Chapter 53 Part 2

“You…” She hesitated for a long time, words catching in her throat, but in the end, she said nothing and simply let out a long sigh.

Then she lowered her head and changed the subject. “I originally thought that giving you your mother’s things would be returning them to their rightful owner. Now it seems I didn’t think it through.”

With that, she snapped the notebook shut. “The contents of this book are far too dangerous for you. It’s better if it stays with me.”

Tong Yuwu stared at the notebook as it was taken away for several seconds but said nothing.

After locking the notebook in a nearby cabinet, the Masked Woman returned to the edge of the sofa.

Pretending nothing had happened, she used her Spiritual Power to reset the pieces on the small chessboard. “Another couple of games?” She looked up at Tong Yuwu. “Your skills have improved so quickly. Yesterday you nearly beat me. Did you do a lot of studying afterward?”

Tong Yuwu nodded openly. “Mm.”

The Masked Woman chuckled softly. “That refusal to lose is just like hers.”

The chessboard pieces were all back in their starting positions. She tilted her chin toward it. “Let’s begin. You go first.”

Tong Yuwu leaned in slightly, focusing her attention on the board. Moments later, a white pawn advanced two squares under the control of her Spiritual Power.

Compared to her shaky, hesitant first attempts, she had grown much steadier after some practice. She only needed a touch more concentration than the Masked Woman across from her; otherwise, there was no difference. The pieces moved smoothly the prescribed number of spaces under her command, and for days now, there had been no mishaps where unsteady Spiritual Power caused them to change color.

Confronted with Tong Yuwu’s rapid progress, the Masked Woman felt mounting pressure.

Her initial leisurely posture—lounging against the sofa with a cup of tea—was long gone. Her body remained relaxed enough to cross her legs idly, but her eyes never strayed from the board.

With both women now proficient in manipulating Spiritual Power, the contest shifted to pure chess skill.

After a prolonged stalemate, the balance finally tipped. Once the white queen captured the black rook, white exploited the gap to steadily widen its advantage, encroaching on black’s territory bit by bit.

It was the Masked Woman’s turn. Her crossed leg dropped as she leaned forward slightly, staring intently at the board without moving a muscle.

The silence stretched on for a long while. Neither she nor the black pieces budged.

Suddenly, she let out a soft laugh. Her finger twitched, and a black pawn stepped forward one space.

Tong Yuwu’s lips pressed into a thin line.

She studied the board for a long time, but she couldn’t fathom the intent behind the Masked Woman’s move. The pawn in question was utterly insignificant—it defended nothing for her and did nothing to expand her territory.

It was clearly a blunder.

But this was also the part Tong Yuwu couldn’t understand: why, after that one move, the Masked Woman seemed to regain complete control of the board’s rhythm. Her expression and movements alike turned relaxed and natural, as if victory were already in her grasp.

Tong Yuwu didn’t dwell on it for long. She quickly steadied her mind.

After a moment’s thought, she decided to stick with her original plan: use her own queen to capture the opponent’s bishop first.

With her resolve firm, she focused completely, her gaze fixed on the queen as she began to move it.

The queen was arguably the most powerful piece on the chessboard—the only one that could move forward, sideways, or diagonally, with no restrictions on distance.

The black bishop sat just two squares diagonally ahead of her. Topple it, and white’s victory would be all but sealed.

Tong Yuwu slowly extended her spiritual power, wrapping it around the white queen before shifting the piece forward. Everything went smoothly. With a sharp clack, the bishop toppled exactly as expected.

Yet in the next instant, the Noble Miss’s eyes flew wide in disbelief.

“You—” She jerked her head up, frowning fiercely at the enemy across from her.

It was the first time the Masked Woman had seen such an expression on her face. She couldn’t suppress a soft chuckle.

In her memory, her old friend’s daughter had always kept her emotions hidden, her blank face seemingly Tong Yuwu’s sole expression.

Pleased, the Masked Woman tapped her right index finger rhythmically against her mask. Then, with her spiritual power, she righted the fallen bishop. Her amused gaze slowly swept over the queen beside it.

But this time, things were different. The queen, once glowing white, was now black as ink.

The Masked Woman turned to Tong Yuwu. “Using spiritual power to disrupt your opponent and ‘help’ their piece change color—that’s the true endgame on this board.” She tilted her head slightly. “Didn’t I mention that?”

Tong Yuwu pressed her lips tight.

Her spiritual power output had grown perfectly steady by now; there was no way it could cause a piece to change color. Yet in the final second before the queen settled, she had felt another surge of spiritual power slam into it.

Before she could react, the influx of uneven spiritual power turned the queen black, transforming it into the enemy’s blade.

The Masked Woman wasted no time, shoving the freshly darkened queen straight at Tong Yuwu and capturing one of white’s rooks on the board.

It was Tong Yuwu’s turn again.

This time, she hesitated for a long while.

“Do you concede?” the Masked Woman prompted.

Tong Yuwu pressed her lips together and shook her head firmly.

She reached out with her spiritual power toward another rook on the board. The piece trembled faintly but didn’t shift position.

Then, right before her eyes, the rook began to change.

White drained away like a receding tide as thick ink, dark as night, crept upward to swallow the piece whole.

Tong Yuwu’s brows knitted tight. With no idea how to counter it, she poured on even more spiritual power.

What followed was a ridiculous spectacle on the chessboard.

Once the rook turned fully black, it began changing colors again—white paint overtaking the black. But no sooner had white blanketed it completely than black surged back.

The rook flipped endlessly between the two hues, caught in an infinite loop.

Sweat soon beaded on Tong Yuwu’s forehead. In one fleeting moment, her purple pupils darkened abruptly, thickening like ink stirred into water.

At last, the rook on the board ceased its transformations. With a sharp crack, it shattered into fine powder. The dust piled up in a dull, silvery gray—neither black nor white.

The Masked Woman’s eyes widened in surprise.

Tong Yuwu snapped back to awareness.

She straightened in her seat and immediately apologized. “Sorry.”

The Masked Woman let out a light laugh. “No harm done.” She studied Tong Yuwu appraisingly. “So this is the power of space magic? Far more…

“…potent than I imagined.”

Tong Yuwu frowned faintly. “I shouldn’t have used the space element.”

The Masked Woman shook her head, turning comforter instead. “You’ve learned to output spiritual power steadily, but your command of it is still just the basics.

“I was at fault too, earlier. I knew you couldn’t defend or counter with spiritual power, yet I pressed on regardless. I pushed you too hard—that’s why you resorted to space magic by accident.”

Tong Yuwu looked up, latching onto the crux of her words.

“Spiritual power… can be used for defense and counters too?”

The Masked Woman gave a low, rumbling laugh. “Naturally.”

She pointed at the chessboard and delved into an explanation of the rules. “Imagine this: right at the start, when you’re completely unprepared, I could deliberately squeeze your pieces with unstable spiritual power. All your white pieces would turn black in an instant, and there’d be no need to even play the game.

“But in truth, that’s the real way to play this board. Controlling the pieces’ movements with spiritual power is merely the first step. The true essence lies in disrupting your opponent while safeguarding your own pieces.”

Tong Yuwu suddenly recalled her match against Taji earlier, when she had rolled three “ones” twice in a row.

She had certainly sensed something deliberately tampering with her dice. She had even considered blocking or countering it, but the only magic at her command was destructive in nature. Even if she drove off the interference, her own dice would shatter right along with it.

That would have been a far worse outcome than merely rolling “three ones,” so she had abandoned any retaliation and turned her focus to targeting her opponent’s dice instead.

“How exactly do you protect or interfere with spiritual power?” The Noble Miss pulled herself from her memories and looked up at the Masked Woman.

The Masked Woman smiled. “I’ll teach you.”

Without pause, she continued her explanation. “Picture your spiritual power as a thick, fluffy quilt wrapped snugly around the object. Even if some external force slams into it, nothing inside will be disturbed. Of course, this puts both players’ spiritual power to the test—their strength and depth. Your enemy’s spiritual power is like a sharp knife, and you’re wagering whether the blade dulls first or the quilt tears open.”

With that, she produced a replacement white rook chess piece. “Want to give it another go?”

Tong Yuwu nodded.

This round progressed even more slowly. The Noble Miss experimented with the new rules the Masked Woman had outlined. Though the moves were not particularly intricate, the game took as long as three ordinary matches would have.

As a complete novice, the Noble Miss was no match for her opponent. Even with the Masked Woman holding back considerably, more than half of her pieces still fell, turning from white to black one by one. The one bright spot came at the end: abandoning defense for a pure offensive push, she finally dragged one of the Masked Woman’s black soldiers into the white camp.

The Masked Woman’s reaction was even more startled than when the rook had been crushed earlier.

She stared at Tong Yuwu as a muffled, silvery voice emanated from beneath the mask. “…Just what level is your magic aptitude?”

Tong Yuwu shook her head. “I don’t know.”

The Masked Woman lowered her head. “Ren Fei… did she really use the methods from that notebook to boost your magic aptitude?”

At those words, Tong Yuwu lifted her gaze and stared fixedly at her.

The Masked Woman’s eyes gleamed through the slits in her mask. Those eyes, so gentle under normal circumstances, now held a profoundly complex expression. One thing was unmistakable: countless thoughts churned in her pupils, but not a trace of joy among them.

Tong Yuwu furrowed her brow slightly, a strange feeling stirring in her heart.

“Cough—” The Masked Woman cleared her throat lightly, averting her face to change the subject. “That’s enough for today.”

Tong Yuwu had just grasped a new technique and pleaded, “One more game?”

The Masked Woman shook her head.

Her demeanor had returned to its usual serenity. She even offered an explanation. “Next time.” As a reminder, she added, “I need to head home for a spell. I won’t be back tomorrow either, so don’t wait up for me.”

Tong Yuwu murmured an “Mm.”

The two departed the 3rd Floor, one following the other.

The door clicked shut. The metal puppet, which had been bustling about for so long, retreated to the wall and slipped into standby mode. Silence blanketed the central living room, broken only by that single soldier chess piece—the one that had turned from black to white—hiding away in a shadowed corner.