I Have Too Many Money-Making Talents - Chapter 58

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Too Many Money-Making Talents Episode 58
Liu Qing’s routine as an 8-dan professional was simple.
After waking in the morning, a light walk.
Breakfast.
A shower, then meditation.
It was a routine that had solidified over the long hotel stays during his participation in Chinese tournaments.
‘Perfect.’
He felt satisfied.
It was nothing like the provincial hotels in China.
The Korean hotel lacked nothing—the facilities, the food, the service were all excellent.
The most satisfying environment he’d had all year.
His sleep had been sound, his condition at its peak.
For Liu Qing in this state, defeat was unimaginable.
He came down to the lobby dressed in formal attire.
The space was crowded with officials and journalists from various countries. A few Chinese reporters approached him.
“Mr. Liu, would an interview be possible?”
“A brief one, yes.”
He nodded.
“How is your condition today?”
“Excellent.”
His answer was without excess.
“Is your statement about teaching the etiquette of professional Go still in effect?”
“Yes.”
He met the journalist’s gaze and answered briefly.
Just then, another reporter raised his hand.
“What would you do if you lost?”
All eyes snapped toward him.
The accent was awkward.
The appearance was foreign.
A Korean journalist wearing a Taegeuk badge.
“And would you be willing to apologize for dismissing Kim In-ha?”
A brief silence fell.
The Chinese journalists glared at him fiercely. The air itself seemed to freeze.
Liu Qing opened his mouth quietly.
“I’m sorry, but—”
A beat.
“Both of those possibilities are beyond the realm of probability.”
He broke eye contact and turned away.
Shutters erupted from the journalists’ cameras.
The cameras captured his retreating figure.
Following the marked path, he crossed through the cordoned corridor.
Upon arriving at the Tournament Hall, he headed straight for the broadcast Go board on the stage.
His opponent was already seated.
Kim In-ha.
Their eyes met.
But he did not bow his head.
And Liu Qing had no intention of doing so either.
A battle of pride.
But in that moment—
“Have you packed your luggage already?”
Measured.
A crisp, clear pronunciation.
It wasn’t a light joke—there was unmistakable mockery woven through it.
‘…What did he just say?’
Liu Qing’s footsteps stopped.
His expression remained unchanged, but his eyes trembled ever so slightly.
He hadn’t misheard.
Chinese.
He felt that single phrase shaking him—felt it in his own being.
“You… you speak Chinese?”
A question that conveyed disbelief.
He stood motionless, staring ahead in a daze.
So everything that happened at the restaurant yesterday was calculated too?
In that moment, Kim In-ha leaned back leisurely and spoke.
“Of course I can. Wouldn’t you?”
This time, in Korean.
Calm and composed in tone.
Regardless of the words themselves, the provocation came through unmistakably.
A sense of toying with him.
‘This bastard?’
A crack appeared in Liu Qing’s expression.
A sensation of something fracturing minutely from within.
His composure shattered in an instant.
Something hot and violent surged up in a rush.
The meticulous routine he’d maintained since morning.
The concentration and preparation carefully built up.
All of it was wavering at that single remark.
“Ha…….”
He drew a long breath.
Then, without a word, he sat down.
His chest burned hot.
He was angry.
Before a match, mastering one’s emotions was a professional player’s basic discipline.
But not now.
‘That Korean bastard daring to…….’
Bangzi.
A slur against Koreans.
More than the desire to win, an impulse to crush.
That emotion was flowing into his fingertips even now.
Then the referee’s voice rang out.
“We will now begin the semifinals match of the Ciel Bank World Masters. Please be seated.”
The broadcast officially commenced, and the two exchanged perfunctory bows.
Whoosh.
Stones crossed from both sides in alternation.
Kim In-ha, Black.
Liu Qing, White.
Tap.
The first move: the star point.
White responded with a diagonal small point opening.
Liu Qing’s playing style was “methodical go that freezes an opponent through cold calculation.”
From opening strategy to endgame, he operated on the principle of thorough position judgment and territory counting that evoked artificial intelligence.
That said, he didn’t shy away from combat.
His style was to exploit his opponent’s greed when falling behind in territory and destroy them with it.
It was go distinguished by dispassionate, clinical move reading.
But.
Today was different from the start.
It was fierce.
Emotion poured into the stones.
Tap.
A move attaching directly to the star point.
Followed by a nose-bleed line extension.
The offensive continued.
Rather than seizing territory, he was playing to overwhelm Black.
It was a move one couldn’t dare play without flawless life-and-death calculation.
‘Resist. Push back.’
Liu Qing was trying to crush Black by weaponizing emotion itself.
Tap.
But Kim In-ha quietly absorbed the blow.
He cut off variations ahead of time and let the flow pass smoothly through.
Just one move.
That move—the one that sidestepped the fierce opening struggle.
Kim In-ha had found it precisely.
Liu Qing’s lips trembled ever so faintly, barely perceptible.
‘Dodged again.’
Clack.
He pressed the attack once more.
A heavy-handed combat invitation.
Not a calm escalation of the fight, but a one-sided onslaught.
The move appeared emotional, but it was actually a studied variation.
A battle net prepared through calculation.
Clack.
Kim In-ha.
He had read that intention.
His moves were cold, his rhythm restrained.
Within the encircling formation, he slipped through with subtle precision and recovered.
Annoyingly composed in his response.
And yet he read the board state swiftly and escaped with flexibility.
Forty moves into the opening.
Liu Qing pressed forward relentlessly.
It was not mere emotional force divorced from calculation.
But Kim In-ha did not falter.
He yielded some territory, yet kept his options open for the middle game.
Clack.
Again, he pushed back gently.
Not provoking, not fleeing.
Oddly faster by one tempo.
Liu Qing felt an inexplicable discomfort.
‘The board state isn’t bad.’
The placement of the stones.
Thick and thin formations.
The momentum spreading from the center.
‘…Why does it feel so wrong?’
Emotion may have led the way, but the foundation was a studied move.
There was no loss.
In fact, he had gained a slight advantage.
Yet with each successive move, the impression that the board was tilting away refused to fade.
Flexible adaptation.
Effortless pushing back.
Yielding territory while building influence in the shadows.
A hidden intention concealed within that natural flow.
Belated realization crashed over him.
‘Wait—was he aiming for the center from the start?’
The most difficult region to read.
The epicenter where all patterns collapse.
Among countless possibilities, a single mistake here would be fatal.
Kim In-ha was guiding White toward that very space.
‘Damn it.’
Liu Qing’s jaw clenched.
He conceded the emotional outburst.
But he was an experienced professional.
He had not relied on emotion alone.
He had prepared thoroughly, pressured Black with studied moves.
Looking at results alone, there was no loss.
In fact, his territory was ahead.
And yet.
‘I lost sight of the larger picture.’
Absorbed in the local skirmish’s victory, his vision for reading the board’s overall flow had narrowed.
A position where one wins the small battle but loses the war.
Liu Qing gritted his teeth.
This was not the game he played.
Profit layered and compounded, seizing territory by turning the opponent’s greed against them—that was his Go.
But now, intoxicated by modest gains, he had surrendered his thickness.
Click.
Black’s stones gnawed at him, piece by piece.
And kept asking.
Will you really hand over the center?
You’ll lose if you do. Shouldn’t you do something about it?
Kim In-ha’s voice transmitted through the stones.
Liu Qing’s fingertips trembled.
‘Am I being eaten alive by my own Go?’
Cold fingertips.
Heat that would not fade.
Something twisted inside him once more.
‘Damn it.’
This game.
It was already being consumed.

* * *
The age of romance.
Barbarism dressed up in pretty words.
‘That’s what Park told me.’
Not even a few decades ago.
Players would smoke while playing Go, sprawl across their chairs, and hum songs during games.
Unthinkable now.
Psychological Warfare.
Disruption tactics played off the board as well, hand-to-hand combat of the mind.
“It’s less common now, but knowing how to exploit it was once a true mark of a professional’s skill.”
Bad manners.
But not against the rules.
You might face criticism, but it’s not a violation.
That’s how it was.
An era when tactics were part of the game itself.
I took that lesson to heart. And I made it my own.
‘Why not use what I have?’
The tools at my disposal.
My way.
So I used them.
Deflecting interviews.
Provoking emotion.
Leveraging my Chinese Language Talent to unsettle Liu Qing.
I felt no guilt.
Professionals speak through results. Winning is how you prove it.
And besides.
‘You started the quarrel.’
I only give back what I receive.
On the board.
Off the board too.
In the most insulting way, delivered with perfect courtesy.
The outcome was as I anticipated.
The center.
My design, built by guiding the flow.
That was my domain.
Ruthless thickness.
A Playing Style spanning opening through middle game.
Vibration Reading, Move Reading, intuition and feel.
This stage—where all three could shine brightest—was complete.
Click.
Knowing it was a losing proposition, he invaded anyway.
To prevent the center from solidifying into my territory.
‘Caught.’
As intended.
Exactly as I’d drawn him out.
I placed my stone as though I’d been waiting for this moment.
In the cruelest manner possible on the board.
Encirclement.
Severance.
Closure.
The path was sealed.
I drove him into a form where breakthrough was impossible, and the noose tightened with every attempt to flee.
‘You’re not good at this kind of Go, are you?’
It was crumbling.
No matter how much time he spent deliberating, it meant nothing here.
The shape was a mess.
Connections severed.
A collapse so shameful it hurt to watch.
‘It’s fallen apart.’
Clack.
With my single move, the breath was cut from his central white group.
And then.
……
A single white stone dropped into the captured stones container.
Trembling hands.
A light, brittle crack.
Inside that sound was the shattering of his dignity.
Silence.
Even the referee who had come to confirm the resignation seemed to pause.
Whoosh.
Liu Qing, 8-dan, bit his lip and pushed back his chair, standing abruptly.
In that instant before he could turn away without the slightest courtesy toward the match.
“Before you go, learn some manners first.”
Clear Chinese.
Precise inflection.
And my head bowed in polite respect.
It was a gesture meant to show him: you lost in skill, and you lost in manner as well.
His expression twisted as he stood frozen, looking at me.
“You…… Be more humble.”
His voice had lost its force.
Emotion threaded through his tone.
A last attempt to salvage his shattered pride.
I smiled quietly.
“What you say after losing…… doesn’t really land, does it?”
Without a shred of mockery.
Without exaggeration or bitterness.
Just a quiet declaration proven by results.
Liu Qing, 8-dan, said nothing. He glared at me intently, then turned away.
Click.
Behind his receding back, camera shutters snapped endlessly.
—Ding!
In that moment.
The system notification sounded, right on cue.
[Advancement to Semifinals of the 30th Ciel Bank World Masters.]
A window appeared immediately after.
[You are continuing an extraordinary achievement.]
[You have advanced to the semifinals of a world championship tournament as an amateur.]
[Rewards are being added to your achievement pool.]
[Your ‘Gold Roulette Ticket’ has been automatically upgraded to a ‘Platinum Roulette Ticket’.]
[‘Platinum Roulette Ticket’ can be claimed as future achievements accrue. Would you like to claim it now? Yes or No]
I smiled quietly.
This was the flow I had wanted.
‘No.’
Without a moment’s hesitation, I chose to take the prize money.
This wasn’t over yet.
Since I’d come this far…….
‘I might as well aim for the championship.’

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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