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."

of silence his cloudy gaze drifted to the withering leaves falling beyond the window, his voice growing distant, "Brother Zhou... have you

referred to was naturally the mentor who once recommended Su Ming—Teacher

shook his

he wrote me a letter every month to ask about you. I knew you

Ming with a calm that showed he had seen through worldly

still have a stipend from the court. I can hold on a few more years. Now that treacherous ministers have been punished and the

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

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

"Your junior will remember."

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 guidance,

no extra formalities, Su Ming turned and quietly

pendants emit a faint glow, then watched Su

wind passed, ruffling his

who once stood calm before the fall of mountains now sat alone in the empty pavilion, tears glinting silently in

...

days after the Yongchang

inn

corners

capital where ambient spiritual energy was vanishingly thin and strangled by

power, only absolute precision

he held a half-rolled, yellowed fragment—the Star

the cultivation method he used alongside the Xuantian 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

inn's wooden shutters were

tightly

faint fluctuation not belonging to the

"Swoosh—"

azure streak of light, like a blade cutting the void, ignored the inn's wooden shutters and pierced straight into the concealment