“Surrounding and attacking that Jin Yuanxun kid…” Chen Junnan seemed somewhat puzzled by this statement. “Old Qi… you might not know this, but that kid can’t be surrounded…”

“Now he can be surrounded,” Qi Xia said. “Xu Liunian has already obtained an ‘Echo.’ If she returns to the ‘Preparation Area’ and shares this method, then others can gradually obtain ‘Echoes’ too. At that point, Jin Yuanxun holding ‘卒’ will be unsolvable—we’ll never be able to catch him.”

“Damn… is it that urgent?” Chen Junnan said. “When I came back, I saw Old Qiao standing in the river path basking in the sun. Master Chen was going to call him to come along.”

“He has his own battle to fight,” Qi Xia said. “You go ‘Attack the Heart’ first.”

“Alright…” Chen Junnan nodded.

“By the way,” Qi Xia asked again, “when you crossed the river carrying ‘包’ earlier, did anything strange happen?”

“Anything strange…?” Chen Junnan naturally knew what Qi Xia wanted to ask. “Although Master Chen is a foreign trade bag, I really didn’t get any ‘violation’ prompts along the way. Those two guys watching the show up there didn’t move either. I estimate this rule doesn’t exist, right?”

“If it doesn’t exist, that would be good,” Qi Xia said. “Fist is ‘相.’ Once he settles the outcome with Zhang Shan, he can go ‘Attack People’ together with you. It’s just…”

“Do you still have concerns…?” Chen Junnan asked. “Master Chen already scouted things out just now. I was wandering around over there with a ‘包’ for quite a while, and nothing really happened. Could ‘包’ really be able to cross the river?”

Qi Xia still felt something wasn’t quite right.

“Crossing the river”—such an obvious trap. The pit had been dug, the vegetation laid out, and people had even already fallen in, yet there were no spikes placed inside the trap.

This wasn’t at all like Qinglong’s style.

Both he and Chu Tianqiu were clearly guarding against this seemingly nonexistent rule, yet Qinglong and Earth Dragon acted as if they had completely forgotten about it.

Looking at it from another angle, if “illegally crossing the river” really did have some “consequence,” how would it be manifested in this game?

Generally speaking, although all “Earth-level Referees” would conceal some rules, they would definitely explain the conditions for triggering “sanctions” before the game. Otherwise, if the other side died without understanding why, it would be no different from a one-sided massacre.

“Wait…” Qi Xia suddenly thought of something.

Although this game appeared to have such an enormous playing field, when it came down to it, most players could only interact with two game props.

One was the “characters,” and the other was the “doors.”

Since the “characters” hadn’t changed when “illegally crossing the river,” then the problem could only lie with the “doors.”

“I understand now… so that’s how it is,” Qi Xia said. “Simply ‘crossing the river’ won’t cause any problems…”

“Hm? Then where’s the problem?”

Qi Xia organized his thoughts and said: “Chen Junnan, if you prepare to continue ‘illegally crossing the river,’ go investigate inside the ‘doors.'”

“Inside the ‘doors’?”

“I suspect the ‘doors’ will change…” Qi Xia’s eyes slowly became serious. “Earlier when both sides opened the ‘doors’ to investigate, we were all investigating our own territory. This made us mistakenly believe the ‘doors’ all led to Human-level ‘Zodiacs,’ but we overlooked one issue—what’s on the other side of the ‘doors’ can change. These ‘doors’ don’t only lead to fixed rooms.”

“Holy crap…” Chen Junnan’s eyes also widened after hearing this. “You’re saying ‘the person opening the door’ will affect ‘what’s inside the door’?”

“It’s just my speculation,” Qi Xia said. “Other than this, there shouldn’t be any other ‘punishment.’ Once a ‘chess piece’ that shouldn’t cross the river does cross, and triggers a ‘game inside the door,’ what’s inside the door will change.”

“Alright… I understand!” Chen Junnan said. “Then I’ll go investigate alone first.”

Qi Xia nodded and took the “車” character from Zheng Yingxiong.

“Old Qi,” Chen Junnan said again. “The other side didn’t use ‘車’ to score. You write it first, and after you write it, I’ll figure out a way to hide the ‘character’ in my mouth so they’ll never find it.”

Qi Xia looked at “車” for a while, somewhat unable to understand why Chu Tianqiu hadn’t used it to score.

But after a moment, he thought of where the problem lay.

The difficulty wasn’t with “車” itself, but with the homophones of “車.”

“Chu Tianqiu, I remember you’re a biology PhD—how could you not even think of this?”

Qi Xia placed “車” on the “Phoenix Book-Bearing Platform,” then reached out and wrote down a homophone:

“硨.”

“What character is this?” Chen Junnan stared at what Qi Xia had written for a long time. “Does it also read as ‘che’?”

“It’s the ‘硨’ from ‘硨磲’ (che qu, giant clam)—a fairly common type of shellfish,” Qi Xia said. “As long as this ‘character’ can form a word, there’s a high probability I’ll recognize it.”

“You’re still the best…” Chen Junnan said.

“Lawyer Zhang, give me your ‘火’ (huo, fire) as well,” Qi Xia said. “‘包’ has already been used. Now I need your ‘火.'”

After hearing this, Zhang Chenze nodded and took out “炮” from her shirt pocket.

“This game is really a bit too unfair,” Zhang Chenze said. “The other side has two ‘characters’ that can be split into three parts. Not only can they score more points than us from the start, their personnel arrangements will be more flexible than ours too.”

“Oh?” While disassembling the “炮” in his hand, Qi Xia asked casually, “How so?”

“If Chen Junnan can move around carrying a ‘包’ and a ‘巾,’ then I wouldn’t need to carry ‘火’ either, since ‘火’ is too dangerous,” Zhang Chenze said. “I could just leave it with you and only carry a ‘包.'”

“I see, that makes sense too,” Qi Xia nodded.

“Right now we’re really too passive,” Zhang Chenze continued. “It’s as if this game didn’t want us to win from the very start.”

“No,” Qi Xia said. “I think it’s quite the opposite.”

“What?”

“Although it appears the other side has two ‘characters’ that can be split into three parts, they’re also more afraid of having them stolen,” Qi Xia said. “On the contrary, the ‘characters’ on our side—whether it’s ‘炮’ or ‘帥’—won’t cause too much loss even if stolen, which will also make our margin of error somewhat higher.”

Chen Junnan thought about it and agreed. After his “帥” was taken by the other side, it could only form “帥” and “巾,” and couldn’t be assembled into any other possibilities.

But once their own side could steal the other side’s “卒” or “將,” they would potentially be able to instantly widen the point gap.