The Wealthy Tycoon's Game of Life

The system must be spying on my thoughts!

Zhou Wang realized this and instantly came to such a conclusion.

He was just thinking about how to solve the housing issue, and the system immediately provided him a solution.

The trigger for the second action round couldn't have been more timely. After reading the system's explanation, Zhou Wang finally understood why the core reward mechanism was called the "Golden House."

"Books hiding golden houses, huh... fine, fine!"

"A real estate mystery box? That's thrilling!"

Seeing the subsequent instructions from the system, Zhou Wang suddenly understood that this was similar to the first action round, where the rewards would still depend on his final scores.

This meant that, theoretically, the more books he read over these two weeks, the bigger the house he would eventually receive.

And as everyone knew, with the same location, a bigger house equaled a more expensive house.

The last reward from the system, the "Round Privilege," was also perfectly timed. Without spending a dime, he'd get to stay at any hotel for free, so naturally, he'd choose a five-star hotel!

Calming his excitement, Zhou Wang then mentally opened the reading list generated by the system.

Seeing the long list, Zhou Wang instantly realized it was impossible for him to finish reading all those books in two weeks.

After a brief look, Zhou Wang confirmed he hadn't read any of the books listed. Some of them were well-known, yet they completely avoided the already established knowledge Zhou Wang had.

Each category of books was labeled by the system, covering basically every category Zhou Wang could think of.

There were finance books, like the famous "Currency War" and "Wealth of Nations," as well as ones Zhou Wang had never heard of. One book's title left him clueless about its relation to finance, which was named "Black Swan."

There were social science and humanities books, like "Global History" and "Psychology and Life," and scientific books, like "The Beauty of Mathematics" and "A Brief History of Time," among others.

There were science fiction works like "Three Body," realism literature like "To Live," and pure classical literature like the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" and "Jin Ping Mei"… Uh, seemed something strange had slipped in.

Zhou Wang even found an English Level Six exam review book among the diverse reading list.

No way he could finish them all, absolutely impossible.

Zhou Wang initially thought fourteen days was too long, but seeing this reading list made him realize the system was being quite generous with him.

At least it didn't require him to read them all for a house reward.

Each book on the list had varying points marked next to it, and the system gave its scoring criteria, which considered reading time, difficulty, comprehension difficulty, and other factors.

The highest point Zhou Wang saw was for Huaxia's "Zhou Yi," the only section of the "The Book of Changes" that hadn't been lost. Just finishing it would grant 1000 points!

Which equaled a thousand-square-meter house right away...

But Zhou Wang knew it wouldn't be that simple.

Searching with his phone, he found out that "Zhou Yi" had only 5,000 characters. At his speed of reading online novels, he could skim through it in ten minutes max.

But "reading" and serious "studying" were two completely different concepts. Zhou Wang figured, even if the system didn't require him to thoroughly grasp the book afterward, he should at least learn something from it, right?

From this perspective, even though "Zhou Yi" was high in points, it wasn't the best choice.

To understand "Zhou Yi," merely recognizing characters wasn't enough; he'd also need to learn the Heavenly Stems, Earthly Branches, Yin Yang Eight Characters, and so on. Zhou Wang knew this because he once borrowed the book from the school library but quickly returned it.

In comparison, "Jin Ping Mei," which also had profound thoughts but was much easier to understand, seemed more suitable for Zhou Wang.

And it appeared "Jin Ping Mei" also granted decent points, a solid 50 points, translating to a 50-square-meter apartment.

Zhou Wang double-checked and was surprised to find that "Jin Ping Mei" was nearly a million characters long, longer than many unfinished serialized novels. Even as a modern vernacular novel, it would take significant time to finish.

Aside from these two typical books, most others on the list had points ranging from tens to hundreds, with the lowest at 10 points.

"With only two weeks, I really need to plan which books to read carefully, but the immediate priority is finding a good place to stay..."

Zhou Wang temporarily closed the system interface and glanced at his watch. Seeing it was nearly 6 PM, he knew the Provincial Library would be closed, so he decided to wait until he settled at the hotel before diving into his research.

After the system notification, the countdown for the second round had already begun, which meant that starting tonight, he could enjoy the free hotel stay privilege. He couldn't wait to exploit it.

First, he checked the location of the Provincial Library—it was right in the city center—so that was convenient. With a radius search for five-star hotels, Zhou Wang was surprised to find there were so many in Ming City, at least a dozen.

He used to think that even in a provincial capital, there wouldn't be that many five-star hotels!

But it wasn't his fault for being clueless; such knowledge wasn't something an average person needed to know.

Two of them were places he had once eaten at through group-buy seafood buffets, not realizing they were five-star hotels. Oh, right, one of these had a KTV with a good reputation. Zhou Wang couldn't remember who boasted about it, but he heard it was... quite fun inside.

He just wondered if those kinds of expenses would be reimbursed.

Uh, no, I need to focus on reading. How could I be tempted by vulgar indulgences?

Therefore, Zhou Wang ultimately chose the well-known "Wanda Vista Hotel." Although the hotel's former Young Master had complained about its poor service, it didn't prevent Zhou Wang from wanting to experience it firsthand.

At worst, if he didn't like it, he could just switch hotels the next day.

However, when Zhou Wang checked "Meituan," he found their most expensive room was only the 4,000-plus-a-night executive suite... something wasn't right; where was the presidential suite?

Confused, Zhou Wang called to inquire and discovered that the presidential suites at five-star hotels weren't available for online booking. Luckily, since Zhou Wang called the front desk, he managed to book an available room.

After scheduling his arrival time, Zhou Wang hastened his packing and soon, with a large travel bag on his back, left the empty dormitory.

He handed the key back to the dorm supervisor and, upon exiting the campus gates, took one last photo before getting into the waiting car without any hesitation.

Whatever reluctance he had had been used up during graduation ceremonies and class gatherings. Now, his only interest lay in the future.

If life was a game of chess, this time, Zhou Wang aimed to be the winner... he intended to be Zhao Gao!