Chapter 45 Fangyuan Chess and Card Room
Li Xiangping felt a little depressed because the "special training" he had carefully prepared did not seem to achieve the expected results. However, there was no other way. Training online was the best solution Li Xiangping could think of.
Although to be honest, if he could go to the Chinese Chess Institute to train with the national team members, the results would probably be better, but Li Xiangping didn't have the nerve to go at that time.
Come to think of it, this guy just refused to be Old Nie's inner disciple, and then he immediately said he wanted to go to his territory to train? No matter whether others can do it or not, Li Xiangping definitely can't do such a thing.
So, even though he was unsure about the effectiveness of such training, Li Xiangping had no choice but to persevere.
Time flies, and before we knew it, it was October 2000. At this time, there was less than a week left before the Samsung Cup qualifiers officially started.
That afternoon, Jueyi was training online when Li Yuanhu came over and called him:
"Xiang Ping, don't play chess this afternoon. Accompany me to visit your Uncle Cai."
"What?"
Li Yuanhu glared at him and said, "Go get your passport and other things. Uncle Cai helped you register for the competition this time. Why don't you thank him?"
Li Xiangping thought so too. The competition was held in South Korea. Considering that he was still a "13-year-old child", his father would definitely ask someone to take care of him. Also, considering that Lao Cai helped him register for the competition, he was under the Weiqi team he owned, so the person he asked was most likely a player from Lao Cai's team who was going to South Korea to compete. Considering that he had been training day and night for more than 10 days, Li Xiangping thought it was time to relax.
"Okay, let's go."
It was the National Day holiday, and when the father and son were about to go out, Zhao Daokai came over to play with Li Xiangping:
"Uncle Li, where are you going?"
The Li and Zhao families were as close as family members. When Li Yuanhu saw that it was Zhao Daokai, he didn't even say where he was going:
"Daokai is here, let's go out and play with Uncle Li ."
Li Yuanhu got in the car, but he did not go to Cai Zhixiong's house, but went directly to the "Fangyuan Chess and Card Room". After arriving at the place, Old Cai quickly came out to greet him. He did not exchange too many pleasantries with Li Yuanhu, and his attention was all on Li Xiangping. When they met, he took Li Xiangping's hand and joked:
"Haha, the number one Internet expert, Jueyi, is here. It really brings glory to my humble place. Come on, Uncle Cai will take you inside for a tour."
Li Xiangping walked inside while observing the chess and card room. Because of his failure in qualifying in his previous life, Li Xiangping knew that Lao Cai had set up such a place, but he had never been there. After this observation, he found that this place was quite spacious and decorated with great taste. In addition to a hall, there were actually many small game rooms.
Li Xiangping looked around and found that in addition to Go, there were also Chinese chess, international chess and bridge. The categories were quite complete, but unfortunately they were not very popular. Even though it was the National Day holiday, the entire chess and card room seemed a little deserted, with only a few people around.
Li Xiangping thought about it and it made sense. Since there was no mahjong in this place, the business would certainly not be very good. However, Li Xiangping also knew that Lao Cai did not expect to make a profit by setting up this place, and Boss Cai was not short of this little money. To put it bluntly, Lao Cai opened a chess and card room like this, which was purely a way for the nouveau riche of this era to show off their culture.
Of course, the prerequisite is that this upstart must truly love Go.
Cai Zhixiong first led the three people to a small room, where there were indeed a few people waiting. Li Yuanhu seemed to be very familiar with several of them, but Li Xiangping didn't know any of them. The only one he had some impression of was a middle-aged man wearing glasses. Li Xiangping recognized him as a reporter from "Go World" magazine, and his surname seemed to be Zhang.
There was a lively round of greetings when everyone met each other. Everyone was very friendly and enthusiastic towards Li Xiangping, but Li Xiangping knew in his heart that these people were more curious about him, and because Li Yuanhu was present, Li Xiangping could only pretend to be a polite and good child at this time.
But after pretending for a while, Li Xiangping became a little impatient. While the adults were chatting, he winked at Zhao Daokai:
"Uncle Cai, let's go look around."
"Okay, okay, you guys take a look..."
So the two children left the room and started wandering around the chess and card room. Li Xiangping certainly had no other purpose in coming out. He just saw that Zhao Daokai seemed restrained among a group of adults, so he brought him out for some fresh air.
However, when Li Xiangping walked into another room, which was called the Chinese chess room, and saw a person of his age, Li Xiangping's eyes were a little distracted. At that moment, he was actually a little absent-minded.
Zhao Daokai noticed something was wrong with Li Xiangping: "What are you looking at?"
Li Xiangping smiled and nudged Zhao Daokai with his arm: "Move over, look, my wife is there."
"Where is it? Where is it?..."
Zhao Daokai immediately became excited. Even Zhao Daokai had heard of Li Yuanhu and Lao Cai's boring jokes, but because he had just arrived in Beijing, he had never met Cai Shanshan.
Zhao Daokai reacted: "By the way, how do you know that is your wife? Have you seen her before?"
Li Xiangping did not respond to Zhao Daokai. He was still staring at Cai Shanshan in a daze.
When Li Xiangping first met Cai Shanshan in his previous life, they were both almost 20 years old. And the impression Cai Shanshan left on Li Xiangping, if described in two words, it would probably be "capable", if described in four words, perhaps "heroic and valiant" would be the most appropriate.
Well, although these two words are both positive, this type of girl is really not Li Xiangping's type.
And the little Lolita who was playing chess seriously and had a little baby fat in the room... Although Li Xiangping recognized her as Cai Shanshan at a glance, to be honest, she was quite different from the impression Li Xiangping had of her. This was the reason why Li Xiangping was slightly absent-minded.
Li Xiangping nudged Zhao Daokai with his arm again:
"Daokai, you brag about your chess skills every day, but how good are they?"
Zhao Daokai doesn't play Go, but he gets excited when talking about chess:
"Of course. I can't beat you in Go, but in chess, it might be difficult to give you one horse, but it's safe to give you three first."
Li Xiangping smiled and said:
"Okay, then we'll go meet our wives."
