Chapter 45

45. You are already dead.

Everything was correct.

Master Choi couldn't hide his surprise.

"Siwoo... do you understand everything?"

Siwoo replied cutely.

"Because the teacher~ taught me~ I know everything~"

"......"

Siwoo's answer made Master Choi's eyes waver.

Lost in thought, Master Choi tapped the go stone container a few times with his fingers, then tidied up the problems on the board.

After that, he presented a single problem instead of multiple ones.

Master Choi, holding the stones with his right index and middle fingers, placed three white stones on the board.

It was a shape commonly known as an empty triangle.

Until now, the problems had been set up so that Siwoo could capture a stone with just one move, with Master Choi providing assistance.

But this time...

"Siwoo, where should the black stones be to capture these white stones?"

This was a problem Siwoo had to solve entirely on his own.

Master Choi watched Siwoo's small hands.

Siwoo smiled lightly at Master Choi, "Hee~," then took out a handful of black stones from the container with his small hands.

Pouring the stones in front of him, Siwoo selected exactly seven stones and moved them to the board.

"Here~ here~ here~"

"Wow...!"

A gasp escaped Master Choi's lips.

'He understood the principle of cutting in an instant.'

So easily...?

A shiver ran down his spine, and goosebumps rose on his arms.

Master Choi, who had been quietly observing Siwoo's mysterious eyes, calmed his racing heart and tidied up the board.

He then created a new problem in one of the corners, leaving the center open.

Without any explanation, he would only briefly show the solving method once.

If Siwoo could understand the principle from just a glimpse and solve the problem to the end...

This child is a genius.

"Siwoo, watch carefully what the teacher does."

Master Choi gave a short demonstration.

Even with a 4-year-old, he should have been explaining everything from one to ten, but geniuses were not beings that could be dealt with by conventional standards.

The go geniuses he had encountered during his research days... were all creatures that didn't seem human.

Their ability to calculate meticulously, make instantaneous judgments, read the situation, and dominate the opponent's mind to build the future in the direction they wanted.

What was scary was that even such inhuman creatures all failed to become professionals.

In other words,

To become a professional, one had to be born with talent that surpassed the inhuman level and felt almost godlike.

"Okay, the teacher will run away. Try to catch me, Siwoo."

Master Choi showed Siwoo 10 moves with both black and white stones, then reset the problem to its initial state.

'From the 10 moves I showed, understand the principle of cutting and create 40 more moves.'

Siwoo wasn't particularly interested in the problem.

Through the 10 moves Master Choi showed, Siwoo had already grasped what was expected of him.

Siwoo's interest was in Master Choi's reaction.

It was amusing to see the composed and proper man widen his eyes and exclaim, "Wow!"

'But the reaction is a bit restrained. It's probably a habit. Should I try to make him jump up in surprise?'

"Siwoo, the teacher is running away. Aren't you going to catch me?"

"Sure~"

Siwoo looked at the board.

Two white stones were about to be captured, their heads peeking out as they tried to escape.

Siwoo's small hand, holding a black stone, began to pursue them gently.

Dojin and Hyunju, watching Master Choi and Siwoo take turns placing stones as if they were in a real go match, clenched their fists in tension.

They didn't know what was happening, but they could feel that Siwoo was doing something incredible.

It made their hearts swell.

Siwoo continued to chase Master Choi's white stones.

The white stones, like a snake, quickly shook their heads from side to side, trying to escape in a winding path.

'Just a solid hit on the snake's head, and it's over. I know the line to use in such a situation. You are already dead. Ah, there was a TV go commentator who used this line a lot... what was his name?'

Although the stones were moving actively, Siwoo could see all the paths of their escape and the method of pursuit, right up to the final moment of their capture.

30 moves. 40 moves. 50 moves.

The stones placed by the two on the board piled up.

Without a single mistake, Siwoo's black stones pursued relentlessly, and Master Choi finally stopped.

Further progress was meaningless.

The large group of white stones, which had grown significantly, was completely captured by the 4-year-old's hand.

Siwoo smiled brightly and calmly, waiting for Master Choi's reaction.

'Okay, Master Choi, a genius has come to the Genius Go Academy~ Reac-tion!'

However, Master Choi was a bit more cautious than Siwoo expected.

"Let's... let's... do one more. Wait, I'll show you a simple one this time too."

'Wow... he's the type to tap a bridge three times before crossing it.'

Of course, Siwoo easily solved the additional problem Master Choi gave.

The door to the director's office burst open.

Director Choi, who had turned his head thinking the children had come, was surprised to see his son standing at the door.

That polite and formal scholar boy didn't knock and just walked in?

His son's face was pale.

"Why, why are you like this? Did someone get hurt?"

What if it was the children?

The director, feeling anxious, stood up from the sofa when Master Choi spoke in a trembling voice.

"Th... That's Siwoo, Siwoo."

"Did he get hurt? How badly?"

"No! He's not hurt! At 4 years old... he can follow the principles of cutting and long sequences after seeing them once!"

"What? What are you saying? Just imitating?"

"He understands! He can apply them!"

This was the loudest voice his son had used since he returned from military service.

"4 years old... Tae, you're talking nonsense."

"Come! See it yourself!"

In the advanced class of the Genius Go Academy.

A few middle and high school students were gathered around a go board, engaged in a heated discussion.

"Here, jumping one space is slow. Even if there's a risk of being cut, you should jump two spaces."

"Isn't that too hasty when the situation isn't difficult? It's not bad to connect safely and wait for a better opportunity. There's a saying that jumping one space in the center is a bad move."

A middle school student interjected between the older students.

"We should be looking for good moves, not just acceptable ones. Here, we should consider making a straight line or an eye. We shouldn't think too conventionally."

"Making an eye in the center is a really AI-like move, but can you follow up? If you imitate it poorly, it could lead to a big accident..."

The door to the advanced class burst open.

A boy from the intermediate class entered, shouting like Tarzan.

"4-year-old is doing cutting and long sequences~~!"

The beginner class was in an uproar.

Dojin and Hyunju gave up their seats to the children and moved to the back.

Hyunju whispered to Dojin.

"...It looked small and shabby, but it has quite a few students."

"Yeah."

"Bro, is our Siwoo really a genius?"

"Seems so. If everyone is gathering to watch, it must be true."

"What are cutting and long sequences?"

"I don't know."

"Our elders, who learned with Siwoo, don't know what they are either."

Dojin, watching his son sitting calmly and placing go stones, spoke.

"Siwoo... seems smarter than us. We knew he was smart, but we underestimated him because he's so young."

"Will our Siwoo grow up to be like Kim Sehee?"

Kim Sehee was a KAIST graduate actress who dominated the previous era of Lee Soo-jin and Han Yoo-ri with her beauty.

Vroom-!

While Dojin and Hyunju were whispering, Hyunju's phone rang.

"Huh? It's Seunghyun's mom? I'll go outside and take the call. Watch Siwoo."

"Got it. Be back soon."

Hyunju went outside the classroom.

Dojin stayed behind, watching his son over the heads of the excited children.

Siwoo, under the gaze of almost all the students, including the director and other instructors, was solving various long sequence problems.

"Wow~!"

"Oh~!"

"Wow~!"

Exclamations of admiration were heard every time Siwoo placed a stone.

When the problem-solving was over, all the students clapped.

Clap clap clap clap clap-!

"Wow, he's a genius, a genius!"

"Amazing! Look at this 4-year-old cleverly solving long sequences! His brain must be different from ours!"

"Teacher~ show us how to do a ladder~! Can he do joseki and fuseki yet?"

Master Choi, with a smile, said to the children.

"He's here for the first time today. Siwoo, let's just do a ladder. You must be tired."

Master Choi showed Siwoo a ladder, a technique where you sacrifice your own stones to capture the opponent's, and Siwoo immediately began to apply it using his own stones.

"Wow~! This kid is really a real genius? He learns it after seeing it once?"

"Isn't he going to appear on a child prodigy show in a few years? On TV... huh? I've seen him somewhere? Oh! The King's Path...!"

"Ah! Hey! It's Deokgu-! Deokgu's dad~! Papa~!"

The appearance of the genius and star, Siwoo, turned the go academy upside down.

Meanwhile, outside, Hyunju was talking on the phone with Seunghyun's mom while walking between the go academy and the music school.

"Yes, they say he's doing well, but I don't really know..."

"Ah, is that so?"

"There's a music school in front, so I thought I'd drop by to take a look, but Siwoo seems too tired now, so I'm not sure what to do."

"You can tell me now."

"Um... Siwoo likes it, and it would be a good memory for him, but... I'm not really seeing much these days, so I'm just letting him rest."

Hyunju leaned against the glass wall of the music school.

The soft sound of a piano reached her back.

Seunghyun's mom said from the other end of the phone.

"Really? Congratulations. When is the shoot?"

"Please tell Seunghyun to congratulate him too."

"Seunghyun?"

"Siwoo would like to have an older brother like Seunghyun."

"Okay."

The call ended.

A few seconds later, a text message with the audition schedule and a brief movie introduction, which seemed to be written by Seunghyun himself, arrived on Hyunju's phone.

Oh.