji, would you like to accompany me for a game?”

The owner of the chess hall was a man with a square cap. He came over and gave Ji Yuan some suggestions in a friendly manner.

He was an expert in his field. Although the owner of the chess hall had never seen Mr. Ji play chess, he knew he was definitely an expert.

With the man’s extraordinary popularity, it was inevitable for the owner to pay more attention to him. They had inadvertently watched chess games together several times. Seeing the subtle changes in this gentleman’s expression as he watched the game, the owner always had the feeling that he understood the state of their game better even than the two players. However, it wasn’t clear how skilled this gentleman was. Either way, there seemed to be no one in the chess hall who held his interest or could make him take a second glance, aside from the two old men.

“No, no, thank you, I’m not so great as to show off. Today is New Year’s Eve, are you planning on closing the hall early?”​

Ji Yuan asked his question casually after having politely declined,⁴ saying that a chess hall could only be opened by a truly noble person because it did not generate money. The owner was also a chess aficionado, and even if he had other businesses, he would spend most of his time in the chess hall. Sometimes, when he met players who were skilled in chess, he would treat them to tea and melon seeds, and would record their chess games without charging them any money.

Upon hearing his words, the owner looked around at the chess hall, where seven or eight people were still playing.

“I’ll leave it to the shop assistants. We have to wait for the guests to finish playing chess. I will be going to Wenqu Street to buy some things for the New Year decorations.”

“I happen to know a scholar who is a great calligrapher, and has a stall set up on the street. Shopkeeper, shall we go and have a look?”

Ji Yuan’s suggestion was exactly what the shopkeeper desired; he had long wanted to get to know Mr. Ji, so they accompanied each other to Wenqu Street.

The name Wenqu Street⁵ was actually originally a colloquial name used by the common people. It was only later that it gradually became the mainstream name due to the influx of scholars preparing for the imperial examinations who would set up stalls along the road to earn some money.

Even though the imperial examinations were held only once every three years, there would always be scholars living in the capital, so Wenqu Street grew increasingly prosperous.

This was not only a place to sell calligraphy, but also a good place to appreciate the literary talent of each exam candidate. Who would dare set up a stall without a modicum of skill?

Painting, couplets, and calligraphy all required skill on the part of the scholar, so even if the candidate in question did not set up a stall, they would definitely visit Wenqu Street very often to get an idea of the strength of their opponents. Even some officials in charge of the imperial examinations occasionally came here.

Although Yin Zhaoxian and Shi Yusheng were not short of money for the time being, they nonetheless came out to set up stalls. However, Shi Yusheng’s calligraphy was just average, so he went to stroll around. Yin Zhaoxian, on the other hand, had set up a calligraphy stall.

The street was not too wide, and it was surrounded on both sides by tall buildings such as teahouses and inns, so the cold wind blew less along the street. When Ji Yuan and owner Lu of the chess hall walked over, they happened to see several people gathered around Yin Zhaoxian’s stall, including those two men who had previously been playing chess.

“Owner Lu, the man who set up the stall over there is the scholar I mentioned. He is the top scholar in Ji Province, and has great literary talent. But most importantly…”

Ji Yuan smiled and said.

“I am also from Ji Province, and I am an old acquaintance of Yin Jieyuan’s. I know him to be a man of great integrity. If you ask him for Spring Festival couplets, they will bring a unique sense of purity that can cleanse the air in your house.”

“Can there be such a thing? In that case, I must ask him to write a few more couplets for me.”

Shopkeeper Lu joked and walked over with Ji Yuan.

As they approached, in order to not disturb Master Yin, Ji Yuan used a small technique and stood on the outside of the group, while Shopkeeper Lu went closer to take a look.

“What nice handwriting!”

“Not bad, not bad, this calligraphy is really good!”

“A hundred birds sing of spring to celebrate the new world; the dragon host brings good luck in renewing the new century…⁶ Wonderful!”

“Who is this scholar?”

“He’s awesome either way!”

“Sir, write one for me too, price is no issue!”

Yin Zhaoxian set down his pen and blew on the couplet he had just written, rubbing his sore wrist. He was shocked to see how many people had gathered around him before he knew it.

“Everyone, please wait a moment. Come one by one, one by one!”

“It’s my turn, sir, please write a few words of blessing for me in large characters.”

“Alright!”

Yin Zhaoxian changed to a large brush, and wrote the word “Fortune”⁷ in large letters, spanning all the way to the corners of the square red paper. His handwriting was graceful but powerful, and the large characters showcased his calligraphy skills.

“Oh, what good handwriting!”

“Thank you very much, sir!”

Yin Zhaoxian smiled. He recalled some things he had chatted with Ji Yuan about way back then, and gave the old man who was asking for calligraphy a word of advice.

“Old man, when you go back to put up these characters, aside from the main door, you can put the “Fortune” character upside down on the inner doors.”

“Stick it upside down?”

“Oh, isn’t that ‘Blessings Arrive’?”⁸

There were many intelligent people in the crowd who immediately grasped the implications, and some of them praised him.

In the meantime, while Mr. Yin Zhaoxian’s business was booming, Ji Yuan encountered another friend. The Old Dragon dressed in richly decorated clothing was walking towards him from the other end of Wenqu Street. He bowed in greeting to Ji Yuan from a distance, and a soft voice came.

“I knew that Mr. Ji would still be in the Capital Prefecture before the spring examination. If I found Yin Zhaoxian, then I could find you!”

Ji Yuan laughed. What was the matter with this old dragon? Why hadn’t he he stayed in the Tongtian River with his family, but instead came out to find him?

Then Ji Yuan looked to his other side, and happened to spot the “Third Young Master,” who also seemed to be looking for Yin Zhaoxian. Under the directions of his servant, he walked straight to Master Yin’s stall.

Although neither party was related to the other, Ji Yuan still complained in his heart.

‘Really, now we can play mahjong!’⁹

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T/n: that one moment when you wonder where all your free time has gone then you realize you’ve been a) watching cat videos on YouTube for a good hour at least, and then b) getting side tracked by wanting to know what happens next in literally the exact story you’re translating so you spend 20 minutes gleefully reading ahead only to realize that now you have to go back and translate word for word. RIP. I mean, the cats were cute.

1. T/n: who knew chess could be such a riveting spectator sport? Though I bet you half of these people are here to watch 2 old men bicker with buckets of popcorn while taking notes on insults
2. So… I have a confession to make. The game that I keep translating as “chess” is actually Go. Sorry I’m not going to change it in every single chapter or going forward because I’m Just Like That Sometimes (unless you guys really want me to, then I would) but I just wanted to make a note here. ALSO they sometimes actually do play Xiangqi (“Chinese chess”) and just don’t describe the difference so that’s where the mistake might have come from. Something to keep in mind going forward. Anyway Go has a 19×19 grid of lines with 361 intersections, or points.
3. Spring Festival Couplets, or Chunlian, are traditional Chinese New Year couplets (2 lines of poetry) that celebrate the New Year and the upcoming season.
4. T/n: brief translation-methods tangent that caught my attention. In English we have dialogue tags: [“I want to eat an apple,” he said.]. In Chinese, it’s more like [“I want to eat an apple.” He spoke.]. Dialogue tags are much less common. So either I mess with the indentations and new lines, or I come up with creative ways to translate things without dialogue tags. I’ve chosen to do the latter. Just thought that was an interesting tidbit
5. 文 (wén): language/culture/writing/literary, 曲 (qū): bent/crooked OR (qǔ): tune/song. If I had to translate it, I would say “Scribble Street”
6. 百鸟鸣春堪喜人间换岁，群龙献瑞欣逢世纪更新 Poetry, wheeee! 2 lines, 10 characters each. I approximated this in translation by keeping 11 words on each line, and having both lines mirror their exact syllable count in each word.
7. 福 (fú): good fortune/happiness/luck
8. 福 (fú) is often displayed upside-down because of a linguistic pun: 倒 (dào) “upside down,” sounds similar to 到 (dào) “to arrive”. Thus, “blessings upside down” (fú dào) turns into “blessings arrive” (fú dào, same pinyin), so putting the character for “blessings” upside down signifies a wish for blessings to arrive.
9. Joking that there are 4 people now who all ran into each other, enough to all make a mahjong table, and just sit down and get to business/gossip while they play