Chapter 998: Creating Characters

“Next, both team leaders will have five minutes to assign a ‘character’ to each of their officers. The game will officially begin in five minutes.”

Di Long paused and continued, “Please be aware that the losing team will be completely eliminated. Please prepare yourselves. If you have any new questions during the assignment process, feel free to ask me.”

After hearing this, Qi Xia’s group began whispering among themselves. The game didn’t sound difficult, but they felt uncertain about how it would play out in practice.

The goal was to seize radicals and components from the opposing team to form new characters. Whoever first created twenty-eight characters would win.

Such a simple rule set clearly did not mean an easy game.

Seeing that Qi Xia had been silent for a while, Chen Junnan quickly turned around and asked, “Hey, does anyone here know how to play Chinese chess?”

After a short while, Han Yimo raised his hand. Just as Chen Junnan was about to praise him, Han awkwardly said, “I don’t know how to play.”

“Me neither…” Zheng Yingxiong said.

“Same here…” Tian Tian said.

“I…” Zhang Chenze said.

“Alright, great, fantastic! A dream team, right?” Chen Junnan nodded confidently, then turned to Qi Xia. “Old Qi, why don’t we just surrender now?”

“Don’t fool around,” Qi Xia replied.

“It’s not that serious!” Chen Junnan exclaimed. “Only the three of us know how to play chess. How are we supposed to handle this team game?”

At this point, Qiao Jiajin uncomfortably scratched his head and said, “Jun’nan, I… I don’t know how to play either.”

“…?” Chen Junnan blinked his eyes. “You even know the rules of gambling, but you don’t know chess?”

“I know the gambling rules because I used to watch over gambling houses,” Qiao Jiajin replied. “But there’s no Chinese chess in gambling houses.”

“Well then, great, isn’t that wonderful?” Chen Junnan said dispiritedly. “Old Qi, you should discuss with Di Long whether we can change the game to checkers. We can’t play this at all.”

“Don’t worry,” Qi Xia said. “It shouldn’t be too bad. Although each person carries a ‘character,’ it doesn’t mean you have to act like a chess piece. The rules don’t restrict movement, so theoretically, you don’t need to follow traditional chess movement rules like ‘the knight moves in an L-shape’ or ‘the elephant moves diagonally.’ We just need to remember a few key rules.”

“But then how do we…” Chen Junnan asked.

“Firstly, you need to note that our ‘characters’ are different from the opposing team’s,” Qi Xia explained.

“Different…?” Chen Junnan was taken aback. “What do you mean? Are they playing animal chess?”

Zheng Yingxiong sighed helplessly and looked at him coldly, “Chen Junnan, can you please speak less?”

“What do you mean ‘Chen Junnan’?” Chen Junnan immediately grabbed Zheng Yingxiong’s head. “Call me ‘Brother’!”

Qi Xia shook his head, walked to the wall, and picked up a metal chain to carve several characters on the wall.

“Bing” (soldier), “Pao” (cannon), “Che” (rook), “Ma” (knight), “Xiang” (elephant), “Shi” (advisor), and “Shuai” (general).

“These are our characters,” Qi Xia said.

“But isn’t that how Chinese chess is played?” Chen Junnan asked. “Both sides have the same pieces.”

“Not quite,” Qi Xia replied, then carved another set of characters on the wall.

“Zu” (soldier), “Pao” (cannon), “Che” (rook), “Ma” (knight), “Xiang” (elephant), “Shi” (advisor), and “Jiang” (general).

“These are the opposing team’s characters.”

After comparing the two sets, everyone indeed noticed the difference.

“As for Chinese chess,” Qi Xia explained, “you just need to remember one rule: our characters are different from theirs. When Di Long asked us to demonstrate earlier, he said, ‘Please use ‘Bing’ and ‘Zu’ for the experiment,’ indicating that we are ‘Bing’ and they are ‘Zu.'”

Zhang Chenze nodded thoughtfully. “In that case, the focus for both sides will naturally differ.”

“Precisely,” Qi Xia nodded. “When we chose our positions earlier, Di Long mentioned that regardless of which side we chose, the difficulty wouldn’t change much—only the tactics would differ. That clearly indicates our required characters are different.”

After thinking for a moment, Chen Junnan saw Qiao Jiajin pointing at the character “Che” (rook) and asking:

“Jun’nan, what character is this? ‘Che’?”

“Of course it is, you big dummy,” Chen Junnan said, then suddenly realized and put his arm around Qiao Jiajin’s shoulder. “Oops, sorry, I forgot you use traditional characters. Come on, let me introduce some common simplified characters to you.”

He explained several common simplified characters to Qiao Jiajin, especially ones like “Che” and “Ma” that had been greatly simplified.

“Next,” Qi Xia continued, “no matter which character I assign to you, you must keep it a secret.”

“Keep it a secret?”

“Exactly,” Qi Xia said, pointing at the characters on the wall. “I believe Chu Tianqiu will have the same idea. Some characters are ‘popular,’ while others are ‘uncommon.’ To form more characters, we must try every means possible to seize certain radicals and components from the opposing team. These characters are ‘popular’ to both sides.”

“Hmm…” Chen Junnan nodded thoughtfully. “I see now… It seems like these characters can actually be broken down. My ‘single person radical’ can combine with your ‘three dots of water’…”

“You just figured that out?” Zheng Yingxiong said.

“Shut up.”

Qi Xia ignored Chen Junnan and took a step forward, pointing at the character “Xiang” (elephant) on the wall. “Our ‘Xiang’ can be split into ‘Mu’ (wood) and ‘Mu’ (eye), both of which can serve as radicals or components. Theoretically, they can form more characters, so our team’s ‘Xiang’ is relatively dangerous. Conversely…”

Qi Xia pointed at the opposing team’s “Xiang” (elephant).

“Their ‘Xiang’ can’t form many new characters, so it won’t be our primary target. However, their ‘Shi’ (advisor) contains the ‘single person radical,’ so we need to capture it as soon as possible.”

“I see…” Both Tian Tian and Zhang Chenze nodded simultaneously.

“Additionally,” Qi Xia continued, “our ‘Pao’ (cannon) should also have other combinations. These two characters are relatively dangerous, while the others are safer. Therefore, the key to survival here is not to expose our own characters while trying every means possible to trick the opposing team into revealing theirs.”

Zhang Chenze nodded. “In that case, ‘Ma’ and ‘Che’ are the safest since both sides have them. They won’t be the first targets.”

“Exactly,” Qi Xia gave Zhang the lawyer a look of approval. “Therefore, our vanguard team will be ‘Ma’ and ‘Che.’ Even if their characters are taken, it won’t cause significant damage. However, all left-right structured characters need to be handled with extreme caution.”

Seeing everyone nod in agreement, Qi Xia continued, “Remember, no matter who gains or loses a character later on, you must return to me immediately.”

After saying this, he looked at Zheng Yingxiong and asked, “Zheng Yingxiong, how many of these characters do you recognize?”

“Most of them,” Zheng Yingxiong replied.

“Good,” Qi Xia nodded, then turned to Tian Tian. “In the next minute, teach Zheng Yingxiong the pronunciation of all these characters. I have a task for him.”