C48

"You need money to hold any event. Without money, no matter how amazing your event is, it won't be maintained." The President walked to my side, "David, you are an outstanding participant, but you have always been focusing on the competition, so you might not be able to understand my difficulties. As chairman of our ancient movement, I'm not just looking at the movement itself... In fact, I've rarely thought about the spirit of snooker itself. "

"You mean you don't consider the nature of the sport?" Tomoko asked.

"Well, although I love it, I have no time to think about how it should progress."

"You mean its own progress, not whether it will be liked or not."

"That's right, so more often than not I'm actually an operator. Operators don't care what they run! His only goal is to find ways to improve the program's Access Rate s. "

I felt aggrieved. "So you don't care about our skills? No matter how well we score, how well we defend, do you care? How do you make money in your head? "

"Mr. David!" Latimer indicated for me to calm down, "You are not in the Chair so you naturally do not know of his helplessness."

"No, I accept David's accusation, he was right." "But you know, if you don't have the money to support it, I'm afraid you've already started another project today. David, do you really love snooker? "

"Of course," I said without thinking. "It's my favorite sport."

"Hehe, but there are too few people like you."

"What do you mean?"

"This world is the world of most people. The snooker movement had few fans, so I had to make a series of reforms to make it more attractive. That way we can survive in the cracks between the Robotics Theatre and the Daydream Theatre. "

"Is that why I saw them?"

"That's right!" A sexy female referee, and an interesting history of exposing contestants. "

"Interesting? I don't find it funny that contestants have ever made friends with a popular celebrity. "

"That's your opinion. But most of the people who get on to the show — the people who get on to our show — do it because of the gimmick. Not many people want to watch two balls hit each other in three or four hours. I have to create enough talk outside of this game to keep our show going, you understand? "

Although I am still unwilling to accept this, I have to nod. "Chairman, you may be right. But we should let everyone know why we love the sport, and not use other topics to attract attention. "

"That's very simple."

"Just because you didn't do it!" I felt a fire burning in my chest. "If it were me... "I will let everyone know the charm of this sport. That way, everyone will know that even if only a few balls are hit against the table, it will still have an inexhaustible attraction!"

"Oh? "What is the attraction?" The Chairman pretended not to know.

"Techniques and techniques. Without painstaking training, we couldn't even hit the ball near the hole. And, more importantly — the spirit of snooker. "

"Spirit?"

"The nature of snooker. You said it was an ancient movement, but it is still not extinct. And many of the movements created by humans were nowhere to be seen. This undoubtedly shows its charm, and I have no doubt it will continue to exist. "

"Continue to exist? Unfortunately, perhaps … Hur Hur, why don't you tell me its essence? "

"From what I understand, snooker means defense. In short, snooker is the balance between attack and defense, even though it looks like a simple pool game. "In fact, compared to offense, defense is even more attractive."

"Defense?"

"Hehe, Mr President, stop pretending. You know what I mean by defense."

"Of course I know that defense is —" He wiped the sweat from his forehead. "Compared to the two balls colliding with each other, it's more boring when the two balls colliding with each other and not bumping into each other."

"You …" I really don't understand why the chairman has been taunting the movement. "You can't deny that it's a charm. When he doesn't have the opportunity to attack, isn't it a type of art to block the opponent's attack, or to create difficulties for the opponent's attack? "

"Wait …" Miss Tomoko, who was at the side, was confused. "Everyone, I still don't quite understand this movement called Snooker."

"As a robot, shouldn't you know everything?" The Chairman asked in surprise.

"Hehe, I have yet to infuse the A.I. Chip with such knowledge." Furthermore, this kind of intelligent robot did not allow for networking, so it was not strange that Tomoko did not know about snooker.

"Aha, let me explain," Latimer seemed to be well versed in this matter, "Miss Tomoko, of course you know about billiards, right?"

"I know. In the game of billiards, there is a white ball, and then there is a ball on the table. The athlete only has to hit the ball into the nine balls in the order of 1 to 9, and that's the winner."

"Well, then snooker is essentially the same. Oh, I mean from the point of view of winning or losing — there's a white queen ball on the table, and then there's fifteen red balls that need to be hit one by one by the athletes. But the difference is, there's no number on the red ball. "

"In other words, you can choose to hit any red ball?"

"Yes."

"Isn't that even more difficult? You don't even have to think about the position of the ball. "

"It's not like that. snooker's difficulty is that it also adds colored balls, and on the countertop, besides red and white, there are colored balls of different colors. "Every time a contestant uses a white ball to hit a red ball, he has to hit another colored ball before he can continue to play red ball."

"So are there fifteen colored balls as well?"

"No, six. "After the colored balls have been put into the bag, they can be put back on the table."

"Isn't that ball a ball that can't be played forever?"

"After the red balls are all played, you can play the colored balls. When all the colored balls are played, the match will be over. "

"Oh, so it looks like the person who cleared the table won?"

"It's a bit more complicated because each ball has its own score. The higher the score, the better the win. Sometimes you don't even need to clear the table, because even if the other side runs out of balls, the points won't be as good as yours. "

"With that said, I can finally understand a bit more. But what did Mr. David mean by that balance between offense and defense? "In my opinion, isn't it possible to win simply by attacking the red balls and the colored balls one by one?"

They were just a bunch of ignorant people! I jumped out and shouted, "Snooker meant to obstruct! Do you understand? The nature of our movement is not to attack at all, but to create obstacles for the other side! "

There was a silence, and I knew the Chairman would understand, of course, but he didn't seem to want to say more. That Latimer also seemed to understand, and only Miss Tomoko seemed to not know.

I went on to explain, "Sometimes not every ball is a sure shot, so we have to give the opponent an obstacle."

"How?"

"There are many ways. The simplest way is to hide the mother ball behind the colored ball so that the other party can't use the mother ball to directly hit the red ball."

"Wait, is this what you meant by obstruction?"

"Yes. No matter which ball you hit, the most sure route is a straight line. If there is another ball in a straight line that cannot be hit as an obstacle, then wouldn't it be difficult for the other party to deal with it? "

"Indeed."

"Even if you can hit a target ball by rebounding, you still can't control how the target ball will fall out of the bag."

"Bounce back?"

"Yes, it's when you can't hit the ball in a straight line, avoid the ball by breaking a line. The white ball can travel through the table's bounce forward, but humans are not gods. No one can calculate the best bounce route, and there are too many factors to consider. "

"Oh, I understand. So this is what obstruction means."

"Thus, in this ancient sport, the most exciting part is often not simply hitting the ball into the bag, but... Instead, he was thinking of how to obstruct the other party! Instead, I have to think of a way to break through the obstacles that the enemy has created for me! "

"Interesting." Tomoko clapped his hands, it was hard for him to imagine that a robot would find something 'interesting'.

"What's more interesting is," I licked my lips, even though I was facing a robot, I still said very excitedly, "If I can break through the obstacles the other side has created for me … It could also create an obstacle, a snooker word, on the same pole... Miss Tomoko, Mr Latimer, don't you think this is very interesting? "

Latimer and the President looked at each other, not knowing what to say. Only Miss Tomoko applauded for my explanation. Mr. David, I fully understand your explanation, this is indeed very interesting. I really want to give it a try! "

"Well," I said, turning to the President, "so what I'm trying to say is that if you can make the audience aware of the charm of this hindrance, then the audience won't be bored."

"Of course I know what you mean, but what I'm going to say is the same thing: what's more boring than two balls colliding into a bag is that two balls colliding into each other and not hitting a bag at all." The Chairman's face was expressionless, each word pausing after another.

I was a little angry: "You haven't even tried it, how do you know that people won't accept this kind of hindrance?"

"Who says I haven't?" The Chairman sighed.

I remembered now that the Chairman had been expounding my theory on various occasions and conferences, but in fact no one had paid much attention to it. So much so that at the end of the day the President clashed with the press, which, he believed, was degenerate and retarded, leaving the audience with nothing but fat worms who eventually lost the ability to appreciate more brilliant and intelligent art.

Looking at it this way, I more or less understood his helplessness. "Mr President, I mean that we can use some other methods. I know audience friends can't understand our art yet, but we can teach them! Just like what I said to Miss Tomoko just now, I think that only a single person would be able to understand what I'm saying. "

"Perhaps, but it is no longer suitable for this era." "Thank you for spreading the knowledge of snooker to this lady who has never seen it."

Tomoko nodded at me. It seemed that she was really interested in our movements. But how did a robot get interested?

"So …" I still don't understand some things, "So why in the world did you bring us into this Time Field? "To be honest, I still can't believe we're in a place where time passes so quickly."

"If you don't believe me, I can take you to the edge of the field later." Latimer said, "Come to think of it, Mr President has always been my friend, and he also suffered because of the decline of this sport. He really showers his face with tears all day long."

The Chairman continued: "When I found out about the specific role of the core prop, the Time Capsule, that Latimer's program 'Daydream Theatre' relied on … Maybe I didn't think of this idea at the time, but I didn't know when, but I suddenly realized that I could use this item to improve our Access Rate. In this way, our movement will receive more attention. Participant David, for you all to maintain the daily expenses of your contestants, the distribution of the bonuses, and the hosting of the tournament, if not for the protection of the Access Rate, it will be hard to maintain your situation. "

"I know. But how? "I don't think so …"

"It's very simple. If you understand why no one likes to watch our fight, then you know what to do."

I thought for a moment: "As you say, our movement must be focused on watching, or, rather, it must be really engaged before we can experience its beauty. In short, even for the audience, it takes a very high threshold to fully concentrate on it. "

"Yes, popular programs nowadays have very fast tempo. For example, the Robot Theater. And it's going to create new and fun links, not to mention violence and sex. "Our programs are too dull and require a lot of attention, but in our time of entertainment, everyone has almost lost their ability to focus …"

Latimer nodded his head: "You are right, the tempo of our time is too fast. The slow, slow movement of snooker, which takes time to appreciate, is really... "

"What!" I suddenly understood what the Chairman meant, "So that's why you are borrowing the Time Field? because to turn this slow movement into... "

"You finally understand what I mean," the Chairman said with a smile, but I felt that there was bitterness hidden in his smile. "A few balls collide against each other on the stage, and each collision lasted for three to four hours — according to some documents, the previous matches might have lasted longer, and some matches might have taken two to three days — so how can we win more Access Rate? So the solution I came up with was: We can't change the rules of the sport, but we can change the duration of the sport. Now, when we are inside this Time Capsule, wouldn't the spectators outside be able to see the results of the competition faster? With the right editing, we will present the audience with a much better image of the attack in the bag, and skip over the lengthy snooker phase, which requires a lot of concentration to appreciate, so that the threshold of appreciation for this sport will be greatly reduced, and I am confident that in the end... "

I didn't know if the laughter was really happy or was a form of sarcasm — the Chairman laughed loudly and said, "In the end, I am very confident that I can help the competition obtain a higher level Access Rate!"

"So we don't have to worry about money or money, do we?" I added.

The laughter echoed in the lab. The rabbits, ponies, and cows that had been injected with the microvirus seemed to be awakened from their stupor. They let out shrill cries.

"There's no other way!" Latimer gently caressed the little white rabbit in his hand, hoping that it would calm down. "As a parent, as long as it can be good for a child, I'm willing to do it even if it has to live under someone else's roof."

Yes, Latimer was right, the chairman's actions had destroyed snooker's spirit and deviated away from the essence of this movement, but … But no doubt he also seized on the weakest link of the age and tried to change it...

Of course, people aren't going to listen to my explanations. They're not going to concentrate on a game of snooker that creates obstacles for each other... After a while, people jumped from the Daydream Theatre to the Robotics Theatre, or the Theatre, or the World, or the Adventures...

If you want this movement to survive, you can't rely on others to accommodate you. You have to rely on yourself to accommodate others and the fast moving world.

So, spiritually, perhaps the Chairman is a sinner. However, if a person could not even guarantee their survival, what was the point of talking about the continuation of their spirit?

Should I therefore respect this "despicable" leader?

I felt all my anger gone, replaced by helpless sadness.