Global Games: Old Chess Players

7 years ago, Pivogur, Iceland.

"Teacher, am I good at painting?" The girl turned her head, her snow-white hair swaying slightly.

"It is difficult for people who cannot feel emotions and empathize with others to draw good paintings. No matter whether they are excited emotions or depressed emotions, they are all things that can stimulate creativity." The teacher looked at the drawing board and was silent.

After a long time he said:

"You have talent, but your pen is not endowed with any emotion, so the height you can reach is limited. You will eventually stop at a point and give up. You are not suitable for painting."

"I understand." she said.

The girl left school, opened the door to her home, and looked at her mother, who was lying on the floor due to alcoholism, expressionlessly.

"I only have you, Yuri. Father abandoned us, that bastard..."

"I only have you, can you understand me?"

"I'm really in pain."

The mother's face was ferocious, her eye sockets were deeply sunken, and she suddenly grabbed the girl's school uniform collar.

"I...don't understand."

The girl replied.

"Why can't you understand...you are always indifferent and always have this look on your face, why do you put on such an indifferent look? Are you really my daughter?" the mother screamed.

The wine bottle hit the ground and broke into pieces.

"I'm sorry, Mom." the girl said.

"You are an emotionless monster, you were not born by me at all..." the mother cried loudly.

"I'm sorry, Mom, I'm a monster." The girl's eyes were numb.

"Can you do it alone?" Mother asked tiredly, "Can you survive, Yuri?"

"You can do it alone."

"That's good."

Mother hung the rope from the ceiling.

"I don't understand..." The girl opened her mouth slightly.

The mother twisted the rope into a circle and tied it up.

"I don't understand..." The girl lowered her head.

The mother put her neck into the rope loop.

"I'm not alone..." The girl covered her ears.

Mother kicked the chair off her feet.

"I'm not alone..." The girl lowered her eyes.

The mother's face was flushed, and the terrible blood vessels were exposed on her neck.

"I'm not lonely, I can be alone..."

The mother gave up her resistance and gradually lost her intuition.

"It's really difficult to understand."

Sirens, noisy sirens, disturbing sirens.

Footsteps.

Rapid footsteps.

The girl opened the door.

The police made a noisy voice: "He's not dead, he can still be saved, hurry up!"

The policeman cast a surprised look at the girl.

"Why did this child... her mother hang herself in front of her, and her face remained expressionless?"

"What a deformity..."

"Could it have something to do with her?"

"No, this is an obvious failed suicide."

"But no matter what, this child is too strange. Why is her hair white?"

...........

...........

2025, December 24.

Early morning, Reykjavik, Iceland, Central Hospital.

[The second round of dungeons will start at noon, and there is still 4 hours of preparation time. All players are asked to prepare before then and purchase the required items in the Evolution Coin Store. 】

The system prompt sounded in the ears of the white-haired girl.

Yuri slowly opened his eyes, and in front of him was the familiar ceiling.

She had another nightmare, the same nightmare as before.

She brushed her snow-white hair behind her ears and glanced out the window with her clear eyes. The sky was shrouded in a ray of pure pink-purple morning light. Looking away, she could see Reykjavik's famous Pearl Tower.

The appearance of the Pearl Tower is like a transparent crystal ball. This huge sphere is embedded in the center of the Icelandic capital. It is brilliantly lit at night.

Yuri recalled a person's face in his mind.

It was also early in the morning, at a ski resort in Hokkaido. The boy walked slowly towards her through the snow and fog. His dark brown eyes made people feel gentle, yet mysterious.

"Mom..." Yuri lowered his eyes and said softly, "I have made friends."

"This is it, the stone statue of the Queen."

Immediately afterwards, a familiar voice sounded, which even made Yuri think that he was hallucinating.

She raised her head blankly and looked at the uninvited guest in front of her.

A young man wearing a black hoodie fell down from the back of a noble and elegant stone statue.

"This is so awesome. He actually went through the window, and the window was not broken at all."

The young man patted the dust on his body and seemed to be talking softly to the stone statue:

"I said, no wonder when you used the 'Hundred Killer', I couldn't see clearly the trajectory of your movement. It turned out that you really moved instantly. You jumped from the first floor to the ward on the third floor..."

Queen stone statue?

Teleport?

Yuri stayed where he was.

As clear-headed and rational as she is, it's hard to avoid thinking that she hasn't woken up and is seeing hallucinations.

The boy in the hoodie said: "By the way, you should go back to the chess library first for the queen's stone statue, otherwise you will be seen later and my identity will be exposed."

When his voice fell, the stone statue disappeared in an instant.

Yuri and him were the only two people left in the room.

"Oh, what a coincidence." The boy in the hoodie raised his frozen right hand, "I just wanted to take a walk, but I didn't expect to meet you."

Familiar dialogue.

Yuri had the impression that she had had such a conversation with the person in front of her at the ski resort in Hokkaido, and her brain slowly recovered from the short circuit.

"If you take a walk in Shangshi City, you can end up here..." Yuri put his hand on his chin and said in a cold voice:

"This is not a walk, it can be considered a 'sleepwalking'."

She answered the same question again as before.

"It seems so." The boy said calmly, "Shangshi City is a bit far from the capital of Iceland."

This person...

What the hell are you talking about...

Yuri stared at the boy's face hidden in the shadow of the hood.

Anson Deer slowly lifted his hood, revealing a face that was red from the cold, and a pair of dark brown eyes, "I'm here to add you as a friend, and I'll give you a travel voucher by the way."

"Travel voucher?" Yuri was puzzled.

"Here you go." Ansenlu exhaled a breath of white air and sent a transaction panel to Yuri, "Take it, the ticket to the new world."

Even if there are no friends, players can still conduct face-to-face transactions, so he is not in a hurry to add friends.

[The player Ansenlu initiates a transaction panel with you. The items he asks for: None, and the conditions he gives: a travel coupon. 】

Yuri looked at the transaction panel and asked in confusion: "What?"

"The ticket to the new world that allows you to leave Iceland and those idiots, the simple and warm Shangshi City welcomes you." Ansonlu leaned his back against the wall, put his hands in his coat pockets, and his voice was so cold that he said:

"I'm going to Iceland. It's so cold... How can it be colder than Hokkaido?"

Yuri said softly: "I don't understand."

Ansonlu scratched his cheek and sighed softly and said: "Didn't you say that I am your friend? If you are a friend, I will come to play with you and help you get rid of those weird uncles who treat you as a tool."

"Why?"

"Your mother is dead. The copy was made a few days ago. The copy was made in New York, USA." Ansonlu threw a mobile phone in his pocket to Yuri.

Yuri stretched out his slender white hand and caught the phone.

She looked at the screen of her phone. It was an authoritative death list published around the world. Her mother's name was on the list.

"irena..."

Yuri's hands froze in place, and she muttered a string of names in her mouth, both familiar and unfamiliar names...

"I know that your mother sold you to the Icelandic government seven years ago to be used as research material." Anson Lu's dark brown eyes looked directly at Yuri, and he said in an extremely calm voice:

"She was an out-and-out scumbag, so she deserved her death. There is no need for you to stay here and continue to work for those rotten politicians because of her. That's what I know."

Thoughts.

It was so messy that it looked like it was about to explode.

mind.

It was so painful that it was about to tear apart.

The Icelandic girl lowered her eyes, and her snow-white hair covered her eyes.

She couldn't even say a word, her eyes as clear as the aurora were at a loss at this moment.

"What should I do?"

"In the limited time, live the life you should live." Ansonlu said, "I will form a union in the future and everyone will be weirdos, so you will not only be my friend."

"friend...."

"Yes, friend." Anson Deer said slowly:

"Although there are only Crow and I now, we will slowly find others in the future. At least staying among us is better than having you lying on the hospital bed all the time."

Under the shroud of morning light, Yuri's emotionless eyes seemed to be confused for the first time.

"They're going to come to me," she said, "and then you're going to be in trouble."

The Icelandic government cannot just let go of the few special sequence players.

Especially her, she knows how much she is valued by the country.

"Okay, okay, I am the number one player in the world. I am now and I will be in the future..." Ansonlu wiped his neck with his hand and said nonchalantly:

"If they come and I smash one, it won't be a big problem."

He spoke very casually, as if he were joking with an old friend, but he seemed to be serious at the same time.

Seeing that Yuri didn't respond, Ansenlu coughed and added to himself:

"Well, although my global combat power ranking is only No. 11 now, it does not affect my buddy who will become No. 1 sooner or later."

"You're really weird." Yuri said.

"Everyone is very weird, including Qi Yuanlu, who is simply the weirdest among weirdos." Anson Lu complained:

"You know, that idiot suddenly made a video call to me the night before yesterday. As soon as I answered the call, I found that this guy was actually standing on the railing of the Tokyo Bay Bridge. It was so outrageous that I almost splashed...

"

His voice stopped suddenly because Yuri's words interrupted him abruptly.

"I'll go with you."

Her voice was clear and clear, without any emotion, but seemed to be very firm.

Ansonlu was stunned for a moment and quickly explained: "Okay, then use the travel voucher to come to Shangshi City and enter the dungeon in Shangshi. You will return to my hometown instead of the capital of Iceland."

"What about you?"

Ansonlu took a deep breath, black lines appeared on his forehead, and cursed:

"My travel voucher is about to expire. It will automatically go back in a few minutes. The transmission time limit is 24 hours. I was lost in Reykjavik for a whole fucking 22 hours. It's all because of the map that idiot Crow gave me...

....”

Halfway through his words, his figure had disappeared from the spot.

The travel coupon can only take a player to the destination for 24 hours. When the expiration date is reached, it will automatically return to the original city, so Ansonlu has been expelled back to Shangshi City by the system.

Yuri stayed for a while, then she tilted her head slightly, with a hint of amusement in her voice:

"Are you an idiot?"

She clicked [Confirm] on the transaction panel that was about to disappear.

[Through the transaction, you have obtained a travel coupon from the player Anson Deer. 】

From outside the ward, there was a rush of footsteps, as if someone had noticed the movement inside.

"Use the travel voucher..." The Icelandic girl paused and said tentatively, "Shangshi City."

[The travel voucher has been used and headed to the city—Huaxia Kingdom, Shangshi City.]