Silly Bride novel (Winnie and Xavier)
Chapter 180

"Hah." Seeing how calm Winnie appeared, Yolanda commented with disdain, "You seem pretty confident!"

"Is that so?" Winnie was indeed confident.

In fact, she was even more confident when she said that.

From Yolanda's point of view, however, she felt like Winnie was taunting her.

Her eyes narrowed. "Then do you know overconfidence is actually just arrogance? "

Winnie was still smiling nonchalantly. "Arrogance doesn't exist in my dictionary."

That pissed Yolanda off so much that she laughed in disbelief. "You're so full of yourself!"

"Am I?" Winnie cocked an eyebrow. "Isn't it more appropriate to say I'm full of myself if I challenge you in the field in which you excel at?"

"Preposterous! You wouldn't dare challenge me like that." An expression of pride was visible on Yolanda's face. "If this news gets out, people will say I'm bullying you!"

Winnie's tone remained calm. "Since you want to have a competition with me in an open manner, I don't think you'll bully me. So, tell me what it's going to be. I'm good with anything."

Yolanda furrowed her eyebrows. This woman sure is arrogant!

"To make things fair, we'll let a third party decide what we should compete on!" she suggested.

"Sure! I can agree with that." Winnie promptly turned to Sebastian. "How about we let Old Mr. Xander decide that?"

The old man glanced at his own granddaughter and then at Winnie.

In reality, he didn't really want to use that method to decide if he should take Winnie in as a disciple. However, he understood that youngsters were fiercely competitive, and since things had turned out that way he decided to go along with it.

"I know Yolanda pretty well, so I think I'll be subconsciously biased if I do that. How about this? I'll let my monkey randomly decide what the competition will be about to prevent any perceived unfairness." "Sounds good to me." Winnie nodded. This sounds interesting and challenging.

Yolanda nodded in agreement, too.

"Very well." Sebastian explained, "I'll let the monkey pick three random items from the building. Then, we'll come up with topics based on those items. The competition will conclude when someone achieves three wins. If a topic is unfamiliar to either of you, I'll give you two some time to prepare. You'll learn and compete on the spot. Any disagreements?"

"No!" the women exclaimed in unison.

Hearing that, Sebastian nodded, turned around, and called for the monkey.

Monkeys were intelligent animals with developed brains. After the years of training the Xander family gave the monkey, it was able to understand human speech, more or less.

Sebastian only needed to tell the monkey what to do a single time before it went into the house and grabbed something.

Soon, it revealed the first item, which was two chess pieces.

The pieces were respectively the white and black king pieces. Before the competition even started, the rivalry between the women was already quite intense.

Sebastian took the pieces and turned to the women. "So, the first round will be chess. Do you two have any objections to that?"

"Nope!" Yolanda spoke first as she gazed at Winnie. "If you're afraid of embarrassing yourself, there's still time for you to quit.”

The old man frowned. In the end, it wasn't a truly fair competition because anything the monkey took out of the house would be something he was interested in.

And if he liked something, he would teach his descendants at least a little bit of it. He knew Yolanda's chess skills were pretty good, but he wasn't sure if Winnie knew how to play. There wasn't a hint of fear in Winnie's voice when she answered, "I'm fine with it, too! It's rare for me to lose."

"Hah!" Yolanda couldn't help but roll her eyes. "Your head is so far up your butt that it went all the back to its original position!"

On the other hand, Winnie smiled silently.

Without delay, Sebastian asked the monkey to grab a second item, which was a traditional painting.

He announced, "For the second round, you two will compete in a traditional drawing contest. Are you two okay with that?" Winnie didn't even blink when she responded, "Yes."

However, Yolanda paused for a second before asking, "What's the theme?"

"We'll decide later on." That question prompted Sebastian to think about it. "Maybe the competition will test your improv skills.”

"Sure, I'm good with that. What will the third round be about?"

Soon, the monkey decided on the topic for the third round of competition.

It was holding a bow and even performed a shooting motion while aiming in Josiah's direction.

He glared at the monkey. "When are you going to return my briefcase, huh?"

Ignoring the human, the monkey shot an arrow toward him.

Thankfully, the arrow didn't have an arrowhead. Otherwise, Josiah's other leg would've been rendered useless.

Sebastian didn't expect the monkey to treat his guests that rudely. Thus, after he reprimanded it, he chased it away.

Since Winnie didn't want to waste too much time, she directly asked Yolanda, "When do you plan to start the competition?"

After studying her, Yolanda uttered coldly, "I'll give you three days at most."

"Three days?" Winnie frowned.

"What, you think the time is too short? You need more to prepare?" Yolanda smiled.

The edges of Winnie's lips curved upward. "I think you're underestimating your opponent, Ms. Xander. How about we just do it today? Although, you'll have to wait until after my husband's acupuncture session is over. I don't want our competition to affect his treatment. I hope you'll understand."

"Are you sure?" Yolanda's eyebrows furrowed. It had been a long time since she drew a traditional painting, so she needed some time to practice.

"I'm very sure. Is that a problem for you, Ms. Xander?"

That came off as an insult to Yolanda, so she subconsciously tightened her fists and gritted her teeth. “Not at all."

After that, Sebastian started teaching Winnie how to prepare the medicine.

To avoid humiliating herself, Yolanda sneaked back to her room to prepare.

During that period, not only did the old man teach Winnie how to prepare medicine, but he also taught her many foundational lessons about the field.

She was able to understand everything thoroughly. Not only that, she only needed him to tell her everything once. In addition, she inferred even more things as a result of her newfound knowledge. Sebastian didn't hesitate to shower her with praise.

Even Yolanda couldn't help but admit Winnie was an excellent learner.

As she stared at Winnie, a complicated feeling surfaced in her heart. Why couldn't she show up earlier? If she did, she would've become Grandpa's favorite student. My brother and I wouldn't have ended up the way we are today.

A few minutes passed, and Xavier's acupuncture session finally came to an end.

Winnie followed Sebastian inside and saw Xavier lying on the bed, unmoving.

Initially, she thought something bad had happened to him.

When she got closer and heard his snores, she realized he was just asleep. No wonder he didn't say anything when I was talking about the competition with Yolanda earlier.

Seeing how he was sleeping peacefully, Winnie let out a sigh of relief. "He didn't sleep well for the past few days. Even with sedatives, he could only sleep for about an hour, and it was never peaceful. I didn't expect the effects of acupuncture to be that effective. He looks tranquil. There really is a big difference between traditional medicine and western medicine. It seems like the side effects of traditional medicine are not as severe as western medicine. If traditional medicine can be widely used in clinical practice in the future, it'll benefit all of the humankind greatly."

When she said that, she was speaking from the bottom of her heart.

Sebastian could sense that she was being sincere.

It further solidified his desire to take Winnie in as a disciple. Even if she loses to my granddaughter during the competition, I'll still take her in. I know Winnie didn't say it willy-nilly. I'm not an old man cut off from the rest of society. When I first saw her and heard her name, she seemed familiar to me because I had seen her on the news before. However, I only cared about her watch back then, so I didn't pay attention to her. When I had some free time afterward, I investigated her and found out she was the famous Ms. Garland, who was loved on the internet. The netizens referred to her as a principal because she had helped build hundreds of primary schools in poor communities. That number only increased as time passed.

Additionally, she also set up a few foundations for disabled children and adults. If no one had intentionally talked about her nationality, her good deeds might've never been exposed. It's so rare to see a noble youngster like her anywhere who's willing to contribute so much to charity without asking for anything in return. So, if she really does want to learn traditional medicine, be it to save her husband or to help out even more patients in the future, I'm willing to teach her everything I know without asking for anything in return.

When his train of thought ended there, he was touched.

Sebastian carefully removed the needles from Xavier's head and spoke to Winnie. "He may still need to sleep for a few hours. Just let him rest here for now."

"Okay!" Winnie was fine with it since it meant she could focus on her match with Yolanda.

The first match was chess.

Yolanda was confident she could win because she had been playing it with her brother since they were children.

Sebastian loved chess, so the siblings started learning from him when they were seven or eight years old.

Her brother, Harrison Xander, was much more talented at chess than her. When he was sixteen, he won the national championship for chess.

While her chess skills weren't as great, it was far from bad.

So, she decided to let Winnie have the white pieces.

In chess, those with white pieces went first.

Winnie went along with it and moved the bishop first. It was a standard opening move.

Seeing that, Yolanda thought her opponent was an amateur and was confident she would win easily.

It was as though Winnie had no clue about the bigger picture as she put her pieces randomly on the board. Soon, many of her pieces were taken out.

As Yolanda observed her opponent's awful skills, she sneered, "This round will only take at most five minutes to conclude."

Winnie lifted her rook and chatted calmly, "I like to cut to the chase when it comes to real life. However, I prefer to start out weak before making a comeback when I'm playing chess."

"A comeback?" Disdain was present on Yolanda's face. "You already lost! Take this!"

"Is that so?" Winnie intentionally lost a pawn so her rook could take out Yolanda's bishop. "Check!"

"You're too careless!" That prompted Yolanda to move her queen to block the rook's path.

To her surprise, Winnie moved another pawn and cornered the king. "Check."

"Impossible!"

"Try, if you dare."

Yolanda moved her king. In response, Winnie cornered her once more.

Without any other choice, Yolanda moved her queen again, but she was still checkmated by Winnie's pawn.

"This is impossible! You shouldn't have won with your crappy moves!" Yolanda couldn't understand how Winnie had made such a comeback, even though the latter's previous moves appeared uncoordinated. As she stared at her dead king, she finally realized she had underestimated Winnie. "This doesn't count! Again!"

"You lost this round, Yolanda." Sebastian immediately declared the loser when he saw his granddaughter attempting to go against her word.

Realizing that she almost broke the rules, Yolanda took in a deep breath and said, "There are two rounds left. I'll definitely beat you."

"Then let's begin the second round. We'll go through all three rounds in one go," Winnie said.

"Wait!" The old man stopped her. "Your style is very odd but familiar. Before we start the second round, can we play a round of chess together first?"

"Sure, Old Mr. Xander."

"You want to play chess with her?" Yolanda was shocked.

Her brother used to love chess and adventure photography. However, he was forced to become a doctor in the end.

Two years ago, when Harrison and Sebastian had their most heated argument, the old man destroyed his grandson's chess championship trophy. After that, Harrison left for Arcvas Desert in a fit of rage. Since then, Sebastian hadn't played chess.

That was why Yolanda was surprised when her grandfather said he wanted to play chess. Is Winnie's chess skills that incredible? It's unexpected, but I don't think it's that amazing. Or is it because I don't have an outsider's view, so I can't see what's so special about it?

Winnie and Sebastian swiftly set up another round of chess.

Both were experts taking their time clashing against each other.

Despite that, Winnie's style was still strange. In the first half of the match, both sides were equally matched.

However, in the second half, the old man clearly couldn't defend himself against her fierce attacks.

"You won!" Sebastian admitted defeat when he was checkmated. "I have a question if you don't mind."

"Ask away," Winnie replied.

"Who did you learn chess from?"

"A man called Harry. Back then, I unintentionally encountered him when I was bored. After playing a few rounds with him, I became his disciple. I used many techniques that he taught me in the match earlier. Is Harry your old friend?"

"Not exactly." The old man suddenly appeared gloomy. "He's my grandson, Harrison Xander. Harrison. Harry. They're the same person. I taught him all I knew about chess, which he used to win the national championship. However, I wanted him to focus his attention on studying medicine, so he stopped playing chess as much as he used to after that. I heard there was a new champion in the national online competition after him. Someone called 'Great General.' Is that person you?"

Winnie opened her mouth. She couldn't believe it was such a coincidence.

Her watch belonged to Harrison, and he was also her chess teacher, yet she had never met him before.

Fate truly worked in strange ways.

"I stopped using that title after I lost contact with Harry. It happened suddenly two years ago. It turns out he went to Alendor. I tried to investigate where he had gone before. He should have a house somewhere in Avenport. However, I was too busy with other matters back then, so I didn't follow up my investigation."

"So you're a champion in a chess competition, too?" Yolanda sneered. "How dare you act like you're a newbie when playing with me earlier! Were you messing with me?"

"I already told you that I like the thrill of a comeback when I'm playing chess, Ms. Xander. I wasn't acting as someone else or messing with you. Chess is a game all about strategy and intelligence. Make a wrong move, and you lose. Are you being a sore loser?"

"A sore loser? Hah, just you wait and see. I'll win two rounds against you. Let me tell you something about myself. Before I started studying medicine, I was once the champion of a traditional drawing competition for teenagers. What about you? If you have any achievements in that field, show them to me."

"I don't. I just have an interest in drawing as well as the craft and mindset of the activity. I've never been to a drawing competition before. Besides, my specialty is oil painting, not traditional painting."

When Yolanda heard that, she smirked. "Then you're going to lose!"

Winnie simply smiled and didn't say a word in response.

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