Qi Xia had originally intended to recall everyone, instructing them to hand over all their “characters” and wait in the “preparation zone,” but he soon realized something unexpected.
Aside from Chen Junan, Qiao Jiajin, and Han Yimo, who were already in the “preparation zone,” the others hadn’t returned for a long time—it seemed they were all locked inside their game rooms.
There were five paths leading to the “river channel,” and now three of them were locked.
Qi Xia suspected this might be some scheme orchestrated by Chu Tianqiu, but most of Chu’s team had already returned to the “preparation zone” under his command. Who else could single-handedly trap so many people?
It didn’t take long for Qi Xia to guess that the only one with such boldness and skill was Jin Yuanxun. The thought made his heart tighten.
Zheng Yingxiong and Lawyer Zhang weren’t a major concern, but if Jin Yuanxun had trapped Tian Tian inside a game room… things would become far more complicated.
Left with no choice, Qi Xia could only wait patiently with the few in the “preparation zone.” After nearly ten minutes, everyone finally finished their games without wagers. During this time, neither Qi Xia nor Chu Tianqiu made a move, as if both were plotting something.
When Lawyer Zhang and Zheng Yingxiong returned, Qi Xia informed the group that he would take all their chips and face Chu Tianqiu in a final showdown.
Tian Tian was the last to arrive, handing over her “Shi” character to Qi Xia.
Seeing her return, Qi Xia visibly brightened. “You’re back?”
“Yeah.” Tian Tian nodded. “Got lucky, I guess.”
“So… it’s done?”
“Should be…” She nodded again. “But I can’t be sure. After all, it was a ‘modification,’ not ‘creation.’ I’m still a little worried.”
“Which room?”
“The ‘Mao’ room.”
“And Jin Yuanxun?” Qi Xia pressed.
Tian Tian didn’t answer, simply staring at him silently. From her gaze, Qi Xia gleaned everything he needed to know.
“Then his ‘character’…”
“Still on him,” Tian Tian replied.
“Good. That means we’re at least halfway there.” Qi Xia nodded. “Even if it fails, it’s not on you. Time was just too tight.”
Tian Tian lowered her head slightly in guilt. She knew Qi Xia had entrusted her with only one task in this game, and not completing it weighed on her.
But did people like him really exist?
Someone who wouldn’t blame you for mistakes, who only hoped you’d do your best with what was asked of you?
In her twenty-one years of life, she had once been scorned for things she hadn’t even done.
Compared to those days… wasn’t the “Land of Finality” practically heaven?
After collecting all the “characters,” Qi Xia set off for the “river channel.”
Meanwhile, Qinglong, watching from the stands, slowly rose to his feet, sensing that things had become far more interesting than he had anticipated.
“Fascinating…” Qinglong turned to Dilong. “Do you know what I find most intriguing about ‘mortals’?”
“What?” Dilong replied half-heartedly.
“It’s that no matter how clearly I set the ‘rules,’ there are always those who insist on acting outside them.” Qinglong’s expression grew increasingly excited. “It’s like drawing a maze for ants with mothballs, only to find some of them daring to taste the mothballs themselves… How delightfully absurd, don’t you think?”
“I see… You wanted them to collect twenty-eight ‘characters’ to win, yet both sides abandoned that path halfway through.” Dilong sighed. “Had this game been played by ordinary people, you might’ve witnessed a steady, calculated battle. But Qi Xia and Chu Tianqiu clearly aren’t that type.”
“Exactly…” Qinglong chuckled. “From the very start, the strategies these two have employed have exceeded my expectations—including the final tactics they’re executing now. Truly brilliant.”
“So what do you plan to do?” Dilong asked.
“What do I plan…?” Qinglong turned to her with a meaningful smile. “Since the game is so thrilling… what if I recruited all fourteen of them as new ‘gods’?”
“What…?” Dilong froze.
“A complete reshuffling of ‘Peach Garden,'” Qinglong mused. “Forget ‘Zodiacs’ and ‘participants.’ I’ll establish a new hierarchy—’Heaven,’ ‘Earth,’ and ‘Man’ as the three ranks of ‘pieces.'”
Dilong’s eyes flickered with unease. “Qinglong, what kind of nonsense are you spouting…?”
“Don’t ‘Heavenly Pieces’ sound grand?” Qinglong’s gaze burned as he looked down at the players below. “Let the ‘Heavenly Ox’ and ‘Heavenly Rat’ perish. Only ‘Heavenly Soldiers’ and ‘Heavenly Generals’ shall remain…”
“Stop it…”
“Then I’ll have Tianlong craft massive hollow wooden pieces, fitted over their heads to distinguish their ranks…” Qinglong continued, ignoring her. “Hmm, fourteen might be too many… Maybe ‘Heavenly Generals’ and ‘Heavenly Marshals’ could oversee them? But then we’d have ‘Heavenly Horses’… Would that seem unoriginal?”
“Enough…”
“Alternatively, we could scrap ‘Heaven-Earth-Man’ and divide them into ‘Yin and Yang’ instead.” Qinglong nodded, lost in thought. “‘Yin Soldiers’ and ‘Yin Marshals,’ paired with ‘Yang Horses’ and ‘Yang Pawns’… Sounds fresh, doesn’t it?”
He turned to Dilong expectantly, as if awaiting praise.
Dilong’s face darkened before she finally spoke. “Qinglong… Were the current ‘Heavenly Zodiacs’ also chosen this way—by you and Tianlong?”
“Oh? What do you mean?”
“To complete the ‘Zodiacs,’ you arbitrarily selected eleven people from a game you deemed ‘exciting,’ bestowed titles and power upon them…” Dilong struggled to keep her composure. “So casually, so absurdly… Elevating eleven individuals of vastly different abilities, skill levels, and temperaments into ‘Heavenly Zodiacs,’ plunging this land into chaos.”
“No, no.” Qinglong shook his head. “It wasn’t ‘arbitrarily selecting eleven from a game.’ If I found it exciting, I naturally recruited everyone from that game—even if there were elders and children among them. That didn’t matter.”
“You—”
“And the sequence is wrong too.” Qinglong continued. “How could I have chosen eleven just to fill ‘Zodiac’ slots? Dilong, the reason they became ‘Zodiacs’ was simply because there were eleven participants in that game. Add ‘Tianlong,’ and you get twelve. After much deliberation, the ‘Zodiac’ titles were the only ones that naturally followed ‘Tianlong’s’ naming convention. Doesn’t that feel perfectly fitting?”
Fitting? Dilong only felt a surge of rage, though she couldn’t pinpoint its exact source.
Perhaps it was the thought of thousands toiling under such ridiculous, arbitrary rules that made their suffering seem utterly meaningless.
What ‘Heaven-Earth-Man,’ what ‘Zodiacs’—these supposedly solemn, ironclad systems were nothing but a farce at their core.
Why did the ‘Heavenly Zodiacs’ feel so disjointed?
Because they were never ‘gods’ to begin with—just eleven ‘participants’ who happened to amuse Qinglong and Tianlong in a single game.
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