"You mean we need to improve our chess skills?" I asked Yaoyao.
She rolled her eyes. "Two weeks, is that even possible? This thing, you just need to know how to move the pieces, right?"
"So, you're short on people then?" I asked again.
"People, actually... we're almost there," Yaoyao pondered for a moment. "I think we should go and see the chessboard location."
"What's there to see?" I asked, confused. "Isn't it just an empty space with a board drawn on it?"
Yaoyao shook her head. "It's not like that. Since Shanhai chose to hold the competition in Zhongnan Mountain, it's definitely not going to be a flat board. It'll be a mountain peak battle. If it were a flat board battle, they'd find an ordinary mountain, like the Tieshan Mountain we went to last time."
Right, the top of Tieshan Mountain was quite flat, but if so many people were fighting, it would be hard to maneuver.
"Playing chess on a mountaintop? Can thirty-two people stand there?" I asked.
"Not on one mountaintop, but on thirty-two mountaintops."
"...Thirty-two, like Chessboard Mountain?" I frowned. Our first stop after escaping from Jiuxian Cave was Chessboard Mountain in Shengjing. Chen Lu had a resort there. That so-called Chessboard Mountain wasn't a single mountain, but many independent peaks arranged to resemble a chessboard.
"It'll only be on a larger scale, after all, with live streaming and drones now, it's very convenient to organize events," Yaoyao said.
"I still don't quite understand why such a big fuss."
"For safety," Yaoyao said. "You haven't seen a true master's duel yet. They're often world-destroying."
"True masters..."
"Have you seen me destroy Han Yin Temple?"
I nodded. A tornado, and the entire temple was like it had been blown up.
"And think about Long Yue's Tathagata Divine Palm."
Holy crap, that was even more terrifying. It flattened an entire village!
"If you and I fought, anyone within a few hundred meters could be affected. So, for safety, the battlefields must be separated."
I imagined the scene, it would definitely be like a cartoon.
"This time, Shanhai is organizing the chess match. We, Bai Ze, can choose the chessboard location first. Among the thirty-two mountains, some will be good and some bad. Some will be easy to defend and hard to attack, while others will be easy to attack. So we need to scout in advance, so we don't end up picking a disadvantageous side," Yaoyao continued.
I understood this. In soccer matches, they choose sides. Usually, they pick the side with a favorable wind, which helps control the ball and facilitates offense. Wing breakthroughs, inverted triangle passes, and even corner kicks will have increased power due to the wind. Of course, some fast teams will also choose to play with the wind to leverage their speed advantage and mask their technical deficiencies.
It mainly depends on the team's characteristics.
Choosing sides in a chess match should be similar. We'll examine the different mountain formations and determine which side is more advantageous based on the characteristics of our chess pieces.
"But do you know where their chessboard is?" I asked.
Yaoyao shook her head. "No, but doesn't the phone have a satellite map function now? We can completely guess based on the mountain terrain."
"Understood," I said. "Let's look at the map and see where we would set up the chessboard if we were organizing this event!"
Empathy!
I immediately opened the phone map to check. I know Zhongnan Mountain is in the middle section of the Qinling Mountains, and it's very large. The phone screen is too small. When zoomed in, the displayed area is limited. I think it would be better to use a computer, preferably a large-screen computer, the bigger the better.
Going to an internet cafe? It's not impossible, but everyone else would be playing games, and me looking at maps there might seem a bit too strange.
Suddenly, I remembered seeing a giant screen on a wall somewhere, projecting someone's computer screen, very clearly.
I recall now, it was inside Shen Xingyue's Jinling base, in a conference room.
Going to Jinling is not very practical. I don't know if Lu Shun has similar projection equipment.
I called Shen Xingyue to ask. She said yes, every prefecture-level city has a command center like that, which has this kind of projection.