“Siege Jin Yuanxun…” Chen Junnan seemed slightly puzzled by this statement. “Old Qi… you probably don’t know, that kid can’t be surrounded…”
“He can be surrounded now,” Qi Xia said. “Xu Liunian has already obtained the ‘Echo.’ If she returns to the ‘Preparation Zone’ and shares this method, others will gradually obtain the ‘Echo’ as well. At that point, Jin Yuanxun, holding the ‘Pawn,’ will become unbeatable—we won’t be able to catch him.”
“Dang it… is it really that urgent?” Chen Junnan said. “When I came back, I saw Old Qiao standing by the river soaking up some sun. The little master invited him to join us.”
“He has his own battles to fight,” Qi Xia replied. “You go to ‘Attack the Heart’ first.”
“Alright…” Chen Junnan nodded.
“Oh, by the way,” Qi Xia asked, “when you crossed the river with the ‘Bag,’ did anything strange happen?”
“Strange things…?” Chen Junnan naturally understood what Qi Xia was implying. “Sure, the little master might be carrying a bag, but along the way no one actually warned me about ‘violations.’ Those two kids watching from above didn’t react either. Maybe that rule doesn’t even exist?”
“If only that were the case,” Qi Xia said. “The ‘Fist’ is the ‘Elephant.’ Once he and Zhang Shan determine the winner, he can go with you to ‘Attack the Opponent.’ But…”
“You still have concerns…?” Chen Junnan asked. “The little master already checked things out earlier. I waved a ‘Bag’ around on the other side for quite a while, and nothing happened at all. Could it be that the ‘Bag’ really can cross the river?”
Qi Xia still felt something was off.
“Crossing the river”—such an obvious trap. The pit had been dug, the grass laid out, and people had even fallen in, yet there were no spikes inside.
That just didn’t sound like the Azure Dragon’s style.
He and Chu Tianqiu had clearly been guarding against this seemingly non-existent rule, yet both Azure Dragon and Ground Dragon appeared to have completely forgotten about it.
Looking at it from another angle, if there really was a ‘consequence’ for ‘illegally crossing the river,’ how would it manifest within the game?
Generally speaking, although all ‘Grade-D Judges’ might conceal certain rules, they would always clarify the conditions for triggering ‘Punishment’ before the game started. Otherwise, if someone died without understanding why, it would be no different from one-sided slaughter.
Since Ground Dragon hadn’t mentioned beforehand that ‘illegally crossing the river’ would result in ‘Punishment,’ it meant that even if there were consequences, they wouldn’t be death.
“Wait…” Qi Xia suddenly realized something.
Although this game appeared to have such a vast playing field, in the end, most players could only interact with two game pieces.
One was the ‘Character,’ and the other was the ‘Door.’
Since the ‘Character’ hadn’t changed when crossing the river illegally, the problem must lie with the ‘Door.’
“I get it now… So that’s how it is,” Qi Xia said. “Simply crossing the river won’t cause any issues…”
“Huh? Then where’s the problem?”
Qi Xia organized his thoughts before continuing, “Chen Junnan, if you plan to cross the river illegally again later, go check inside the ‘Door.'”
“Inside the ‘Door’?”
“I suspect the ‘Door’ will change…” Qi Xia’s gaze grew serious. “Earlier, when both sides opened the ‘Doors’ to investigate, we were only checking our own territories, which made us mistakenly believe that all ‘Doors’ led to human-level ‘Zodiacs.’ But we overlooked one thing—the other side of the ‘Door’ can change. These ‘Doors’ don’t lead to fixed rooms.”
“Oh my God…” Chen Junnan’s eyes widened in shock. “You’re saying that whoever opens the ‘Door’ affects what’s inside?”
“Just a theory,” Qi Xia replied. “Other than that, there probably isn’t any other ‘Punishment.’ Once an inappropriate ‘Piece’ crosses the river and triggers the ‘Game inside the Door,’ whatever lies within will change.”
“Alright… I understand,” Chen Junnan said. “Then I’ll go check it out alone first.”
Qi Xia nodded and took the ‘Rook’ character from Zheng Yingxiong.
“Old Qi,” Chen Junnan added, “since the opponent hasn’t scored with the ‘Rook,’ you write it first. After writing it, I’ll hide the ‘Character’ in my mouth so they’ll never find it.”
Qi Xia held the ‘Rook’ for a while, somewhat puzzled why Chu Tianqiu hadn’t used it to score.
But soon, he figured out the issue.
The difficulty wasn’t with the ‘Rook’ itself, but rather with its homophone.
“Chu Tianqiu, I remember you’re a biology Ph.D.—how could you miss this?”
Qi Xia placed the ‘Rook’ on the ‘Phoenix Carrying Scroll Platform’ and then wrote a homophonic character:
‘Che’ (Porcelain).
“What kind of character is that?” Chen Junnan stared at the character Qi Xia had written. “Is it pronounced ‘Che’ too?”
“It’s the ‘Che’ in ‘Haliotis,’ a fairly common type of shellfish,” Qi Xia explained. “As long as this ‘Character’ can form a word, I’m likely to recognize it.”
“You really are something…” Chen Junnan said.
“Lawyer Zhang, give me your ‘Fire’ too,” Qi Xia said. “The ‘Bag’ has already been used. Now I need your ‘Fire.'”
Zhang Chenzé nodded and pulled out the ‘Cannon’ from his shirt pocket.
“This game is just too unfair,” Zhang Chenzé remarked. “The opponent has two ‘Characters’ that can be split into three parts each. Not only can they score more points from the beginning, but their personnel arrangements will also be more flexible.”
“Oh?” Qi Xia casually asked while dismantling the ‘Cannon.’ “How so?”
“If just now Chen Junnan could move with one ‘Bag’ and one ‘Cloth,’ then I don’t need to carry the ‘Fire’ either, since ‘Fire’ is too dangerous,” Zhang Chenzé explained. “I’ll leave it with you. I can just carry a ‘Bag.'”
“I see. That makes sense too,” Qi Xia nodded.
“Now we’re really at a disadvantage,” Zhang Chenzé continued. “This game seems like it never intended to let us win from the start.”
“No,” Qi Xia said. “I think the opposite is true.”
“What do you mean?”
“Although it seems the opponent has two ‘Characters’ that can be split into three parts, they’re also more afraid of being stolen,” Qi Xia explained. “On the contrary, whether it’s the ‘Cannon’ or the ‘King’ on our side, even if they’re taken, we won’t suffer much loss. This gives us a higher margin for error.”
Chen Junnan thought for a moment and realized it was true. Once their ‘King’ was taken by the opponent, it could only form ‘Shuai’ and ‘Jin’—no other combinations were possible.
But if their side managed to steal the opponent’s ‘Pawn’ or ‘General,’ they might instantly widen the score gap.
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