RCDSA 05

Chapter – 05

First Draw—Bai Qi

Li Yuan took four hundred thousand taels in banknotes and left through the side gate. He drove a carriage alone to the money exchange to convert the notes, making over a dozen trips back and forth before finally transporting all four hundred thousand taels of silver to the designated property.

The output of gold and silver in Great Qi was low, so one tael of silver could be exchanged for two strings of cash. Copper coins were the main currency in circulation on the market, and only those of high status could commonly use silver.

Since Li Yuan had not explicitly used the Second Prince’s mansion’s name to withdraw silver from the exchange, he had to go through quite some trouble.

Afterward, Xie Linchao, disguised and accompanied by an escort who drove the carriage, left the mansion incognito and hid at the property, receiving batches of silver.

With so many people coming and going from the Second Prince’s mansion lately, Xie Linchao’s low-key departure that day did not attract anyone’s attention.

At first, spies from various factions had been keeping watch, but later, when they discovered that Xie Linchao was genuinely and obediently liquidating her assets without any tricks, few people bothered to keep an eye on her anymore.

A loser who had been eliminated was not worth wasting energy on.

After Xie Linchao spent three hundred and fifty thousand taels of silver, the system was finally activated.

*Ding! Congratulations, Host, on unlocking the main quest—Rule the World!*

*Ding! Congratulations, Host, on activating the draw pool! Please choose your first unlockable card pool: General Pool, Civil Official Pool, Special Pool.*

Xie Linchao’s brief moment of joy plummeted. “I can only unlock one pool? Don’t tell me I’ll have to spend more money later to unlock the other two?”

Was this system trying to rob her?!

*Please choose your first unlockable card pool. If no selection is made within five minutes, the system will randomly unlock a pool.*

Xie Linchao: “…I want the General Pool!”

She was about to head to her fief—a long and difficult journey. Personal safety had to come first, and generals were more useful than civil officials.

*Ding! Congratulations, Host, on unlocking the ‘General Pool’!*

*Ding! Congratulations, Host, on receiving a first-draw luck buff—increased probability of drawing high-tier generals!*

The General Pool was divided into four colored draw pools of different rarities: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Jade.

Xie Linchao clicked on all of them and found that she still needed to spend more money to draw from any of them.

She had expected this and was already numb to it.

She asked about something else: “System, can I deposit money into the system interface in advance, and have it deducted when I want to draw?”

Having to constantly produce silver and sneak around each time was too much trouble.

*Ding! Congratulations, Host, on unlocking the ‘Piggy Bank’ function for free.*

“Oh, it’s free.” Xie Linchao said with a mix of sarcasm and relief, depositing the remaining fifty thousand taels of silver into the system’s piggy bank. This trip was considered a success.

Before leaving, Xie Linchao didn’t convert the dozens of large boxes that had held the silver. She left them at the property to mislead anyone watching.

If someone sneaked in and found all the boxes empty, they would only assume she had secretly moved the silver elsewhere.

Back at the mansion, Xie Linchao couldn’t wait to start drawing.

To avoid being caught off guard by the system again, she had been researching along the way.

The system restricted draws to once per month, and the first draw came with a luck buff. To maximize the benefit, Xie Linchao naturally chose the highest-quality Jade pool—one draw cost five thousand taels of silver.

She wasn’t short on money! (Very loud.jpg)

Her life was more important than money.

*Ding! Congratulations on drawing an SSS-rank General Card: ‘God of War’—Bai Qi.*

*Ding! Congratulations on unlocking the ‘Four Great Generals of the Warring States’ SS-rank collection. Completing the collection achievement of Bai Qi, Wang Jian, Li Mu, and Lian Po will grant a special reward.*

*Ding! Congratulations on unlocking the ‘Han, Bai, Wei, Huo’ SS-rank collection. Completing the collection achievement of Han Xin, Bai Qi, Wei Qing, and Huo Qubing will grant a special reward.*

“Drawing Bai Qi on the first try—the system finally came through for once.” Xie Linchao was pleasantly surprised.

Putting aside how difficult those two SS-rank collection achievements would be to complete, she could ignore them for now.

Just Bai Qi alone was enough to make Xie Linchao laugh in her dreams tonight. She eagerly looked left and right, expecting Bai Qi to pop out from some corner.

But there was no one nearby, and nothing unusual.

Just then, one of the escorts guarding the main gate came to report: “Your Highness, there’s a man outside the mansion. He calls himself Bai Qi and says Your Highness invited him here.”

The gate guard had only received brief training from Linlang and knew only that the prince’s mansion refused all nobles and officials seeking contact.

But the man outside was dressed in coarse cloth and looked travel-worn—clearly not from a noble family. The guard wasn’t sure what to do; what if he really was someone His Highness had invited?

“Bai Qi? Let him in at once!”

Xie Linchao raised an eyebrow. So he wasn’t going to materialize out of thin air in front of her.

The system, which had been thoroughly “trained” by Xie Linchao along the way, was quick to explain this time:

*The system automatically generates a legitimate identity for the summoned card in this world.*

*Cards below A-rank have no memories of their original world. For A-rank and above, the higher the rank, the stronger the autonomous awareness of their original world.*

Autonomous awareness of their original world?

Did Bai Qi still have memories from another world?

Xie Linchao glanced again at Bai Qi’s dazzling SSS-rank card face and changed her mind: “Never mind, I’ll go over myself.”

She hurried to the side gate of the front courtyard and immediately saw the young man waiting outside.

He was in his early twenties, with handsome, sharp features and a tall, upright posture like a pine tree. Though dressed in coarse hemp cloth, he exuded a palpable aura of bloodshed and iron—the unmistakable presence of one who had fought through mountains of corpses and seas of blood. With just one look, one could be absolutely certain: this man had clawed his way out of hell.

“Bai Qi, paying respects to the Prince of An.” The man spoke calmly, his cold voice like the clash of metal and stone—chilling and low.

**[Name]: Bai Qi**
**[Talent]: SSS-rank (General)**
**[Loyalty]: 65 (Follower)**
**[Affection]: 50 (Indifferent)**
**[Trait]: ??? (Viewable at Loyalty 90+)**
**[Disposition]: Calm**

Seeing that both Loyalty and Affection were below 70, Xie Linchao’s excitement diminished somewhat. She began to sense something off in the way Bai Qi addressed her.

Card characters summoned by the system should all acknowledge her as their master and address her as “Lord.” But Bai Qi had called her “Prince of An” with polite distance—something was definitely amiss.

The gate wasn’t the place for serious discussion. Xie Linchao waved for Bai Qi to enter: “Come in first; we’ll talk inside.”

Bai Qi silently stepped into the prince’s mansion. But the moment he entered, he saw that the place was in disarray, as if it had just been ransacked. Some areas were potholed, and even the marble paving stones had been pried up… quite different from the极致 luxury and opulence he had imagined of a prince’s residence.

When he followed Xie Linchao into the front study, Bai Qi was even more surprised. The entire study was bare—not a single book, not even a desk or chair, just two old, low wooden stools.

“Ahem, you know I’m in the middle of moving, right? So a lot of things have been sold off.”

Xie Linchao dragged over the two small stools, placing one at Bai Qi’s feet, then sat down on the remaining one with complete composure. Seeing that he didn’t move, she warmly invited him to sit: “Sit down, sit down. Don’t be shy.”

“…No need.” Bai Qi stared at the low stool for a second and refused coldly.

Xie Linchao didn’t insist—because the stool was uncomfortable to sit on anyway. But those were minor issues. She asked directly: “Bai Qi, you know that I’m the one who summoned you from the draw pool, right? You also have memories from another world? Am I correct?”

Bai Qi nodded silently, offering no further words.

Seeing his unyielding attitude, Xie Linchao suddenly felt she had thanked the system too early.

Though SSS-rank cards were great, their autonomous awareness was too strong, and they looked difficult to win over.

Her head, which had been overheating from the excitement of drawing Bai Qi, began to cool down.

If Bai Qi had no autonomous awareness and was a blank slate for her to mold, Xie Linchao could have easily put on the appearance of a wise and virtuous lord who valued talent, effortlessly gaining his favor.

But now, facing the fully autonomous Lord Wu’an—Bai Qi—who had once been entrusted with great power by an enlightened ruler, honored as Lord Wu’an, reaching the highest military achievement and praise of his era, with the nation’s entire military might placed in his hands for him to command as he saw fit, causing the six other states to tremble in fear before him…

Against a max-level Bai Qi like this, merely going through the motions of “valuing talent” with propriety would hardly move him.

In fact, in Bai Qi’s eyes, she might even look like a clown.

Perhaps Xie Linchao needed to take a different approach.