In the cold winter of 1952 in Shenyang, a frail baby with congenital heart disease cried for the first time. The doctor predicted that the child would not live to be forty years old.
No one thought that this fragile heart would beat into the pulse of the entire nation thirty-three years later.
He is Nie Weiping - the only "chess sage" in the history of Chinese Go.
This book presents the ups and downs of this legendary chess player in a panoramic manner in six volumes and fifty-eight chapters. From the nine-year-old child prodigy who was recognized by Marshal Chen Yi in a Beijing alley, to three days and three nights of self-playing in the snowy fields of the Great Northern Wilderness, which was 40 degrees below zero; from "Nie Xuanfeng" becoming famous in Japan when he defeated Japan's 9th Dan for the first time, to winning 11 consecutive games in the Sino-Japanese Go Tournament - when hundreds of millions of Chinese people watched in front of black and white TVs, when college students poured into the streets all night long and shouted "China has won", he was not only a chess player, but also a national hero of an era.
But he is also human. The "heaviest missed move of his career" in the Ying's Cup final caused him to miss the world championship, and he has been burdened with regrets for half his life. His family was broken, terminal cancer, cerebral infarction and coma... Fate pushed him into desperate situations time and time again, but he always sat in front of the chessboard and said calmly: "This chess game is not over yet."
From resisting AI to humbly asking "Teacher Ah" for advice, from a chess player to a master with many talents all over the world - his life is a long chess game against fate.
In 2026, thousands of people bid farewell to him in the wind and snow in Beijing. Cao Xunxuan came across the ocean, and three generations of chess players gathered in the mourning hall. The elegiac couplet writes: Full of sincerity to rejuvenate the country, and a lifetime of dedication to determine the world.
Opening this book, you will see not only the legend of a person, but also the back of an era and the ever-burning, unquenchable fire.
