I work as a cleaner at a Go dojo and watch professional chess players dominate every day. Li Rui, the newly promoted seventh-dan player, returned from winning the championship and dropped the trophy at my feet: "You sweeper, have you seen the championship trophy?"
I silently picked up the trophy and wiped it: "There are seven of these in my basement." He laughed in front of everyone: "You are a piece of trash who can't even play chess. I pointed at the black chess piece he just played and gave it to four pieces. You will definitely throw the pieces within thirty moves." With the whole audience laughing, Li Rui answered the challenge. When the game started, I was making quick moves, but he was sweating. On the twenty-ninth move, his chess piece fell out of his hand: "The 'Flying Knife' in ancient chess records? This move has been lost long ago!"
I swept up the scattered chess pieces and said, "The disciples who have lost my teaching all think this method is outdated."
The afterglow of dusk slants through the huge floor-to-ceiling windows, casting a long, warm orange light strip on the smooth, mirror-like wooden floor of the "Yunding Go Dojo". Fine dust is suspended in the air, floating slowly in the passage of sunlight. It's so quiet here that you can hear it. Only the clear "ta" and "ta" of the chess pieces falling on the catalpa wood chessboard is like tapping on the bones of time, with an almost sacred rhythm.
