Volume 3 Synopsis
(For those who skipped most of the plot in this volume)
After the Wu Yue Cup ended, Rui Zhao continued his professional career journey.
At the same time, seeing the huge influence of Rui Zhao's Wuyue Cup, South Korea decided to hold the second Lakeside Cup World Go Women's Challenge. However, due to the short preparation time this year, it was finally decided to co-host with the Nongshim Cup. During the Nongshim Cup, the Lakeside Cup competition will be held every morning, and Rui Zhao will be invited to participate.
After the Lakeside Cup was decided to be held, South Korea also had to hold the relevant preliminaries for the Lakeside Cup. The three foreign players of the Dongjiang women's team, Xu Nanying from South Korea, were unable to play in the Women's Weiqi League because of the conflict between the two rounds of the Women's Weiqi League and the South Korean Lakeside Cup preliminaries. This gave Zou Yang the opportunity to take advantage of the situation and use the [Emergency Relief Clause] to add Rui Zhao to the team midway. After some operations, Rui Zhao successfully joined the Dongjiang women's team and was recognized by Wu Yueyun, the chess master and the second player of the original team. At the beginning of joining the team, he replaced Wu Yueyun and started playing second.
On the other hand, Lei Qi learned the truth after losing the Chess Saint Tournament. Although he could understand rationally that Rui Zhao had done nothing wrong, emotionally he found it difficult to fully accept Shang Chaotian's behavior of taking good care of Rui Zhao after the Chess Saint Tournament.
After his implicit protest to Shang Chaotian failed, his mental fluctuations made it impossible for him to use the flow state again. His competitive state declined significantly, and he suffered consecutive defeats in the National Championship and the Weiqi League. Because he had not been able to use the "flow state", his teacher Shang Chaotian and senior brother Cai Shuang mistakenly thought that he was deliberately throwing a tantrum. His psychological pressure further increased, and he lost to Chu Jun in the Tongge Cup, and his emotions were on the verge of collapse.
When Shang Chaotian discovered that something was wrong with his students, Lei Qi had already exploded under the heavy pressure. He unilaterally severed his teacher-student relationship with Shang Chaotian and rejected all of Shang Chaotian's intentions to repair the relationship in order to seek a respite, which temporarily stabilized his mentality. However, the psychological impact of this incident still prevented him from using the "flow" state.
After this incident, Lei Qi tried very hard to cheer up in order to reassure his parents and get back to form. However, the fact that the teacher who grew up with him insisted on leaning towards Rui Zhao compared to himself has always bothered him and has always affected his state. Finally, with the encouragement of the ninth-dan chess player Kuai Liang, he made up his mind to perform better than Rui Zhao and use impeccable facts to help himself completely get out of the chess saint war incident.
At this time, Rui Zhao had achieved a series of achievements: winning the new first-dan championship, entering the Pinghu rapid chess tournament, and breaking the record for the fastest promotion to the second dan. Feeling the pressure, Lei Qi decided to compete with Rui Zhao in the Nongshim Cup and Lakeside Cup tournaments held at the same time.
Ke Ruizhao's performance in the Lakeside Cup Tournament was extremely amazing, and he almost crushed his opponents in every round!
She defeated outstanding female chess players from Japan and South Korea, including Heo Nam-young, Uesaka Rei, An Huilin, Sanada Asa, Park Wenmei, Akakura Haruna, and Zheng Caixi, achieving the second-longest winning streak of seven in the history of women's challenge tournaments! The media in the three countries almost unanimously recognized her as the "future number one female chess player"!
Faced with such an extremely dazzling result, Lei Qi, who was absolutely unwilling to lose to the opponent, was forced into a desperate situation.
In order not to lose to Rui Zhao, Lei Qi, who had lost his heart flow, also took out almost all of his energy and determination, and burned his boats, and defeated the powerful enemies that appeared in front of him one by one. He also achieved seven consecutive victories in the Nongshim Cup in a desperate but tenacious manner!
With the amazing performance of the two pioneers of China, in the last match of the ring match, only the main players of the men's and women's teams of Han and Ying were left! The "5 vs. 1 vs. 1" numerical advantage almost helped China lock in the championship of the two ring matches!
After seven consecutive wins, in the last match of the second stage of the challenge match, Rui Zhao faced the Japanese leader, the female Honinbo Natsukawa Aoi, while Lei Qi faced the world's number one player Liu Shixian.
Facing the aggressive Chinese Pioneer, Xia Chuan Aoi thought that he might not be able to defeat the opponent. In order to avoid the humiliating result of the whole team being eliminated, the Dongying Chess Academy urgently mobilized a large number of manpower to collect data from Rui Zhao's previous live broadcasts, sorted out and analyzed Rui Zhao's weaknesses in facing complex endgames, and based on this, formulated a strategy of "bravely fighting in the middle game to disrupt the situation, and ultimately relying on endgames to win", and succeeded.
In the end, Rui Zhao was defeated by Xia Chuankui in the endgame despite leading by one point, and was eliminated. Faced with such an opportunity, Lei Qi hoped to defeat the world's number one player, the King of Nongshim, Liu Shixian, in one fell swoop to prove that he was stronger than Rui Zhao. With a strong desire to win, Lei Qi played a game of extremely high level, but Liu Shixian played perfectly and finally defeated Lei Qi, avoiding the embarrassment of the team losing without a win and being eliminated in disgrace.
After the second round of the challenge match, Rui Zhao returned to China and defeated Yang Manjing in the final round of the Women's Weiqi League, helping the Dongjiang team win the Women's Weiqi League. At the same time, she took advantage of Liu Yuhong's mistake to successfully defeat her opponent in the Bay Area Masters Tournament and won her first domestic women's championship. At the same time, she is moving towards the goal of winning the Rookie King.
After the Spring Festival, the Rookie of the Year competition began, and the third stage of the Nongshim Cup and Lakeside Cup also started in Dongjiang.
But when Rui Zhao advanced all the way into the finals in the Rookie King Competition, something happened in the competition on the other side that no one had expected.
At the Lakeside Cup, although the Ice Queen Kim Woo-eun was still unbeatable, she finally showed signs of being at the end of her strength as the battles continued.
But in the Nongshim Cup, the world's No. 1 player Liu Shixian seemed to be in a city that would never fall. He faced the Japanese captain and four top Chinese players alone, as if he was crushing with ease. He was alone, and no one could break through. He didn't show any sign of exhaustion.
Finally, on February 2024, 2, it was Rui Zhao’s nineteenth birthday.
In the last match of the Lakeside Cup, the Ice Queen, who had been fighting for four consecutive days and had endured challenges from many female masters, was finally overwhelmed and exhausted. The Chinese women's team won the women's ring championship again after five years!
In the second game of the Rookie King finals, Rui Zhao suddenly exerted her strength and slayed the dragon in one fell swoop, winning the Rookie King with a total score of 2-0. Queen Zhao was crowned for the second time on her birthday and was promoted to the sixth dan at the same time!
It’s a pity that these two extremely valuable championships have become subheadings today.
There can only be one headline on the front page of Go news that day:
Liu Shixian, the world's No. 1 player, faced the six greatest players of the time and fought back. He changed his fate. After winning the last match of the second stage against Lei Qi, which ended his seven-game winning streak, he won consecutively against five Chinese players, including Shindo Hiroaki, Dai Ran, Tang Guansheng, Sun Yi, and Xiong Siyi, in the third stage, completing the unprecedented six-game winning streak of the Nongshim Cup. This battle created numerous records and was unanimously called the "Dongjiang Miracle" by the South Korean media.
However, after completing such a feat, the young master of the Liu family was as usual, without any excitement. He just slyly said to Lei Qi while waiting for the final award ceremony:
Rui Zhao and he...are the same kind of people. (End of this chapter)