I Have Too Many Money-Making Talents - Chapter 67

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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 Moneymaking Talents 067
“…….”
Lu Chuan Yi rose from his seat, and the sound of his footsteps faded away.
Normally, I should have followed to prevent cheating.
But I remained unmoved, sitting before the Go board.
‘Don’t let it distract you.’
I whispered it to myself, steadying my nerves, but there was no agitation.
I was composed to a degree that even surprised myself.
If anything, my concentration had sharpened until this universe of the Go board came into perfect focus.
The early-to-mid game was drawing to a close.
The Grand Joseki Variation had secured a decisive advantage for me.
Lu Chuan Yi had spent considerable time adapting to the variations and minimizing his losses.
In the end, he’d achieved a compromise, but I’d claimed a clear gain in the process.
My trap had landed precisely where I’d intended.
Despite my bluff about not tolerating any absence for interviews.
The fact that Lu Chuan Yi had felt compelled to leave for the restroom was proof that the board state favored me.
‘I still have margin.’
My lead in the Ciel Bank Cup was six and a half points.
Not an overwhelming advantage, but I was definitely holding the lead.
‘……At most two times. Three would be pushing it.’
Each instance of cheating would close the gap by roughly two points.
I’d allow up to two instances.
But crossing three would be dangerous.
I had no intention of risking that just to chase a system achievement.
I moved quickly to place my next stone.
Tap.
There was no reason to waste time.
Lu Chuan Yi had deliberately left that opening as his excuse to step away, after all.
“…….”
I glanced at the Timing Clock.
The game had progressed roughly fifty moves.
Lu Chuan Yi had approximately thirty minutes remaining.
By contrast, I still had just over one hour and ten minutes.
‘Forty minutes difference.’
Quite substantial.
But for now, he wouldn’t feel it viscerally.
Time doesn’t simply flow away.
It’s like a rope drawing ever tighter.
Strangling, pressing, shrinking—a poison that ultimately breaks you apart.
Calculated indifference.
Lu Chuan Yi returned to his seat four minutes later.
Twenty-six minutes remaining.
Without hesitation, he picked up a stone.
In the upper edge, where the white stones had sprawled wide from the Grand Joseki Variation.
He placed a single black stone there.
Tap.
A textbook Reduction move.
Not too deep, not too far.
A placement you could attack and retreat from, touch and leave behind, or recapture from afar.
The optimal move—one derived from precise and relentless calculation.
‘……The cheating is definite.’
Lu Chuan Yi had always possessed a playing style bordering on artificial.
But this move showed a different order of calculation.
It had the feel of reading large-scale value in advance and moving accordingly.
And yet it struck at the thin spots with surgical accuracy.
‘The flow I anticipated.’
I didn’t waver.
I won’t deny that it’s an undoubtedly excellent move.
But.
Playing an expected move with high value doesn’t guarantee you’ll execute the entire sequence afterward flawlessly.
‘Give me what I need.’
With that single move, I’d surrendered two points for certain.
If I miscalculated my response, the damage could spiral into something far worse.
But.
Tap.
I abandoned the standard path.
What I needed to create was a fracture AI couldn’t predict.
An Irregular Move.
A placement that twisted the sequence.
A move that disrupted the rhythm.
Creating variation within the formless.
I forced Lu Chuan Yi into positions he’d never prepared for.
Battlegrounds beyond calculation.
There, I answered with the kind of human baduk that someone trained by AI could still comprehend.
‘That’s my style of play.’
Without allowing compromise in the board state, I countered his invading black stone, capping it.
Space stretched too thin.
The danger that my material advantage could be stripped away.
A reckless move.
But it didn’t matter.
My baduk is built that way.
Baduk that maximizes risk.
Disruption.
Intuition.
Instinct.
The extreme baduk that had brought me to this moment, to this place.
The framework it required.
“…….”
Lu Chuan Yi’s torso tilted forward slightly.
His face remained expressionless, but I could see him deliberating over a move he hadn’t anticipated.
Because it wasn’t a move AI had predicted.
Intellectually, strategically, he knew he should fight back.
Yet he hesitated, unable to respond aggressively.
Risk.
He understood that one mistake here would create a danger even Cheating couldn’t salvage.
After deliberating at length, his gaze drifted toward the Timing Clock.
‘……He’s aware of it now.’
Time had begun to weigh on his mind.
The board state had just entered the middlegame.
Factoring in the latter half, he’d want to avoid Time Pressure at any cost.
Lu Chuan Yi reached for a stone.
Tap.
Rather than plunging into my territory and forcing play, he chose to flee wide, jumping one space further.
‘That’s not an AI recommendation.’
I didn’t hesitate. I picked up a black stone.
Tap.
I placed it on the board and withdrew my hand.
Lu Chuan Yi’s face went rigid.
A swift response.
An obvious block.
I’d cut off the escape route for his black stones caught in my Reduction.
He clearly sensed he was trapped—counterattack was risky, retreat would lose him the Position Evaluation.
After a moment’s thought, he chose escape again.
And I, following his black stones’ flight path, pressed in relentlessly.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Cutting, wedging, pinning.
Without pause, without breathing room.
Herding black forward, strangling all escape.
He shook the board, drove chaos into the game, and muddied the position.
“…….”
Lu Chuan Yi, who had been perfectly still, kept adjusting his posture.
His arms stiffened; he touched the back of his neck; he blinked rapidly.
All the while, he kept stealing glances at the Timing Clock.
Pressure.
Anxiety.
Unease.
I kept my back from touching the chair, leaning slightly forward as I read the moves ahead.
If I fell behind here, if I made a mistake, there would be no turning back for me either.
The lead I’d built would mean nothing in a position like this.
I concentrated on reading not just one move—but if possible, two solid moves ahead.
Then.
Lu Chuan Yi broke from his contemplation and played his next stone.
Click.
‘As expected.’
I responded swiftly.
A Response Move that allowed no recovery.
A move that forced only one path: collision and counterattack.
Once again, Lu Chuan Yi’s hand froze.
I could sense his awareness that he was being forced to read deeper and deeper.
He stole another glance at the Timing Clock.
Seventeen minutes.
I felt his breathing, which had been steady, shift into an irregular rhythm.
‘Just a little longer.’
I slowly, yet methodically, sealed off the escape routes one by one.
Now, truly, the moment of choice had arrived.
Lu Chuan Yi placed a stone at the board’s edge position with absolute conviction.
Click.
Finally, he pushed his chair back and stood.
“…….”
I remained perfectly still.
Without lifting my head, I picked up a stone and played my response swiftly.
Click.
Meanwhile, his footsteps faded.
I sensed him leaving the Studio, with the arbiter following.
His second departure from the board.
Yet Lu Chuan Yi’s clock kept running indifferently.
By the time he returned and sat back down, four minutes had passed.
Thirteen minutes remaining.
Lu Chuan Yi quickly picked up a stone.
Click.
There was not a trace of hesitation in his fingertips as he placed it.
‘Of course.’
A placement without a shred of doubt.
A move that tore through my thinness.
It was only a single stone, but the depth of reading was different.
It carried intent, perfect calculation, and absolute certainty all in one move.
The feeling hits me.
My Disruption will no longer work on him.
My strength lies in deploying Irregular Moves with low Expected Win Rates by AI standards, shaking my opponent off balance.
But now, with Lu Chuan Yi having emerged from Cheating with certain countermeasures in hand, the likelihood of those moves still affecting him had grown slim.
‘Then…….’
There was only one choice.
And that choice would be a calculated one.
‘I abandon the baduk I play best.’
I leaned my back against the chair and drew a short, measured breath.
Now I must control, not disrupt.
Not Disruption, but precision.
Baduk that demands refinement.
There.
‘Layering my own Go on top.’
The intersection of AI and intuition.
The fusion of data and instinct.
Blending the two together with precision.
Click.
A placement without hesitation.
A new current taking shape.
A calm tension that completes the calculated restraint spreads across the board.
‘I’m going to win this game.’

* * *
The YouTube channel “Park Ji-man’s Go In”.
The chat was already in an uproar.
—The first time, we can’t follow. But twice? That’s arrogance.
—This is maddening. We have to chase him down and block him.
—Kim In-ha… he’s truly stubborn.
—Are we really going to watch someone win a championship through cheating?
—He already had the match won. Why invite disaster like this?
“Everyone, please settle down. We don’t know yet. Looking at the Expected Win Rate, White still has the advantage at 51.1%. In-ha is actually ahead by half a stone.”
Park Ji-man tried not to give up, attempting to understand In-ha’s reasoning.
But inwardly, he was just as unsettled.
‘Why make it this difficult?’
Until Lu Chuan Yi stepped away, the atmosphere had been favorable enough.
Leading with the Grand Joseki Variation.
The Disruption that rendered cheating useless.
He hadn’t been able to suppress his admiration the entire time.
The viewers’ chat had been dominated by praise for Kim In-ha.
But then.
Everything changed once the second instance of cheating was permitted.
White’s Expected Win Rate plummeted to 50%.
A tense position where no one could see even one step ahead.
The frustration of missing a chance they could have seized decisively fueled the viewers’ discontent.
“Teachers, please calm yourselves. Look—Lu Chuan Yi’s time is running very low. If he gets anxious about bathroom breaks, the moment he steps away, he’ll be in real Time Pressure.”
Park Ji-man remained clear-headed, analyzing the situation coldly.
Especially Time Pressure—an element that had an absolute bearing on the outcome.
He hadn’t overlooked that.
“This might actually be pure speculation on my part.”
Park Ji-man spoke carefully.
“I think this situation—all of it—might be exactly what In-ha intended. From the Grand Joseki Variation to the Disruption in the middle game… it was all one grand design to allow the cheating and then break it. To really crush him.”
The chat erupted with refutation.
—Sir, that sounds like you’re stretching.
—I can’t agree with what you just said.
—Don’t try so hard to spin it. Kim In-ha is just being arrogant.
—Allowing cheating? There’s no human who surpasses AI.
—I heard even O Soo’s 78th move is impossible now. I wish you wouldn’t show favoritism.
“You’re right. It’s probably impossible, isn’t it?”
It was when Park Ji-man laughed awkwardly, yielding to the angry viewers’ sentiment.
Click.
After Lu Chuan Yi’s second instance of cheating, White’s first Response Move touched the board.
“What… what is this?”
Park Ji-man’s body jerked reflexively.
A net carefully woven.
A snare.
Black pushing through the gap between them.
In a situation where White should obviously seal the breach, White instead opens the path.
Giving Black’s group an escape route to life.
—Wait, sir. Is it right for that to break through?
—What… what is this? Can you really win with that hole in your position?
—Kim In-ha, you’re only disappointing us now.
—I think you need to take back what you said, Master. Kim In-ha doesn’t appear capable of reaching the elite level.
The chat was predictably harsh.
It wasn’t that people couldn’t accept weakness—they couldn’t accept losing when victory was within reach.
“Wait. Do you see this? The center is clearly open, but the win-rate graph hasn’t budged at all. It’s staying exactly the same. How does this make sense? It’s open right here!”
Park Ji-man’s expression suggested he too couldn’t quite accept it.
By human reckoning, this was a position Black should never yield.
Yet the graph remained unmoved.
White’s win rate: 50.4%.
Not the slightest fluctuation.
Kim In-ha’s steady half-point lead.
“……The AI says White isn’t in a bad position even now.”
Park Ji-man’s voice dropped lower.
“Even if this breaks through, it’s still only even.”
The situation had reversed.
Half a point.
A margin that could flip at any moment.
And yet.
Five moves ahead.
Ten moves.
As time passed, Black’s options narrowed.
He pressed the momentum, seeking reversal, but White would not relent.
“Wait, wait! Lu Chuan Yi is in time pressure now! This much stress—he can’t even afford a bathroom break!”
Park Ji-man’s voice rose higher.
Black and white stones alternated across the board.
A fierce exchange.
Fifteen moves.
Twenty.
Black sought to break through; White would not yield.
White’s win rate still held at 51.5%.
A number invisible to the eye.
Yet a lead without tremor.
Twenty-five moves.
White’s board state hardened with calm precision.
Like a frozen lake where even ripples dare not form.
Half a point.
That difference unchanged.
The game was transcending reason.
A number invisible to the eye would not shrink.
White’s Position Evaluation was unsettlingly perfect, the endgame flawless.
Thirty moves.
By then, astonishment had spread across Park Ji-man’s face.
He had forgotten to breathe, eyes fixed on the screen.
“In-ha… surely you didn’t……”
Belated understanding dawned on him, and he murmured with a trembling voice.
“…… Did you plan to win like this from the very start?”

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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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