Chapter 324: Entirely Destroying Lin Ruoli’s Pride

The small, inlaid table in the corner of the room became the new battlefield. It was a beautiful thing, its surface a polished, dark wood marked with a complex grid of intersecting lines and star points—a Starfall Weiqi board of masterwork quality. The pieces, stored in two heavy, silk-lined bowls, were exquisite. One set was carved from pure, flawless crystal that seemed to drink the candlelight; the other was cut from obsidian so black it felt like holding a piece of the night sky.

Lin Ruoli sat down, her terror momentarily pushed aside by a surge of fierce, defiant pride. This was her domain. The world of merchants and politics was a game of Weiqi writ large, a battle of influence, territory, and slow, calculated strangulation. She had toppled rivals with fortunes ten times her own on boards just like this one.

’He’s arrogant,’ she thought, her hands steady as she placed the crystal bowl of white stones in front of her. ’He thinks because he has power in his fists and his magic, he can best me in a game of pure intellect? He has made a fatal miscalculation. I will strip him bare, piece by humiliating piece, and leave him shamed and defeated in his own chamber.’

She was in her element now. The familiar weight of the crystal stones, cool and smooth against her fingertips, was a grounding force. The silent, sleeping forms of Alaric’s companions were forgotten. The locked door was forgotten. There was only the board, her opponent, and the sweet, tantalizing promise of victory and vengeance.

Alaric sat opposite her, a picture of lazy, relaxed confidence. He poured himself another cup of the poisoned wine, sipping it as if it were a fine brandy. He played with the black obsidian stones, letting them clack softly in his palm.

The first match began.

Lin Ruoli played with a focused, intense concentration that was almost a physical force. Her mind was a whirlwind of calculations, of strategies and counter-strategies. She was a master of the classical Serpent’s Coil opening, a complex, elegant strategy designed to build a web of influence across the board, slowly strangling the opponent’s territory.

Alaric, in contrast, played casually, almost lazily. His eyes weren’t even on the board most of the time. They were fixed on her, his gaze a hot, physical touch that traced the elegant line of her neck, the delicate curve of her shoulders, the way the sapphire silk of her robe draped over the swell of her magnificent breasts. He would occasionally lick his lips, a slow, perverted gesture that made her skin crawl, but she forced herself to ignore it.

’He’s distracted by my body,’ she thought, a surge of cold, triumphant confidence flowing through her veins. ’A classic male weakness. Predictable. Pathetic. I have him.’

She placed her stones with a quiet, deadly precision. A stone here, to claim a corner. A stone there, to build a wall. Her formation was a beautiful, intricate thing, a silken net slowly closing around his scattered, seemingly random placements. She could see the path to victory, clear and bright. In ten, maybe fifteen moves, his positions would be isolated and suffocated.

She was just preparing to place the stone that would begin the final, crushing encirclement when he looked up from her cleavage and finally glanced at the board.

“Hmm,” he murmured, a sound of mild, almost bored interest. “My turn, I believe.”

He then made three moves.

They were not the moves of a grandmaster. They were not elegant. They were not subtle. They were swift, brutal, and utterly, completely, unorthodox.

The first stone, a single, black piece of night, landed in the absolute dead center of her most secure territory, a move so suicidal, so insane, that she almost laughed out loud.

The second stone landed on a critical intersection, a move that seemed to create a weakness in his own formation.

The third stone, placed with a soft, final clack, connected the first two to a small, insignificant group of his own stones she had ignored on the edge of the board.

And in that single, impossible instant, her entire, beautiful strategy shattered.

It wasn’t a defeat; it was an annihilation. His three “insane” moves had transformed his scattered, weak positions into a terrifying, interconnected dragon. Her silken net was not only torn to shreds, but its own threads were now being used to strangle her. Her most secure territory was dead. Her influence was cut off. Her king was surrounded.

Checkmate.

The game was over in less than thirty moves.

Lin Ruoli stared at the board, her mind utterly, completely blank. It was impossible. She had seen every possible variation, every classical response. This… this was not a strategy. It was a violation. It was as if he were playing a different game entirely, a game with rules she didn’t even know existed.

She felt a cold, creeping dread begin to extinguish the fire of her confidence.

Alaric leaned back in his chair, a slow, smug smirk spreading across his handsome face. He took another long, slow sip of his wine, his ruby eyes dancing with a cruel, mocking light.

“A good opening,” he said, his voice a low, triumphant purr. “I win.”

He set his cup down, his gaze once again dropping to her body, his expression turning openly lecherous. “Let’s start with… your outer silk robe. The sapphire one. It’s lovely, truly. But it’s hiding the view.”

His comment was crude, vulgar, reducing her hard-won skill, her brilliant mind, to nothing more than a prelude to his own lecherous pleasure.

Humiliation, hot and sharp, washed over her. Her hands trembled as she reached for the silken sash at her waist. She slowly, deliberately, untied it. The silk whispered as it came undone. She shrugged the robe off her shoulders, the cool air of the chamber a sudden shock against the thinner, more form-fitting inner dress she wore beneath. She folded the robe with a practiced, mechanical precision and placed it beside her chair, a fallen banner on a lost battlefield.

They began the second match.

Lin Ruoli was shaken, her mind still reeling from the sheer, brutal efficiency of her defeat. But she was a fighter. She was the Guildmaster of the Jade Serpent Guild. She had not reached her position through luck.

’That was a fluke,’ she told herself, her hands steady as she set up the board again. ’A lucky, unorthodox gambit. It won’t work twice. I underestimated him. I will not make that mistake again.’

She played a more defensive, cautious game this time. A classic Stone Wall formation, designed to be impenetrable, to slowly build territory and grind the opponent down through attrition. It was not elegant, but it was solid. Reliable.

Alaric, however, seemed even more distracted than before. His eyes were now roaming down her body, lingering on her legs beneath the table. She could feel his gaze on her thighs, her calves, her ankles. It was an unnerving, invasive sensation.

He began to hum a little tune as he played, a soft, jaunter air that was completely at odds with the intense, strategic nature of the game. His moves, once again, seemed casual, almost random. A stone here, a stone there, with no apparent connection, no overarching strategy.

She ignored him. She focused on her wall, on reinforcing her territory, on slowly, methodically, building an unbreachable fortress.

’He’s trying to distract me,’ she thought, a grim, determined focus settling over her. ’Let him look. Let him hum his stupid tunes. My mind is a fortress of its own. He will not breach it.’

She played for an hour, the game a slow, grinding battle of inches. She felt… comfortable. This was a game she understood. She was slowly, inevitably, gaining the advantage. His random placements were being isolated, his small groups of stones cut off and surrounded.

And then, she realized her mistake.

It was not a sudden, shocking revelation like before. It was a slow, dawning, creeping horror.

His “random” placements were not random at all. They were anchors. Each one, a perfectly placed nail in her coffin. Her “impenetrable” wall, she now saw with a sickening lurch in her stomach, was not a fortress. It was a prison. And he had just locked the door.

His last five moves, which had seemed so innocuous at the time, were the final, brilliant pieces of an inescapable, board-spanning trap. He hadn’t been trying to break her wall; he had been using her own stones, her own strategy, against her. He had let her build her own cage.

He crushed her again. This time, it took longer. It was a slower, more deliberate strangulation. But the result was the same. Total, utter, and complete domination.

Alaric leaned back, a lazy, satisfied cat who had just finished playing with a particularly slow mouse.

“My win again,” he said, his voice a low, almost pitying purr. “A pity. I was enjoying the way the silk of your dress clings to your thighs when you shift your position.”

He took a slow, deliberate lick of his lips, a purely perverted, triumphant gesture. “Let’s remove… the sash from that dress. Let’s see how it hangs without it.”

Her hands trembled with a mixture of pure, incandescent rage and a burgeoning, helpless despair. She reached for the sash of her inner dress, her fingers fumbling with the knot. She pulled it free. The dress, which had been form-fitting, now hung more loosely, its neckline dipping a little lower, its fabric hinting more at the magnificent curves beneath.

The third match was a blur of pure, raw desperation.

She threw everything she had at him from the very first move. An aggressive, all-out assault, a blitzkrieg of stone designed to overwhelm him with speed and ferocity. She abandoned all pretense of subtlety, of strategy. This was a street brawl, not a duel.

He countered her effortlessly. He seemed to know her every move before she even made it. His defense was a fluid, beautiful thing, a river flowing around her clumsy, furious blows.

And his gaze… his gaze was now openly, shamelessly, fixed on her breasts. He wasn’t even pretending to look at the board anymore. He would glance down for a fraction of a second to place his stone, and then his hot, ruby eyes would immediately return to her chest, a hungry, possessive look in them that made her skin burn.

He won again. It was a brutal, efficient victory. He had dismantled her furious assault with the calm, detached precision of a master surgeon dissecting a frog.

“You’re not very good at this, are you?” he said, his voice a soft, condescending caress. He shook his head in mock pity. “Still, your determination is… cute.”

The word, ’cute’, was the final, devastating insult. He was not just defeating her; he was patronizing her.

“Let’s get rid of those pretty little shoes,” he commanded, his voice a lazy drawl. “And the stockings. I want to see your bare feet on the floor.”

Humiliation warred with a strange, terrifying, and deeply unwelcome flicker of excitement. She bent down, her now-loosened dress falling forward, giving him an even more generous view of her cleavage. She untied the ribbons of her silk slippers, her fingers clumsy. She slipped them off. Then, with a slow, deliberate movement that felt both shameful and strangely sensual, she reached under her dress, unhooked her silk stockings from their garters, and slowly, agonizingly, rolled them down her long, pale legs.

The cool stone of the floor was a shock against her bare feet. She felt… exposed. Vulnerable.

She was in a state of utter disarray. Her elegant coiffure was coming undone, wisps of black hair falling around her face. Her dress was hanging loosely, shapelessly. And she was barefoot, like a common servant.

Her brilliant, strategic mind, her greatest asset, was shattered. She was no longer playing to win. She was just playing. Moving stones on pure, raw instinct, her thoughts a chaotic jumble of shame, rage, and a terrifying, encroaching numbness.

This time, he toyed with her.

He played with a cruel, deliberate slowness. He would make a small, obvious mistake, allowing her to capture a few of his obsidian stones. A flicker of hope, small and pathetic, would ignite in her chest. ’Maybe… maybe this time…’

And then, just as she began to believe she had a chance, he would close the final, inescapable trap. He would show her that her small victory had been a gift, a crumb of charity thrown to a beggar, before he took everything. It was the most humiliating defeat of all.

He won the fourth match.

He didn’t even gloat this time. He just looked at her, his expression one of bored, inevitable victory.

“The dress,” he said simply.

The words were a command. Absolute. Unquestionable.

Her hands trembled as she stood, her fingers fumbling with the small, pearl buttons at the back of her neck. She couldn’t reach them properly. A low, frustrated sob escaped her lips.

“Allow me,” he said. He rose from his chair, his movements a slow, predatory glide. He stood behind her, his presence a wall of heat and power. His fingers, surprisingly deft, brushed against the bare skin of her neck as he undid the buttons, one by one.

He then placed his hands on her shoulders and simply pushed the dress down. It slid off her body in a whisper of silk, pooling at her feet, leaving her standing before him in nothing but her delicate, exquisite, and utterly inadequate silken undergarments. Her chemise and drawers were of the finest make, trimmed with delicate lace, but they felt as substantial as smoke against his burning, possessive gaze.

He walked back to his chair, his eyes devouring every inch of her exposed, pale skin.

“Now that’s much better,” he purred, his voice a low, appreciative rumble. “A fine vintage indeed. So pale… so soft.”

He took another sip of his wine, his gaze lingering on the magnificent swell of her breasts, barely contained by the thin lace of her chemise.

“But still,” he murmured, a wicked, hungry glint in his ruby eyes, “too much packaging.”

The final match began.

She could barely focus. Her skin was burning with shame, her mind a numb, silent void. She moved her crystal stones automatically, her hands seeming to belong to someone else.

He played with one hand now, his other cradling his wine cup. He didn’t even bother to lean forward. He was a king on his throne, watching the final, futile struggles of a conquered enemy.

And then, for the final five moves, he stopped looking at the board entirely.

He kept his gaze fixed on her face, on the single, silent tear that was tracing a path down her cheek. He would call out his move, a simple coordinate, and place his stone without even glancing down. It was the ultimate display of contempt, of absolute, soul-crushing superiority.

“Star-point seven,” he murmured, his eyes locked with hers. He placed a stone. “Checkmate. Again.”

He leaned back in his chair, a look of supreme, predatory satisfaction on his handsome face. He drained the last of his wine.

“It seems,” he said, his voice a low, triumphant purr that echoed in the silent, sleeping chamber, “that I win the pot.”

He looked at her, standing there in her undergarments, stripped bare of her clothes, her pride, and her last vestiges of hope.

“Now,” he commanded softly, his voice a silken, inescapable order. “Be a good girl and take off the rest. I want to see the grand prize I’ve won tonight.”