Chapter 1 No Day or Night

There was no distinction between day and night in the necromantic space; it was always a dark expanse, like the beginning of chaos.

Qiao Yu didn't know how long he had been here.

At first, he tried to keep track of time, but slowly he gave up entirely.

Once the thought of giving up arose, he suddenly felt the world was vast.

Qiao Yu completely abandoned thinking about anything else, focusing all his energy on controlling the skeleton to embroider the cross-stitch.

Around him were already piles of ruined canvases and tangled threads as high as small hills.

Shen Jianshu came in once during this time and, after discovering that Qiao Yu was focused on completing the task he had assigned, nodded in satisfaction and left again.

Time passed bit by bit, and Qiao Yu had long lost the concept of time.

A house, a willow tree, a carriage, a camel, an old man riding an ox.

These figures and landscapes from *Along the River During the Qingming Festival* were gradually reproduced by Qiao Yu, stitch by stitch, in cross-stitch.

To speed up the process, Qiao Yu even summoned two more skeleton soldiers, dividing his attention threefold. The three skeleton soldiers advanced side by side, working together to embroider this one-meter-long *Along the River During the Qingming Festival*.

These three skeleton soldiers probably never imagined that they would be summoned to do something like this.

Time continued to flow, and the entire cross-stitch was constantly improving.

"Done!" Qiao Yu exclaimed in surprise.

After who-knows-how-long, as the skeleton soldier made the final stitch, the entire *Along the River During the Qingming Festival* cross-stitch was finally completed!

Although this one-meter-long cross-stitch was embroidered rather crudely, it was finally finished.

Qiao Yu finally understood Shen Jianshu's good intentions. Now, his level of control over undead creatures was worlds apart from what it had been before.

After all, to have a skeleton soldier do cross-stitch, one had to control the force extremely meticulously; too much was too heavy, and too little was too light.

A black hole opened silently, and Shen Jianshu stepped out of it, holding a thermos cup.

"How's it going? Halfway done?"

Shen Jianshu blew on his tea, then slowly took a sip.

The last time he came in, Qiao Yu was still accidentally piercing the canvas because he couldn't control the strength of the skeleton soldiers.

In his opinion, it would be commendable if Qiao Yu could embroider halfway by now. After all, it took him two full months to master this back then.

Now, only a month had just passed.

"Professor Shen, I've finished embroidering it, look."

"Pfft!"

Shen Jianshu glanced at it and spat a mouthful of hot tea directly onto the *Along the River During the Qingming Festival* cross-stitch in front of him.

He extended a finger and said tremblingly.

"Impossible! Absolutely impossible! It's only been this long? How could you have finished it with just one skeleton soldier?"

"It wasn't just one... I had three of them embroidering it together." Qiao Yu scratched his head and pointed to the three skeleton soldiers behind him.

Multitasking?

This kid actually mastered the technique of multitasking without his guidance?

Shen Jianshu's pupils shrank in shock at first, then his eyes were filled with delight!

He had really found a treasure this time!

What Shen Jianshu didn't know was that Qiao Yu had obtained the S-rank item, the Heart of the Mechanical Empress, a long time ago, and his own computing ability was naturally very powerful.

"To what extent is your control over these three skeletons? Can you get them to do three different things at the same time?" Shen Jianshu asked eagerly.

"I can."

Qiao Yu nodded, then directly turned on the music for Gokuraku Jodo.

Under Shen Jianshu's stunned gaze, the three skeleton soldiers twisted their bones and finished dancing Gokuraku Jodo.

During the dance, the three skeleton soldiers had different dance moves. The skeleton soldier in the middle even winked at the old Professor Shen.

Old Professor Shen had lived his whole life and had never seen such a novel thing. The skeleton soldiers dancing Gokuraku Jodo almost made his old back spasm.

"Okay! Stop, stop, stop!"

Shen Jianshu was covered in black lines, thinking to himself, why are the undead creatures in this kid's hands so unorthodox?

"Multitasking was originally what I was going to teach you in the second stage, but I didn't expect you to have mastered it on your own..."

Shen Jianshu's expression became somewhat complicated, then he took a deep breath, as if he had made a major decision in his heart.

"Since you've already mastered it, then we'll skip this stage and go directly to the third stage of special training."

As soon as Shen Jianshu finished speaking, two bone chairs and a bone platform appeared on the ground.

Many grid lines and a Chu-Han boundary line were clearly carved on the bone platform.

It was actually a chessboard for Chinese chess.

Shen Jianshu had bone chess pieces in his hand. He explained as he placed the pieces on the chessboard.

"Different undead creatures have different combat methods and skills. This is very similar to the cooperation and division of labor between chess pieces in Chinese chess."

"You have mastered the most basic multitasking and strength control. Next, you should learn tactics."

Qiao Yu nodded, and secretly opened a complete Chinese chess manual on his inner world network, selected a human-computer game, and then directly chose the hell mode with the highest difficulty.

"Come on, don't be nervous, I'll try my best to let you win." Shen Jianshu smiled confidently. Qiao Yu also smiled and didn't say anything more.

In this game, Shen Jianshu held the red side, and Qiao Yu held the black side.

"Cannon Two to Middle!"

Shen Jianshu started with a central cannon. Qiao Yu learned Shen Jianshu's method and also played a central cannon in his game against the AI.

Then the AI countered with a defending horse, and Qiao Yu followed suit, playing along with the AI.

"Horse 2 advances to 3!" (Fun fact: In Chinese chess notation, the red side uses 1234, while the black side uses 一二三四)

"Not bad, a defending horse against the central cannon, standard. Horse Eight advances to Seven!" Shen Jianshu smiled and nodded, then also moved his horse.

"Cannon 8 to 6!"

"Chariot Nine to Eight!"

"Horse 8 advances to 7!"

"Pawn Three advances one!"

"Cannon 2 to 1!"

"Cannon Two advances four!"

"Chariot 1 to 2!"

Shen Jianshu frowned slightly at this.

"Oh? Knowing that I'm going to play the Hollow Cannon, you still dare to move your chariot to capture my cannon? Then you're giving me the Hollow Cannon to the center! Cannon Two to Middle!"

Shen Jianshu directly moved his cannon. Qiao Yu glanced at the chess manual, unhurried.

"Horse 3 advances to 5!"

"Cannon Five advances four!"

"Chariot 2 advances to 8!"

After this round of exchanges, Shen Jianshu obtained the Hollow Cannon, and Qiao Yu also obtained the situation of advancing the chariot to suppress the horse.

Shen Jianshu was no longer as calm and composed as before. His brow was already slightly furrowed.

"Good kid, you've got some skills!"

Qiao Yu smiled faintly, but didn't say anything more. It wasn't that he had some skills; it was clearly that the AI had some skills.

"Chariot Eight advances six!"

Shen Jianshu's plan was well-calculated, preparing to retreat his cannon and check the general in the next step.

But even if Qiao Yu couldn't understand his next step, how could the hell-mode AI not see through it...

"Cannon 6 advances 2!"

"Cannon Five retreats two!"

"Cannon 6 to 1!"

"Chariot Eight to Five, check!"

"Horse 7 advances to 5!"

As soon as this step came out, beads of sweat appeared on Shen Jianshu's forehead.

He couldn't understand how the young Qiao Yu in front of him, who was not even twenty years old, could have such remarkable chess skills?

Shen Jianshu took a deep breath, calmed the thoughts in his mind, and prepared to use all his strength to deal with it!

The two sides attacked each other, fighting fiercely.

Shen Jianshu wracked his brains, calculating the chess moves, but what about Qiao Yu?

This sneaky fellow followed the AI's moves all the way, and even yawned out of boredom.

"General 6 to 5!"

With Qiao Yu's last move, moving his general sideways, Shen Jianshu's defeat was completely declared, because the red side was already in a dead end.

Shen Jianshu slumped in the bone chair, with a look of disappointment and disbelief on his face.

"Lost, I actually lost to a twenty-year-old young man in Chinese chess?"

How could this be? He, Shen Jianshu, was a renowned figure in the chess world! Shen Jianshu began to doubt his entire life.

Qiao Yu looked at Shen Jianshu's dejected appearance and suddenly felt a little unbearable.

Was it really okay to secretly open the AI chess manual to cheat, to swindle an old comrade in his sixties or seventies?