Getting a certificate for Go was a complicated and time-consuming thing. Like karate, there was a ranking to it. The most basic rank could be obtained at any district level Go association, but higher rank had to be obtained through participating in a national-level competition that was held annually.
The elder whom Ye Shuang had befriended in Jing Hu City was from the National Go Association. They had been playing online for quite some time, and the senior would sigh every time, lamenting why Ye Shuang was not a professional player.
The competition for professional players had an age limit, and it was heavily monitored, not something that could be tricked by changing the age on one's ID card. After the senior lost three consecutive rounds, he could not help but ask Ye Shuang about that. The reason was definitely not what he expected, and Ye Shuang used just one sentence to make his heart ache until this day.
"There's a professional test for Go‽"