After all of us are reborn, who plays Go?

"Lin Xiaofeng, ninth dan."

The Fujitsu Cup semi-finals started immediately the next day after the quarter-finals, with no break in between.

At around ten o'clock in the morning, when Zhan Lang walked to the door of the competition room with a bottle of mineral water, he found that today's opponent, Lin Xiaofeng, was standing at the door with a cigarette, and had not entered the competition venue.

Lin Xiaofeng, who is already middle-aged, was smoking alone at the entrance of the competition, and he seemed to be feeling lonely.

Zhan Lang was naturally familiar with this chess player from Taiwan, China. When Zhan Lang came to Japan before, he had taken the initiative to say hello to him, and the two had a lot of interactions later.

I can’t say we are good friends, but at least we are acquaintances. Since we met at the door, I naturally had to say hello.

Hearing the voice greeting him, Lin Xiaofeng turned around and nodded: "Zhan Lang, ninth dan, you came quite early today."

Hearing this, Zhan Lang just shook his head: "I went to bed late last night and woke up early today. I came here after washing up."

"Then don't let not getting enough rest affect your performance today, otherwise my victory will be unfair."

When Lin Xiaofeng heard Zhan Lang's words, he smiled and joked, but even so, no one would care who was in better or worse condition when it came to winning or losing.

Zhan Lang smiled along. When he was in China, he lived with his parents and was forced to adjust his schedule according to the health concepts of the older generation.

How should I put it, the effect is quite good, but going to bed early and getting up early is really painful.

After all, Zhan Lang had already picked up the bad habits of the 21st century, especially when he was in college, staying up late at night playing and skipping classes to sleep during the day.

I went to bed late last night, at about 12 o'clock, and slept until 8 o'clock in the morning. This schedule is quite regular for a college student.

This amount of sleep is sufficient for any age group, but it is only one or two hours less than the usual sleep.

"Come to think of it, why doesn't Lin Xiaofeng Nine-dan go in? Is he standing outside in the wind?"

"Don't you dislike others smoking while playing chess? I have to smoke a few more cigarettes to satisfy my smoking craving for today.

Otherwise, when I go in to smoke, you fan me with your hands, and people who don’t know me will think you are trying to shoo me away as if I were a fly.”

Lin Xiaofeng obviously regarded Zhan Lang as a close friend, and he unconsciously added jokes while speaking.

Although Lin Xiaofeng and Zhan Lang have never met in a formal competition, they have had some friendly matches against each other privately.

Lin Xiaofeng discovered during the friendly match that Zhan Lang hated his opponents smoking.

After all, Lin Xiaofeng is also an old smoker. Even if he has no subjective consciousness when thinking, he will subconsciously take out a cigarette, put it in his mouth, light it and smoke.

Especially since the two of them were competing privately at Lin Xiaofeng's home, Lin Xiaofeng naturally had no scruples and just did whatever he felt comfortable with.

Whenever Lin Xiaofeng smoked, Zhan Lang would immediately use his hands and the fan to increase the frequency and blow away the smoke.

It doesn't matter why Lin Xiaofeng smokes during normal games. But how can I put it? There are quite a few old smokers in the Japanese Go community, and it's even spread from one person to ten people, and from ten to a hundred people. Everyone smokes during games, although no one says anything about anyone else.

Several top-notch chess players never put down their cigarettes during the entire chess match. They would smoke one cigarette immediately after finishing one, and often the entire game room would be filled with smoke like a fairyland.

But since his opponent was a little too averse to cigarettes, Lin Xiaofeng still thought it was best to resist smoking during the game, unless it really affected his performance.

As for why Zhan Lang knew Lin Xiaofeng?
After all, Zhan Lang has accompanied other people to Japan more than a handful of times besides participating in the China-Japan Go Tournament, so naturally he has gotten to know quite a few people.

As a top-notch Chinese living in Japan, Lin Xiaofeng was naturally one of the first people I met.

To put it bluntly, at least we all speak the same language and it is easier to communicate face to face.

"Then I really thank you."

Zhan Lang shook his head helplessly when he heard this. For middle-aged and elderly men nowadays, the number of smokers is really too many, even to a terrifying level.

In the game of Go, smoking is very common even among Chinese players.

In the competition in China, we can also request to improve the rules, set up a smoking area or something, and not allow drawing lots in the game room.

After all, when one reaches Zhan Lang's level, he can already influence the decision-makers in Go to do a lot of things.

Zhanlang is now further improving the rules and other processes, and promoting the development of various types of competitions.

In a sense, in the eyes of others, Zhan Langgao is also the leader of the national team.

But in Japanese Go, the fighting hand cannot be stretched that far, and no one will pay attention to you even if you tell them.

Even though Zhan Lang is now on the verge of becoming the best in the world and is very famous in Japan, he does not have such great authority to make others change the rules.

You asked me to change it, so I changed it? Who do you think you are?

Not to mention that Japan claims to be the kingdom of Go, so naturally they don't want to follow others. So in the previous games, many opponents smoked in front of him, and Zhan Lang had no way to deal with it. He could only go out to patrol the field or use a fan to directly blow the opponent's cigarette back.

Zhan Lang felt that Lin Xiaofeng was really nice because he could take care of him out of brotherhood and prevent him from being exposed to secondhand smoke.

“Speaking of which, this is also the first time we have played against each other in an official competition.

And it seems that you have never lost any official competitions held in Japan so far?
It’s really an amazing achievement. Although the number of games is not enough, starting from the ring match, the quality of the games you face is getting higher and higher.

If you were in Japan, you would have more than one title."

Even title fights have some margin for error, but if you lose in a ring match, you lose, there is no margin for error at all.

Lin Xiaofeng glanced at Zhan Lang and couldn't help but sigh that this child was truly a legend.

Starting from participating in the World Amateur Go Championship held in Japan, Zhan Lang participated in the competition held in Japan for the first time and defeated the genius of the time, Torajiro Kashima, to win the championship.

At that time, no one paid too much attention to it. They just thought that the next generation was not ambitious enough and needed to be well trained.

Then later, Japan held the World Talent Competition in the hope of determining the dominance of the next generation, and Zhan Lang won the championship with a perfect record in the round-robin competition.

But up to this stage, Japan only considers Zhan Lang to be a promising young player. It will take at least ten years for him to reach the world-class level.

But it is conceivable that Zhan Lang has completed a triple jump in just such a short period of time and stood on the stage to compete with the top-notch players.

Later, whether it was the ring match or this world championship, Zhan Lang did not lose a single game.

"That's amazing, but I still want to take your first blood today. It's better for me than for others. I think you think so too."

Lin Xiaofeng smiled and said that although Zhan Lang was indeed very strong, no one thought that they could not win a single game, so the feeling of oppression was not that terrible.

Therefore, it is only a matter of time before Zhan Lang loses the game. The main thing is that everyone is watching to see who can beat him for the first time.

Anyone who can defeat Zhan Lang will probably make the front page of Go news immediately.

The Japanese Go News wrote, "Zhanlang is not a god, and he is not invincible!"

Japanese Go has also been somewhat psychologically broken by the war waves in the past two years, and it is indeed in urgent need of good news to deal with the war waves and restore the confidence of the people.

Lin Xiaofeng really hopes that he can be the first one. Not to mention other things, the title of world champion alone is still very tempting for Go players.

In the past, they were all Japanese titles, but this one is completely a world title.

After defeating Zhan Lang and entering the finals, Lin Xiaofeng felt that he had at least an 80% chance of winning the championship.

This is true whether the opponent is Kenichi Mitsuba or Shohei Takemiya who wins.

And it is really necessary for Zhan Lang to lose, so that the development of world Go can be better.

After all, if you always win, others really won't play with you.

Thinking of the opposition from the Japanese Go community to international competitions, Lin Xiaofeng couldn't help but shake his head.

He now feels that the Japanese Go community is a bit too complacent. Lin Xiaofeng has already considered returning to his hometown when he can no longer keep up with the professional pace.

And if Zhan Lang loses, it's better to lose to a family member than to an outsider.

"That depends on how hard you are."

Both of them arrived early, and after chatting for a while outside, they walked into the game room side by side as the game was about to start in five minutes.

"The first Fujitsu Cup semi-finals begins. Now let me read out the rules of the competition."

"The competition rules are in accordance with Japanese Go rules, with black being given a handicap of 6.5 points, and the competition time limit being three hours per side, with a countdown starting after ten minutes remaining.

If you leave your seat during the countdown due to some unavoidable reason, the time spent will be deducted from the remaining time.

The older players will guess first, while the younger players will guess odd or even. The players will change seats according to the black and white players. Please start guessing first!"

Hearing this, Lin Xiaofeng grabbed a handful of chess pieces from the box next to him and held them in his hand. Zhan Lang didn't think too much and took a black piece and placed it on the chessboard.

After seeing this, Lin Xiaofeng also poured the chess pieces in his hand onto the chessboard, a total of six white pieces.

Zhan Lang guessed wrong and played with white chess pieces, so the two sides had to exchange seats.

After all the pre-match procedures were completed, both sides bowed to each other in their seats, and Zhan Lang turned on the timer next to him.

The semi-finals officially begin!
(End of this chapter)