"With three hundred chess pieces, one can become comparable to a general who leads a thousand armies; With a chessboard, one can deduce and interpret the political changes of a country." This is the principle of The Study of Chess.
Based on the true story of the founding of the Whistling Flames trading guild, this piece of work tells an inspiring story that has touched a generation of the Xianzhou people. A young Foxian girl, Yingzhen, was a rare mathematical genius, but her future in the academy was cut short due to a moment of confusion. Foxians of the time were still traveling merchants on the Xianzhou, while Yingzhen, who had to become a traveling merchant, gradually learned how to apply her mathematical knowledge to business. Eventually, Yingzhen founded the Whistling Flames that soon became a business magnate on the Xianzhou, and her book, Lolling Grass, became a compulsory textbook for every merchant on the Xianzhou.
Before Lolling Grass, biographical immersias usually focus on heroes, soldiers, pilots, and even bandits or evildoers as protagonists, and their plot is usually about their action-packed lives charged with emotions. A characteristic of these biographical immersias is that they tend to allow the experiencers to experience the magnificent historical moments, rather than allowing one to feel the life journey of the protagonists.
Lolling Grass changed the industry in that it is a biographical immersia with a core theme on commerce, but moved away from the rivalry and intrigue of business development, instead focusing on the dry disciplines of mathematics and business as the main axis of the plot, allowing the experiencers to step into Yingzhen's perspective and experience her journey firsthand to achieve conceptual breakthroughs in these disciplines.
I remember three hundred years ago, when my fellow students and I went to experience the Lolling Grass, we were all students of immersias, so our grasp on the esoteric arts of mathematics is not good. But when Yingzhen intuited The Study of Chess, we were all overcome by the ecstasy (and shock) of grasping the truth, to the point that we were quaking in our boots. This unique charm might be why the art of Butterfly Immersia cannot be replaced.
Another trivia: The popularity of Lolling Grass caused the Wen Sisters to soar in celebrity. This was why many sibling duo directors mushroomed in the Xianzhou within that century. It's a shame that few can reach the height that the Wen Sisters did.