Chapter 89: Utterly Routed

Chapter 89: Utterly Routed

“Alright. But we have to wait. At least let me get a good sleep first. My serum time hasn’t ended yet, my physical condition isn’t right, I’m extra durable. Can’t… can’t deliver the goods.”

A full five minutes later, Chen Feng finally recovered from the heavy blow of the Gene Fluid.

It was awful.

He had finally convinced himself to mentally prepare, ready for a satisfying fight to the bloody end, only to end up having to obediently go back to play the game in the end.

Although the game experience was also very realistic and convincing, but people, once they can see something better, their greed grows higher, and it’s easy to feel the gap.

Also, although he had resisted before, once the mental preparation was done, with a desperate mindset in his heart, the thought of ‘if I don’t go to hell, who will?’ was born, and he felt that not taking advantage of a good deal made him an idiot, his thinking changed.

But the direction of things was completely different from what he both expected and worried about, and it didn’t change according to his own will, so of course he felt somewhat twisted.

He had always muddled along as a Subsistence Allowance Recipient before, and really didn’t expect that the union between high-end talents was like this, and their view on love was utterly dead.

How tragic!

“Why aren’t you leaving yet? Do you still have something?”

Tang Tianxin looked at him with confusion, her face full of incomprehension.

Chen Feng clenched his fists, his thumbs constantly bumping against each other, and he pouted, “N-no… nothing. Sigh.”

“Oh, wait a second.”

He had just turned around when Tang Tianxin’s voice came from behind again.

He happily turned back, thinking General Tang had changed her mind, only to see her opening the refrigerator and taking out several paper boxes.

Tang Tianxin looked down at her watch while handing him the boxes. “Seems I delayed your mealtime. You have ten minutes before you fall into deep sleep. Sleep in the restroom behind my office. These are my usual snacks, they can replenish your energy expenditure. Hurry up.”

Chen Feng took the boxes. Before he could react, Tang Tianxin received a communication. Something at the Base required her attention, and she hurriedly left.

Chen Feng sat down on the nearby sofa, placed the boxes on the coffee table, and quickly opened them.

After opening them, his face instantly soured.

If he remembered correctly, Tang Tianxin’s refrigerator was full of these small boxes.

That meant she only had one type of snack here.

But why were they all Strawberry Cheesecake!

Could cake, a dessert, really be eaten as a meal?

He tried a bite. His whole body shuddered violently, even having the illusion that his hard teeth instantly melted.

Chen Feng narrowed his eyes and sighed inwardly.

What kind of divine dessert was this? It was too sweet!

Did they put too much sugar when making it?

He really didn’t want to eat it, but then he looked at the nutritional information label on the side of the box. It was very scientific, a high-quality nutritional meal, just perhaps customized to be this super sweet flavor based on demand.

His upcoming sleep would last ten hours, and the energy consumption for his body’s self-repair during that time wouldn’t be small.

Whenever conditions allowed, after each Serum injection and completing training, he still had to replenish energy as much as possible.

In the end, Chen Feng still gritted his teeth and quickly ate it all, then swiftly slipped into the restroom inside Tang Tianxin’s office and flopped onto the soft bed, falling soundly asleep.

Just before falling asleep, he could barely feel his teeth anymore.

He never expected Tang Tianxin, a respectable hero among women, appearing even more straightforward than men on the surface, to be a secret dessert fanatic.

During this sleep, he even had a nightmare. He fell into a swamp made of honey and almost drowned.

Then he struggled out, and the honey condensed into a slender woman.

Indescribable, breathtakingly beautiful, just like a fairyland on earth.

Waking up the next morning, Chen Feng rubbed his head.

Tang Tianxin was sitting cross-legged on her office chair, her fingers tapping continuously on a holographic display.

This hologram wasn’t the star chart from yesterday; it was actually a board game that looked very familiar to Chen Feng.

Go.

Chen Feng was slightly surprised. He hadn’t expected that even after a thousand years, people still liked Go.

Wasn’t it already thoroughly trashed by Artificial Intelligence back then?

With the current level of Artificial Intelligence, humans playing Go probably offered no sense of achievement at all, right?

Noticing movement behind her, she pressed the pause button, turned her head, and said, “Awake? I’ve already sent the relevant information about the various Warships in the fleet to your Personal Smart Terminal. You can view it when you return to your dorm. But this information has confidentiality levels; be careful not to let anyone else see it. Also, the database is too huge. I suggest you only look at the top thousand ships in the sequence. No need to waste time on lower-ranked Warships.”

Chen Feng nodded. “Okay, thanks. By the way, I’ll go back now to get that ess… Gene Fluid.”

Tang Tianxin shook her head. “No need. Last night while you were sleeping in my bed, quite a bit leaked out. My Intelligent Assistant has already completed the sampling.”

Chen Feng stared. “Huh?”

So embarrassing.

He really wanted to find a crack in the ground to crawl into.

“Oh, then I’ll head back first. General, you keep playing Go.”

Having said that, he was about to run.

“Wait!” Tang Tianxin called him to a stop. “Huh, you recognize Go?”

Chen Feng nodded blankly. “Yeah, is that strange?”

He was screaming inside.

General, your focus is weird!

The important thing is that your Artificial Intelligence took my Gene Fluid while I was in your bed!

Your completely calm expression, what the heck is that!

As someone who grew up a thousand years ago, with his worldview built in another era, he really couldn’t adapt to Tang Tianxin’s view on love.

No, it couldn’t even be called a view on love anymore. It should probably be called a view on reproduction.

Tang Tianxin became interested. “Do you know how to play?”

Chen Feng answered honestly, “A little.”

He really did, because he had learned.

When he was in high school, during his final year, he was kicked out by his foster parents, his tuition and living expenses cut off. He had to figure things out on his own. Coincidentally, a local Go club for the elderly was hiring a cleaner. He went to try his luck. Later, he used his lunch break every day to clean at the Go club, receiving a few hundred bucks each month from the old man who managed the club, barely getting through his senior year.

Of course, this was also one of the reasons he ultimately didn’t get into a top university, only making it into an ordinary second-tier one.

While others were going all out for the college entrance exams, he had to support himself. It made sense he didn’t do well.

But he didn’t blame the old man at the Go club. On the contrary, he was grateful. If not for those lovely old folks, he wouldn’t have finished high school.

After the college exams, aside from working to save up for university tuition, he would occasionally go to the Go club to sweep the floor and get dragged onto the board by a few old men for a couple of beatings. Unfortunately, when he got to university, no one played with him, and he gradually dropped it.

“Want a game?” Tang Tianxin swished open her desk drawer, took out two boxes of black and white stones, and lifted the tablecloth.

Turns out the glass under her tablecloth was actually a Go board.

Chen Feng admitted the board stirred up memories, making his fingers a bit itchy. But he was also thinking about the fleet information. He hesitated, “Um, I’m a bit busy right now. How about another day?”

Tang Tianxin shook her head. “That won’t do. You have no idea how hard it is for me to find a real person to play Go with. It’s been nearly ten years since I found a fellow Go enthusiast; I could only play against AI. Ten years! The information can be looked at anytime, but playing Go is about the right mood. Come on! If you don’t satisfy me today, are you even a real man?”

Chen Feng fell for her provocation. “Fine, let’s play! Who’s afraid of who!”

He felt he was still quite strong. Sometimes when in good form, he could trade blows with the old monsters at the Go club. He was definitely not a terrible player.

Twenty minutes later, Chen Feng scurried away under Tang Tianxin’s roaring laughter.

Her skill level was terrifying!

Simply inhuman!

Chen Feng, with an amateur mid-level strength, was utterly routed, completely helpless. The problem was Tang Tianxin, who didn’t seem like it usually, had a really dirty Go-playing style.

She played while mocking.

“I’m going to eat your big dragon now.”

“Surround, atari. Just spit it out obediently.”

“That’s so blind. I casually dig a pit and you jump right in. Too straightforward.”

“Do you know who your opponent is? The genius among genius Commanders!”

“You’re seeking your own doom!”

Chen Feng didn’t even bother to count the points. He threw the board and ran, just wanting to go home and cry into his blanket.

No wonder this person couldn’t find Go friends. Aside from few people in this era understanding Go, with her terrifying skill level combined with her foul mouth during the game, even if someone agreed to play one game with her, they’d absolutely refuse to play a second.

“Hey, don’t go! Come on, one more game! A billion more games!”

Tang Tianxin’s voice came from far behind.

Chen Feng jumped into the Shuttle. “In your next life!”

Even after Chen Feng returned to his dorm, Tang Tianxin wouldn’t let him off. She sent a long passage of reasoning through the Personal Smart Terminal’s communication system.

She said.

Go is profound and extensive. It greatly helps develop brain thinking. As a command-type talent, her ability to achieve her current success at a young age was inseparable from years of persistence in playing Go.

She hoped Chen Feng would strive harder, aiming to become a well-rounded talent combining both personal combat prowess and command ability.

Chen Feng retorted immediately. Don’t even think about tricking me, I’m not that naive, I’m not listening to your grand principles.

Besides, anyway, we can’t beat computers, so why waste energy.

Tang Tianxin said more.

Although, ever since Ke Jie lost to AlphaGo a thousand years ago, humans have never been able to defeat Artificial Intelligence again, losing even more miserably over time, the fact that Go can enhance human logical thinking ability has never changed.

Her personal success also proved that using it as a thinking training method is highly effective.

It’s inevitable that humans lose to computers, but AI cannot completely replace humans in the role of war command. No matter how fast computers calculate, they cannot fully replace human emotions, nor can they replace human intuitive judgment abilities.

Chen Feng wasn’t about to fall for her trick. He simply cut off the communication directly and focused wholeheartedly on reading the information.

He read for a whole day.