Genius Playground

”A seat in the Genius Playground is so precious. Why didn’t you give the Princess’s seat to me? If we worked together, one on the inside and one on the out, wouldn’t we be better able to achieve our grand ambition?”

The old man in the Tang suit slowly exhaled through his nose.

’Just as I thought.’

Just as he’d guessed, the other man had never been able to let the matter go.

Especially since tomorrow was the day of the Genius Playground meeting. He must have been bringing up this old issue because the more he thought about it, the worse he felt.

”We’ve already discussed this issue many times.”

The old man in the Tang suit closed his eyes.

”And I’ve given you my reasons many times as well. The Genius Playground is far from a simple game... Sometimes, having more seats can lead to a situation where the whole is less than the sum of its parts, causing even more trouble.”

”You might think I don’t trust you... but you’ve followed me for so many years. You know I treat you like my own son. How could I possibly not trust you?”

”It’s just that the Princess Coin was obviously bait, a blatant trap meant to lure us in. At a time like this, if a new Princess were to appear in the Playground, do you think she would be an additional source of strength for us, or an additional vulnerability?”

After a pause, the old man continued,

”Besides, no one in the Playground dares to defy me now. My word is practically law. Whatever ideas you have, I will help you realize them. There are no barriers between us.”

”If something really were to happen to me, and I couldn’t continue in this game, you could directly inherit my seat as the Priest and take my place to complete our mission. So why be so concerned about the Princess seat?”

The middle-aged man’s brow was furrowed.

”I understand all that, and I know the current situation. It’s because I consider you the person I trust most, the one I’m closest to, that I’m speaking my mind so freely, without hiding anything.”

”At the end of the day, I just think it’s a real shame... Even though we both guessed it was the work of that shit-stirrer, the Witch. She’s always like this. No one can figure out what she’s thinking—or maybe she isn’t thinking at all and just enjoys messing with people and getting in their way.”

”That even includes this Jiang Ran kid. I suspect he’s another one of the Witch’s traps, another piece of bait. She’s just playing her old tricks to throw everything into chaos.”

The old man in the Tang suit listened and shook his head.

”The Witch is indeed like that. Your use of ’shit-stirrer’ to describe her was spot-on. However... I can tell that the one pulling the strings in Jiang Ran’s case is definitely not the Witch. This isn’t her style.”

”Even though that short film from the East Sea University film club did a good job of stirring up trouble, that level of mischief is too minor to have any real impact. The Witch herself would consider such petty games beneath her.”

”This is also why I insisted on destroying the Princess Coin and taking the Princess seat off the board for good. The Witch is simply too dangerous. We shouldn’t waste our time on someone whose intentions are unclear, nor should we rely on wishful thinking.”

At this, the old man gave a slight smile.

”When you get down to it, isn’t the only reason the Witch keeps trying to muddy the waters because our control has become too strong?”

”Ever since I won that game of hide-and-seek and obtained the King Coin, the Playground has practically become *my* playground. No one dares to oppose a single word I say or object to any proposal I make.”

”It’s precisely because they can’t find a way to break the stalemate that the Witch is so frantically trying to cause chaos. She wants to muddy the entire situation, destroy the balance created by my absolute authority, and create more opportunities for them.”

”So... this is nothing more than the desperate act of a cornered madwoman. We shouldn’t stoop to her level or waste our energy on her.”

”Back then, after the Witch killed the Princess and took her coin, she never found anyone to inherit the Princess’s seat for the very same reason... You really must understand that I have your best interests at heart.”

”Pushing too hard often leads to accidents and errors. When something, or an entire system, is running smoothly, the best thing to do is to avoid disrupting that balance.”

Heh.

The middle-aged man let out an odd laugh.

”What you just said reminds me of some advice the upperclassmen gave us back when I was in college studying computer science. It’s pretty much the same idea—”

”If a block of code runs properly, then no matter how many bugs, logical flaws, or self-contradictions it contains, you don’t touch it.”

”It’s like an old, dusty computer that’s been running for years. If you don’t clean it, it can keep working for a long time. But if you get the sudden urge to clean out the dust, chances are it’ll never boot up again.”

”Computer science guys like to call this ’dust-power equilibrium.’ It’s a fallacy, of course, but it’s remarkably similar to the ’system equilibrium’ you were just talking about.”

The old man in the Tang suit nodded.

”Exactly. So... don’t get too caught up in the loss or gain of a single battle. You should take the long view and focus on the dynamics of the entire situation.”

”I understand your regret over the Princess seat, but it was a necessary sacrifice for the sake of the bigger picture.”

”You, as I said from the beginning, are still not level-headed enough, not patient enough. That is your greatest weakness right now.”

”You are certainly very smart. But of all the ’one-in-a-million’ talents throughout history, which one of them wasn’t exceptionally brilliant? The biggest difference between them and a true genius... is that a true genius is calm, rational, and never makes a mistake.”