Rebirth: Saving the Lovely Girl from the Start

Chapter 226: Chapter 224: This Is Very Reasonable

"I’m telling you, don’t video call me for no reason. It costs money, and it’s all coming out of your granddaughter’s pocket," said Xue Rui.

"Isn’t that the same as it coming from you?" the old lady said, unconcerned.

"Call all you want. I just won’t answer." Xue Rui chuckled.

’She’s trying to keep tabs on me,’ he thought.

...

Old Liu stared intently at the chessboard, watching Lin Ruoxi play against herself.

But after just a few moves, Lin Ruoxi’s brow furrowed slightly. "I lost this time."

Old Liu was dumbfounded. ’How did she lose?’ he wondered.

She’d only made a couple of moves. He hadn’t grasped the situation at all.

At first, Lin Ruoxi would play out a normal game. Sitting on the sidelines, he found it thrilling to watch one person control both sides of the board, engaging in a genuine back-and-forth against herself...

But later, it seemed the girl got tired and started playing the game entirely in her head. He couldn’t see the process at all and was incredibly curious to know where she’d made her losing move.

He had tried playing against himself, too, and it was incredibly difficult. It was like fighting your own thought process. You could make whichever side you wanted win, which resulted in a game that looked like it was played by a complete beginner.

Yet Lin Ruoxi could somehow conjure an evenly matched opponent out of thin air...

He was truly impressed now. He knew many players in his circle, and only a handful could do what she did. But even for them, a single game would often take hours, each move demanding long, careful thought.

Playing against oneself required exceptional logical reasoning and a strong grasp of the overall board state.

Lin Ruoxi could start a game and then completely dismantle her own position in a short amount of time...

No wonder no one played chess with Lin Ruoxi. The girl’s skill was just on another level.

Playing against yourself was a way to quickly find your own weaknesses and continuously break through to new heights. Only a rare genius could manage it.

"Miss, are you taking on apprentices?" Old Liu asked with a smile.

Lin Ruoxi had reached a professional level through self-study alone, without any formal training. He, on the other hand, played against so many amateurs that his own skills were deteriorating. The next time he met his old friends from the chess association, he’d probably get utterly destroyed.

’Age doesn’t matter in the pursuit of skill; ability is what counts.’ There was no shame in him taking her as a teacher now.

"Um, a master?"

Lin Ruoxi tilted her head to look at Xue Rui, her beautiful almond eyes twinkling as if to ask, ’Should I take him on?’

Xue Rui stroked an imaginary long beard, gazed at the setting sun, and sighed. "Fine. You may accept him."

Old Liu’s eye twitched. "You little punk, you can’t even beat my eight-year-old granddaughter. Who do you think you’re fooling, putting on such an act?"

’This kid is such a poser, acting like some kind of founding patriarch.’

’Didn’t he just get lucky and find a smart, obedient girlfriend?’

"I don’t believe it. Have your granddaughter come over, and I’ll play a match with her," Xue Rui said breezily.

"You want to use a chess AI to bully a little girl? You’re shameless!" Old Liu snapped.

...

"Stop arguing, stop arguing..." Lin Ruoxi’s head swiveled back and forth, a flustered expression on her face.

"You two aren’t a good match." Old Liu looked Xue Rui up and down. ’No matter how I look at it,’ he thought, ’this kid is nowhere near good enough for this girl.’

Lin Ruoxi looked at Xue Rui’s back and said firmly, "Um, I’ll work hard to catch up to him."

The young woman thought Old Liu was right. In her eyes, Xue Rui was forever perfect.

Xue Rui could do things she couldn’t. She had changed so much since he came into her life.

She didn’t know how she would have managed to live before, and she’d never dared to look in a mirror.

But now, after washing her face each day, she would carefully check to make sure it was clean. She could even bear to look at her own reflection.

’I want to become the person Xue Rui likes,’ she thought.

Old Liu shivered. ’What the hell was that about?’

Standing to the side, Xue Rui smiled at Lin Ruoxi. "How about you and I play a round?"

"Okay." Lin Ruoxi nodded with a smile. ’I want to play with Xue Rui.’

Old Liu moved to a nearby stool to watch the match. ’The skill gap between them is way too big,’ he thought. ’What kind of game can this possibly be?’

The sound of wooden pieces striking the stone table filled the air as Xue Rui played with a fearless, aggressive momentum.

"Hold on, hold on! How can your cannon jump over two pieces to attack?" Old Liu interjected, moving Xue Rui’s piece back to its original position.

"Um, Xue Rui said it’s an anti-aircraft cannon. It can ignore the two pieces in front," Lin Ruoxi explained earnestly, moving Xue Rui’s piece right back.

Old Liu said, "Then what about his horse? Why is it moving in a straight line?"

"But horses run in straight lines. That’s perfectly logical."

"Hey, hey, hey! He’s using your advisor to capture your general!" Old Liu exclaimed, pointing at the board.

"Um, that’s a spy planted by Xue Rui."

"And that’s logical, too?"

Xue Rui nodded. "Perfectly logical."

Xue Rui clutched a handful of captured pieces, rattling them together. CLACK-CLACK-CLACK.

’This girl is so much fun,’ he thought. ’I can completely ignore the rules.’

"Hahaha." Old Liu burst out laughing at the two of them. ’Young couples really are amusing.’

Old Liu’s hearty laughter drew a crowd of onlookers, all wondering what the commotion was about.

After chatting with a few of the old men for a bit, Xue Rui led Lin Ruoxi back toward their apartment complex.

On the way, Lin Ruoxi couldn’t help but ask, "Why are you always arguing with old people?"

’My teachers always said to respect the old and cherish the young,’ she thought. ’But Xue Rui never seems to respect his elders.’

Xue Rui chuckled. "If they really disliked me, do you think they’d still talk to me?"

The young woman paused for a moment, then shook her head slightly.

"What elderly people want is companionship, not superficial, fake respect. You just have to respect their important decisions," Xue Rui said seriously.

’Men are boys till the day they die.’ When those old men got together, weren’t they just shooting the breeze? They’d reminisce about the glories of their youth, then start spouting off about international affairs. None of it was ever serious...

And when the old ladies gathered, they’d just gossip about other people’s family drama. That wasn’t any more sophisticated...

His and Lin Ruoxi’s arrival had brought a lot of life to the nursing home. It wasn’t like a school-organized visit, where students would be overly polite, and the residents would barely be able to exchange a few words with them. The generation gap was just too vast. Aside from asking about their grades, there was seemingly nothing else to talk about.

And of course, kids hate being asked about school...

But him? He was so improper that the elderly felt no burden talking to him. They could say whatever was on their minds.

"Oh, I forgot the little bear," Lin Ruoxi said suddenly as they entered the complex.

Xue Rui waved it off. "I left it there on purpose. Didn’t you see how empty that old woman’s room was? A stuffed animal will make it feel cozier."

Lin Ruoxi took out her phone and searched "why do people like stuffed animals." She saw that lots of girls liked them, but she didn’t, and she didn’t understand why others did.

Xue Rui thought of Xue Yao and Gu Muxue...

"You can use a stuffed animal to vent your emotions, or you can hug it while you sleep." Xue Rui glanced at Lin Ruoxi. "Do you like to hold onto something when you sleep?"

He’d been living here, mooching off her for so long, but he’d seemingly never seen what she looked like when she was asleep. He was always the first one out.

He imagined it for a second. ’Does she look absolutely adorable when she’s asleep?’

She was this adorkable when she was awake; he couldn’t even imagine what she’d be like when she was asleep.

Lin Ruoxi said quietly, "I hug your pillow when I sleep."

Xue Rui’s eyebrows shot up. ’What’s this now? This is news to me.’

The two strolled slowly through the complex. As they were about to head upstairs, they noticed a Daoist performing a ritual by the next building. The bell in his hand was ringing, DING-A-LING, and a crowd of elderly men and women had gathered to watch, causing the young woman to stop and stare as well.

"In this very building, a woman died more than ten years ago. I think she jumped after a fight with her family. Do you think it’s her?" a woman whispered.

"Keep your voice down, or she’ll hear you," said an old woman with a grocery basket.

Xue Rui was speechless. The two were whispering, but he could hear them perfectly from two meters away.

"It should be fine with the Daoist here, right?" the woman said quietly.

"It’s bad luck to speak carelessly at dusk."

Xue Rui walked over and asked, "Ma’am, what’s going on?"

He didn’t believe in this sort of thing, but he had to admit it was spooky.

"You wouldn’t know, but whenever someone walks their dog past that corner, the dog gets too scared to go any further. You can pull all you want, but it won’t budge. It just keeps barking like crazy at the base of that wall..." the woman whispered.

Xue Rui listened with a serious expression, nodding along from time to time.

"Dogs can see unclean things that people can’t," Xue Rui nodded.

The old woman looked surprised. "Young man, you understand these things?"

"I have a mutt at home. I’ll let him take a look," Xue Rui said, planning to bring Da Huang over.

"A mutt would be perfect. They’re spiritually aware," the old woman said.

When the young woman heard this, the corners of her eyes lifted imperceptibly. ’Da Huang belongs to Xue Rui’s family?’

’Then what about me?’

’Xue Rui brought me from the village, too...’

"I’ll go get Da Huang," Lin Ruoxi said.

Xue Rui walked over to the corner of the building and looked around, but he didn’t find anything out of the ordinary.

"Young man, step aside," the man in the Daoist robes said.

"Hurry up and move," someone else gestured, waving him away.

Xue Rui’s eyebrow twitched. ’This guy even has a damn Fu Manchu mustache,’ he thought. ’He really looks the part.’

The main problem was that everyone around them blindly trusted this Daoist.

Soon, the young woman came downstairs, leading Da Huang by his pink collar toward the corner everyone was talking about.

However, just as everyone had described, the moment Da Huang got near the spot, he suddenly started yelping. He kept backing away, his eyes wide with fear.

"What the hell?" Xue Rui was shocked.

The Daoist frowned. He had no idea what was going on either, but if people kept running experiments here, how was he supposed to collect his fee from the client?

"Get that dog out of here! It’s interfering with my ritual," the Daoist urged.

The young woman hurriedly scooped Da Huang up. The instant he was in her arms, he stopped yelping and started licking her.

"There... might be an electrical leak here," Lin Ruoxi whispered to Xue Rui.

"Huh?" Xue Rui’s eyes widened. ’And here I was, already thinking about selling the apartment.’

’You’re telling me it’s just a stray current?’

Lin Ruoxi went back upstairs and returned with a voltage tester. The instant she touched it to the ground, its red light began to flash repeatedly.

Watching the tester flash, the crowd suddenly understood.

People, wearing shoes, couldn’t feel the stray voltage from the ground. But dogs walk around on their bare paws. Wouldn’t they jump in shock after stepping on an electrified spot?

The Daoist’s face darkened. He had just spent a great deal of time lecturing the residents and stoking their anxiety.

"Ahem, well, we’re heading home for dinner." Xue Rui quickly pulled Lin Ruoxi upstairs. ’Damn,’ he thought, ’if this were on an episode of *MythBusters*, they could probably stretch it into a whole season.’

"What the hell does property management even do? Calling a Daoist for a stray current? That young lady is more competent than all of them," someone cursed loudly.