Early the next morning, the Ji Family villa welcomed another visitor.
The Rolls-Royce Phantom alone, worth over nine million, made it clear that the visitor was no ordinary person.
The visitor was Qing Fen, with three highly capable bodyguards following behind him.
Wu Moling and Ji Yaoguang had both gone to the company, leaving Lin Fei alone in the courtyard, idly tapping the Go board and playing against himself.
Qing Fen told his bodyguards to remain outside the gate and entered the courtyard alone.
"Greetings, immortal master!" Qing Fen bowed, not daring to neglect the slightest courtesy.
"You've gathered all the spirit herbs already?" Without even turning his head, Lin Fei placed the white stone held between his fingers on the board with a crisp click.
Qing Fen felt rather ashamed and said awkwardly, "Not quite. Those medicinal ingredients are rather difficult to find. I'm afraid we'll need some more time."
Lin Fei gave a calm grunt of acknowledgment, his gaze still resting on the board. "Then what brings you here? Has the Bai family made another move?"
Even more embarrassed, Qing Fen explained, "Not that either. My daughter will be holding a birthday banquet in the next couple of days, and we'd like to invite you to grace us with your presence, immortal master. Though I don't think you would necessarily be interested, our Qing family must at least show where we stand."
Despite Qing Fen repeatedly stressing that Lin Fei had done their Qing family a great kindness, Qing Lixue did not believe a word of it. She considered Lin Fei nothing more than a charlatan. Her father had truly gone senile, letting himself be led around by the nose...
Qing Fen had instructed Qing Lixue to make sure she invited Lin Fei, but she had only agreed perfunctorily and had not taken it seriously. When Qing Fen learned of this and demanded an explanation, Qing Lixue casually brushed him off by saying she had forgotten.
Qing Fen had been furious. Left with no other choice, he had come personally to deliver Lin Fei's invitation.
Although the guests at this birthday banquet were all distinguished figures from Rongcheng and even Western Shu Province, when it came down to it, whose standing could possibly outweigh Lin Fei's?
Lin Fei was momentarily speechless. He finally put down the stone in his hand and looked at Qing Fen. "Why make a personal trip over something so trivial?"
Qing Fen stubbornly shook his head, disagreeing. "When it concerns you, immortal master, there is no such thing as a trivial matter."
Before he had finished speaking, he was already presenting the invitation with the utmost respect.
Remembering that Ji Yaoguang would also be attending the banquet, Lin Fei accepted the invitation. "I'll be there."
He lightly tapped the board with his index finger and said mildly, "Care to sit down and play for a while?"
Qing Fen instinctively looked at the board, and his scalp instantly prickled.
Leaving aside beginner-level Go, a standard Go board consisted of nineteen horizontal and nineteen vertical lines, with 361 intersections, hence the name "nineteen lines across and down." Yet the board before Lin Fei had a full seventy-two lines in each direction.
Seventy-two lines across and down, with black and white stones forming an intricate web, scattered like stars across the sky... What kind of devilish play was this?!
Qing Fen waved his hands repeatedly and smiled wryly. "Immortal master, you think far too highly of me. With a board of this size, AlphaGo may be the only one in the world capable of trading moves with you. With my meager talent, I couldn't learn this even if I studied it my whole life."
Lin Fei took no pride in this and merely said mildly, "It isn't that your talent is lacking. Your whole life is simply too short."
Qing Fen froze for a moment, then sighed.
He could not refute that.
No matter how dull someone's aptitude was, two or three thousand years of dedicated study should be enough to make them a Go sage.
And Lin Fei had lived for a full two hundred million years, which meant...
A Go sage!
A calligraphy sage!
A painting sage!
A music sage!
The mere thought made him seem like a towering mountain one could only gaze up at, inspiring spontaneous awe.
Knowing that his level and Lin Fei's were not even in the same dimension, Qing Fen tactfully took his leave.
Not long after Qing Fen left, another luxury car pulled up outside the Ji Family villa.
Unlike the composed grandeur of Qing Fen's Rolls-Royce, every detail of this black Maybach exuded swaggering arrogance.
Its engine roared, wild and domineering, like the bellow of a furious beast.
Screeech-
The tires scraped fiercely against the ground with an ear-piercing screech. With an outrageously flashy drift, the Maybach came to a stop outside the Ji Family villa.
A young man in a black shirt and trousers stepped out. Tall and powerfully built, he radiated an intensely masculine presence with every movement.
Bai Zhan's face was covered in stubble, yet he never looked slovenly. On the contrary, he possessed a certain indescribable air of mature masculinity.
With a cigarette dangling from his mouth, he walked straight into the courtyard.
"Stop."
A mild voice rang out, instantly drawing Bai Zhan's attention.
Lin Fei sat in the pavilion beside the pond and casually scattered a handful of fish food, drawing a large school of brightly colored koi leaping above the water to compete for it.
He did not even turn back to glance at Bai Zhan, leaving him only the mysterious sight of his back.
"Who are you?" Bai Zhan frowned and asked in a low voice.
"I should be asking you that," Lin Fei said calmly.
Bai Zhan knew he had acted rashly, but he did not particularly care. "I'm Bai Zhan. I'm here to see Miss Wu Moling. Do you know where she is?"
"Bai Zhan?" Lin Fei narrowed his eyes slightly, a cold gleam flashing through them. "You're from the Bai family?"
"That's right!" Bai Zhan answered.
Lin Fei picked up a Go stone between two fingers and asked without revealing anything, "What do you know about Ji Yaoguang falling unconscious a while ago?"
Bai Zhan would never have imagined that a casual toss of that stone from Lin Fei could make his head burst like a watermelon.
Bai Zhan frowned in confusion. "What nonsense are you talking about? I heard Ji Yaoguang was poisoned and fell into a coma, but what does that have to do with me?"
Lin Fei smiled faintly and casually put down the stone, finely carved and polished from black jade.
He finally turned around and glanced at Bai Zhan. "You want to issue Wu Moling a challenge?"
A trace of surprise crossed Bai Zhan's face. "How did you know?"
"Fighting intent," Lin Fei said with a smile.
Bai Zhan's pupils contracted slightly. This ordinary-looking young man with his delicate features had actually sensed his fighting intent?
"Who exactly are you?" Bai Zhan asked in a low voice.
"A bodyguard," Lin Fei replied offhandedly.
Bai Zhan was deeply disappointed and instantly lost all interest. Some ruthless men who licked blood off their blades, or special forces soldiers who had experienced war, were also highly sensitive to fighting intent and killing intent. Great families never lacked bodyguards like these. They were unquestionably powerful in the eyes of ordinary people, but before experts of the ancient martial arts world, they were nothing.
Bai Zhan took a folded sheet of letter paper from his pocket and walked toward the pavilion. "Since Wu Moling isn't here, sorry for the trouble, but please pass this challenge letter to her."
As his words fell, Bai Zhan unleashed his internal force. The letter paper became a streak of white silk, whistling through the air.
A sheet of paper as thin as a cicada's wing actually embedded itself deep in a wooden pillar with the force to slice through gold and sever jade!
Yet faced with such an astonishing sight, Lin Fei did not so much as blink. Utterly unruffled, he said, "Take care."
Bai Zhan gave Lin Fei a long look and finally showed a trace of a smile. "You've got guts. You wouldn't change expression even if Mount Tai collapsed before you. I admire you!"
He became all the more convinced that before becoming a bodyguard, Lin Fei must have been a man of iron and blood, like a special forces soldier.
Lin Fei could not help chuckling.
Bai Zhan did not understand that his own behavior just now was what truly took guts.
Even Chiyou back then had never possessed such courage.