“Next, both Main Generals will have five minutes to distribute ‘characters’ to the generals around them. The game will officially start after five minutes.”

Dilong paused and added: “The losing team in this match will be completely annihilated. Please be prepared. If you think of new questions during the distribution, you can also ask me.”

After hearing this, Qi Xia’s group began whispering to each other, feeling that while this game didn’t sound difficult, they had some doubts about actually executing it.

Seize the radicals and components from the opponent to form new characters… whoever combines twenty-eight first wins.

Such a simple rule, yet clearly not a simple game.

Seeing Qi Xia hadn’t spoken for a long time, Chen Junnan quickly turned around and asked, “Which of you brothers knows how to play Chinese chess?”

After a short while, Han Yimo raised his hand. Just as Chen Junnan was about to praise him, he saw Han Yimo say with an embarrassed expression, “I don’t know how.”

“I don’t either…” Zheng Yingxiong said.

“Me too…” Tiantian said.

“I…” Zhang Chenze said.

“Good, good, good, excellent, wonderful, too good. Dream team, right?” Chen Junnan nodded confidently, turned to look at Qi Xia, “Old Qi, why don’t we just surrender directly?”

“Stop fooling around,” Qi Xia said. “It’s not that bad.”

“Not that bad?!” Chen Junnan said. “Only three of us know how to play Chinese chess. How are we supposed to handle this team game?”

Qiao Jiajin scratched his head somewhat embarrassedly at this point: “Junnan boy… I… I don’t know how either.”

“…?” Chen Junnan blinked. “You know the rules for gambling, but not ‘Chinese chess’?”

“Alright then, isn’t everyone happy now?” Chen Junnan said with a lifeless expression. “Old Qi, negotiate with Dilong. See if we can change it to checkers. This is completely unplayable.”

“It’s fine. The rules involving ‘Chinese chess’ shouldn’t be too many,” Qi Xia said. “Although each person carries a ‘character,’ it doesn’t mean you’re playing as chess pieces, because the rules don’t restrict ‘movement.’ So theoretically, everyone doesn’t need to follow traditional chess rules like ‘horses move in L-shapes, elephants move diagonally.’ You just need to remember a few important rules.”

“So what do we do…?” Chen Junnan asked.

“First thing to note is… our ‘characters’ are different from the opponent’s,” Qi Xia said.

“Different…?” Chen Junnan was stunned. “What do you mean? Is the other side playing jungle chess?”

Zheng Yingxiong sighed helplessly after hearing this and looked at him coldly: “Chen Junnan, can you talk less?”

“What ‘Chen Junnan’?” Chen Junnan pressed down on Zheng Yingxiong’s head when he heard this. “Call me brother!”

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

“Soldier” (兵), “Cannon” (炮), “Chariot” (車), “Horse” (馬), “Elephant” (相), “Advisor” (士), “General” (帥).

“These are our characters,” Qi Xia said.

“Isn’t Chinese chess all like this?” Chen Junnan said. “Both sides are the same.”

“No, they’re not.” After Qi Xia finished speaking, he carved several more characters on the wall.

“Pawn” (卒), “Artillery” (砲), “Chariot” (車), “Horse” (馬), “Minister” (象), “Guard” (仕), “Commander” (將).

“These are the opponent’s characters.”

Comparing them, everyone indeed found the differences.

“Regarding ‘Chinese chess,’ we should just remember this one rule,” Qi Xia said. “That is, our ‘characters’ are different from both sides. After all, when Dilong just asked us to do a demonstration, she said to please use ‘Soldier-Pawn’ for the experiment. This means we have ‘Soldier’ and the opponent has ‘Pawn.'”

Seeing this, Zhang Chenze nodded: “In that case, both sides have different focal points for their needs.”

“Right.” Qi Xia nodded. “When choosing left or right direction at the beginning, Dilong said that no matter which side you choose, the game difficulty doesn’t change much, only the tactics are different. Thinking about it this way, the meaning is very clear—because the ‘characters’ we need are different.”

Chen Junnan pondered for a while, then saw Qiao Jiajin reach out and point to the character “Chariot” (車), asking:

“Junnan boy, what character is this? ‘Chariot’?”

“Isn’t it obvious, big fool.” After Chen Junnan finished speaking, he suddenly realized something, then put his arm around Qiao Jiajin’s shoulder and said to him, “My mistake. I forgot you use traditional characters. Come, come, come, let me introduce them to you.”

He told Qiao Jiajin about several common simplified characters, especially extremely simplified ones like “Chariot” (車) and “Horse” (馬).

“Next thing to note…” Qi Xia said, “no matter what character I distribute to you, you must keep it confidential.”

“Confidential?”

“Yes, I estimate Chu Tianqiu will also think of the same idea.” Qi Xia pointed to the characters on the wall and said, “Some characters are very ‘popular,’ while others are very ‘unpopular.’ If we want to piece together more characters, we can only try every means to seize certain radicals and components from the opponent. These characters are ‘popular’ in both sides’ eyes.”

“Sss…” Chen Junnan nodded after hearing this. “I see… I think I’m starting to understand a bit. You’re saying these ‘characters’ can actually be taken apart and used. My single-person radical can be paired with your three-water-dots radical…”

“You’re only understanding now?” Zheng Yingxiong said.

“Shut up.”

Qi Xia didn’t pay attention to Chen Junnan. He just walked forward a step and pointed to the character “Elephant” (相) on the wall, saying: “Our ‘Elephant’ character can be split into ‘Wood’ (木) and ‘Eye’ (目). Both can become radicals or components. Theoretically, more characters can be formed, so our team’s ‘Elephant’ is relatively dangerous. But conversely…”

Qi Xia pointed to the opponent team’s “Minister” (象).

“Their ‘Minister’ character can’t form much. It won’t be our primary target. On the contrary, the opponent’s ‘Guard’ (仕), because it contains the ‘single-person radical,’ needs to be taken down as soon as possible.”

“I see…” Tiantian and Zhang Chenze nodded simultaneously.

“Furthermore, our ‘Cannon’ (炮) should also have other combination methods,” Qi Xia said. “These two ‘characters’ are relatively dangerous, while the other ‘characters’ will be safer. So the way to survive here is not to expose your own ‘character,’ while trying every means to trick out the opponent’s ‘character.'”

Zhang Chenze nodded: “‘Horse’ and ‘Chariot’ are safest, because both sides have them. They don’t need to be seized first.”

“Exactly.” Qi Xia showed approving eyes toward Lawyer Zhang. “So our vanguard team is ‘Horse’ and ‘Chariot.’ Even if these two people have their ‘characters’ taken away, it won’t cause too much impact. But all ‘characters’ with left-right structures need to be extremely careful.”

Seeing everyone agree, Qi Xia said again: “Later, no matter who gets a ‘character’ or loses a ‘character,’ remember to return to me immediately.”

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

“I recognize most of them,” Zheng Yingxiong said.

“Good.” Qi Xia nodded, then said to Tiantian, “Use one minute next to teach Zheng Yingxiong all the pronunciations of these ‘characters.’ I have a task to assign to him.”