CH 16.2

The two walked and laughed as they made their way to the entrance of the house. From a distance they saw a familiar figure. It was Li Xiuran wearing the uniform of the training center. When they spotted Li Xiuran, he also saw them and walked straight towards them. 

“You returned a bit later than I had anticipated.” Li Xiuran had arrived on time, but waited at the door for more than ten minutes. 

“Why have you come?” Qiao Mu frowned. 

“Don’t worry, I didn’t go in. Grandmother doesn’t know I’ve come to look for you.” Li Xiuran seemed to know what Qiao Mu was worried about and hurried to explain, “Originally I wanted to wait for you at the school’s entrance but because lately I have been preparing for the rank competition, I haven’t been at school.”

“Oh.” 

Li Xiuran seemed used to Qiao Mu’s cold temperament and was not angry. Instead, he just looked at Xu Youyou suddenly and said, “I saw the lantern you hung on the wishing tree.” 

“Why did you look at my lantern?” Although the lanterns hung on the wishing tree were for people to look at, no one would deliberately go to look at them, especially locals like Li Xiuran. 

“Perhaps I should say I saw the lantern, then later I coincidently found out that you were the one who won it.” Li Xiuran laughed and looked towards Qiao Mu, “You solved the life-death problem?” 

Qiao Mu remained silent and did not answer. 

“Even if you don’t say it, I still know it was you.” Li Xiuran’s face was determined.

“Why have you come here? You wanted to beat me and you already have.” Qiao Mu said. 

“I’ve just come by to see you. Now that I’ve seen you, I’m leaving.” Li Xiuran finished talking and waved his hand as he passed the two of them, walking out of the alley. It was as if he had really only come to take a look. 

“Why is he so neurotic?” Xu Youyou was confused, they were all sixteen year olds, but their Class 18 students were so simple, why was Li Xiuran so strange. 

“Don’t bother about him” The two of them did not worry about Liu Xiuran and walked into the courtyard together.  

Grandmother was afraid the dishes would get cold so she waited until the two came back before cooking. Xu Youyou made a mess in the kitchen before being chased out. She then calmly went to the yard to watch the scenery. 

After the rain, the ancient town had a special charm. Raindrops dripped down from the old styled roofs. Xu Youyou noticed an ant under a flower pot in the corner. The ant was carrying a large grain of rice it had stolen and struggled to crawl. When it reached the bottom of the flower pot, it was hit by a water droplet that had fallen from a flower petal. 

Xu Youyou had a sudden thought and turned around to grab the camera in her backpack. She then hurried back into the house.

“Qiao Mu.” Xu Youyou turned her head towards the kitchen and called out. 

“What’s wrong?” Qiao Mu stuck his head out. 

“Give me two grains of rice.” 

What in the world? 

Although he was hesitant, Qiao Mu still used a pair of chopsticks to grab two grains of rice and brought it over: “What are you trying to do?” 

“Throw the rice on the ground, over here.” Xu Youyou pointed in a direction. 

Qiao Mu followed her instructions and placed it down. He then watched as a crowd of ants came surrounding it before finally understanding what Xu Youyou was doing. 

Qiao Mu thought it was pretty fun. She was already this old, yet she was still playing with ants. After telling her that the food would be ready soon, Qiao Mu returned to the kitchen to help Grandmother Qiao. 

11:00 PM. 

Qiao Mu was just about to go to sleep when his phone suddenly rang with a notification. He held it up to look and found that Li Xiuran had sent him a WeChat message. 

After he decided to give up on Weiqi, Qiao Mu and Li Xiuran hardly contacted each other. However, they still had each other’s WeChat contacts, they just didn’t communicate. Thinking about Li Xiuran’s weird words before dinner, Qiao Mu opened up the message. 

The message was a poster, it could have also been called a sign up sheet for a national amateur Weiqi competition. 

Besides the photo, Li Xiuran did not send anything more. However, Qiao Mu felt as if he had been seen through. During the past six years, Li Xiuran and him have never talked about anything related to Weiqi. Even in his WeChat Moments, Li Xiuran never shared anything related to Weiqi as if Li Xiuran had blocked Qiao Mu. But now, he directly sent a sign up sheet to Qiao Mu. 

Every year for the Professional Weiqi Rank Competition, there were two sign up notices. One was for those directly selected by qualified training centers around the country and the other was for the general public. The Rank Competition had qualifications for the amateur players, typically only amateur players that were in the province’s top 20 list could be qualified as a professional chess player. The amateur competition is held once a year and the top 20 of the province could directly participate in that year’s professional rank competition.  

Come on, let’s become professional chess players together. 

Li Xiuran almost sent this sentence. 

By the time Qiao Mu regained his senses, he realized he had been staring at the photo for more than ten minutes. Surprised, he exited the chat but could not calm his emotions down. He casually swiped through WeChat Moments and suddenly came across Xu Youyou’s Moment that she posted an hour ago. 

It was a picture captioned with the words “Hardworking ant.”

The small ant was carrying a grain of rice that was bigger than its body as it struggled to break through a water droplet.  Perhaps it was because the composition of Xu Youyou’s photo was exquisite, but Qiao Mu could even see the perseverance on its indistinguishable face.  

At that moment, Qiao Mu suddenly felt that he wasn’t even as good as this ant. 

Could he try one more time?