As Chu Xingchen grew more and more casual, the young man's expression grew increasingly strained.
Yet his pace of play remained almost unchanged. Faced with a large dragon of stones that was easy to kill, the young man made no attempt to stall and disgust Chu Xingchen.
It was obvious.
Sometimes, it was not a question of whether the young man wanted to, but whether he could.
The situation now made it clear that the young man could not deliberately stall.
If there was no punishment for failure.
Then... it would be Chu Xingchen's turn to punish this young man.
At that moment, the young man, who was plainly the one administering the Trial, sat on a bed of needles.
Meanwhile, Chu Xingchen, the one taking the Trial, basked in a spring breeze.
The young man was playing Go, while Chu Xingchen was playing with his composure.
Watching Chu Xingchen all but toss stones onto the board with his toes, the young man finally could not hold back:
"You're not playing Go at all! You've been chatting with this woman the whole time!"
Chu Xingchen grinned. "What nonsense are you talking about? I'm just humoring her. In my heart, I've been taking this game seriously all along."
The young man glared at Chu Xingchen, both hands clenched. That shameless declaration infuriated him too, but all he could do was place a stone resentfully.
Chu Xingchen slowly drew out a stone and slowly placed it on the board.
In truth, Chu Xingchen was neither seriously playing Go nor seriously chatting with Xie Lingyu.
After all, to the owner of a tomb, anyone digging it up counted as a thief, however one looked at it.
No one was so good-tempered that they could want their own grave thoroughly dug through and still