Seeing Su Nianhua's smug look, Gu Qingcheng rolled her eyes and, raising her legs, kicked them violently against the table, causing the board to tilt slightly toward Su Nianhua and dislodging the stones on the board.
"Oops, no winner for this set. If she couldn't win, she would resort to cheap tricks," Gu Qingcheng thought to herself.
Although it was Gu Qingcheng who had blatantly caused the table to tilt, she looked innocently at Su Nianhua and gestured helplessly with her arms spread out, "Nianhua, since the Go board has been upended, we should nullify this game. Let's start again."
Visibly upset, Su Nianhua glared at Gu Qingcheng and rebuked her, "Cheap trick! You played dirty!"
Despite being yelled at, Gu Qingcheng appeared unaffected. To Su Nianhua, who was gnashing his teeth in annoyance and unable to do anything about it, she flashed an exceptionally brilliant smile, saying, "Nianhua, this is called doing anything to win."
So, they started another game.
This time, Su Nianhua gave it everything he had, aiming to beat Gu Qingcheng in the shortest time possible and make her concede defeat without any argument.
Gu Qingcheng also gave it everything she had but, unfortunately, in a moment of distraction, she gave Su Nianhua a chance to successfully execute his strategy, once again setting the scene for a sure win for him.
Pouting unhappily, Gu Qingcheng rolled her eyes and looked cheekily at Su Nianhua, who was waiting for her to place her stone, "Nianhua, are you a man?"
"Yes." Su Nianhua nodded.
"Then am I a woman?"
"Aren't you?" Su Nianhua was looking a little annoyed at this pointless conversation.
"I am." Gu Qingcheng replied, ignoring his annoyed expression. She continued, "Being gentlemanly is a characteristic that every man should have, correct?"
"Yep." Su Nianhua was completely mystified by Gu Qingcheng's rhetoric.
"Then why don't you demonstrate your gentlemanly characteristics and let me have a stone?" Gu Qingcheng asked him, smiling sweetly as she raised her hand and picked up one of the black stones from a row of four.
"After that long spiel beating about the bush, and this was her real objective? How could he have forgotten that, since they'd been very young, Gu Qingcheng had been the queen of cheap tricks!" Su Nianhua was dumbstruck as he remembered all this.
Su Nianhua stretched his hand out, intending to retrieve the black stone that Gu Qingcheng had just removed from the board. However, Gu Qingcheng's reaction was faster than his, as she said, "Su Nianhua, you admitted that you were a man and a gentleman at that! If you take back this black stone from me, I will tell all the society ladies in Beijing tomorrow the story about that time in primary school when you'd written a love letter to a girl in the next class only to end up being ridiculed."
Now that was one piece of humiliating history that Su Nianhua wouldn't be able to live down for his entire life...
Visibly upset, Su Nianhua conceded with gritted teeth. He would tolerate her and make sure that he was winning!
After about two minutes, it appeared that Su Nianhua was once again on the path to becoming the winner. This time, Gu Qingcheng calmly picked up another black stone without preamble and, looking up at Su Nianhua, said in a steady voice, "Su Nianhua, Xiaoyue is also a woman. Since you let me have one black stone, you should also let Xiaoyue have one. Otherwise you'd be denying that Xiaoyue is a woman."