Unsheathed

It was a very hot and humid day, the kind that sapped one's energy and soured one's mood.

Five horses were slowly trundling along an ancient path in the Five Mountain Nation that had already been abandoned for many years.

All of a sudden, they encountered a storm, and even though they had put on their coir raincoats, their faces still stung from the pelting droplets of rain. They began searching for some place where they could seek shelter from the rain, and before long, they arrived at a pergola halfway up the mountain.

However, there was already a young man sitting on the bench in the pergola with his legs crossed, and there was a large bamboo case beside him. On the table before him was a Go board and a pair of porcelain jars. There were over twenty black and white stones placed on the board, and he displayed no fear toward the group that had just arrived on horseback, giving them a faint smile before continuing to set more stones down onto the board.

Among the group was a brawny man with a saber strapped to his waist, and he noticed that the young man's robe and shoes were completely dry, indicating that he had already settled under the pergola before the arrival of the storm. It appeared that he was playing a game of Go by himself as he waited for the storm to pass.

An old man made his way to the entrance of the pergola. He could see that the rain wasn't going to subside anytime soon, so he turned to the young man with a smile as he proposed, "How about we play a game together to pass the time?"

The young man thought about it for a moment, then gathered the black and white stones on the board together in two distinct clusters. However, instead of returning them to their jars, he kept them in between himself and the Go board, then smiled as he nodded and replied, "Sure."

A young boy and a young girl exchanged a smile with one another.

There was also a woman wearing a veiled hat that had taken a seat on the opposite bench, laying a handkerchief down beneath her bottom before she did so.

The old man smiled as he grabbed a handful of white stones and said, "I'm older than you, so you can go ahead and guess first."

Chen Ping'an picked up a single black stone, and the old man set the white stones in his hand down onto the board to reveal that there were seven.

"Looks like you get to make the first move," the old man said with a smile.[1]