Qi Xia led the six people behind him to the leftmost end, then reached out and turned the doorknob.

The door looked light and flimsy, opening with just a push.

Everyone cautiously looked inside. Behind the door was still a not-too-long corridor. They were now standing at the end of the corridor, looking toward the other end.

The left side of this corridor was a bare, tall white wall, while the right side of the wall had another row of doors.

These doors were painted red, also spaced three meters apart, five doors in total.

Chen Junnan poked his head in for a look, then nodded. “This is our ‘Preparation Zone’?”

Unable to figure out the situation, everyone could only walk into the corridor. Once everyone had entered, the black door behind them closed with a “clang.”

Qi Xia walked forward a few steps to the center of the corridor and found an old electronic screen on the left wall. On the electronic screen, rough pixels depicted a scale swaying left and right.

He reached out to touch the electronic screen, feeling it was similar to the equipment used during the “selection” earlier. It should be possible to write on it.

Right above this electronic screen on the wall, a square piece of black metal was exposed, about the size of an ordinary tablet computer, with five characters written on it:

“Phoenix Book-Bearing Platform.”

Qi Xia reached out to touch it. The texture was ice-cold, and he didn’t know what its purpose was.

“Everyone, welcome to ‘Cangjie Chess.'”

A hoarse voice with electrical current sounded. Everyone looked up and saw that the walls here were very high with no ceiling.

Far above the wall hung a speaker, and the voice should be coming from the speaker.

“Obtain twenty-eight characters…?” Both Chu Tianqiu and Qi Xia did not immediately understand the meaning of this sentence.

“Legend says ‘Cangjie created characters,'” Dilong said again. “But the actual situation was that Cangjie organized and reorganized commonly used characters at that time, forming his own system. Legend has it that Cangjie once wrote down ‘twenty-eight characters.’ And now you need to emulate Cangjie.”

As soon as the words fell, the black metal inscribed with “Phoenix Book-Bearing Platform” in front of Chu Tianqiu and Qi Xia moved, then slowly opened up, revealing its contents like an opening safe.

Qi Xia reached in and grabbed something. With a “clatter” sound, a large string of metal products was pulled out.

The people around slowly gathered around and looked carefully at the string of items. It turned out to be a string of trinkets that looked like either a keychain or a necklace.

Qi Xia reached out to separate them—seven chains in total, each chain with a unique “pendant” that looked like characters.

Looking carefully, these characters were respectively “Soldier” (兵), “Cannon” (炮), “Chariot” (車), “Horse” (馬), “Elephant” (相), “Advisor” (士), and “General” (帥).

“Ah…?” Chen Junnan and Han Yimo simultaneously let out surprised gasps.

“Aren’t these fucking characters from Chinese chess?” Chen Junnan casually picked up a chain and found it was a bit different from what he had imagined.

Some characters hung on the chains as a complete whole, while others were divided into two parts.

Characters like “Horse” (馬), “Chariot” (車), and “Advisor” (士) were all carved from a single piece of black-gray metal.

But “Cannon” (炮), “Elephant” (相), and “General” (帥) were split into two parts based on their left and right radicals, but still hung on the same chain.

For example, “Cannon” (炮) had “Fire” (火) and “Wrap” (包) hanging, while “Elephant” (相) had “Wood” (木) and “Eye” (目).

The most special was the “Soldier” (兵) character. It was divided top and bottom into a “Mound” (丘) and an “Eight” (八) hanging together. If you didn’t look carefully, you wouldn’t think this was the character for “Soldier.”

At this time, Dilong’s broadcast sounded again: “Now both sides should have received your ‘initial characters.’ Please distribute them freely, Main General. When the game officially starts, everyone must have ‘characters’ on them. People without ‘characters’ can only stand by in the ‘Preparation Zone.’ Only when they have characters can they enter the ‘Battlefield Zone.'”

“Distribute freely…” Qi Xia muttered, then picked up the characters in his hand to look at them again.

“For the following time, these ‘characters’ are the chips on your body,” Dilong said. “Everyone can seize the ‘characters’ on anyone’s body, and can freely engage in ‘gambling games’ within the ‘Battlefield Zone.’ We have already prepared numerous ‘gambling games’ and ‘referees’ for you. In short… you can use any method, any means to get the opponent’s ‘characters’ into your own pocket.”

Before everyone could understand the meaning of this rule, they felt something unusual above.

Looking up, Qinglong had already leaped up with Dilong, standing on a pitch-black surface.

There seemed to be an invisible dark platform there, blending into the pitch-black environment all around.

“Hey!” Chen Junnan looked up and shouted loudly. “Sister Long, does getting a ‘character’ count as scoring a point?”

“Of course not,” Dilong’s voice sounded again in the broadcast. “Both sides can only score through the ‘Main General.’ In other words, no matter how many ‘characters’ you get or what kind of ‘characters’ you get, you need to deliver them to the ‘Main General’ as soon as possible.”

Hearing this, Qi Xia looked up and asked, “Can we exchange ‘characters’ midway?”

“No, only when you lose a ‘character’ can you arrange the extra ‘characters’ in your hand on vacant people.”

After hearing this, Qi Xia nodded slightly.

Dilong continued: “The Main General places all the obtained ‘radicals’ or individual character forms on the black metal behind you inscribed with ‘Phoenix Book-Bearing Platform,’ either combining them or placing them whole, to obtain one point. But note that the entire ‘Preparation Zone’ cannot store ‘characters’ after the game starts. The ‘Main General’ must give all ‘characters’ except their own to subordinates.”

Seeing that everyone was still quiet, Dilong could only say again: “Since this is the first time running ‘Cangjie Chess,’ both ‘Main Generals’ can do a trial run first. Pick up your own ‘Soldier’ piece and place it on the metal.”

After hearing this, Qi Xia frowned, feeling he had captured the key point from this statement.

Then he came back to his senses and picked up a character with “Soldier” written on it, bringing it close to the black metal. The next second, he felt a magnetic force as both “Mound” (丘) and “Eight” (八) were absorbed onto the metal.

The display screen below the metal also flickered at this moment, lighting up with a sentence:

“Received character prototype ‘Soldier.’ Please write a homophone.”

“Homophone…?” Qi Xia frowned.

“Everyone should have discovered it,” Dilong explained. “To prevent the ‘Main General’ from combining a large number of obscure ‘rare characters’ to exploit loopholes, every character you write down needs to be one you recognize and can pronounce.”

“‘Rare characters’…” Qi Xia nodded. “I see…”

If the rules weren’t restricted, it would very likely cause the Main General to constantly test in front of the screen with existing characters, combining strange characters like “驫” or “?” These “characters” couldn’t test knowledge, merely luck in piecing them together.

Then Qi Xia reached out his hand and wrote a homophone of “Soldier” (兵)—”Ice” (冰).

After another flicker, the screen displayed:

“Creation successful.”