Transmigrated into a Grandpa, Embracing the Laid-Back Life

Chapter 441: Elder Qingquan Returns

"Good... good boy..." Liu Wenyuan's voice was hoarse like sandpaper, each syllable drawn out as if he were expending all his remaining strength, "Coming back alive... is enough..."

He studied Su Ming carefully. Five years had changed him; the youthly awkwardness and frailty were gone. The young man before him resembled a piece of Mystic Iron tempered in ice and snow—reserved, steady, yet containing a resilience ordinary people could not hope to match.

Liu Wenyuan smiled with relief. He slowly raised a hand and pointed to a small wooden table beside him.

On the table sat a go board.

Su Ming stood and took the seat opposite. He extended his long fingers and plucked a smooth black stone from the basket.

The Warm Pavilion fell into a long silence.

Old and young, separated by five years, played another game.

Neither spoke; only the crisp clicks of stones hitting the board broke the quiet.

Su Ming's style of play had changed.

In the past his moves had tried to hide their edge, but a streak of intent to break the opponent's structure still showed through. Now, each placement seemed to carry a strange rhythm. Unhurried, unforced, like still depths and immovable mountains. He had abandoned all risky trick moves, seeking only one word: steadiness. Snow leaves no trace, moisture nourishes in silence. No matter how Liu Wenyuan probed with his white stones, the black stones held the baseline of the game firmly, flawlessly, without a leak.A full hour passed.

When Su Ming gently placed the final black stone on the board's center point, the deadlocked game suddenly opened. The black stones formed an invisible vast net, erasing every variable perfectly.

Liu Wenyuan's hand holding a white stone froze mid-air. After a long while he tossed the stone back into the basket and let out a low, resonant laugh.

"Your play is steadier than it used to be." Liu Wenyuan stared at the board, a flash of wisdom in his cloudy eyes, "No blades or swords in sight, but you already stand in an undefeated place. This temperament, I cannot match you on."

Su Ming bowed his head slightly. "Life is like a game of go. I have simply learned that only by surviving first do you earn the right to place stones."

Wenyuan nodded. After a moment of silence his cloudy gaze drifted to the withering leaves falling beyond the window, his

the mentor who once

shook his head.

five years he wrote me a letter every month to ask about you. I knew you were alive but dared not tell him,

Wenyuan paused, then his eyes returned to Su Ming with a

Now that treacherous ministers have been punished and the court is clear, I can

Ming before him was no longer the ordinary scholar in need of his shelter. That unfathomable bearing

rose, adjusted his robes with solemnity, and made a deep, respectful

"Your junior will remember."

Su Ming produced a few smooth mutton-fat jade pendants and placed them gently by the board. Then he left an unsealed note—an herb-and-diet prescription he had scribbled overnight, blending common medical principles with subtle spiritual-energy

Ming turned and

sat in his wheelchair, watching those jade pendants emit a faint glow, then watched Su Ming's figure vanish

passed, ruffling his graying

scholar who once stood calm before the fall of mountains now sat alone

...

after the

inconspicuous inn in the

corners of the room

energy was vanishingly thin and strangled by Dragon Qi from the imperial way, the array acted like an insulating dome, locking every fluctuation of Su Ming's aura within

power,

a half-rolled, yellowed fragment—the Star

ring and the Border Defense True Seal. His divine sense immersed in the fragment's obscure, profound text; liquid Foundation Establishment spiritual energy flowed through his meridians like a

wooden shutters were stained orange by

Ming's tightly

perception picked up a faint fluctuation not belonging to

"Swoosh—"

light, like a blade cutting the void, ignored the inn's