Chapter 1212, Deacon Black Goes First

“You still listen to piano music in Fireseed?” Qing Zhen asked as he slowly closed the piano lid.

As he spoke, Xu Concealer stood beside Qing Zhen, his eyes staring intently at the replica body, Qing Lao San.

Although the other party looked exactly the same as Qing Zhen, it was really hard for Xu Concealer to feel any kindred spirit towards a replica body, and, his heart was always filled with defenses against replicas.

Qing Laosan glanced at Xu Concealment, then smiled at Qing Zhen, ”Look, it’s been so long, but everyone is still looking at me with such a wary look in their eyes. Sure enough, being born in a conspiracy is itself a false start, and false starts only produce false results.”

In fact, Qing Laosan summarized it very accurately, if he wasn’t born in the fire, perhaps everyone would be looking at him in a different way right now.

Qing Zhen laughed, “You still care about this?”

“Of course I care,” Qing Laosan also smiled, “If you want to integrate into this group, you naturally care about everyone’s gaze ah. By the way, to answer that question you just asked, the training I received when I was in Fireseed was all-encompassing, it wasn’t just military.”

“Do you play the piano?” Qing Zhen asked.

“No,” Qing Laosan shook his head, “You don’t know how to play the piano in your profile, so Fire Seed pressed people I never learned it, that being said, when did you learn how to play the piano? How come I don’t know.”

Qing Zhen laughed, “There’s a lot you don’t know, come on, we’ll play chess first today.”

“You met me today just to play chess?” Qing Laosan asked.

“That’s right,” Qing Zhen replied.

With that, he had Xu Conceal fetch the board and pieces for Go.

The Ginkgo Manor was luxurious beyond imagination, and its luxury was not only reflected in the décor, but also in its internal features, as well as the everyday items that humans could imagine, including Go.

In the wide hall of the manor, Qing Lao San and Qing Zhen were seated on the ground under the Flying Phoenix Crystal Lamp, and the black and gray marble on the ground was so smooth that it could even reflect the two of them.

Sitting on such marble made Qing Laosan feel like he was sitting on the surface of a lake.

Marble material care is more complicated than imagined, many people think that marble paved can always be as smooth as new, in fact, marble want to maintain this effect, but also need artificial and potion to polish.

Sitting down on the black and gray “lake”, Qing Laosan lamented, “Those old men of the Qing Clan really know how to enjoy themselves, 181 black discs are made of nephrite, 180 white discs are made of Hetian jade, and the boards are all made of mahogany with gold threads.”

Qing Zhen said calmly, “It’s just a matter of chasing the end, I’ve played chess with them, and the result is that each one of them is as bad at chess as a young child. If I were as good as them, I would be embarrassed to use such an expensive chessboard.”

Qing Laosan laughed cheerfully, “The implication is that you are using such a good chess set now because you deserve it?”

“Of course,” Qing Zhen’s face did not change at all.

This time, Qing Laosan did not retort.

In his eyes, this Qing Zhen sitting quietly in front of him was probably the person in this world who was most capable of saving for a rainy day, and if broken down and detailed, the human being with the longest vision in this world.

It wasn’t something hard to understand that such a person was great at playing Go.

Xu Concealer watched from the sidelines, in fact, he hadn’t seen Qing Laosan too many times.

During this period of time, Xu Concealer had also summarized that his own officer, Qing Zhen, was still a bit more composed, while on the contrary, Qing Laosan had more words, more small actions, and a more lively personality.

Qing Laosan smiled when he noticed Xu Zou’s gaze, “I can guess what you’re thinking, do you think I talk too much?”

Xu Zou did not say anything, there was no place for him to interject in this kind of scene.

As a result, Qing Laosan explained to Xu Zou, “According to the fact that the Fire Seed had simulated Qing Zhen’s upbringing for me, our personalities, if not identical, would have to be about 60% alike. However, I later realized that my personality is far different from Qing Zhen’s. I summarized it, probably because I am not the same as Qing Zhen. I summarized it, probably because I don’t carry as much on my back as you sir.”

Xu Concealer froze for a moment as he subconsciously glanced at Qing Zhen, only to realize that his own officer did not refute the other party.

Qing Laosan laughed, “You know, this huge Qing Clan as well as the people of this southwestern part of the country actually have nothing to do with me in half. Whether they can eat today or tomorrow, I don’t care at all either. Also, how will Wang deal with the Qing Clan? How terrifying is artificial intelligence? Can Qing’s win or not? I don’t have to think about any of these things, if these things become my responsibility, I won’t be able to be cheerful ah. In order to keep the AI from noticing his intentions, he was clearly a man who loved to talk and grow flowers at heart, but he was hardened to stay away from the crowd, not allowing the outside world to judge him clearly. In the long run, he will suffocate.”

Qing Zhen looked calmly at Qing Lao San: “Say less.”

Qing Laosan shrugged his shoulders, “Why are you still not allowed to speak, I should be the one who knows you the best, right now, you’re acting like this, it’s clear that you don’t even have a 30% chance of winning in the face of Wang. I think you don’t need to hide it from your subordinates, otherwise they will be very worried. In fact, facing that kind of existence, a 30% chance of victory is already very high, although I don’t even know where you get this 30% chance of victory from. If I were to face that kind of enemy, I’m afraid I wouldn’t have a 10% chance of winning, and that’s probably where I’m not as good as you.”

Qing Zhen aggravated his tone, “Woe is me.”

“Alright, alright, I’ll stop, why are you still threatening people,” Qing Laosan shut up.

Xu Concealer was silent, he clearly realized that Qing Laosan was right.

He had been following Qing Zhen for a long time, and although he had the demeanor of a famous general in the past, Qing Zhen was still a person who loved to laugh and could joke in private.

Now, Qing Zhen suddenly seemed like a different person.

Qing Zhen gave Xu Zou a feeling that he was even more dignified.

Originally, Xu Zou thought that this should be a common characteristic of those who were in power, and that it was only natural for the chief to be majestic as he had become the Lord of the Qing Clan.

But now Xu Concealment realized that it was because Qing Zhen was carrying too many things on his back, and it all seemed to be related to the 30% chance of victory that Old Man Qing had mentioned.

Xu Zou couldn’t understand, in his eyes, Qing Zhen, who was invincible, facing Wang Clan, he only had a 30% chance of winning?

“Ten percent,” Qing Zhen said.

Qing Laosan froze for a moment, “You only have a 10% chance of winning as well?”

At that moment, Qing Zhen pulled the chess cylinder containing the black and white discs next to himself, and then actually played against himself with the black disc in his left hand and the white disc in his right.

He played slowly, seemingly thinking about something, and then played faster and faster.

Qing Laosan saw the clue: “Who has played this game? You specifically called me over today to actually show me a chess game that someone else has played?”

“Well,” Qing Zhengnan nodded, “This is a chess game that was once played by an artificial intelligence against a human.”

“It seems that you don’t consider Wang Shengzhi as your opponent,” Qing Laosan suddenly understood a lot, “Your opponent is Wang’s AI.”

“Wang Shengzhi is running out of time,” Qing Zhen said, “I guess he won’t be able to stay up for much longer, not even until the Qing Clan and Wang Clan officially go to war.”

There was too much information revealed in these words, at least this was the first time that Qing Zhen admitted that he had planted spies around Wang Shengzhi and was fully aware of the other party’s condition.

“Isn’t this a good thing,” Qing Laosan said, “As long as Wang Shengzhi dies, then this chariot of the Wang Clan will immediately die out.”

Hearing this, Xu Concealer also felt that it made sense, after all, the direction of the Wang Clan’s chariot was all guided by Wang Shengzhi.

As long as Wang Shengzhi was gone, then Wang would naturally stop.

But Qing Zhen shook his head: ”It won’t stop, there will be an artificial intelligence to help him finish this unfinished business. Moreover, you have all underestimated this AI, it is not a tool, I suspect that it has now become an independent will, or even a civilization.”

“Why?” Elder Qing frowned.

“Because Wang Shengzhi doesn’t seem to know that the Qing Clan had disappeared 2,000 nanosoldiers,” Qing Zhen said.

If that AI was just a tool in Wang Shengzhi’s hands, there was no reason why it would be hiding something from Wang Shengzhi.

Qing Laosan always felt that although he was a replica of Qing Zhen and both sides had the same IQ, his knowledge was even broader than Qing Zhen.

However, at the level of tactical thinking, he was always chasing Qing Zhen’s footsteps and never caught up.

Many people habitually lumped Wang together with artificial intelligence, but Qing Zhen had now treated that “zero” as an independent being.

Qing Laosan asked, “Is it necessary to pay so much attention to a program?”

“Of course,” said Qing Zhen, “In my opinion, this is a game of time, and we have already lost the first move in this game. If I had taken a break from the Southwest War to look at the big picture, I wouldn’t have continued to develop the nanobots. A program may not be a threat yet, but when it has nanobots, it has a weapon in its hands. I’ve never dared to underestimate AI because it’s beyond the dimension of our thinking.”

Qing Laosan froze, this was the first time he had seen Qing Zhenwei admit that he was inferior to others, and that it was inferior to a piece of programming.

However, Qing Laosan could understand, “No one can be omniscient, you’ve done well enough.”

“There’s no need to comfort me,” Qing Zhen said, “All emotions are superfluous at this time, we just need to think about how to win.”

At this moment, Qing Zhen landed another black stone on the board, “The reason why the Qing Clan was able to rise quickly in the Waste Land Era itself was because our Qing Clan ancestors preserved a lot of their knowledge inheritance, and then took a step ahead of them on the path of digging up pre-cataclysmic civilizations. There was an interesting piece of information that no one else had noticed, but I was intrigued. In this game, a chess player called Fan Hui was playing against an artificial intelligence.”

“Fan Hui wasn’t the world’s top chess player at the time, so he lost the five games without a doubt, and at that moment, all humans began to take the AI seriously.”

As Qing Zhen narrated, Qing Laosan and Xu Concealer looked like they were suddenly in another world, with Qing Zhen sitting in the “lake”, with a black and white piece in his hand falling on the board, as if they were also experiencing the battle of the century between mankind and artificial intelligence.

As the oldest chess game of the Middle Kingdom civilization, Weiqi has an extremely complex game mechanism, with more than two hundred possibilities for each move, compared to only twenty for Xiangqi.

After the emergence of the artificial intelligence, it defeated Fan Hui in an absolutely crushing manner, and then it was the real peak battle: the artificial intelligence versus Li Shishi.

Qing Zhen said, “Lee Sedol was able to represent the pinnacle of human chess at that time, but even he only won one out of five games against the AI.”

At this moment, Qing Zhen asked Xu Zou to put the black and white discs back into the cylinder, as if he was about to start a new game of chess.

Qing Laosan watched silently from this lake, he possessed the same sharp intuition as Qing Zhen, he seemed to know what Qing Zhen was going to say this time when he called himself over.

However, let’s finish the game first.

Qing Zhen re-settled his pieces, “In the first game between Li Shishi and the AI, it is still the humans who have lost.”

The black and white discs kept alternating on the mahogany chessboard, and Old Man Qing’s gaze was firmly fixed on the board, but at this point, he didn’t feel anything.

But when it came to the second game, the AI landed a piece on the 37th move after the opening in a position where a human would never land a piece.

Qing Laosan immediately broke out into a cold sweat.

This move was the ambush for the entire game that followed, and it seemed that the root cause of all human failures was already predetermined at this 37th move.

Qing Zhen said, “The first time I saw this information, I was exactly the same as you. At that time, there was only one thought in my mind: it turned out that Go could still be played this way. Playing against it is like facing an enemy you’ve never seen before; you don’t know what it’s thinking, and you don’t know what other cards it has. The fall of this 37th move was like it had suddenly hijacked all of my Qing’s nano-warriors and nano-bots, and perhaps all failures were doomed at this moment.”

By the end of the second game, Qing Shen sat quietly on the dark gray marble, seemingly reviewing this entire game.

The replica Qing Shen was silent as well, and it wasn’t until half an hour later that he suddenly spoke, “We must change Qing’s fighting habits, the AI uses learning about humans as the cornerstone of its advancement, it must have been studying Qing for a long time, and even when we just took the first step, it was able to guess the ninety-nine steps that followed. But as long as we don’t follow common sense, then we have a chance to outwit it.”

Qing Zhen shook his head and said, “It’s not that simple, let’s watch the third game.”

In the third game, Lee Sedol changed his usual style of playing chess, hoping to break every habit and experience he had ever had, wanting to use it to defeat the AI.

However, things were going to be worse than expected, and in this game, Lee Sedol lost even faster.

By giving up his past, he was actually giving up his greatest advantage.

The battle mode that the soldiers had long been accustomed to, the command mode that the officers had long been accustomed to, this was the cornerstone of Qing’s invincibility, and if even these were given up, then I’m afraid that Qing’s original strength of ten percent could only be utilized to the extent of fifty percent.

Qing Laosan sat in front of the chessboard in silence, his mood was like falling into an abyss, that feeling of powerlessness filled his limbs and bones.

“Don’t be anxious, the humans won the fourth game,” Qing Zhen said.

Hearing these words, both Qing Laosan and Xu Concealer’s eyes glowed as if they were the ones who were victorious at the time.

In the fourth game, Lee Sedol did not just put down his habits, he even broke all the conventions of human beings in Go, using unconventional means to defeat the AI.

Excitingly, the AI really lost a lot of ground in this game, making a series of cheap mistakes after Lee’s unconventional moves.

Even so, Lee Sedol was still underdogged, and the overall result was a huge underdog.

In the 78th hand, Lee Sedol suddenly dropped his stones, and opened the battle for the turnaround with the stance of putting his life in danger, which was later called “God’s One Hand”.

The essence of this “God’s Hand” is to break first and then build up.

Qing Zhen said: “The advantage of artificial intelligence is that it has 10,000 possibilities to respond to your layout, but when it is black first hand, but weaker than white after the hand, because when it is black first hand, it is not facing the enemy, but its own. Therefore, let it make the first move.”

Qing Laosan muttered, “Putting it to death, are you going to take a heavenly risk, that’s your 10% chance of winning.”

Qing Zhen looked at him, “There is no choice.”

Qing Laosan at this time resumed looking at Qing Zhen with a radiant look, “What about the fifth game, did you win the fifth game with this method as well? No, you said that it only lost one game.”

Qing Zhen said, “There’s no need to look at the fifth game, it wasn’t worthwhile, the AI quickly adapted to the new rhythm and defeated the humans once again. Humans can fall out of the routine, it can naturally do the same. The unconventional means of this fourth game was like opening a new door for the AI, and from then on, I’m afraid that humans will never be able to defeat it in the field of Go again.”

“So,” said Qing Laosan, “humans only have one chance to defeat it.”

“In fact, having this one chance is already the best possible outcome,” Qing Zhen said.

Xu Zui felt a bit suffocated, this AI was so terrifying, even a character like Qing Zhen would think that having one chance to defeat the other party was already very good.

Moreover, human beings may not be able to grasp this opportunity.

Once this opportunity is missed, human beings are afraid that they will never be able to defeat the AI again.

“No matter what, humans have defeated AIs before, and if humans could in the past, then humans will definitely be able to do so now,” Qing Laosan said with certainty.

Qing Zhen looked at Qing Lao San and said seriously, “If, this fourth game was it deliberately lost to humans, what would you think.”

This sentence really froze Qing Laosan.

If it was the AI’s intentional failure to achieve a total victory ……

“Let’s hope not,” Qing Zhen said.

Qing Laosan slowly calmed down, “You’re not one to surrender before the battle, I’m sure you already have a plan in mind, tell me how.”

Qing Zhen shook his head, “Can’t move yet.”

“Why?” Qing Laosan asked.

“It’s not time for us to play chess yet,” Qing Zhen said, “Now, it’s time for it to fall.”

After saying that, Qing Zhen threw the white piece twisted in his hand into the chess cylinder, the smooth marble floor reflecting his figure immaculately.

Everyone hoped that they could make the first move, however, this time Qing Zhen wanted Zero to play black first.