Chapter 221: Monopoly Construction

"Old Man, want to play a couple rounds?"

Tiger carried a dice cup over to the Old Man, who was squatting in the courtyard.

"Not playing."

The Old Man replied, his voice muffled as if he were straining with exertion.

"Are you using the toilet or something?"

Tiger asked suspiciously.

The Old Man swayed, nearly losing his concentration and breaking his stance.

"Don't look at Master Liu's upper body. Look at the bottom." In the distance, Fei Yu looked up from her book, sitting on a stool.

"The bottom?"

Tiger bent down in confusion.

What could there be at the bottom...

Suddenly, he froze. Only then did he realize that Old Master Liu's feet weren't touching the ground at all. He was hovering a full inch or two above the dirt.

What was supporting his entire body was a single thumb on his right hand.

"Holy shit!"

Tiger cursed out loud. "You're still pulling off this kind of stuff at your age!"

"Heh."

The Old Man dropped his stance and let out a long breath.

"I have to put in the effort. Just look at Advisor Yan. He took care of all those people by himself, and we couldn't even help out."

"You shouldn't always compare yourself to him. You're several generations older. If you said you wanted to retire right now, Young Master Luo and Mr. Yi Ji could support you for the rest of your life."

Tiger offered a word of comfort.

"Besides, you're still ten thousand times stronger than me."

"Is that the same?"

The Old Man glared. "Huzi, you carry that dice cup around every day. Aren't you doing the exact same thing?"

Faced with those words, Tiger opened his mouth, completely at a loss for how to respond.

It was true. No one in this household wanted to lose their usefulness.

"Rolling the dice well tomorrow will be better than anything else,"

Fei Yu reminded them, putting away her book.

A few minutes later, "Luo Sheng's" voice drifted out from inside the house.

"Xiao Yu, I'm thirsty."

"Coming!"

Hearing that "Luo Sheng" was awake, Fei Yu walked over to the small boiler resting over the nearby fire.

"No Herbal Tea, please."

Yan Jing called out a reminder from inside the room.

Fei Yu's footsteps paused for a second before she ignored him, pulled out a teacup, and began pouring anyway.

It wasn't Herbal Tea. It was her newly developed concoction.

With that thought, she carried the freshly poured tea into the room, blew on it, and handed it to Yan Jing, who was sitting inside the Screen.

"Careful, it's hot."

"Mm."

Yan Jing's eyes were glued to the new rules for tomorrow as he took the teacup.

[The Second Stage of the game has begun.]

[The rules for this stage are Monopoly. Before 9:00 AM tomorrow, you may renovate and construct upon the Regional Grids you own.]

[The renovation types are divided into the following three categories: Combat, Special, and Random.]

[Combat Grid: Divided into First Level through Fourth Level. Excluding your own pieces, every piece that lands on your Combat Grid must make a choice: engage in combat or pay the toll. If they choose combat, they will fight the shadow of the operative reserved on your grid. If they win, they may pass without paying the toll. If they fail to win, they can call a halt to the battle by paying double the toll; otherwise, they will be killed directly. The shadow strength present in the First Level to Fourth Level Combat Grids is 30%, 60%, 100%, and 120% of the main body, respectively.]

[The tolls required for First Level through Fourth Level Combat Grids are 5, 10, 15, and 30, respectively.]

[Special Grid: Divided into First Level through Fourth Level. Excluding your own pieces, every piece that lands on your Special Grid will engage in a corresponding special gamble. If they win the gamble, they can pass without paying the toll. If they lose, they must pay a multiplied toll. Random Grid: You must allocate at least 10% of your grids as Random Grids. Random Grids do not require a toll, and your pieces will also trigger the corresponding effects upon entering. However, if it is your own Random Grid, penalties will be halved and rewards increased by half. Every action of a piece requires a dice roll. The dice used in this game is a pentakis dodecahedron (a total of 60 faces), numbered from 1 to 60. After all pieces have moved three times, a multiplier die will also be applied simultaneously. You may designate anyone to roll the dice and can swap them midway. The starting capital for each faction is the number of Players it possesses, and its starting assets are the number of Regional Grids it owns. When your piece lands on your Combat Grid or Special Grid, you may choose to upgrade any ten grids you own.]

[The cost to upgrade a grid is 10 from First Level to Second Level, 20 from Second Level to Third Level, and 40 from Third Level to Fourth Level.]

[When your piece lands on a Combat Grid or Special Grid, your Regional Grids can be traded with other Players or mortgaged to the bank. Trade prices with other Players are self-determined. When mortgaging, the prices for First Level through Fourth Level are 10, 20, 30, and 40, respectively.]

[If a faction goes bankrupt, all of its assets and personnel will be put up for sale.]

[When only five factions remain, the game will end. You have obtained four special cards.]

The Monopoly rules had been easy enough to understand in theory, but now that they were applied to reality, they somehow felt a lot more complicated.

Thinking this, Yan Jing took a sip of tea.

"Pfft—Cough, cough—!"

He had mentally prepared himself to drink Herbal Tea, but clearly not this new variant of it.

"Xiao Yu."

"Yeah?"

"What is the name of this?"

"Gardenia Rhubarb Decoction." Fei Yu's tone was unusually meek and obedient—a classic sign that the girl knew she was at fault and was conceding.

"Good girl. Now bring your young master a cup of water. Drawn straight from the well, boiled properly, without a single extra thing added."

"Right away!"

After rinsing his mouth, Yan Jing walked out the door with the Screen swirling around him.

"Come on, let's go build some houses."

Yan Jing called out to the group, explaining tomorrow's rules to them as they walked.

Yan Jing didn't try to renovate the land right under his feet first; instead, he selected two grids adjacent to the Lin Estate.

When he stepped onto it, the Crystal Stone tablet in front of him lit up, displaying the three renovation options.

He tried the Combat Grid first.

"Rumble—"

The moment he selected it, violent tremors ripped through the ground beneath his feet. Almost instantly, a massive stone platform tore out of the earth, rising a good four to five meters into the air.

Dust immediately flew up into the sunlight, and stone fragments scattered everywhere.

It took several seconds for the stone platform to stop rising. Only then did the group, who were standing right on top of it, gaze down in awe.

It was a single, solid boulder. Ancient, rustic textures coated every inch of its surface. They didn't seem to hold any special meaning, looking more like the natural weathering of ages past, yet the edges were unusually smooth—a true display of Divine Craftsmanship.

Even the houses on either side of the road had risen right along with the boulder, forming a completely unique landscape.

"To move mountains and change the earth in just a few seconds... truly worthy of a Prohibited Item,"

Old Master Liu couldn't help but sigh in admiration.

"Let's try the next one."

Piqued, Yan Jing hopped off the stone platform and walked toward the next Regional Grid.

This time, he selected the Special Grid.

A series of options then popped up before his eyes:

Luo Sheng, Fei Yu, Liu Fu, Tiger, Old Monkey, Dong Pingping...

Looking at these options, Yan Jing understood. The Special Grids evolved based on the Inner World Residents within his faction.

After he explained the rules to the group, Fei Yu volunteered, thrilled to be the first to try.

"Alright, Xiao Yu goes first."

Yan Jing nodded.

In the next second, brilliant azure light materialized all around them.

Wooden planks began sprouting from the ground up, sealing off a roof. Then, two wooden benches appeared within the blue light, followed by a pair of fire pits and a nearby table. Finally, one of the walls morphed into two wind-blocking fabric curtains that swayed in the breeze, as if welcoming guests.

Sitting neatly upon that table were two blue-and-white porcelain teapots alongside their matching cups.

[Special Grid: Herbal Tea House]

[Pieces passing through this grid may leave without paying the toll after drinking three cups of Herbal Tea.]

[Additionally, they may choose to brew their own Herbal Tea using the provided ingredients and compete against the shadow projection of the Inner World Resident occupying this Special Grid.]

[Both parties will take turns drinking each other's Herbal Tea; the first to stop is considered the loser.]

[If the piece loses, they must pay double the toll. If the shadow projection loses, it must pay 50% of the toll to the passing piece.]

"So this is a Special Grid."

Yan Jing nodded. He felt perfectly at ease leaving Fei Yu to guard this Special Grid.

Initially, he had debated assigning all the Special Grids to Fei Yu. However, for a more comprehensive strategy, he ultimately decided to disperse the Special Grids.

The Old Man, Tiger, Old Monkey, and even Dong Pingping were each allocated a few Special Grids.

Now, everyone was having the time of their lives.

"Aren't you going to build one for yourself?"

Fei Yu looked over at Yan Jing.

"We'll see later."

Yan Jing smiled.

"Next up is the Random Grid."

Yan Jing selected a street corner and began the construction.

This time, smooth wooden flooring appeared beneath everyone's feet, and the surrounding walls were swathed in red velvet. A massive glazed dome arched overhead, suspending a disco ball. Who knew where the electricity came from, but the moment it turned on, dazzling colors flooded the space, and modern music—remarkably trendy for this era—blared through the air.

"The floor can move."

Tiger noticed the trick to it. There seemed to be springs installed underneath, giving every jump a rhythmic bounce.

"It's a dance hall."

[Random Grid: Dance Hall. Pieces passing through this grid will be forced to rest for one turn to indulge in enjoyment. If they wish to continue moving forward, they must perform a dance on the spot. If the dance performance is widely praised, they can obtain a dice-rolling card that grants two consecutive dice rolls.]

"Interesting."

At Yan Jing's selection, a series of novel buildings sprang up from the ground:

Hospitals, libraries, movie theaters, opera houses, churches...

As he continued constructing the Regional Grids, Yan Jing also analyzed his own disadvantages in this Second Stage.

Although he had a lot of land on hand, anyone who had played Monopoly knew that a real estate-heavy strategy was actually highly unreliable.

If luck turned even slightly sour, he'd be forced to mortgage or sell off assets, which naturally meant he would have to accept his opponents deliberately lowballing the prices.

This was especially problematic given that his lands were all First Level Regional Grids.

The only truly reliable strategy was cash flow.

So, his first disadvantage was unquestionable: his starting capital.

Given these rules, there was absolutely no way he could bypass the one hundred grids of Stone Mountain on his very first dice roll. If he didn't land on a Combat Grid, his first movement would guarantee a trip to the bank for a mortgage.

Furthermore, he had drawn a massive amount of aggro during the first stage. Going into the Second Stage, it was highly predictable that other factions would ally together in an attempt to whittle down his advantages.

Finally, there were the so-called variables.

He looked at the four special cards displayed on the Crystal Stone tablet before him:

Penalty Exemption Card, Bye Card, Designated Dice Card, and [Commander's Partial Power Liberation Card].