Chapter 1015: Inverted Eight

“Look!” Qiao Jiajin said with a laugh. “I told you! This character only has one pronunciation—’bīn.'”

Qi Xia didn’t know how to explain the situation, so he simply nodded silently.

“Look!” Qiao Jiajin said with a laugh, “I told you! This character only has one pronunciation—’bīn’.”

Qixia didn’t know how to explain the situation and could only nod silently.

No matter how you looked at it, the pronunciation of “梹” was relatively easy to guess. If they encountered other rare characters later, it would truly become a high-stakes gamble.

Although Earth Dragon mentioned in the “rules” that “writing homophones” was meant to prevent both teams from using obscure characters, after some deduction, Qixia felt that forming twenty-eight characters without using rare ones seemed nearly impossible.

Qixia lowered his head and looked again at the “兵” in his hand. Logically, now wasn’t the best time to form “characters,” since he had too few components. But with the opponent already on the offensive, he had no choice but to take things one step at a time.

He picked up the “兵.” More precisely, it was a “丘” and an “八.” The “八” was welded together as a single unit and couldn’t be separated.

Qixia first placed the “丘” on the platform, earning one point, then separately placed the “八.” Unfortunately, since the “八” was a single piece, he couldn’t further form “乒” and “乓,” which would have earned him two more points.

With that, Qixia’s team had a total of seven points: “兵,” “木,” “目,” “相,” “梹,” “丘,” and “八.” They were still twenty-one “characters” short of the twenty-eight needed.

Given the circumstances… could the components in hand form other “characters”?

Qixia experimented, trying several combinations on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform.” But he soon realized that not every combination was recognized by the screen.

After testing a few possibilities, another strange “character” caught their attention. The screen clearly displayed:

“Character prototype ‘朳’ received. Please write a homophone.”

“This…” Qiao Jiajin was stunned once again. “Is this character read as ‘pá’ or ‘bā’?”

Qixia felt that Qiao Jiajin had raised a worthwhile question.

Although the character “八” is pronounced “bā,” in many common words, when “八” combines with other components, its pronunciation often changes—like in “趴着” (pā zhe, lying down) or “扒手” (pá shǒu, pickpocket).

But the character “扒” can also be pronounced “bā,” as in “扒开” (bā kāi, to pry open). Similarly, the onomatopoeic word “叭” (bā) is also commonly used.

Beyond that, Qixia couldn’t think of any other common characters containing “八.” In his current memory, there were two characters each for both “pā” and “bā.”

“We’ll have to take a gamble…” Qixia said.

He reached out, thought for a few seconds, and then wrote the homophone on the screen—”巴.”

—”Creation successful.”

Total: eight points.

“Whew…” Qixia let out a deep breath, shaking his head. “I really don’t like this reckless feeling. It’s no different from being an ordinary gambler.”

“No problem,骗子仔!” Qiao Jiajin patted Qixia’s shoulder. “Scoring points is good enough!”

Qixia nodded and continued examining the scattered “characters” in his hand. He had already deduced many possibilities but felt something was missing.

Why were there so few characters they could form?

“You can form one more character,” Qiao Jiajin said, pointing at the components in Qixia’s hand. “This one and this one—these two can form a ‘character.'”

Qixia looked down. Qiao Jiajin was pointing at “目” and “八.”

“These two…?”

“Yeah,” Qiao Jiajin nodded. “It’s ‘贝,’ as in ‘贝壳’ (bèi ké, shell). How did you overlook such a simple character, 骗子仔? Can’t see the forest for the trees?”

“This…?” Qixia frowned slightly. He naturally knew which character Qiao Jiajin was referring to, but it wasn’t a matter of oversight—it was a direction he had never considered.

Traditional characters…?

“貝…” Qixia stroked his chin. Whether it would work or not, he might as well try.

So he placed “目” and “八” on the platform, one above the other.

The screen flickered for a moment before displaying a line of text they had never seen before:

“Character ‘貝’ received. This character does not count toward this game’s score. Please create again.”

“Ah…?” Qiao Jiajin reached out and tapped the screen. “It’s broken, 骗子仔! This screen doesn’t seem to recognize characters! It doesn’t even know ‘貝’!”

“It’s probably not that it ‘doesn’t recognize characters’…” Qixia said. “Think about it—from the beginning, Earth Dragon gave us simplified characters. ‘車’ became ‘车,’ ‘馬’ became ‘马.’ So, purely traditional characters shouldn’t count toward the score. At the very least, ‘貝’ doesn’t qualify.”

Qiao Jiajin fell silent for a long moment before slowly saying, “Is this game targeting me…?”

Qixia knew the game wasn’t just targeting Qiao Jiajin—it was targeting all “participants.” If traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would improve.

But now…

“Wait…” Qixia’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the scattered characters on the screen. “I think I’ve been too fixated on the concept of components and radicals… When Cang Jie originally created these characters… how could he have been limited by such concepts…?”

With that thought, Qixia reached out and picked up the “八.”

He gently moved his fingers, rotating the small metal character “八” 180 degrees and placing it on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform,” forming an “inverted eight.” Under Qiao Jiajin’s puzzled gaze, he then picked up “木” and placed it below the “inverted eight.”

“Huh…?” Qiao Jiajin looked utterly confused. “What is this…?”

“This is the only way to get enough characters…” Qixia murmured softly. “No wonder I felt we were short on ‘characters’…”

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:

“Character prototype ‘米’ received. Please write a homophone.”

Qiao Jiajin stared in astonishment for a long moment before exclaiming, “Holy… crap!! You can even form ‘米’ like this… 骗子仔, you’ve got a sharp mind!”

“I should’ve thought of it sooner…” Qixia said. “Now we can form more characters.”

Qiao Jiajin stared at the screen for a while before sensing something off. “骗子仔… do you… know the homophone for ‘米’?”

“米…?”

Qixia stroked his chin upon hearing this. The most common character with this pronunciation was naturally “米” itself, but writing “米” now obviously wouldn’t count.

“Got it.” Qixia raised an eyebrow and reached out, tapping on the screen.

His sharp, knife-like strokes swept across the screen, leaving behind a vivid red character:

“芈.”

“…?” Qiao Jiajin was slightly taken aback. “骗子仔, you really know a lot…”

“Creation successful.”

Total: nine points.

Although Earth Dragon had mentioned in the “rules” that “writing homophones” was meant to prevent both teams from using rare characters, Qi Xia had pondered for a while and felt that avoiding obscure characters while forming twenty-eight words seemed nearly impossible.

“Look!” Qiao Jiajin said with a laugh, “I told you! This character only has one pronunciation—’bīn’.”

Qixia didn’t know how to explain the situation and could only nod silently.

No matter how you looked at it, the pronunciation of “梹” was relatively easy to guess. If they encountered other rare characters later, it would truly become a high-stakes gamble.

Although Earth Dragon mentioned in the “rules” that “writing homophones” was meant to prevent both teams from using obscure characters, after some deduction, Qixia felt that avoiding rare characters to form twenty-eight characters seemed almost impossible.

Qixia lowered his head and looked again at the “兵” in his hand. Logically, now wasn’t the best time to form “characters,” as he had too few pieces. But since the opponent had already launched an attack, he could only take things one step at a time.

He picked up the “兵.” To be precise, it was a “丘” and an “八.” The “八” was welded together as a whole and couldn’t be separated.

Qixia first placed “丘” on the platform, earning one point, then separately placed “八.” Unfortunately, since “八” was a single piece, he couldn’t further form “乒” and “乓,” which would have earned him two more points.

With that, Qixia’s team had a total of seven points: “兵,” “木,” “目,” “相,” “梹,” “丘,” and “八.” They were still twenty-one “characters” short of twenty-eight points.

Given this… could the components in his hand form other “characters”?

Qixia experimented, placing several possible combinations onto the “Phoenix Scroll Platform.” However, he quickly realized that not every combination was recognized by the screen.

After trying a few possibilities, another strange “character” caught their attention. The screen clearly displayed:

“Received character prototype ‘朳.’ Please write a homophone.”

“This…” Qiao Jiajin was stunned once again. “Is this character pronounced ‘pá’ or ‘bā’?”

Hearing this, Qixia felt that Qiao Jiajin had raised a worthwhile question.

Although the character “八” is pronounced “bā,” in many common words, when “八” combines with other components, its pronunciation often changes—for example, “趴着” (pā zhe, lying down) or “扒手” (pá shǒu, pickpocket).

But the character “扒” can also be pronounced “bā,” as in “扒开” (bā kāi, to pry open). Similarly, the onomatopoeic word “叭” (bā) is also commonly used.

Beyond that, Qixia couldn’t think of any other common characters containing “八.” In his current memory, there were two characters each for both “pā” and “bā.”

“We’ll have to take a gamble…” Qixia said.

He reached out, thought for a few seconds, and then wrote the homophone on the screen—”巴.”

—”Creation successful.”

A total of eight points.

“Whew…” Qixia let out a deep breath, shaking his head. “I really don’t like this reckless feeling. It’s no different from being an ordinary gambler.”

“No problem,骗子仔!” Qiao Jiajin patted Qixia’s shoulder. “Scoring points is good enough!”

Qixia nodded and continued examining the scattered “characters” in his hand. He had already deduced many possibilities but felt something was missing.

Why were there so few characters they could form?

“You can form one more character,” Qiao Jiajin said, pointing at the components in Qixia’s hand. “This one and this one—these two can form a ‘character.'”

Qixia looked down. Qiao Jiajin was pointing at “目” and “八.”

“These two…?”

“Yeah,” Qiao Jiajin nodded. “This is ‘贝,’ as in ‘贝壳’ (bèi ké, shell). How did you overlook such a simple character,骗子仔? It’s like not seeing what’s right under your nose!”

“This…?” Qixia frowned slightly. He naturally knew which character Qiao Jiajin was referring to, but it wasn’t a matter of oversight—it was a direction he had never considered.

Traditional characters…?

“贝…” Qixia rubbed his chin. Whether it would work or not, they might as well try.

So he placed “目” and “八” on the platform, one above the other.

The screen flickered for a moment before displaying a line of text they had never seen before:

“Received character ‘貝.’ This character does not count toward the game score. Please create again.”

“Ah…?” Qiao Jiajin tapped the screen. “It’s broken,骗子仔! This screen doesn’t seem to recognize characters! It doesn’t even know ‘貝’!”

“It’s probably not that it ‘doesn’t recognize characters’…” Qixia said. “If you think about it, the characters Earth Dragon gave us initially omitted traditional forms. ‘車’ became ‘车,’ ‘馬’ became ‘马.’ So, purely traditional characters shouldn’t count toward the score—at least ‘貝’ doesn’t.”

Qiao Jiajin fell silent for a long moment before slowly saying, “Is this game targeting me…?”

Qixia knew the game wasn’t just targeting Qiao Jiajin—it was targeting all “participants.” If traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would be higher.

But now…

“Wait…” Qixia’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the scattered characters on the screen. “I think I’ve been too fixated on the concept of components and radicals… When Cang Jie first created these characters… how could he have been limited by such concepts…?”

With that thought, Qixia reached out and picked up “八.”

He gently moved his fingers, rotating the small metal character “八” 180 degrees and placing it on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform,” forming an “inverted eight.” Under Qiao Jiajin’s puzzled gaze, he then picked up “木” and placed it below the “inverted eight.”

“Huh…?” Qiao Jiajin was baffled. “What is this…?”

“Only this way can we get enough characters…” Qixia murmured. “No wonder I felt we were short on ‘characters’…”

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:

“Received character prototype ‘米.’ Please write a homophone.”

Qiao Jiajin stared in astonishment for a long moment before exclaiming, “Holy crap!! You can even form ‘米’ like this…骗子仔, you’ve got a sharp mind!”

“I should’ve thought of it sooner…” Qixia said. “Now we can form more characters.”

Qiao Jiajin stared at the screen for a while before sensing something off. “骗子仔… do you know a homophone for ‘米’?”

“米…?”

Qixia stroked his chin. The most commonly used character with this pronunciation was “米” itself, but writing “米” again obviously wouldn’t count.

“Got it.” Qixia raised an eyebrow and reached out, tapping the screen.

His sharp, knife-like strokes swept across the screen, leaving behind a vivid red character:

“芈.”

“…?” Qiao Jiajin was slightly taken aback. “骗子仔, you really know a lot…”

“Creation successful.”

A total of nine points.

“Look!” Qiao Jiejin said with a laugh, “I told you! This character only has one pronunciation—’bīn’.”

Qixia didn’t know how to explain the situation and could only nod silently.

No matter how you looked at it, the pronunciation of “梹” was relatively easy to guess. If they encountered other rare characters later, it would truly become a high-stakes gamble.

Although Earth Dragon mentioned in the “rules” that “writing homophones” was meant to prevent both teams from using rare characters, after some deduction, Qixia felt that avoiding rare characters to form all twenty-eight characters seemed nearly impossible.

Qixia lowered his head and looked again at the “兵” in his hand. Logically, this wasn’t the best time to form “characters,” as he had too few components. But since the opponent had already launched an attack, he had no choice but to take it one step at a time.

He picked up the “兵.” To be precise, it was a “丘” and an “八.” The “八” was welded together as a single unit and couldn’t be separated.

Qixia first placed the “丘” on the platform, earning one point, then separately placed the “八.” Unfortunately, since the “八” was a single piece, he couldn’t further form “乒” and “乓,” or he would have scored two more points.

With that, Qixia’s team had a total of seven points: “兵,” “木,” “目,” “相,” “梹,” “丘,” and “八.” They were still twenty-one “characters” short of the twenty-eight points needed.

Given the circumstances… could the components in his hand form other “characters”?

Qixia experimented, placing several possible combinations onto the “Phoenix Scroll Platform.” However, he quickly realized that not every combination was recognized by the screen.

After trying a few possibilities, another strange “character” caught their attention. The screen displayed clearly:

“Character prototype ‘朳’ received. Please write a homophone.”

“This…” Qiao Jiejin was stunned once again. “Is this character read as ‘pá’ or ‘bā’?”

Hearing this, Qixia felt that Qiao Jiejin had raised a worthwhile question.

Although the character “八” is pronounced “bā,” in many commonly used characters, when “八” combines with other components, its pronunciation often changes—for example, “趴着” (pāzhe, lying down) or “扒手” (páshǒu, pickpocket).

But the character “扒” can also be pronounced “bā,” as in “扒开” (bākāi, to pry open). Similarly, the onomatopoeic word “叭” (bā) is also commonly used.

Beyond that, Qixia couldn’t think of any other commonly used characters containing “八.” In his current memory, there were two characters each for both the “pā” and “bā” pronunciations.

“We’ll have to take a gamble…” Qixia said.

He reached out his hand, thought for a few seconds, and then wrote the homophone on the screen—”巴.”

—”Creation successful.”

A total of eight points.

“Whew…” Qixia let out a deep breath and shook his head. “As expected, I’m not a fan of this reckless feeling. It’s no different from being an ordinary gambler.”

“No worries,骗子仔!” Qiao Jiejin patted Qixia’s shoulder. “Scoring points is good enough!”

Qixia nodded and continued examining the scattered “characters” in his hand. He had already deduced many possibilities but felt something was missing.

Why were there so few characters they could form?

“You can form one more character,” Qiao Jiejin said, pointing at the components in Qixia’s hand. “This one and this one—these two can form a ‘character.'”

Qixia looked down. Qiao Jiejin was pointing at “目” and “八.”

“These two…?”

“Yeah,” Qiao Jiejin nodded. “This is ‘贝’ as in ‘贝壳’ (bèiké, shell). How did you overlook such a simple character,骗子仔? Can’t see the forest for the trees?”

“This…?” Qixia frowned slightly. He naturally knew which character Qiao Jiejin was referring to, but it wasn’t a matter of oversight—it was a direction he had never considered.

Traditional characters…?

“贝…” Qixia stroked his chin. Whether it would work or not, he might as well try.

So he placed “目” and “八” on the platform, one above the other.

The screen flickered for a moment before displaying a line of text they had never seen before:

“Character ‘貝’ received. This character does not count toward the game score. Please create again.”

“Ah…?” Qiao Jiejin reached out and tapped the screen. “It’s broken,骗子仔! This screen doesn’t seem to recognize characters! It doesn’t even know ‘貝’!”

“It’s probably not that it ‘doesn’t recognize characters’…” Qixia said. “Think about it—from the beginning, the ‘characters’ Earth Dragon gave us omitted traditional forms. ‘車’ became ‘车,’ ‘馬’ became ‘马.’ So, purely traditional characters shouldn’t count toward the score. At the very least, ‘貝’ doesn’t count.”

Qiao Jiejin fell silent for a long moment before slowly saying, “Is this game targeting me…?”

Qixia knew the game wasn’t just targeting Qiao Jiejin—it was targeting all “participants.” If traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would increase.

But now…

“Wait…” Qixia’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the scattered characters on the screen. “I think I’ve been too fixated on the concept of components and radicals… When Cang Jie first created these characters… how could he have been limited by such concepts…?”

With that thought, Qixia reached out and picked up the “八.”

He gently moved his fingers, rotating the small metal character “八” 180 degrees and placing it on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform” to form an “inverted eight.” Under Qiao Jiejin’s puzzled gaze, he then picked up “木” and placed it below the “inverted eight.”

“Huh…?” Qiao Jiejin was baffled. “What is this…?”

“This is the only way to get enough characters…” Qixia murmured softly. “No wonder I felt we were short on ‘characters’…”

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:

“Character prototype ‘米’ received. Please write a homophone.”

Qiao Jiejin stared in astonishment for a long moment before exclaiming, “Holy crap!! You can even form ‘米’ like this…骗子仔, you’ve got a sharp mind!”

“I should have thought of it sooner…” Qixia said. “Now we can form more characters.”

Qiao Jiejin stared at the screen for a while before sensing something off. “骗子仔… do you know a homophone for ‘米’?”

“米…?”

Qixia stroked his chin upon hearing this. The most commonly used character with this pronunciation was naturally “米” itself, but writing “米” now obviously wouldn’t count.

“Got it.” Qixia raised an eyebrow and reached out to tap the screen.

His sharp, knife-like handwriting swept across the screen, leaving behind a vivid red character:

“芈.”

“…?” Qiao Jiejin was slightly taken aback. “骗子仔, you really know a lot…”

“Creation successful.”

A total of nine points.

“Look!” Qiao Jiejin said with a laugh, “I told you! This character only has one pronunciation—’bīn’.”

Qixia didn’t know how to explain the situation and could only nod silently.

No matter how you looked at it, the pronunciation of “梹” was relatively easy to guess. If they encountered other rare characters later, it would truly become a high-stakes gamble.

Although Earth Dragon mentioned in the “rules” that “writing homophones” was meant to prevent both teams from using obscure characters, after some deduction, Qixia felt that avoiding rare characters to form all twenty-eight characters seemed nearly impossible.

Qixia lowered his head and looked again at the “兵” in his hand. Logically, now wasn’t the best time to form “characters,” as he had too few components. But since the opponent had already launched an attack, he had no choice but to take it one step at a time.

He picked up the “兵.” To be precise, it was a “丘” and an “八,” with the “八” welded together as a single unit that couldn’t be separated.

Qixia first placed the “丘” on the platform, earning one point, then placed the “八” separately. Unfortunately, since the “八” was a single piece, he couldn’t further form “乒” and “乓,” which would have earned him two more points.

With that, Qixia’s team had a total of seven points: “兵,” “木,” “目,” “相,” “梹,” “丘,” and “八.” They were still twenty-one “characters” short of the twenty-eight needed.

Given the circumstances… could the components in his hand form other “characters”?

Qixia experimented, trying several combinations on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform.” But he soon realized that not every combination was recognized by the screen.

After testing a few possibilities, another strange “character” caught their attention. The screen clearly displayed:

“Received character雏形 ‘朳.’ Please write a homophone.”

“This…” Qiao Jiejin was stunned once again. “Does this character read ‘pá’ or ‘bā’?”

Hearing this, Qixia felt that Qiao Jiejin had raised a worthwhile question.

Although the character “八” is pronounced “bā,” in many common words, when “八” combines with other components, its pronunciation often changes—like in “趴着” (pā zhe, lying down) or “扒手” (pá shǒu, pickpocket).

But the character “扒” can also be pronounced “bā,” as in “扒开” (bā kāi, to pry open). Similarly, the onomatopoeic word “叭” (bā) is also commonly used.

Beyond that, Qixia couldn’t think of any other common characters containing “八.” In his current memory, there were two characters each for both “pā” and “bā.”

“We’ll have to take a gamble…” Qixia said.

He reached out, thought for a few seconds, and then wrote the homophone on the screen—”巴.”

—”Creation successful.”

Total: eight points.

“Whew…” Qixia let out a deep breath, shaking his head. “I really don’t like this reckless feeling. It’s no different from being an ordinary gambler.”

“No problem,骗子仔!” Qiao Jiejin patted Qixia’s shoulder. “Scoring points is good enough!”

Qixia nodded and continued examining the scattered “characters” in his hand. He had already deduced many possibilities but felt something was missing.

Why were there so few characters they could form?

“You can form one more character,” Qiao Jiejin said, pointing at the components in Qixia’s hand. “This one and this one—these two can form a ‘character.'”

Qixia looked down. Qiao Jiejin was pointing at “目” and “八.”

“These two…?”

“Yeah,” Qiao Jiejin nodded. “It’s ‘贝,’ as in ‘贝壳’ (bèi ké, shell). How did you overlook such a simple character,骗子仔? It’s like being blind to what’s right under your nose!”

“This…?” Qixia frowned slightly. He naturally knew which character Qiao Jiejin was referring to, but it wasn’t a case of “being blind to what’s right under your nose.” It was a direction he had never considered.

Traditional characters…?

“贝…” Qixia stroked his chin. Whether it would work or not, he might as well try.

So he placed “目” and “八” on the platform, one above the other.

The screen flickered for a moment before displaying a line of text they had never seen before:

“Received character ‘貝.’ This character does not count toward the game score. Please create again.”

“Ah…?” Qiao Jiejin tapped the screen. “It’s broken,骗子仔! This screen doesn’t seem to recognize characters! It doesn’t even know ‘貝’!”

“It’s probably not that it ‘doesn’t recognize characters’…” Qixia said. “Think about it—from the beginning, Earth Dragon gave us simplified characters. ‘車’ became ‘车,’ ‘馬’ became ‘马.’ So, purely traditional characters shouldn’t count toward the score. At the very least, ‘貝’ doesn’t count.”

Qiao Jiejin fell silent for a long moment before slowly saying, “Is this game targeting me…?”

Qixia knew the game wasn’t just targeting Qiao Jiejin—it was targeting all “participants.” If traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would be higher.

But now…

“Wait…” Qixia’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the scattered characters on the screen. “I think I’ve been too fixated on the concept of components and radicals… When Cang Jie first created these characters… how could he have been limited by such concepts…?”

With that thought, Qixia reached out and picked up the “八.”

He gently moved his fingers, rotating the metal character “八” 180 degrees and placing it on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform” to form an “inverted八.” Under Qiao Jiejin’s puzzled gaze, he then placed “木” beneath the “inverted八.”

“Huh…?” Qiao Jiejin looked confused. “What is this…?”

“This is the only way to get enough characters…” Qixia murmured. “No wonder I felt like we didn’t have enough ‘characters’…”

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:

“Received character雏形 ‘米.’ Please write a homophone.”

Qiao Jiejin stared in astonishment for a long moment before exclaiming, “Holy…! This can form ‘米’…?骗子仔, you’ve got a sharp mind!”

“I should’ve thought of it sooner…” Qixia said. “Now we can form more characters.”

Qiao Jiejin stared at the screen for a while before sensing something off. “骗子仔… do you know the homophone for ‘米’?”

“米…?”

Qixia stroked his chin. The most common character with this pronunciation was naturally “米” itself, but writing “米” now obviously wouldn’t count.

“Got it.” Qixia raised an eyebrow and tapped on the screen.

His sharp, knife-like handwriting swept across the screen, leaving behind a vivid red character:

“芈.”

“…?” Qiao Jiejin was slightly taken aback. “骗子仔, you really know a lot…”

“Creation successful.”

Total: nine points.

“Look!” Qiao Jiajin said with a laugh, “I told you! This character only has one pronunciation, ‘bīn’.”

Qixia didn’t know how to explain the situation and could only nod silently.

No matter how you looked at it, the pronunciation of “梹” was relatively easy to guess. If they encountered other rare characters later, it would truly become a high-stakes gamble.

Although Earth Dragon mentioned in the “rules” that “writing homophones” was meant to prevent both teams from using rare characters, after some deduction, Qixia felt that avoiding rare characters to form twenty-eight characters seemed almost impossible.

Qixia lowered his head and looked again at the “兵” in his hand. Logically, now wasn’t the best time to form “characters,” as he had too few pieces. But since the opponent had already launched an attack, he could only take things one step at a time.

He picked up the “兵.” To be precise, it was a “丘” and an “八.” The “八” was welded together as a whole and couldn’t be separated.

Qixia first placed the “丘” on the platform, earning one point, then placed the “八” separately. Unfortunately, the “八” was a single piece and couldn’t be used to form “乒” or “乓,” otherwise he would have scored two more points.

With that, Qixia’s team had a total of seven points: “兵,” “木,” “目,” “相,” “梹,” “丘,” and “八.” They were still twenty-one “characters” short of twenty-eight points.

In that case… could the components in his hand form other “characters”?

Qixia experimented, placing several possible combinations onto the “Phoenix Scroll Platform.” However, he quickly realized that not every combination was recognized by the screen.

After trying a few possibilities, another strange “character” caught their attention. The screen clearly displayed:

“Received character prototype ‘朳.’ Please write a homophone.”

“This…” Qiao Jiajin was stunned once again. “Is this character pronounced ‘pá’ or ‘bā’?”

Hearing this, Qixia felt that Qiao Jiajin had raised a worthwhile question.

Although the character “八” is pronounced “bā,” in many common words, when “八” is combined with other components, its pronunciation often changes, such as in “趴着” (pā zhe, lying down) or “扒手” (pá shǒu, pickpocket).

But the character “扒” can also be pronounced “bā,” as in “扒开” (bā kāi, to pry open). Similarly, the onomatopoeic word “叭” (bā) is also commonly used.

Beyond that, Qixia couldn’t think of any other common characters containing “八.” In his current memory, there were two characters each for both “pā” and “bā” pronunciations.

“We’ll have to take a gamble…” Qixia said.

He reached out, thought for a few seconds, and then wrote a homophone on the screen—”巴.”

—”Creation successful.”

A total of eight points.

“Whew…” Qixia let out a deep breath, shaking his head. “I really don’t like this reckless feeling. It’s no different from an ordinary gambler.”

“No problem,骗子仔 (Trickster)!” Qiao Jiajin patted Qixia’s shoulder and said. “Scoring points is good enough!”

Qixia nodded and continued examining the scattered “characters” in his hand. He had already deduced many possibilities but felt something was missing.

Why were there so few characters they could form?

“You can form one more character,” Qiao Jiajin said, pointing at the components in Qixia’s hand. “This one and this one—these two can form a ‘character.'”

Qixia looked down. Qiao Jiajin was pointing at “目” and “八.”

“These two…?”

“Yeah,” Qiao Jiajin nodded. “This is ‘贝’ as in ‘贝壳’ (bèi ké, shell). How did you overlook such a simple character,骗子仔? It’s like being in the dark under the light!”

“This…?” Qixia frowned slightly. He naturally knew which character Qiao Jiajin was referring to, but it wasn’t a matter of “being in the dark under the light.” It was a direction he had never considered.

Traditional characters…?

“贝…” Qixia stroked his chin. Whether it could be formed or not, they might as well try.

So he chose to place “目” and “八” on the platform, one above the other.

The screen flickered for a moment before displaying a line of text they had never seen before:

“Received character ‘貝.’ This character does not count toward the game score. Please create again.”

“Ah…?” Qiao Jiajin reached out and tapped the screen. “It’s broken,骗子仔! This screen doesn’t seem to recognize characters! It doesn’t even know ‘貝’!”

“It’s probably not that it ‘doesn’t recognize characters’…” Qixia said. “Think about it—from the beginning, the ‘characters’ Earth Dragon gave us omitted traditional forms. ‘車’ became ‘车,’ ‘馬’ became ‘马.’ So, purely traditional characters shouldn’t count toward the score, at least ‘貝’ doesn’t.”

Qiao Jiajin fell silent for a long moment before slowly saying, “Is this game targeting me…?”

Qixia knew the game wasn’t just targeting Qiao Jiajin but all “participants.” If traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would increase.

But now…

“Wait…” Qixia’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the scattered characters on the screen. “I think I’ve been too fixated on the concept of components and radicals… When Cang Jie first created these characters… how could he have been limited by such concepts…”

With that thought, Qixia reached out and picked up the “八.”

He gently moved his fingers, rotating the small metal character “八” 180 degrees and placing it on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform” to form an “inverted eight.” Under Qiao Jiajin’s puzzled gaze, he then picked up “木” and placed it below the “inverted eight.”

“Huh…?” Qiao Jiajin was utterly confused. “What is this…?”

“This is the only way to get enough characters…” Qixia murmured softly. “No wonder I felt we didn’t have enough ‘characters’…”

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:

“Received character prototype ‘米.’ Please write a homophone.”

Qiao Jiajin stared at it for a long moment before exclaiming in amazement, “I… damn! You can even form ‘米’ this way…骗子仔, you’ve got a sharp mind!”

“I should have thought of it sooner…” Qixia said. “Now we can form more characters.”

Qiao Jiajin stared at the screen for a while before sensing something off. “骗子仔… do you know a homophone for ‘米’?”

“米…?”

Qixia stroked his chin upon hearing this. The most commonly used character with this pronunciation was naturally “米” itself, but writing “米” now obviously wouldn’t count.

“Got it.” Qixia raised an eyebrow and reached out to tap on the screen.

His sharp, knife-like handwriting swept across the screen, leaving behind a vivid red character:

“芈.”

“…?” Qiao Jiajin was slightly taken aback. “骗子仔, you really know a lot…”

“Creation successful.”

A total of nine points.

Given that, could the remaining radicals in his hand form other “characters”?

Qi Xia experimented, placing various possible combinations onto the “Phoenix Carrying Book Platform.” But he soon realized that not every combination would be recognized by the screen as a valid character.

After several attempts, a strange “character” once again appeared before their eyes. The screen displayed:

“Look!” Qiao Jiajin said with a laugh, “I told you! This character only has one pronunciation—’bīn’.”

Qixia didn’t know how to explain the situation and could only nod silently.

No matter how you looked at it, the pronunciation of “梹” was relatively easy to guess. If they encountered other rare characters later, it would truly become a high-stakes gamble.

Although Earth Dragon mentioned in the “rules” that “writing homophones” was meant to prevent both teams from using rare characters, after some deduction, Qixia felt that forming twenty-eight characters without using rare ones seemed nearly impossible.

Qixia lowered his head and looked again at the “兵” in his hand. Logically, now wasn’t the best time to form “characters,” since he had too few components. But with the opponent already on the offensive, he had no choice but to take things one step at a time.

He picked up the “兵.” To be precise, it was a “丘” and an “八,” with the “八” welded together as a single unit that couldn’t be separated.

Qixia first placed the “丘” on the platform, earning one point, then separately placed the “八.” Unfortunately, since the “八” was a single piece, he couldn’t further form “乒” and “乓,” which would have earned him two more points.

With that, Qixia’s team had a total of seven points: “兵,” “木,” “目,” “相,” “梹,” “丘,” and “八.” They were still twenty-one “characters” short of the twenty-eight needed.

Given the circumstances… could the components in hand be combined to form other “characters”?

Qixia experimented, trying several possible combinations on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform.” But he soon realized that not every combination would be recognized by the screen.

After testing a few possibilities, another strange “character” caught their attention. The screen displayed:

“Received character雏形 ‘朳.’ Please write a homophone.”

“This…” Qiao Jiajin was stunned once again. “Is this character read as ‘pá’ or ‘bā’?”

Hearing this, Qixia felt that Qiao Jiajin had raised a worthwhile question.

Although the character “八” is pronounced “bā,” in many common characters, when “八” combines with other components, its pronunciation often changes—for example, “趴着” (pā zhe, lying down) or “扒手” (pá shǒu, pickpocket).

But the character “扒” can also be pronounced “bā,” as in “扒开” (bā kāi, to pry open). Similarly, the onomatopoeic word “叭” (bā) is also commonly used.

Beyond that, Qixia couldn’t think of any other common characters containing “八.” In his current memory, there were two characters each for both “pā” and “bā.”

“We’ll have to take a gamble…” Qixia said.

He reached out, thought for a few seconds, and then wrote the homophone on the screen—”巴.”

—”Creation successful.”

Total: eight points.

“Whew…” Qixia let out a deep breath, shaking his head. “I really don’t like this reckless feeling. It’s no different from being an ordinary gambler.”

“No problem,骗子仔!” Qiao Jiajin patted Qixia’s shoulder. “Scoring points is good enough!”

Qixia nodded and continued examining the scattered “characters” in his hand. He had already deduced many possibilities but felt something was missing.

Why were there so few characters they could form?

“You can form one more character,” Qiao Jiajin said, pointing at the components in Qixia’s hand. “This one and this one—these two can form a ‘character.'”

Qixia looked down. Qiao Jiajin was pointing at “目” and “八.”

“These two…?”

“Yeah,” Qiao Jiajin nodded. “It’s ‘贝,’ as in ‘贝壳’ (bèi ké, shell). How did you overlook such a simple character,骗子仔? It’s like not seeing what’s right under your nose!”

“This…?” Qixia frowned slightly. He naturally knew which character Qiao Jiajin was referring to, but it wasn’t a matter of oversight—it was a direction he had never considered.

Traditional characters…?

“贝…” Qixia stroked his chin. Whether it would work or not, they might as well try.

So he placed “目” and “八” on the platform, one above the other.

The screen flickered for a moment before displaying a line of text they had never seen before:

“Received character ‘貝.’ This character does not count toward the game score. Please create again.”

“Ah…?” Qiao Jiajin tapped the screen. “It’s broken,骗子仔! This screen doesn’t seem to recognize characters! It doesn’t even know ‘貝’!”

“It’s probably not that it ‘doesn’t recognize characters’…” Qixia said. “If you think about it, the characters Earth Dragon gave us initially omitted traditional forms. ‘車’ became ‘车,’ ‘馬’ became ‘马.’ So, purely traditional characters shouldn’t count toward the score—at least, ‘貝’ doesn’t.”

Qiao Jiajin fell silent for a long moment before slowly saying, “Is this game targeting me…?”

Qixia knew the game wasn’t just targeting Qiao Jiajin—it was targeting all “participants.” If traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would be higher.

But now…

“Wait…” Qixia’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the scattered characters on the screen. “I’ve been too fixated on the concept of radicals and components… When Cang Jie first created these characters, how could he have been limited by such concepts…?”

With that thought, Qixia reached out and picked up the “八.”

He gently moved his fingers, rotating the metal character “八” 180 degrees and placing it on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform” to form an “inverted eight.” Under Qiao Jiajin’s puzzled gaze, he then picked up “木” and placed it below the “inverted eight.”

“Huh…?” Qiao Jiajin was baffled. “What is this…?”

“This is the only way to get enough characters…” Qixia murmured. “No wonder I felt we were short on ‘characters’…”

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:

“Received character雏形 ‘米.’ Please write a homophone.”

Qiao Jiajin stared in astonishment for a long moment before exclaiming, “Holy crap!! You can even form ‘米’ this way…骗子仔, you’ve got a sharp mind!”

“I should’ve thought of it sooner…” Qixia said. “Now we can form more characters.”

Qiao Jiajin stared at the screen for a while before sensing something off. “骗子仔… do you know the homophone for ‘米’?”

“米…?”

Qixia stroked his chin. The most common character with this pronunciation was “米” itself, but writing “米” again obviously wouldn’t count.

“Got it.” Qixia raised an eyebrow and reached out to tap the screen.

His sharp, knife-like handwriting swept across the screen, leaving behind a vivid red character:

“芈.”

“…?” Qiao Jiajin was slightly taken aback. “骗子仔, you know a lot…”

“Creation successful.”

Total: nine points.

“Uh…” Qiao Jiajin froze again. “Does this character read ‘pá’ or ‘bā’?”

Hearing this, Qi Xia felt Qiao Jiajin had raised a genuinely tricky question.

“Look!” Qiao Jiejin said with a laugh, “I told you! This character only has one pronunciation—’bīn’.”

Qixia didn’t know how to explain the situation and could only nod silently.

No matter how you looked at it, the pronunciation of “梹” was relatively easy to guess. If they encountered other rare characters later, it would truly become a high-stakes gamble.

Although Dilong mentioned in the “rules” that “writing homophones” was meant to prevent both teams from using obscure characters, after some deduction, Qixia felt that forming twenty-eight characters without using rare ones seemed nearly impossible.

Qixia lowered his head and looked again at the “兵” in his hand. Logically, now wasn’t the best time to form “characters,” as he had too few components. But since the opponent had already launched an attack, he had no choice but to take things one step at a time.

He picked up the “兵.” To be precise, it was a “丘” and an “八,” with the “八” welded together as a single unit that couldn’t be separated.

Qixia first placed the “丘,” earning one point, then separately placed the “八.” Unfortunately, since the “八” was a single piece, he couldn’t further form “乒” and “乓,” which would have earned him two more points.

With that, Qixia’s team had a total of seven points: “兵,” “木,” “目,” “相,” “梹,” “丘,” and “八.” They were still twenty-one “characters” short of the twenty-eight points needed.

Given this… could the components in his hand form other “characters”?

Qixia experimented, placing several possible combinations onto the “Phoenix Scroll Platform.” However, he quickly realized that not every combination was recognized by the screen.

After trying a few possibilities, another strange “character” caught their attention. The screen clearly displayed:

“Received character prototype ‘朳.’ Please write a homophone.”

“This…” Qiao Jiejin was stunned once again. “Is this character read as ‘pá’ or ‘bā’?”

Hearing this, Qixia felt that Qiao Jiejin had raised a worthwhile question.

Although the character “八” is pronounced “bā,” in many commonly used characters, when “八” combines with other components, its pronunciation often changes—for example, “趴着” (pā zhe, lying down) or “扒手” (pá shǒu, pickpocket).

But the character “扒” can also be pronounced “bā,” as in “扒开” (bā kāi, to pry open). Similarly, the onomatopoeic word “叭” (bā) is also commonly used.

Beyond that, Qixia couldn’t think of any other commonly used characters containing “八.” In his current memory, there were two characters each for both “pā” and “bā” pronunciations.

“We’ll have to take a gamble…” Qixia said.

He reached out, thought for a few seconds, and then wrote the homophone on the screen—”巴.”

—”Creation successful.”

A total of eight points.

“Whew…” Qixia let out a deep breath, shaking his head. “I really don’t like this reckless feeling. It’s no different from being an ordinary gambler.”

“No problem, trickster!” Qiao Jiejin patted Qixia’s shoulder. “Scoring points is good enough!”

Qixia nodded and continued examining the scattered “characters” in his hand. He had already deduced many possibilities but felt something was missing.

Why were there so few characters he could form?

“You can form one more character,” Qiao Jiejin said, pointing at the components in Qixia’s hand. “This one and this one—these two can form a ‘character.'”

Qixia looked down. Qiao Jiejin was pointing at “目” and “八.”

“These two…?”

“Yeah,” Qiao Jiejin nodded. “This is ‘贝’ as in ‘贝壳’ (bèi ké, shell). How did you overlook such a simple character, trickster? Can’t see what’s right under your nose?”

“This…?” Qixia frowned slightly. He naturally knew which character Qiao Jiejin was referring to, but it wasn’t a matter of oversight—it was a direction he had never considered.

Traditional characters…?

“貝…” Qixia stroked his chin. Whether it would work or not, he could just try it.

So he placed “目” and “八” on the platform, one above the other.

The screen flickered for a moment before displaying a line of text they had never seen before:

“Received character ‘貝.’ This character does not count toward this game’s score. Please create again.”

“Ah…?” Qiao Jiejin reached out and tapped the screen. “It’s broken, trickster! This screen doesn’t seem to recognize characters! It doesn’t even know ‘貝’!”

“It’s probably not that it ‘doesn’t recognize characters’…” Qixia said. “Think about it—from the beginning, the ‘characters’ Dilong gave us omitted traditional forms. ‘車’ became ‘车,’ ‘馬’ became ‘马.’ So, purely traditional characters shouldn’t count toward the score, at least ‘貝’ doesn’t.”

Qiao Jiejin fell silent for a long moment before slowly saying, “Is this game targeting me…?”

Qixia knew the game wasn’t just targeting Qiao Jiejin—it was targeting all “participants.” If traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would be higher.

But now…

“Wait…” Qixia’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the scattered characters on the screen. “I think I’ve been too fixated on the concept of components and radicals… When Cang Jie first created these characters… how could he have been limited by such concepts…?”

With that thought, Qixia reached out and picked up the “八.”

He gently moved his fingers, rotating the small metal character “八” 180 degrees and placing it on the Phoenix Scroll Platform, forming an “inverted eight.” Under Qiao Jiejin’s puzzled gaze, he then picked up “木” and placed it below the “inverted eight.”

“Huh…?” Qiao Jiejin looked utterly confused. “What is this…?”

“This is the only way to get enough characters…” Qixia murmured softly. “No wonder I felt there weren’t enough ‘characters’…”

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:

“Received character prototype ‘米.’ Please write a homophone.”

Qiao Jiejin stared in astonishment for a long moment before exclaiming, “Holy… crap!! You can even form ‘米’ like this… You’ve got a sharp mind, trickster!”

“I should’ve thought of it sooner…” Qixia said. “Now we can form more characters.”

Qiao Jiejin stared at the screen for a while before sensing something off. “Trickster… do you… know the homophone for ‘米’?”

“米…?”

Qixia stroked his chin upon hearing this. The most commonly used character with this pronunciation was naturally “米” itself, but writing “米” now obviously wouldn’t count.

“Got it.” Qixia raised an eyebrow and reached out, tapping on the screen.

His sharp, knife-like strokes swept across the screen, leaving behind a vivid red character:

“芈.”

“…?” Qiao Jiejin was slightly taken aback. “Trickster, you really know a lot…”

“Creation successful.”

A total of nine points.

“Look!” Qiao Jiejin said with a laugh, “I told you! This character only has one pronunciation—’bīn’.”

Qixia didn’t know how to explain the situation and could only nod silently.

No matter how you looked at it, the pronunciation of “梹” was relatively easy to guess. If they encountered other rare characters later, it would truly become a high-stakes gamble.

Although Earth Dragon mentioned in the “rules” that “writing homophones” was meant to prevent both teams from using rare characters, after some deduction, Qixia felt that avoiding rare characters to form all twenty-eight characters seemed nearly impossible.

Qixia lowered his head and glanced again at the “兵” in his hand. Logically, now wasn’t the best time to form “characters,” as he had too few components. But since the opponent had already launched an attack, he could only take things one step at a time.

He picked up the “兵.” To be precise, it was a “丘” and an “八.” The “八” was welded together as a single unit and couldn’t be separated.

Qixia first placed the “丘” on the platform, earning one point, then placed the “八” separately. Unfortunately, since the “八” was a single unit, he couldn’t further form “乒” and “乓,” which would have earned him two more points.

With that, Qixia’s team had a total of seven points: “兵,” “木,” “目,” “相,” “梹,” “丘,” and “八.” They were still twenty-one “characters” short of the twenty-eight points needed.

Given the circumstances… could the components in his hand form other “characters”?

Qixia experimented, placing several possible combinations onto the “Phoenix Scroll Platform.” However, he quickly realized that not every combination was recognized by the screen.

After trying a few possibilities, another strange “character” caught their attention. The screen displayed:

“Character prototype ‘朳’ received. Please write a homophone.”

“This…” Qiao Jiejin was stunned once again. “Is this character pronounced ‘pá’ or ‘bā’?”

Hearing this, Qixia felt that Qiao Jiejin had raised a worthwhile question.

Although the character “八” is pronounced “bā,” in many commonly used characters, when “八” combines with other components, its pronunciation often changes—for example, “趴着” (pā zhe, lying down) or “扒手” (pá shǒu, pickpocket).

But the character “扒” can also be pronounced “bā,” as in “扒开” (bā kāi, to pry open). Similarly, the onomatopoeic word “叭” (bā) is also commonly used.

Beyond that, Qixia couldn’t think of any other commonly used characters containing “八.” In his current memory, there were two characters each for both the “pā” and “bā” pronunciations.

“We’ll have to take a gamble…” Qixia said.

He reached out, thought for a few seconds, and then wrote the homophone on the screen—”巴.”

—”Creation successful.”

Total: eight points.

“Whew…” Qixia let out a deep breath and shook his head. “I really don’t like this reckless feeling. It’s no different from being an ordinary gambler.”

“No problem,骗子仔!” Qiao Jiejin patted Qixia’s shoulder. “Scoring points is good enough!”

Qixia nodded and continued examining the scattered “characters” in his hand. He had already deduced many possibilities but felt something was missing.

Why were there so few characters they could form?

“We can form one more character,” Qiao Jiejin said, pointing to the components in Qixia’s hand. “This one and this one—these two can form a ‘character.'”

Qixia looked down. Qiao Jiejin was pointing at “目” and “八.”

“These two…?”

“Yeah,” Qiao Jiejin nodded. “This is ‘贝’ as in ‘贝壳’ (bèi ké, shell). How did you overlook such a simple character,骗子仔? It’s like not seeing what’s right under your nose!”

“This…?” Qixia frowned slightly. He naturally knew which character Qiao Jiejin was referring to, but it wasn’t a matter of oversight—it was a direction he had never considered.

Traditional characters…?

“贝…” Qixia stroked his chin. Whether it would work or not, they might as well try.

So he placed “目” and “八” on the platform, one above the other.

The screen flickered for a moment before displaying a line of text they had never seen before:

“Character ‘貝’ received. This character does not count toward the game score. Please create again.”

“Ah…?” Qiao Jiejin tapped the screen. “It’s broken,骗子仔! This screen doesn’t seem to recognize characters! It doesn’t even know ‘貝’!”

“It’s probably not that it ‘doesn’t recognize characters’…” Qixia said. “Think about it—from the beginning, Earth Dragon gave us simplified characters. ‘車’ became ‘车,’ ‘馬’ became ‘马.’ So, purely traditional characters shouldn’t count toward the score. At the very least, ‘貝’ doesn’t count.”

Qiao Jiejin fell silent for a long moment before slowly saying, “Is this game targeting me…?”

Qixia knew the game wasn’t just targeting Qiao Jiejin—it was targeting all “participants.” If traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would increase.

But now…

“Wait…” Qixia’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the scattered characters on the screen. “I think I’ve been too fixated on the concept of components and radicals… When Cang Jie first created these characters… how could he have been limited by such concepts…?”

With that thought, Qixia reached out and picked up the “八.”

He gently moved his fingers, rotating the small metal character “八” 180 degrees and placing it on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform” to form an “inverted eight.” Under Qiao Jiejin’s puzzled gaze, he then placed “木” beneath the “inverted eight.”

“Huh…?” Qiao Jiejin looked confused. “What is this…?”

“This is the only way to get enough characters…” Qixia murmured. “No wonder I felt we were short on ‘characters’…”

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:

“Character prototype ‘米’ received. Please write a homophone.”

Qiao Jiejin stared in astonishment for a long moment before exclaiming, “Holy crap!! You can even form ‘米’ this way…骗子仔, your mind is something else!”

“I should have thought of it sooner…” Qixia said. “Now we can form more characters.”

Qiao Jiejin stared at the screen for a while before sensing something off. “骗子仔… do you know the homophone for ‘米’?”

“米…?”

Qixia stroked his chin. The most commonly used character with this pronunciation was naturally “米” itself, but writing “米” now obviously wouldn’t count.

“Got it.” Qixia raised an eyebrow and tapped the screen.

His sharp, knife-like strokes left a vivid red character on the screen:

“芈.”

“…?” Qiao Jiejin was slightly taken aback. “骗子仔, you really know a lot…”

“Creation successful.”

Total: nine points.

“Look!” Qiao Jiajin said with a laugh, “I told you! This character only has one pronunciation—’bīn’.”

Qixia didn’t know how to explain the situation and could only nod silently.

No matter how you looked at it, the pronunciation of “梹” was relatively easy to guess. If they encountered other rare characters later, it would truly become a high-stakes gamble.

Although Earth Dragon mentioned in the “rules” that “writing homophones” was meant to prevent both teams from using obscure characters, after some deduction, Qixia felt that avoiding rare characters to form all twenty-eight characters seemed nearly impossible.

Qixia lowered his head and looked again at the “兵” in his hand. Logically, now wasn’t the best time to form “characters,” as he had too few components. But since the opponent had already launched an attack, he had no choice but to take it one step at a time.

He picked up the “兵.” To be precise, it was a “丘” and an “八,” with the “八” welded together as a single unit that couldn’t be separated.

Qixia first placed the “丘,” earning one point, then separately placed the “八.” Unfortunately, since the “八” was a single piece, he couldn’t further form “乒” and “乓,” which would have earned him two more points.

With that, Qixia’s team had a total of seven points: “兵,” “木,” “目,” “相,” “梹,” “丘,” and “八.” They were still twenty-one “characters” short of the twenty-eight points needed.

Given the circumstances… could the components in hand form other “characters”?

Qixia experimented, trying several combinations on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform.” But he soon realized that not every combination was recognized by the screen.

After testing a few possibilities, another strange “character” caught their attention. The screen clearly displayed:

“Received character雏形 ‘朳.’ Please write a homophone.”

“This…” Qiao Jiajin was stunned once again. “Is this character pronounced ‘pá’ or ‘bā’?”

Hearing this, Qixia felt that Qiao Jiajin had raised a worthwhile question.

Although the character “八” is pronounced “bā,” in many common words, when “八” combines with other components, its pronunciation often changes—for example, “趴着” (pā zhe, lying down) or “扒手” (pá shǒu, pickpocket).

But the character “扒” can also be pronounced “bā,” as in “扒开” (bā kāi, to pry open). Similarly, the onomatopoeic word “叭” (bā) is also commonly used.

Beyond that, Qixia couldn’t think of any other common characters containing “八.” From what he recalled, there were two characters each for both the “pā” and “bā” pronunciations.

“We’ll have to take a gamble…” Qixia said.

He reached out, thought for a few seconds, and then wrote the homophone on the screen—”巴.”

—”Creation successful.”

Total: eight points.

“Whew…” Qixia let out a deep breath, shaking his head. “I really don’t like this reckless feeling. It’s no different from being an ordinary gambler.”

“No worries,骗子仔!” Qiao Jiajin patted Qixia’s shoulder. “Scoring points is good enough!”

Qixia nodded and continued examining the scattered “characters” in his hand. He had already deduced many possibilities but felt something was missing.

Why were there so few characters they could form?

“You can form one more character,” Qiao Jiajin said, pointing at the components in Qixia’s hand. “This one and this one—these two can form a ‘character.'”

Qixia looked down. Qiao Jiajin was pointing at “目” and “八.”

“These two…?”

“Yeah,” Qiao Jiajin nodded. “It’s ‘贝,’ as in ‘贝壳’ (bèi ké, shell). How did you overlook such a simple character,骗子仔? It’s like not seeing what’s right under your nose!”

“This…?” Qixia frowned slightly. He naturally knew which character Qiao Jiajin was referring to, but it wasn’t a matter of oversight—it was a direction he had never considered.

Traditional characters…?

“貝…” Qixia stroked his chin. Whether it would work or not, it was worth a try.

So he placed “目” and “八” on the platform, one above the other.

The screen flickered for a moment before displaying a line of text they had never seen before:

“Received character ‘貝.’ This character does not count toward the game score. Please create again.”

“Ah…?” Qiao Jiajin tapped the screen. “It’s broken,骗子仔! This screen doesn’t seem to recognize characters! It doesn’t even know ‘貝’!”

“It’s probably not that it ‘doesn’t recognize characters’…” Qixia said. “If you think about it, the characters Earth Dragon gave us initially omitted traditional forms. ‘車’ became ‘车,’ ‘馬’ became ‘马.’ So, purely traditional characters likely don’t count toward scoring—at least, ‘貝’ doesn’t.”

Qiao Jiajin fell silent for a long moment before slowly saying, “Is this game targeting me…?”

Qixia knew the game wasn’t just targeting Qiao Jiajin—it was targeting all “participants.” If traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would improve.

But now…

“Wait…” Qixia’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the scattered characters on the screen. “I think I’ve been too fixated on the concept of components and radicals… When Cang Jie first created these characters… how could he have been limited by such concepts…?”

With that thought, Qixia reached out and picked up the “八.”

He gently moved his fingers, rotating the small metal character “八” 180 degrees and placing it on the Phoenix Scroll Platform, forming an “inverted eight.” Under Qiao Jiajin’s puzzled gaze, he then picked up “木” and placed it beneath the “inverted eight.”

“Huh…?” Qiao Jiajin looked bewildered. “What is this…?”

“This is the only way to get enough characters…” Qixia murmured. “No wonder I felt we were short on ‘characters’…”

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:

“Received character雏形 ‘米.’ Please write a homophone.”

Qiao Jiajin stared in astonishment for a long moment before exclaiming, “Holy… crap!! You can even form ‘米’ like this…骗子仔, you’ve got a sharp mind!”

“I should’ve thought of it sooner…” Qixia said. “Now we can form more characters.”

Qiao Jiajin stared at the screen for a while before sensing something off. “骗子仔… do you know a homophone for ‘米’?”

“米…?”

Qixia stroked his chin. The most common character with this pronunciation was “米” itself, but writing “米” again obviously wouldn’t count.

“Got it.” Qixia raised an eyebrow and tapped the screen.

His sharp, knife-like handwriting swept across the screen, leaving behind a vivid red character:

“芈.”

“…?” Qiao Jiajin was slightly taken aback. “骗子仔, you really know a lot…”

“Creation successful.”

Total: nine points.

“We’ll have to gamble…” Qi Xia said.

“Look!” Qiao Jiajin said with a laugh, “I told you! This character only has one pronunciation—’bīn’.”

Qixia didn’t know how to explain the situation and could only nod silently.

No matter how you looked at it, the pronunciation of “梹” was relatively easy to guess. If they encountered other rare characters later, it would truly become a high-stakes gamble.

Although Earth Dragon mentioned in the “rules” that “writing homophones” was meant to prevent both teams from using obscure characters, after some deduction, Qixia felt that forming twenty-eight characters without using rare ones seemed nearly impossible.

Qixia lowered his head and glanced again at the “兵” in his hand. Logically, now wasn’t the best time to form “characters,” as he had too few components. But since the opponent had already launched an attack, he had no choice but to take things one step at a time.

He picked up the “兵.” To be precise, it was a “丘” and an “八,” with the “八” welded together as a single unit that couldn’t be separated.

Qixia first placed the “丘” on the platform, earning one point, then separately placed the “八.” Unfortunately, since the “八” was a single entity, he couldn’t further form “乒” and “乓,” which would have earned him two more points.

With that, Qixia’s team had a total of seven points: “兵,” “木,” “目,” “相,” “梹,” “丘,” and “八.” They were still twenty-one “characters” short of the twenty-eight needed.

Given the circumstances… could the components in hand be combined to form other “characters”?

Qixia experimented, trying several combinations on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform.” However, he soon realized that not every combination would be recognized by the screen as a valid character.

After testing a few possibilities, another strange “character” caught their attention. The screen clearly displayed:

“Character prototype ‘朳’ received. Please write a homophone.”

“This…” Qiao Jiajin was stunned once again. “Is this character read as ‘pá’ or ‘bā’?”

Hearing this, Qixia felt that Qiao Jiajin had raised a worthwhile question.

Although the character “八” is pronounced “bā,” in many common words, when “八” combines with other components, its pronunciation often changes—for example, “趴着” (pā zhe, lying down) or “扒手” (pá shǒu, pickpocket).

But the character “扒” can also be pronounced “bā,” as in “扒开” (bā kāi, to pry open). Similarly, the onomatopoeic word “叭” (bā) is also commonly used.

Beyond these, Qixia couldn’t think of any other common characters containing “八.” In his current memory, there were two characters each for both “pā” and “bā.”

“We’ll have to take a gamble…” Qixia said.

He reached out, thought for a few seconds, and then wrote the homophone on the screen—”巴.”

—”Creation successful.”

Total score: eight.

“Whew…” Qixia let out a deep breath, shaking his head. “I really don’t like this reckless feeling. It’s no different from being an ordinary gambler.”

“No worries, trickster!” Qiao Jiajin patted Qixia’s shoulder. “Scoring points is good enough!”

Qixia nodded and continued examining the scattered “characters” in his hand. He had already deduced many possibilities but felt something was missing.

Why were there so few characters they could form?

“You can form one more character,” Qiao Jiajin said, pointing at the components in Qixia’s hand. “This one and this one—these two can form a ‘character.'”

Qixia looked down. Qiao Jiajin was pointing at “目” and “八.”

“These two…?”

“Yeah,” Qiao Jiajin nodded. “This is ‘贝’ (bèi), as in ‘贝壳’ (bèi ké, shell). How did you overlook such a simple character, trickster? Can’t see what’s right under your nose?”

“This…?” Qixia frowned slightly. He naturally knew which character Qiao Jiajin was referring to, but it wasn’t a matter of oversight—it was a direction he had never considered.

Traditional characters…?

“贝…” Qixia stroked his chin. Whether it would work or not, they might as well try.

So, he placed “目” and “八” on the platform, one above the other.

The screen flickered for a moment before displaying a line of text they had never seen before:

“Character ‘貝’ received. This character does not count toward the game score. Please create again.”

“Ah…?” Qiao Jiajin tapped the screen. “It’s broken, trickster! This screen doesn’t seem to recognize characters! It doesn’t even know ‘貝’!”

“It’s probably not that it ‘doesn’t recognize characters’…” Qixia said. “Think about it—from the beginning, Earth Dragon gave us simplified characters. ‘車’ became ‘车,’ ‘馬’ became ‘马.’ So, purely traditional characters shouldn’t count toward the score. At the very least, ‘貝’ doesn’t count.”

Qiao Jiajin fell silent for a long moment before slowly saying, “Is this game targeting me…?”

Qixia knew the game wasn’t just targeting Qiao Jiajin—it was targeting all “participants.” If traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would be higher.

But now…

“Wait…” Qixia’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the scattered characters on the screen. “I think I’ve been too fixated on the concept of components and radicals… When Cang Jie first created these characters… how could he have been limited by such concepts…”

With that thought, Qixia reached out and picked up the “八.”

He gently moved his fingers, rotating the small metal character “八” 180 degrees and placing it on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform” to form an “inverted eight.” Under Qiao Jiajin’s puzzled gaze, he then picked up “木” and placed it below the “inverted eight.”

“Huh…?” Qiao Jiajin was baffled. “What is this…?”

“This is the only way to get enough characters…” Qixia murmured. “No wonder I felt we didn’t have enough ‘characters’…”

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:

“Character prototype ‘米’ received. Please write a homophone.”

Qiao Jiajin stared in astonishment for a long moment before exclaiming, “Holy crap!! You can even form ‘米’ this way… You’ve got a sharp mind, trickster!”

“I should have thought of it sooner…” Qixia said. “Now we can form more characters.”

Qiao Jiajin stared at the screen for a while before sensing something off. “Trickster… do you know the homophone for ‘米’?”

“米…?”

Qixia stroked his chin upon hearing this. The most commonly used character with this pronunciation was naturally “米” itself, but writing “米” now obviously wouldn’t count.

“Got it.” Qixia raised an eyebrow and reached out to tap the screen.

His sharp, knife-like handwriting swept across the screen, leaving behind a vivid red character:

“芈.”

“…?” Qiao Jiajin was slightly taken aback. “Trickster, you really know a lot…”

“Creation successful.”

Total score: nine.

*”Creation successful.”*

Total score: eight points.

“Phew…” Qi Xia exhaled deeply and shook his head. “I really don’t like this reckless feeling. It’s no different from being an ordinary gambler.”

“No worries, trickster!” Qiao Jiajin patted Qi Xia’s shoulder. “Scoring is good enough!”

Qi Xia nodded and continued staring at the scattered “characters” in his hand. He had already analyzed them many times but still felt something was missing.

Why were there so few possible combinations?

“There’s one more character we can form,” Qiao Jiajin said, pointing at the radicals in Qi Xia’s hand. “This one and this one—these two can make a ‘character.'”

“Look!” Qiao Jiejin said with a laugh, “I told you! This character only has one pronunciation—’bīn’.”

Qixia didn’t know how to explain the situation and could only nod silently.

No matter how you looked at it, the pronunciation of “梹” was relatively easy to guess. If they encountered other rare characters later, it would truly become a high-stakes gamble.

Although Earth Dragon mentioned in the “rules” that “writing homophones” was meant to prevent both teams from using obscure characters, after some deduction, Qixia felt that forming twenty-eight characters without using rare ones seemed nearly impossible.

Qixia lowered his head and looked again at the “兵” in his hand. Logically, now wasn’t the best time to form “characters,” since he had too few components. But with the opponent already on the offensive, he had no choice but to take things one step at a time.

He picked up the “兵.” To be precise, it was a “丘” and an “八,” with the “八” welded together as a single unit that couldn’t be separated.

Qixia first placed the “丘” on the platform, earning one point, then separately placed the “八.” Unfortunately, since “八” was a single piece, he couldn’t further form “乒” and “乓,” which would have earned him two more points.

With that, Qixia’s team had a total of seven points: “兵,” “木,” “目,” “相,” “梹,” “丘,” and “八.” They were still twenty-one “characters” short of the twenty-eight needed.

Given the circumstances… could the components in hand form other “characters”?

Qixia experimented, placing several possible combinations onto the “Phoenix Scroll Platform.” But he soon realized that not every combination was recognized by the screen.

After trying a few possibilities, another strange “character” caught their attention. The screen displayed clearly:

“Character prototype ‘朳’ received. Please write a homophone.”

“This…” Qiao Jiejin was stunned once again. “Is this character read as ‘pá’ or ‘bā’?”

Hearing this, Qixia felt that Qiao Jiejin had raised a worthwhile question.

Although the character “八” is pronounced “bā,” in many common words, when “八” combines with other components, its pronunciation often changes—like in “趴着” (pā zhe, lying down) or “扒手” (pá shǒu, pickpocket).

But the character “扒” can also be pronounced “bā,” as in “扒开” (bā kāi, to pry open). Similarly, the onomatopoeic word “叭” (bā) is also commonly used.

Beyond that, Qixia couldn’t think of any other common characters containing “八.” In his current memory, there were two characters each for both “pā” and “bā.”

“We’ll have to take a gamble…” Qixia said.

He reached out, thought for a few seconds, and then wrote the homophone on the screen—”巴.”

—”Creation successful.”

A total of eight points.

“Whew…” Qixia let out a deep breath, shaking his head. “I really don’t like this reckless feeling. It’s no different from being an ordinary gambler.”

“No worries, trickster!” Qiao Jiejin patted Qixia’s shoulder. “Scoring points is good enough!”

Qixia nodded and continued examining the scattered “characters” in his hand. He had already deduced many possibilities but felt something was missing.

Why were there so few characters they could form?

“You can form one more character,” Qiao Jiejin said, pointing at the components in Qixia’s hand. “This one and this one—these two can form a ‘character.'”

Qixia looked down. Qiao Jiejin was pointing at “目” and “八.”

“These two…?”

“Yeah,” Qiao Jiejin nodded. “It’s ‘贝,’ as in ‘贝壳’ (bèi ké, shell). How did you overlook such a simple character, trickster? Can’t see the forest for the trees?”

“This…?” Qixia frowned slightly. He naturally knew which character Qiao Jiejin was referring to, but it wasn’t a matter of oversight—it was a direction he had never considered.

Traditional characters…?

“贝…” Qixia stroked his chin. Whether it would work or not, they might as well try.

So he placed “目” and “八” on the platform, one above the other.

The screen flickered for a moment before displaying a line of text they had never seen before:

“Character ‘貝’ received. This character does not count toward this game’s score. Please create again.”

“Ah…?” Qiao Jiejin reached out and tapped the screen. “It’s broken, trickster! This screen doesn’t seem to recognize characters! It doesn’t even know ‘貝’!”

“It’s probably not that it ‘doesn’t recognize characters’…” Qixia said. “Think about it—from the beginning, Earth Dragon gave us simplified characters. ‘車’ became ‘车,’ ‘馬’ became ‘马.’ So purely traditional characters likely don’t count toward the score, at least ‘貝’ doesn’t.”

Qiao Jiejin fell silent for a long moment before slowly saying, “Is this game targeting me…?”

Qixia knew the game wasn’t just targeting Qiao Jiejin—it was targeting all “participants.” If traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would be higher.

But now…

“Wait…” Qixia’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the scattered characters on the screen. “I think I’ve been too fixated on the concept of components and radicals… When Cang Jie first created these characters… how could he have been limited by such concepts…”

With that thought, Qixia reached out and picked up the “八.”

He gently moved his fingers, rotating the small metal character “八” 180 degrees and placing it on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform” to form an “inverted eight.” Under Qiao Jiejin’s puzzled gaze, he then picked up “木” and placed it below the “inverted eight.”

“Huh…?” Qiao Jiejin was baffled. “What is this…?”

“This is the only way to get enough characters…” Qixia murmured. “No wonder I felt we were short on ‘characters’…”

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:

“Character prototype ‘米’ received. Please write a homophone.”

Qiao Jiejin stared in astonishment for a long moment before exclaiming, “Holy crap!! You can even form ‘米’ like that… You’ve got a sharp mind, trickster!”

“I should’ve thought of it sooner…” Qixia said. “Now we can form more characters.”

Qiao Jiejin stared at the screen for a while before sensing something off. “Trickster… do you… know the homophone for ‘米’?”

“米…?”

Qixia stroked his chin upon hearing this. The most common character with this pronunciation was naturally “米” itself, but writing “米” now obviously wouldn’t count.

“Got it.” Qixia raised an eyebrow and reached out to tap the screen.

His sharp, knife-like handwriting swept across the screen, leaving behind a vivid red character:

“芈.”

“…?” Qiao Jiejin was slightly taken aback. “Trickster, you really know a lot…”

“Creation successful.”

A total of nine points.

“These two…?”

“Look!” Qiao Jijin said with a laugh, “I told you! This character only has one pronunciation—’bīn’.”

Qixia didn’t know how to explain the situation and could only nod silently.

No matter how you looked at it, the pronunciation of “梹” was relatively easy to guess. If they encountered other rare characters later, it would truly become a high-stakes gamble.

Although Earth Dragon mentioned in the “rules” that “writing homophones” was meant to prevent both teams from using obscure characters, after some deduction, Qixia felt that forming twenty-eight characters without using rare ones seemed nearly impossible.

Qixia lowered his head and looked again at the “兵” in his hand. Logically, now wasn’t the best time to form “characters,” as he had too few components. But since the opponent had already launched an attack, he could only take things one step at a time.

He picked up the “兵.” To be precise, it was a “丘” and an “八.” The “八” was welded together as a single unit and couldn’t be separated.

Qixia first placed the “丘” on the platform, earning one point, then placed the “八” separately. Unfortunately, since the “八” was a single piece, he couldn’t further form “乒” and “乓,” which would have earned him two more points.

With that, Qixia’s team had a total of seven points: “兵,” “木,” “目,” “相,” “梹,” “丘,” and “八.” They were still twenty-one “characters” short of the twenty-eight needed.

Given the circumstances… could the components in his hand form other “characters”?

Qixia experimented, trying several combinations on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform.” But he soon realized that not every combination was recognized by the screen.

After testing a few possibilities, another strange “character” caught their attention. The screen clearly displayed:

“Character雏形 ‘朳’ received. Please write a homophone.”

“This…” Qiao Jijin was stunned again. “Is this character pronounced ‘pá’ or ‘bā’?”

Qixia felt that Qiao Jijin had raised a worthwhile question.

Although the character “八” is pronounced “bā,” in many common words, when “八” combines with other components, its pronunciation often changes—for example, “趴着” (pā zhe, lying down) or “扒手” (pá shǒu, pickpocket).

But the character “扒” can also be pronounced “bā,” as in “扒开” (bā kāi, to pry open). Similarly, the onomatopoeic word “叭” (bā) is also commonly used.

Beyond that, Qixia couldn’t think of any other common characters containing “八.” In his current memory, there were two characters each for both “pā” and “bā.”

“We’ll have to take a gamble…” Qixia said.

He reached out, thought for a few seconds, and then wrote the homophone on the screen—”巴.”

—”Creation successful.”

Total: eight points.

“Whew…” Qixia let out a deep breath and shook his head. “I really don’t like this reckless feeling. It’s no different from being an ordinary gambler.”

“No worries, trickster!” Qiao Jijin patted Qixia’s shoulder. “Scoring points is good enough!”

Qixia nodded and continued examining the scattered “characters” in his hand. He had already deduced many possibilities but felt something was missing.

Why were there so few characters they could form?

“You can form one more character,” Qiao Jijin said, pointing at the components in Qixia’s hand. “This one and this one—these two can form a ‘character.'”

Qixia looked down. Qiao Jijin was pointing at “目” and “八.”

“These two…?”

“Yeah,” Qiao Jijin nodded. “This is ‘贝’ as in ‘贝壳’ (bèi ké, shell). How did you overlook such a simple character, trickster? It’s like not seeing what’s right under your nose!”

“This…?” Qixia frowned slightly. He naturally knew which character Qiao Jijin was referring to, but it wasn’t a matter of oversight—it was a direction he had never considered.

Traditional characters…?

“贝…” Qixia stroked his chin. Whether it would work or not, he could just try it.

So he placed “目” and “八” on the platform, one above the other.

The screen flickered for a moment before displaying a line of text they had never seen before:

“Character ‘貝’ received. This character does not count toward the game score. Please create again.”

“Ah…?” Qiao Jijin tapped the screen. “It’s broken, trickster! This screen doesn’t seem to recognize characters! It doesn’t even know ‘貝’!”

“It’s probably not that it ‘doesn’t recognize characters’…” Qixia said. “Think about it—from the beginning, Earth Dragon gave us simplified characters. ‘車’ became ‘车,’ ‘馬’ became ‘马.’ So, purely traditional characters shouldn’t count toward the score. At the very least, ‘貝’ doesn’t count.”

Qiao Jijin fell silent for a long moment before slowly saying, “Is this game targeting me…?”

Qixia knew the game wasn’t just targeting Qiao Jijin—it was targeting all “participants.” If traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would be higher.

But now…

“Wait…” Qixia’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the scattered characters on the screen. “I think I’ve been too fixated on the concept of components and radicals… When Cang Jie originally created these characters… how could he have been limited by such concepts…”

With that thought, Qixia reached out and picked up the “八.”

He gently moved his fingers, rotating the small metal character “八” 180 degrees and placing it on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform” to form an “inverted eight.” Under Qiao Jijin’s puzzled gaze, he then picked up “木” and placed it below the “inverted eight.”

“Huh…?” Qiao Jijin looked confused. “What is this…?”

“This is the only way to get enough characters…” Qixia murmured. “No wonder I felt we didn’t have enough ‘characters’…”

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:

“Character雏形 ‘米’ received. Please write a homophone.”

Qiao Jijin stared in astonishment for a long moment before exclaiming, “Holy crap!! You can even form ‘米’ like this… You’ve got a sharp mind, trickster!”

“I should have thought of it sooner…” Qixia said. “Now we can form more characters.”

Qiao Jijin stared at the screen for a while before sensing something off. “Trickster… do you know the homophone for ‘米’?”

“米…?”

Qixia stroked his chin. The most common character with this pronunciation was naturally “米” itself, but writing “米” now obviously wouldn’t count.

“Got it.” Qixia raised an eyebrow and tapped the screen.

His sharp, knife-like handwriting swept across the screen, leaving behind a vivid red character:

“芈.”

“…?” Qiao Jijin was slightly taken aback. “Trickster, you really know a lot…”

“Creation successful.”

Total: nine points.

“Uh…?” Qi Xia frowned slightly. He knew exactly what Qiao Jiajin was referring to, but it wasn’t a “blind spot”—it was a direction he had never considered.

Traditional characters…?

“Look!” Qiao Jiejin said with a laugh, “I told you! This character only has one pronunciation—’bīn’.”

Qixia didn’t know how to explain the situation and could only nod silently.

No matter how you looked at it, the pronunciation of “梹” was relatively easy to guess. If they encountered other rare characters later, it would truly become a high-stakes gamble.

Although Earth Dragon mentioned in the “rules” that “writing homophones” was meant to prevent both teams from using obscure characters, after some deliberation, Qixia felt that forming twenty-eight characters without using rare ones seemed almost impossible.

Qixia lowered his head and glanced again at the “兵” in his hand. Logically, now wasn’t the best time to form “characters,” since he had too few components. But with the opponent already on the offensive, he had no choice but to take things one step at a time.

He picked up the “兵.” To be precise, it was a “丘” and an “八.” The “八” was welded together as a single unit and couldn’t be separated.

Qixia first placed the “丘” on the platform, earning one point, then separately placed the “八.” Unfortunately, since “八” was a single unit, he couldn’t further form “乒” and “乓,” which would have earned him two more points.

With that, Qixia’s team had a total of seven points: “兵,” “木,” “目,” “相,” “梹,” “丘,” and “八.” They were still twenty-one “characters” short of the twenty-eight needed.

Given this, could the components in hand be combined to form other “characters”?

Qixia experimented, placing several possible combinations onto the “Phoenix Scroll Platform.” However, he quickly realized that not every combination was recognized by the screen.

After trying a few possibilities, another strange “character” caught their attention. The screen clearly displayed:

“Received character雏形 ‘朳.’ Please write a homophone.”

“This…” Qiao Jiejin was stunned once again. “Is this character pronounced ‘pá’ or ‘bā’?”

Hearing this, Qixia felt that Qiao Jiejin had raised a worthwhile question.

Although the character “八” is pronounced “bā,” in many common characters, when “八” is combined with other components, its pronunciation often changes—for example, “趴着” (pā zhe, lying down) and “扒手” (pá shǒu, pickpocket).

But the character “扒” can also be pronounced “bā,” as in “扒开” (bā kāi, to pry open). Similarly, the onomatopoeic word “叭” (bā) is also commonly used.

Beyond that, Qixia couldn’t think of any other common characters containing “八.” In his current memory, there were two characters each for both the “pā” and “bā” pronunciations.

“We’ll have to take a gamble…” Qixia said.

He reached out his hand, thought for a few seconds, and then wrote the homophone on the screen—”巴.”

—”Creation successful.”

A total of eight points.

“Whew…” Qixia let out a deep breath, shaking his head. “I really don’t like this reckless feeling. It’s no different from being an ordinary gambler.”

“No problem,骗子仔 (Trickster)!” Qiao Jiejin patted Qixia’s shoulder. “Scoring points is good enough!”

Qixia nodded and continued examining the scattered “characters” in his hand. He had already deliberated many times but felt something was missing.

Why were there so few possible combinations?

“You can form one more character,” Qiao Jiejin said, pointing at the components in Qixia’s hand. “This one and this one—these two can form a ‘character.'”

Qixia looked down. Qiao Jiejin was pointing at “目” and “八.”

“These two…?”

“Yeah,” Qiao Jiejin nodded. “This is ‘贝’ (bèi), as in ‘贝壳’ (bèiké, shell). How did you overlook such a simple character,骗子仔? It’s like being blind to what’s right under your nose!”

“This…?” Qixia frowned slightly. He naturally knew which character Qiao Jiejin was referring to, but it wasn’t a matter of oversight—it was a direction he had never considered.

Traditional characters…?

“贝…” Qixia stroked his chin. Whether it would work or not, he might as well try.

So he placed “目” and “八” on the platform, one above the other.

The screen flickered for a moment before displaying a line of text they had never seen before:

“Received character ‘貝.’ This character does not count toward the game score. Please create again.”

“Ah…?” Qiao Jiejin reached out and tapped the screen. “It’s broken,骗子仔! This screen doesn’t seem to recognize characters! It doesn’t even know ‘貝’!”

“It’s probably not that it ‘doesn’t recognize characters’…” Qixia said. “Think about it—from the beginning, the ‘characters’ Earth Dragon gave us omitted traditional forms. ‘車’ became ‘车,’ ‘馬’ became ‘马.’ So, purely traditional characters shouldn’t count toward the score. At the very least, ‘貝’ doesn’t count.”

Qiao Jiejin fell silent for a long moment before slowly saying, “Is this game targeting me…?”

Qixia knew the game wasn’t just targeting Qiao Jiejin—it was targeting all “participants.” If traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would improve.

But now…

“Wait…” Qixia’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the scattered characters on the screen. “I think I’ve been too fixated on the concept of components and radicals… When Cang Jie first created these characters… how could he have been limited by such concepts…?”

With that thought, Qixia reached out and picked up the “八.”

He gently moved his fingers, rotating the small metal character “八” 180 degrees and placing it on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform” to form an “inverted eight.” Under Qiao Jiejin’s bewildered gaze, he then picked up “木” and placed it below the “inverted eight.”

“Huh…?” Qiao Jiejin stared in confusion. “What is this…?”

“This is the only way to get enough characters…” Qixia murmured softly. “No wonder I felt there weren’t enough ‘characters’…”

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:

“Received character雏形 ‘米.’ Please write a homophone.”

Qiao Jiejin stared in astonishment for a long moment before exclaiming, “Holy… crap!! You can even form ‘米’ this way…骗子仔, you’ve got a sharp mind!”

“I should’ve thought of it sooner…” Qixia said. “Now we can form more characters.”

Qiao Jiejin stared at the screen for a while before sensing something amiss. “骗子仔… do you know the homophone for ‘米’?”

“米…?”

Qixia stroked his chin upon hearing this. The most commonly used character with this pronunciation was naturally “米” itself, but writing “米” now obviously wouldn’t count.

“Got it.” Qixia raised an eyebrow and reached out, tapping on the screen.

His sharp, knife-like handwriting swept across the screen, leaving behind a vivid red character:

“芈.”

“…?” Qiao Jiejin was slightly taken aback. “骗子仔, you really know a lot…”

“Creation successful.”

A total of nine points.

“Look!” Qiao Jiejin said with a laugh, “I told you! This character only has one pronunciation—’bīn’.”

Qixia didn’t know how to explain the situation and could only nod silently.

No matter how you looked at it, the pronunciation of “梹” was relatively easy to guess. If they encountered other rare characters later, it would truly become a high-stakes gamble.

Although Earth Dragon mentioned in the “rules” that “writing homophones” was meant to prevent both teams from using rare characters, after some deliberation, Qixia felt that forming twenty-eight characters without using rare ones seemed nearly impossible.

Qixia lowered his head and looked again at the “兵” in his hand. Logically, now wasn’t the best time to form “characters,” as he had too few components. But since the opponent had already launched an attack, he could only take things one step at a time.

He picked up the “兵”—more precisely, a “丘” and an “八.” The “八” was welded together as a whole and couldn’t be separated.

Qixia first placed the “丘” on the platform, earning one point, then placed the “八” separately. Unfortunately, since the “八” was a single unit, he couldn’t further form “乒” and “乓,” which would have earned him two more points.

With that, Qixia’s team had a total of seven points: “兵,” “木,” “目,” “相,” “梹,” “丘,” and “八.” They were still twenty-one “characters” short of the twenty-eight-point goal.

Given the circumstances… could the components in his hand form other “characters”?

Qixia experimented, placing several possible combinations onto the “Phoenix Scroll Platform.” However, he quickly realized that not every combination was recognized by the screen.

After trying a few possibilities, another strange “character” caught their attention. The screen displayed:

“Received character prototype ‘朳.’ Please write a homophone.”

“Uh…” Qiao Jiejin was stunned once again. “Does this character read ‘pá’ or ‘bā’?”

Qixia felt that Qiao Jiejin had raised a worthwhile question.

Although the character “八” is pronounced “bā,” in many common words, when “八” combines with other components, its pronunciation often changes—for example, “趴着” (pā zhe, lying down) and “扒手” (pá shǒu, pickpocket).

But the character “扒” can also be pronounced “bā,” as in “扒开” (bā kāi, to pry open). Similarly, the onomatopoeic word “叭” (bā) is also commonly used.

Beyond that, Qixia couldn’t think of any other common characters containing “八.” In his current memory, there were two characters each for both “pā” and “bā.”

“We’ll have to take a gamble…” Qixia said.

He reached out his hand, thought for a few seconds, and then wrote the homophone on the screen—”巴.”

—”Creation successful.”

Total: eight points.

“Whew…” Qixia let out a deep breath and shook his head. “I really don’t like this reckless feeling. It’s no different from being an ordinary gambler.”

“No problem,骗子仔!” Qiao Jiejin patted Qixia’s shoulder. “Scoring points is good enough!”

Qixia nodded and continued examining the scattered “characters” in his hand. He had already deliberated many times but felt something was missing.

Why were there so few possible combinations?

“You can form one more character,” Qiao Jiejin said, pointing at the components in Qixia’s hand. “This one and this one—these two can form a ‘character.'”

Qixia looked down. Qiao Jiejin was pointing at “目” and “八.”

“These two…?”

“Yeah,” Qiao Jiejin nodded. “It’s ‘贝,’ as in ‘贝壳’ (bèi ké, shell). How did you overlook such a simple character, 骗子仔? Sometimes the answer is right under your nose!”

“This…?” Qixia frowned slightly. He naturally knew which character Qiao Jiejin was referring to, but it wasn’t a case of “overlooking the obvious.” It was a direction he had never considered.

Traditional characters…?

“贝…” Qixia stroked his chin. Whether it would work or not, he could just try it.

So he placed “目” and “八” on the platform, one above the other.

The screen flickered for a moment before displaying a line of text they had never seen before:

“Received character ‘貝.’ This character does not count toward the game score. Please create again.”

“Ah…?” Qiao Jiejin reached out and tapped the screen. “It’s broken, 骗子仔! This screen doesn’t seem to recognize characters! It doesn’t even know ‘貝’!”

“It’s probably not that it ‘doesn’t recognize characters’…” Qixia said. “Think about it—from the beginning, Earth Dragon gave us simplified characters. ‘車’ became ‘车,’ ‘馬’ became ‘马.’ So, purely traditional characters shouldn’t count toward the score. At the very least, ‘貝’ doesn’t count.”

Qiao Jiejin fell silent for a long moment before slowly saying, “Is this game targeting me…?”

Qixia knew the game wasn’t just targeting Qiao Jiejin—it was targeting all “participants.” If traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would be higher.

But now…

“Wait…” Qixia’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the scattered characters on the screen. “I think I’ve been too fixated on the concept of components and radicals… When Cang Jie first created these characters… how could he have been limited by such concepts…?”

With that thought, Qixia reached out and picked up the “八.”

He gently moved his fingers, rotating the small metal character “八” 180 degrees and placing it on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform” to form an “inverted eight.” Under Qiao Jiejin’s bewildered gaze, he then picked up “木” and placed it below the “inverted eight.”

“Huh…?” Qiao Jiejin was utterly confused. “What is this…?”

“This is the only way to get enough characters…” Qixia murmured. “No wonder I felt like we didn’t have enough ‘characters’…”

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:

“Received character prototype ‘米.’ Please write a homophone.”

Qiao Jiejin stared in astonishment for a long moment before exclaiming, “Holy crap!! You can even form ‘米’ like this… 骗子仔, you’ve got a sharp mind!”

“I should have thought of it sooner…” Qixia said. “Now we can form more characters.”

Qiao Jiejin stared at the screen for a while before sensing something off. “骗子仔… do you know the homophone for ‘米’?”

“米…?”

Qixia stroked his chin upon hearing this. The most commonly used character with this pronunciation was naturally “米” itself, but writing “米” now obviously wouldn’t count.

“Got it.” Qixia raised an eyebrow and reached out to tap the screen.

His sharp, knife-like handwriting swept across the screen, leaving behind a vivid red character:

“芈.”

“…?” Qiao Jiejin was slightly taken aback. “骗子仔, you really know a lot…”

“Creation successful.”

Total: nine points.

The screen flickered for a moment before displaying an unfamiliar message:

“Look!” Qiao Jiejin said with a laugh, “I told you! This character only has one pronunciation—’bīn’.”

Qixia didn’t know how to explain the situation and could only nod silently.

No matter how you looked at it, the pronunciation of “梹” was relatively easy to guess. If they encountered other rare characters later, it would truly be a gamble.

Although Earth Dragon mentioned in the “rules” that “writing homophones” was meant to prevent both teams from using rare characters, after some deduction, Qixia felt that forming twenty-eight characters without using rare ones seemed almost impossible.

Qixia lowered his head and looked again at the “兵” in his hand. Logically, now wasn’t the best time to form “characters,” as he had too few components. But since the opponent had already launched an attack, he could only take things one step at a time.

He picked up the “兵.” To be precise, it was a “丘” and an “八.” The “八” was welded together as a single unit and couldn’t be separated.

Qixia first placed the “丘” on the platform, earning one point, then placed the “八” separately. Unfortunately, since the “八” was a single unit, he couldn’t use it to form “乒” and “乓,” which would have earned him two more points.

With that, Qixia’s team had a total of seven points: “兵,” “木,” “目,” “相,” “梹,” “丘,” and “八.” They were still twenty-one “characters” short of twenty-eight.

Given the situation… could the components in his hand form other “characters”?

Qixia experimented, trying several combinations on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform.” But he soon realized that not every combination was recognized by the screen.

After testing a few possibilities, another strange “character” caught their attention. The screen displayed:

“Received character prototype ‘朳.’ Please write a homophone.”

“Uh…” Qiao Jiejin was stunned again. “Is this character pronounced ‘pá’ or ‘bā’?”

Qixia felt that Qiao Jiejin had raised a valid question.

Although the character “八” is pronounced “bā,” in many common characters, when “八” combines with other components, its pronunciation often changes—like in “趴着” (pāzhe, lying down) or “扒手” (páshǒu, pickpocket).

But the character “扒” can also be pronounced “bā,” as in “扒开” (bākāi, to pry open). Another common example is the onomatopoeic character “叭” (bā).

Beyond that, Qixia couldn’t think of any other common characters containing “八.” Based on his current memory, there were two characters each for both “pā” and “bā.”

“We’ll have to take a gamble…” Qixia said.

He reached out, thought for a few seconds, and then wrote the homophone on the screen—”巴.”

—”Creation successful.”

Total: eight points.

“Whew…” Qixia let out a deep breath and shook his head. “I really don’t like this reckless feeling. It’s no different from being an ordinary gambler.”

“No worries, trickster!” Qiao Jiejin patted Qixia’s shoulder. “Scoring points is good enough!”

Qixia nodded and continued examining the scattered “characters” in his hand. He had already deduced many possibilities but felt something was missing.

Why were there so few characters he could form?

“You can form one more character,” Qiao Jiejin said, pointing at the components in Qixia’s hand. “This one and this one—these two can form a ‘character.'”

Qixia looked down. Qiao Jiejin was pointing at “目” and “八.”

“These two…?”

“Yeah,” Qiao Jiejin nodded. “It’s ‘贝’ (bèi), as in ‘贝壳’ (bèiké, shell). How did you overlook such a simple character, trickster? It’s like not seeing what’s right under your nose!”

“This…?” Qixia frowned slightly. He knew exactly which character Qiao Jiejin was referring to, but it wasn’t a matter of oversight—it was a direction he had never considered.

Traditional characters…?

“贝…” Qixia stroked his chin. Whether it would work or not, he could just try it.

So he placed “目” and “八” on the platform, one above the other.

The screen flickered for a moment before displaying a line of text they had never seen before:

“Received character ‘貝.’ This character does not count toward the game score. Please create again.”

“Huh…?” Qiao Jiejin tapped the screen. “It’s broken, trickster! This screen doesn’t seem to recognize characters! It doesn’t even know ‘貝’!”

“It’s probably not that it ‘doesn’t recognize characters’…” Qixia said. “Think about it—from the beginning, Earth Dragon gave us simplified characters. ‘車’ became ‘车,’ ‘馬’ became ‘马.’ So purely traditional characters shouldn’t count toward the score, at least not ‘貝.'”

Qiao Jiejin fell silent for a long moment before slowly saying, “Is this game targeting me…?”

Qixia knew the game wasn’t just targeting Qiao Jiejin—it was targeting all “participants.” If traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would be higher.

But now…

“Wait…” Qixia’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the scattered characters on the screen. “I’ve been too fixated on the concept of components and radicals… When Cang Jie first created these characters… how could he have been limited by such concepts…”

With that thought, Qixia reached out and picked up the “八.”

He gently moved his fingers, rotating the metal character “八” 180 degrees and placing it on the Phoenix Scroll Platform to form an “inverted eight.” Under Qiao Jiejin’s puzzled gaze, he then placed “木” beneath the “inverted eight.”

“Hey…?” Qiao Jiejin looked confused. “What is this…?”

“This is the only way to get enough characters…” Qixia murmured. “No wonder I felt like there weren’t enough characters…”

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:

“Received character prototype ‘米.’ Please write a homophone.”

Qiao Jiejin stared in astonishment for a long moment before exclaiming, “Holy crap!! You can even form ‘米’ this way… You’ve got a sharp mind, trickster!”

“I should’ve thought of it sooner…” Qixia said. “Now we can form more characters.”

Qiao Jiejin stared at the screen for a while before sensing something off. “Trickster… do you know the homophone for ‘米’?”

“米…?”

Qixia stroked his chin. The most common character with this pronunciation was “米” itself, but writing “米” obviously wouldn’t count.

“Got it.” Qixia’s eyebrows lifted as he reached out and tapped the screen.

His sharp, knife-like handwriting swept across the screen, leaving behind a vivid red character:

“芈.”

“…?” Qiao Jiejin was slightly taken aback. “Trickster, you really know a lot…”

“Creation successful.”

Total: nine points.

“Look!” Qiao Jiejin said with a laugh, “I told you! This character only has one pronunciation—’bīn’.”

Qixia didn’t know how to explain the situation and could only nod silently.

No matter how you looked at it, the pronunciation of “梹” was relatively easy to guess. If they encountered other rare characters later, it would truly become a high-stakes gamble.

Although Earth Dragon mentioned in the “rules” that “writing homophones” was meant to prevent both teams from using obscure characters, after some deduction, Qixia felt that avoiding rare characters to form twenty-eight characters seemed almost impossible.

Qixia lowered his head and looked again at the “兵” in his hand. Logically, now wasn’t the best time to form “characters,” as he had too few pieces. But since the opponent had already launched an attack, he could only take things one step at a time.

He picked up the “兵.” To be precise, it was a “丘” and an “八.” The “八” was welded together as a whole and couldn’t be separated.

Qixia first placed the “丘” on the platform, earning one point, then placed the “八” separately. Unfortunately, the “八” was a single piece and couldn’t be used to form “乒” or “乓,” otherwise he would have scored two more points.

With that, Qixia’s team had a total of seven points: “兵,” “木,” “目,” “相,” “梹,” “丘,” and “八.” They were still twenty-one “characters” short of the twenty-eight points needed.

Given the circumstances… could the components in his hand form other “characters”?

Qixia experimented, placing several possible combinations onto the “Phoenix Scroll Platform.” But he soon realized that not every combination was recognized by the screen.

After trying a few possibilities, another strange “character” caught their attention. The screen clearly displayed:

“Received character雏形 ‘朳.’ Please write a homophone.”

“This…” Qiao Jiejin was stunned again. “Does this character read ‘pá’ or ‘bā’?”

Hearing this, Qixia felt that Qiao Jiejin had raised a worthwhile question.

Although the character “八” is pronounced “bā,” in many common characters, when “八” is combined with other components, its pronunciation often changes—for example, “趴着” (pā zhe, lying down) or “扒手” (pá shǒu, pickpocket).

But the character “扒” can also be pronounced “bā,” as in “扒开” (bā kāi, to pry open). Similarly, the onomatopoeic word “叭” (bā) is also commonly used.

Beyond that, Qixia couldn’t think of any other common characters containing “八.” In his current memory, there were two characters each for both “pā” and “bā.”

“We’ll have to take a gamble…” Qixia said.

He reached out his hand, thought for a few seconds, and wrote the homophone on the screen—”巴.”

—”Creation successful.”

A total of eight points.

“Whew…” Qixia let out a deep breath and shook his head. “I really don’t like this reckless feeling. It’s no different from being an ordinary gambler.”

“No problem,骗子仔!” Qiao Jiejin patted Qixia’s shoulder. “Scoring points is good enough!”

Qixia nodded and continued examining the scattered “characters” in his hand. He had already deduced many possibilities but felt something was missing.

Why were there so few characters they could form?

“We can form one more character,” Qiao Jiejin said, pointing at the components in Qixia’s hand. “This one and this one—these two can form a ‘character.'”

Qixia looked down. Qiao Jiejin was pointing at “目” and “八.”

“These two…?”

“Yeah,” Qiao Jiejin nodded. “This is ‘贝,’ as in ‘贝壳’ (bèi ké, shell). How did you overlook such a simple character,骗子仔? It’s like being blind to what’s right under your nose!”

“This…?” Qixia frowned slightly. He naturally knew which character Qiao Jiejin was referring to, but it wasn’t a case of “being blind to what’s right under your nose.” It was a direction he had never considered.

A traditional character…?

“贝…” Qixia stroked his chin. Whether it could be formed or not, it was worth a try.

So he placed “目” and “八” on the platform, one above the other.

The screen flickered for a moment before displaying a line of text they had never seen before:

“Received character ‘貝.’ This character does not count toward the game score. Please create again.”

“Ah…?” Qiao Jiejin reached out and tapped the screen. “It’s broken,骗子仔! This screen doesn’t seem to recognize characters! It doesn’t even know ‘貝’!”

“It’s probably not that it ‘doesn’t recognize characters’…” Qixia said. “Think about it—from the beginning, Earth Dragon gave us simplified characters. ‘車’ became ‘车,’ ‘馬’ became ‘马.’ So, purely traditional characters shouldn’t count toward the score. At the very least, ‘貝’ doesn’t count.”

Qiao Jiejin fell silent for a long moment before slowly saying, “Is this game targeting me…?”

Qixia knew the game wasn’t just targeting Qiao Jiejin—it was targeting all “participants.” If traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would be higher.

But now…

“Wait…” Qixia’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the scattered characters on the screen. “I think I’ve been too fixated on the concept of components and radicals… When Cang Jie first created these characters… how could he have been limited by such concepts…?”

With that thought, Qixia reached out and picked up the “八.”

He gently moved his fingers, rotating the small metal character “八” 180 degrees and placing it on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform” to form an “inverted eight.” Under Qiao Jiejin’s puzzled gaze, he then picked up “木” and placed it below the “inverted eight.”

“Huh…?” Qiao Jiejin was utterly confused. “What is this…?”

“This is the only way to get enough characters…” Qixia murmured. “No wonder I felt we were short on ‘characters’…”

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:

“Received character雏形 ‘米.’ Please write a homophone.”

Qiao Jiejin stared at it for a long moment before exclaiming in amazement, “Holy crap!! You can even form ‘米’ like this…骗子仔, you’ve got a sharp mind!”

“I should’ve thought of it sooner…” Qixia said. “Now we can form more characters.”

Qiao Jiejin stared at the screen for a while before sensing something off. “骗子仔… do you know the homophone for ‘米’?”

“米…?”

Qixia stroked his chin upon hearing this. The most commonly used character with this pronunciation was naturally “米” itself, but writing “米” now obviously wouldn’t count.

“Got it.” Qixia raised an eyebrow and reached out to tap the screen.

His sharp, knife-like handwriting swept across the screen, leaving behind a vivid red character:

“芈.”

“…?” Qiao Jiejin was slightly taken aback. “骗子仔, you really know a lot…”

“Creation successful.”

A total of nine points.

“Look!” Qiao Jiejin said with a laugh, “I told you! This character only has one pronunciation—’bīn’.”

Qixia didn’t know how to explain the situation and could only nod silently.

No matter how you looked at it, the pronunciation of “梹” was relatively easy to guess. If they encountered other rare characters later, it would truly become a high-stakes gamble.

Although Earth Dragon mentioned in the “rules” that “writing homophones” was meant to prevent both teams from using obscure characters, after some deduction, Qixia felt that forming twenty-eight characters without using rare ones seemed nearly impossible.

Qixia lowered his head and looked again at the “兵” in his hand. Logically, now wasn’t the best time to form “characters,” as he had too few components. But since the opponent had already launched an attack, he had no choice but to take it one step at a time.

He picked up the “兵.” To be precise, it was a “丘” and an “八,” with the “八” welded together as a single unit that couldn’t be separated.

Qixia first placed the “丘” on the platform, earning one point, then separately placed the “八.” Unfortunately, since the “八” was a single piece, he couldn’t further form “乒” and “乓,” which would have earned him two more points.

With that, Qixia’s team had a total of seven points: “兵,” “木,” “目,” “相,” “梹,” “丘,” and “八.” They were still twenty-one “characters” short of the twenty-eight needed.

Given the circumstances… could the components in hand form other “characters”?

Qixia experimented, placing several possible combinations onto the “Phoenix Scroll Platform.” However, he quickly realized that not every combination was recognized by the screen.

After trying a few possibilities, another strange “character” caught their attention. The screen displayed:

“Received character prototype ‘朳.’ Please write a homophone.”

“This…” Qiao Jiejin was stunned once again. “Does this character read ‘pá’ or ‘bā’?”

Hearing this, Qixia felt that Qiao Jiejin had raised a worthwhile question.

Although the character “八” is pronounced “bā,” in many commonly used characters, when “八” combines with other components, its pronunciation often changes—for example, “趴着” (pāzhe, lying down) and “扒手” (páshǒu, pickpocket).

But the character “扒” can also be pronounced “bā,” as in “扒开” (bākāi, to pry open). Similarly, the onomatopoeic word “叭” (bā) is also commonly used.

Beyond these, Qixia couldn’t think of any other commonly used characters containing “八.” In his current memory, there were two characters each for both the “pā” and “bā” pronunciations.

“We’ll have to take a gamble…” Qixia said.

He reached out, thought for a few seconds, and then wrote the homophone on the screen—”巴.”

—”Creation successful.”

A total of eight points.

“Whew…” Qixia let out a deep breath, shaking his head. “I really don’t like this reckless feeling. It’s no different from being an ordinary gambler.”

“No problem,骗子仔!” Qiao Jiejin patted Qixia’s shoulder. “Scoring points is good enough!”

Qixia nodded and continued examining the scattered “characters” in his hand. He had already deduced many possibilities but felt something was missing.

Why were there so few characters they could form?

“We can form one more character,” Qiao Jiejin said, pointing to the components in Qixia’s hand. “This one and this one—these two can form a ‘character.'”

Qixia looked down. Qiao Jiejin was pointing at “目” and “八.”

“These two…?”

“Yeah,” Qiao Jiejin nodded. “It’s ‘贝,’ as in ‘贝壳’ (bèiké, shell). How did you overlook such a simple character,骗子仔? It’s like being blind to what’s right under your nose!”

“This…?” Qixia frowned slightly. He naturally knew which character Qiao Jiejin was referring to, but it wasn’t a case of “being blind to what’s right under your nose.” It was a direction he had never considered.

Traditional characters…?

“贝…” Qixia stroked his chin. Whether it would work or not, they might as well try.

So he placed “目” and “八” on the platform, one above the other.

The screen flickered for a moment before displaying a line of text they had never seen before:

“Received character ‘貝.’ This character does not count toward the game score. Please create again.”

“Ah…?” Qiao Jiejin tapped the screen. “It’s broken,骗子仔! This screen doesn’t seem to recognize characters! It doesn’t even know ‘貝’!”

“It’s probably not that it ‘doesn’t recognize characters’…” Qixia said. “Think about it—from the beginning, Earth Dragon gave us simplified characters. ‘車’ became ‘车,’ ‘馬’ became ‘马.’ So, purely traditional characters shouldn’t count toward the score, at least ‘貝’ doesn’t.”

Qiao Jiejin fell silent for a long moment before slowly saying, “Is this game targeting me…?”

Qixia knew the game wasn’t just targeting Qiao Jiejin but all “participants.” If traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would be higher.

But now…

“Wait…” Qixia’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the scattered characters on the screen. “I’ve been too stuck on the concepts of radicals and components… When Cang Jie first created these characters… how could he have been limited by such concepts…”

With that thought, Qixia reached out and picked up the “八.”

He gently moved his fingers, rotating the metal character “八” 180 degrees and placing it on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform” to form an “inverted eight.” Under Qiao Jiejin’s puzzled gaze, he then picked up “木” and placed it below the “inverted eight.”

“Huh…?” Qiao Jiejin was baffled. “What is this…?”

“This is the only way to get enough characters…” Qixia murmured. “No wonder I felt we were short on ‘characters’…”

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:

“Received character prototype ‘米.’ Please write a homophone.”

Qiao Jiejin stared in astonishment for a long moment before exclaiming, “Holy crap!! You can even form ‘米’ this way…骗子仔, you’ve got a sharp mind!”

“I should have thought of it sooner…” Qixia said. “Now we can form more characters.”

Qiao Jiejin stared at the screen for a while before sensing something off. “骗子仔… do you know a homophone for ‘米’?”

“米…?”

Qixia stroked his chin. The most commonly used character with this pronunciation was “米” itself, but writing “米” again obviously wouldn’t count.

“Got it.” Qixia raised an eyebrow and tapped on the screen.

His sharp, knife-like strokes left a vivid red character on the screen:

“芈.”

“…?” Qiao Jiejin was slightly taken aback. “骗子仔, you really know a lot…”

“Creation successful.”

A total of nine points.

Qiao Jiajin fell silent for a long moment before muttering, “Is this game targeting me…?”

Qi Xia knew the game wasn’t just targeting Qiao Jiajin—it was targeting all “participants.” If traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would be higher.

But now…

“Wait…” Qi Xia stared at the scattered characters on the screen, his eyes flickering slightly. “I’ve been too fixated on radicals and components… When Cangjie first created these characters, how could he have been constrained by such rigid concepts?”

“Look!” Qiao Jiajin said with a laugh, “I told you! This character only has one pronunciation—’bīn’.”

Qixia didn’t know how to explain the situation and could only nod silently.

No matter how you looked at it, the pronunciation of “梹” was relatively easy to guess. If they encountered other rare characters later, it would truly become a high-stakes gamble.

Although Earth Dragon mentioned in the “rules” that “writing homophones” was meant to prevent both teams from using obscure characters, after some deliberation, Qixia felt that forming twenty-eight characters without using rare ones seemed nearly impossible.

Qixia lowered his head and glanced again at the “兵” in his hand. Logically, now wasn’t the best time to form “characters,” since he had too few components. But with the opponent already on the offensive, he had no choice but to take things one step at a time.

He picked up the “兵.” To be precise, it was a “丘” and an “八,” with the “八” welded together as a single unit that couldn’t be separated.

Qixia first placed the “丘” on the platform, earning one point, then separately placed the “八.” Unfortunately, since the “八” was a single entity, he couldn’t use it to form “乒” or “乓,” which would have earned him two more points.

With that, Qixia’s team now had a total of seven points: “兵,” “木,” “目,” “相,” “梹,” “丘,” and “八.” They were still twenty-one “characters” short of the twenty-eight needed.

Given the circumstances… could the components in his hand form other “characters”?

Qixia experimented, trying various combinations on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform.” But he soon realized that not every combination would be recognized by the screen as a valid character.

After testing a few possibilities, another strange “character” caught their attention. The screen displayed:

“Character prototype ‘朳’ received. Please write a homophone.”

“This…” Qiao Jiajin was stunned once again. “Does this character read ‘pá’ or ‘bā’?”

Hearing this, Qixia felt that Qiao Jiajin had raised a worthwhile question.

Although the character “八” is pronounced “bā,” in many common words, when “八” combines with other components, its pronunciation often changes—for example, “趴着” (pā zhe, “lying down”) or “扒手” (pá shǒu, “pickpocket”).

But the character “扒” can also be pronounced “bā,” as in “扒开” (bā kāi, “to pry open”). Similarly, the onomatopoeic word “叭” (bā) is also commonly used.

Beyond these, Qixia couldn’t think of any other common characters containing “八.” In his current memory, there were two characters each for both the “pā” and “bā” pronunciations.

“We’ll have to take a gamble…” Qixia said.

He reached out, thought for a few seconds, and then wrote the homophone on the screen—”巴.”

—”Creation successful.”

Total score: eight.

“Whew…” Qixia let out a deep breath, shaking his head. “I really don’t like this reckless feeling. It’s no different from being an ordinary gambler.”

“No worries, trickster!” Qiao Jiajin said, patting Qixia’s shoulder. “Scoring points is good enough!”

Qixia nodded and continued examining the scattered “characters” in his hand. He had already run through numerous simulations but felt something was missing.

Why were there so few possible character combinations?

“You can form one more character,” Qiao Jiajin said, pointing at the components in Qixia’s hand. “This one and this one—these two can form a ‘character.'”

Qixia looked down. Qiao Jiajin was pointing at “目” and “八.”

“These two…?”

“Yeah,” Qiao Jiajin nodded. “It’s ‘贝’ as in ‘贝壳’ (bèi ké, ‘shell’). How did you overlook such a simple character, trickster? Can’t see the forest for the trees?”

“This…?” Qixia frowned slightly. He knew exactly which character Qiao Jiajin was referring to, but it wasn’t a matter of oversight—it was a direction he had never considered.

Traditional characters…?

“贝…” Qixia stroked his chin. Whether it would work or not, he might as well try.

So he placed “目” and “八” on the platform, one above the other.

The screen flickered for a moment before displaying a line of text they had never seen before:

“Character ‘貝’ received. This character does not count toward the game score. Please create again.”

“Huh…?” Qiao Jiajin tapped the screen. “It’s broken, trickster! This screen doesn’t seem to recognize characters! It doesn’t even know ‘貝’!”

“It’s probably not that it ‘doesn’t recognize characters’…” Qixia said. “Think about it—from the beginning, Earth Dragon gave us simplified characters. ‘車’ became ‘车,’ ‘馬’ became ‘马.’ So purely traditional characters likely don’t count toward the score, at least ‘貝’ doesn’t.”

Qiao Jiajin fell silent for a long moment before slowly saying, “Is this game targeting me…?”

Qixia knew the game wasn’t just targeting Qiao Jiajin—it was targeting all “participants.” If both traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would be higher.

But now…

“Wait…” Qixia’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the scattered characters on the screen. “I’ve been too fixated on the concept of radicals and components… When Cang Jie first created these characters, how could he have been limited by such concepts…?”

With that thought, Qixia reached out and picked up the “八.”

He gently moved his fingers, rotating the metal character “八” 180 degrees and placing it on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform” to form an “inverted eight.” Under Qiao Jiajin’s puzzled gaze, he then picked up “木” and placed it beneath the “inverted eight.”

“Huh…?” Qiao Jiajin was baffled. “What is this…?”

“This is the only way to get enough characters…” Qixia murmured. “No wonder I felt like we didn’t have enough components…”

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:

“Character prototype ‘米’ received. Please write a homophone.”

Qiao Jiajin stared in astonishment for a long moment before exclaiming, “Holy…! This can form ‘米’?! Trickster, you’ve got a sharp mind!”

“I should have thought of it sooner…” Qixia said. “Now we can form more characters.”

Qiao Jiajin stared at the screen for a while before sensing something off. “Trickster… do you know the homophone for ‘米’?”

“米…?”

Qixia stroked his chin. The most common character with this pronunciation was “米” itself, but writing “米” again obviously wouldn’t count.

“Got it.” Qixia raised an eyebrow and tapped on the screen.

His sharp, knife-like handwriting swept across the screen, leaving behind a vivid red character:

“芈.”

“…?” Qiao Jiajin was slightly taken aback. “Trickster, you really know a lot…”

“Creation successful.”

Total score: nine.

“Look!” Qiao Jiejin said with a laugh, “I told you! This character only has one pronunciation—’bīn’.”

Qixia didn’t know how to explain the situation and could only nod silently.

No matter how you looked at it, the pronunciation of “梹” was relatively easy to guess. If they encountered other rare characters later, it would truly become a high-stakes gamble.

Although Dilong mentioned in the “rules” that “writing homophones” was meant to prevent both teams from using obscure characters, after some deduction, Qixia felt that avoiding rare characters to form all twenty-eight characters seemed nearly impossible.

Qixia lowered his head and looked again at the “兵” in his hand. Logically, now wasn’t the best time to form “characters,” as he had too few components. But since the opponent had already launched an attack, he had no choice but to take things one step at a time.

He picked up the “兵.” To be precise, it was a “丘” and an “八,” with the “八” welded together as a single unit that couldn’t be separated.

Qixia first placed the “丘” on the platform, earning one point, then separately placed the “八.” Unfortunately, since the “八” was a single unit, he couldn’t further form “乒” and “乓,” which would have earned him two more points.

With that, Qixia’s team had a total of seven points: “兵,” “木,” “目,” “相,” “梹,” “丘,” and “八.” They were still twenty-one “characters” short of the twenty-eight points needed.

Given the circumstances… could the components in his hand form other “characters”?

Qixia experimented, trying several combinations on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform.” But he soon realized that not every combination would be recognized by the screen as a valid character.

After testing a few possibilities, another strange “character” caught their attention. The screen displayed:

“Character prototype ‘朳’ received. Please write a homophone.”

“This…” Qiao Jiejin was stunned once again. “Is this character pronounced ‘pá’ or ‘bā’?”

Hearing this, Qixia felt that Qiao Jiejin had raised a worthwhile question.

Although the character “八” is pronounced “bā,” in many common words, when “八” combines with other components, its pronunciation often changes—for example, “趴着” (pāzhe, lying down) or “扒手” (páshǒu, pickpocket).

But the character “扒” can also be pronounced “bā,” as in “扒开” (bākāi, to pry open). Another common example is the onomatopoeic “叭” (bā).

Beyond that, Qixia couldn’t think of any other common characters containing “八.” In his current memory, there were two characters each for both “pā” and “bā.”

“We’ll have to take a gamble…” Qixia said.

He reached out, thought for a few seconds, and then wrote the homophone on the screen—”巴.”

—”Creation successful.”

Total: eight points.

“Whew…” Qixia let out a deep breath, shaking his head. “I really don’t like this reckless feeling. It’s no different from being an ordinary gambler.”

“No worries,骗子仔!” Qiao Jiejin patted Qixia’s shoulder. “Scoring points is good enough!”

Qixia nodded and continued examining the scattered “characters” in his hand. He had already deduced many possibilities but felt something was missing.

Why were there so few characters he could form?

“You can form one more character,” Qiao Jiejin said, pointing to the components in Qixia’s hand. “This one and this one—these two can form a ‘character.'”

Qixia looked down. Qiao Jiejin was pointing at “目” and “八.”

“These two…?”

“Yeah,” Qiao Jiejin nodded. “It’s ‘贝,’ as in ‘贝壳’ (bèiké, shell). How did you overlook such a simple character,骗子仔? Blinded by the obvious?”

“This…?” Qixia frowned slightly. He naturally knew which character Qiao Jiejin was referring to, but it wasn’t a case of being “blinded by the obvious.” It was a direction he had never considered.

Traditional characters…?

“贝…” Qixia stroked his chin. Whether it would work or not, he might as well try.

So he placed “目” and “八” on the platform, one above the other.

The screen flickered for a moment before displaying a line of text they had never seen before:

“Character ‘貝’ received. This character does not count toward points in this game. Please create again.”

“Ah…?” Qiao Jiejin tapped the screen. “It’s broken,骗子仔! This screen doesn’t seem to recognize characters! It doesn’t even know ‘貝’!”

“It’s probably not that it ‘doesn’t recognize characters’…” Qixia said. “Think about it—from the beginning, the characters Dilong gave us omitted traditional forms. ‘車’ became ‘车,’ ‘馬’ became ‘马.’ So, purely traditional characters shouldn’t count toward points, at least ‘貝’ doesn’t.”

Qiao Jiejin fell silent for a long moment before slowly saying, “Is this game targeting me…?”

Qixia knew the game wasn’t just targeting Qiao Jiejin—it was targeting all “participants.” If traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would be higher.

But now…

“Wait…” Qixia’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the scattered characters on the screen. “I’ve been too fixated on the concept of radicals and components… When Cang Jie first created these characters, how could he have been limited by such concepts…”

With that thought, Qixia reached out and picked up the “八.”

He gently rotated the metal character “八” 180 degrees and placed it on the Phoenix Scroll Platform, forming an “inverted eight.” Under Qiao Jiejin’s puzzled gaze, he then placed “木” beneath the “inverted eight.”

“Huh…?” Qiao Jiejin was baffled. “What is this…?”

“This is the only way to get enough characters…” Qixia murmured. “No wonder I felt there weren’t enough characters…”

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:

“Character prototype ‘米’ received. Please write a homophone.”

Qiao Jiejin stared in astonishment for a long moment before exclaiming, “Holy crap!! You can even form ‘米’ like this…骗子仔, you’ve got a sharp mind!”

“I should’ve thought of it sooner…” Qixia said. “Now we can form more characters.”

Qiao Jiejin stared at the screen for a while before sensing something off. “骗子仔… do you know a homophone for ‘米’?”

“米…?”

Qixia stroked his chin. The most common character with this pronunciation was “米” itself, but writing “米” again obviously wouldn’t count.

“Got it.” Qixia’s eyebrows lifted as he reached out and tapped the screen.

His sharp, knife-like handwriting swept across the screen, leaving behind a vivid red character:

“芈.”

“…?” Qiao Jiejin was slightly taken aback. “骗子仔, you know a lot…”

“Creation successful.”

Total: nine points.

“Eh…?” Qiao Jiajin was utterly confused. “What’s this…?”

“This is the only way to get enough characters…” Qi Xia murmured. “No wonder I felt like we were running out of options…”

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. A few seconds later, a line of red text appeared:

“Look!” Qiao Jiejin said with a laugh, “I told you! This character only has one pronunciation—’bīn’.”

Qixia didn’t know how to explain the situation and could only nod silently.

No matter how you looked at it, the pronunciation of “梹” was relatively easy to guess. If they encountered other rare characters later, it would truly become a high-stakes gamble.

Although Earth Dragon mentioned in the “rules” that “writing homophones” was meant to prevent both teams from using rare characters, after some deduction, Qixia felt that avoiding rare characters to form twenty-eight characters seemed nearly impossible.

Qixia lowered his head and looked again at the “兵” in his hand. Logically, now wasn’t the best time to form “characters,” since he had too few components. But with the opponent already on the offensive, he had no choice but to take things one step at a time.

He picked up the “兵.” To be precise, it was a “丘” and an “八.” The “八” was welded together as a single unit and couldn’t be separated.

Qixia first placed the “丘,” earning one point, then separately placed the “八.” Unfortunately, since “八” was a single unit, he couldn’t further form “乒” and “乓,” or he would have scored two more points.

With that, Qixia’s team had a total of seven points: “兵,” “木,” “目,” “相,” “梹,” “丘,” and “八.” They were still twenty-one “characters” short of the twenty-eight points needed.

Given the circumstances… could the components in hand form other “characters”?

Qixia experimented, placing several possible combinations onto the “Phoenix Scroll Platform.” However, he quickly realized that not every combination was recognized by the screen.

After trying a few possibilities, another strange “character” caught their attention. The screen clearly displayed:

“Received character prototype ‘朳.’ Please write a homophone.”

“This…” Qiao Jiejin was stunned once again. “Is this character read as ‘pá’ or ‘bā’?”

Hearing this, Qixia felt that Qiao Jiejin had raised a worthwhile question.

Although the character “八” is pronounced “bā,” in many commonly used characters, once “八” is combined with other components, its pronunciation often changes—for example, “趴着” (pā zhe, lying down) or “扒手” (pá shǒu, pickpocket).

But the character “扒” can also be pronounced “bā,” as in “扒开” (bā kāi, to pry open). Similarly, the onomatopoeic word “叭” (bā) is also commonly used.

Beyond that, Qixia couldn’t think of any other commonly used characters containing “八.” In his current memory, there were two characters each for both “pā” and “bā.”

“We’ll have to take a gamble…” Qixia said.

He reached out, thought for a few seconds, and then wrote the homophone on the screen—”巴.”

—”Creation successful.”

A total of eight points.

“Whew…” Qixia let out a deep breath, shaking his head. “I really don’t like this reckless feeling. It’s no different from being an ordinary gambler.”

“No problem,骗子仔 (Trickster)!” Qiao Jiejin patted Qixia’s shoulder. “Scoring points is good enough!”

Qixia nodded and continued examining the scattered “characters” in his hand. He had already deduced many possibilities but felt something was missing.

Why were there so few characters they could form?

“We can form one more character,” Qiao Jiejin said, pointing at the components in Qixia’s hand. “This one and this one—these two can form a ‘character.'”

Qixia looked down. Qiao Jiejin was pointing at “目” and “八.”

“These two…?”

“Yeah,” Qiao Jiejin nodded. “This is ‘贝’ as in ‘贝壳’ (bèi ké, shell). How did you overlook such a simple character,骗子仔? It’s like being blind to what’s right under your nose!”

“This…?” Qixia frowned slightly. He naturally knew which character Qiao Jiejin was referring to, but it wasn’t a case of “being blind to what’s right under your nose.” It was a direction he had never considered.

Traditional characters…?

“贝…” Qixia stroked his chin. Whether it would work or not, they might as well try.

So he placed “目” and “八” on the platform, one above the other.

The screen flickered for a moment before displaying a line of text they had never seen before:

“Received character ‘貝.’ This character does not count toward the game score. Please create again.”

“Ah…?” Qiao Jiejin tapped the screen. “It’s broken,骗子仔! This screen doesn’t seem to recognize characters! It doesn’t even know ‘貝’!”

“It’s probably not that it ‘doesn’t recognize characters’…” Qixia said. “Think about it—from the beginning, Earth Dragon gave us simplified characters. ‘車’ became ‘车,’ ‘馬’ became ‘马.’ So, purely traditional characters shouldn’t count toward the score. At the very least, ‘貝’ doesn’t count.”

Qiao Jiejin fell silent for a long moment before slowly saying, “Is this game targeting me…?”

Qixia knew the game wasn’t just targeting Qiao Jiejin—it was targeting all “participants.” If traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would increase.

But now…

“Wait…” Qixia’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the scattered characters on the screen. “I think I’ve been too fixated on the concept of components and radicals… When Cang Jie first created these characters… how could he have been limited by such concepts…?”

With that thought, Qixia reached out and picked up the “八.”

He gently moved his fingers, rotating the metal character “八” 180 degrees and placing it on the Phoenix Scroll Platform, forming an “inverted eight.” Under Qiao Jiejin’s puzzled gaze, he then picked up “木” and placed it below the “inverted eight.”

“Huh…?” Qiao Jiejin was baffled. “What is this…?”

“Only this way can we get enough characters…” Qixia murmured. “No wonder I felt we were short on ‘characters’…”

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:

“Received character prototype ‘米.’ Please write a homophone.”

Qiao Jiejin stared in astonishment for a long moment before exclaiming, “Holy crap!! You can even form ‘米’ like this…骗子仔, you’ve got a sharp mind!”

“I should have thought of it sooner…” Qixia said. “Now we can form more characters.”

Qiao Jiejin stared at the screen for a while before sensing something off. “骗子仔… do you know the homophone for ‘米’?”

“米…?”

Qixia stroked his chin upon hearing this. The most commonly used character with this pronunciation was naturally “米” itself, but writing “米” now obviously wouldn’t count.

“Got it.” Qixia raised an eyebrow and tapped on the screen.

His sharp, knife-like handwriting swept across the screen, leaving behind a vivid red character:

“芈.”

“…?” Qiao Jiejin was slightly taken aback. “骗子仔, you really know a lot…”

“Creation successful.”

A total of nine points.

“Look!” Qiao Jiejin said with a laugh, “I told you! This character only has one pronunciation—’bīn’.”

Qixia didn’t know how to explain the situation and could only nod silently.

No matter how you looked at it, the pronunciation of “梹” was relatively easy to guess. If they encountered other rare characters later, it would truly become a high-stakes gamble.

Although Earth Dragon mentioned in the “rules” that “writing homophones” was meant to prevent both teams from using obscure characters, after some deduction, Qixia felt that forming twenty-eight characters without using rare ones seemed nearly impossible.

Qixia lowered his head and glanced again at the “兵” in his hand. Logically, now wasn’t the best time to form “characters,” as he had too few components. But since the opponent had already launched an attack, he had no choice but to take things one step at a time.

He picked up the “兵.” To be precise, it was a “丘” and an “八.” The “八” was welded together as a single unit and couldn’t be separated.

Qixia first placed the “丘” on the platform, earning one point, then placed the “八” separately. Unfortunately, since “八” was a single piece, he couldn’t use it to form “乒” or “乓,” which would have earned him two more points.

With that, Qixia’s team had a total of seven points: “兵,” “木,” “目,” “相,” “梹,” “丘,” and “八.” They were still twenty-one “characters” short of the twenty-eight needed.

In that case… could the components in his hand form other “characters”?

Qixia experimented, placing several possible combinations onto the “Phoenix Scroll Platform.” However, he soon realized that not every combination was recognized by the screen.

After trying a few possibilities, another strange “character” caught their attention. The screen displayed:

“Received character prototype ‘朳.’ Please write a homophone.”

“This…” Qiao Jiejin was stunned once again. “Is this character pronounced ‘pá’ or ‘bā’?”

Qixia felt that Qiao Jiejin had raised a worthwhile question.

Although the character “八” is pronounced “bā,” in many commonly used characters, when “八” is combined with other components, its pronunciation often changes—for example, “趴着” (pā zhe, lying down) or “扒手” (pá shǒu, pickpocket).

But the character “扒” can also be pronounced “bā,” as in “扒开” (bā kāi, to pry open). Similarly, the onomatopoeic word “叭” (bā) is also commonly used.

Beyond that, Qixia couldn’t think of any other commonly used characters containing “八.” In his current memory, there were two characters each for both the “pā” and “bā” pronunciations.

“We’ll have to take a gamble…” Qixia said.

He reached out his hand, thought for a few seconds, and wrote the homophone on the screen—”巴.”

—”Creation successful.”

Total score: eight.

“Whew…” Qixia let out a deep breath and shook his head. “I really don’t like this reckless feeling. It’s no different from being an ordinary gambler.”

“No problem,骗子仔 (Trickster)!” Qiao Jiejin patted Qixia’s shoulder. “Scoring points is good enough!”

Qixia nodded and continued examining the scattered “characters” in his hand. He had already deduced many possibilities but felt something was missing.

Why were there so few characters he could form?

“You can form one more character,” Qiao Jiejin said, pointing at the components in Qixia’s hand. “This one and this one—these two can form a ‘character.'”

Qixia looked down. Qiao Jiejin was pointing at “目” and “八.”

“These two…?”

“Yeah,” Qiao Jiejin nodded. “It’s ‘贝’ (bèi), as in ‘贝壳’ (bèi ké, shell). How did you overlook such a simple character,骗子仔? It’s like not seeing what’s right under your nose!”

“This…?” Qixia frowned slightly. He naturally knew which character Qiao Jiejin was referring to, but it wasn’t a matter of oversight—it was a direction he had never considered.

Traditional characters…?

“贝…” Qixia stroked his chin. Whether it would work or not, he could just try it.

So he placed “目” and “八” on the platform, one above the other.

The screen flickered for a moment before displaying a line of text they had never seen before:

“Received character ‘貝.’ This character does not count toward the game score. Please create again.”

“Ah…?” Qiao Jiejin tapped the screen. “It’s broken,骗子仔! This screen doesn’t seem to recognize characters! It doesn’t even know ‘貝’!”

“It’s probably not that it ‘doesn’t recognize characters’…” Qixia said. “Think about it—from the beginning, Earth Dragon gave us simplified characters. ‘車’ became ‘车,’ ‘馬’ became ‘马.’ So, purely traditional characters shouldn’t count toward the score. At the very least, ‘貝’ doesn’t count.”

Qiao Jiejin fell silent for a long moment before slowly saying, “Is this game targeting me…?”

Qixia knew the game wasn’t just targeting Qiao Jiejin—it was targeting all “participants.” If traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would increase.

But now…

“Wait…” Qixia’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the scattered characters on the screen. “I think I’ve been too fixated on the concept of components and radicals… When Cang Jie first created these characters, how could he have been limited by such concepts…?”

With that thought, Qixia reached out and picked up the “八.”

He gently moved his fingers, rotating the metal character “八” 180 degrees and placing it on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform” to form an “inverted eight.” Under Qiao Jiejin’s puzzled gaze, he then picked up “木” and placed it beneath the “inverted eight.”

“Huh…?” Qiao Jiejin was baffled. “What is this…?”

“This is the only way to get enough characters…” Qixia murmured. “No wonder I felt like there weren’t enough ‘characters’…”

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:

“Received character prototype ‘米.’ Please write a homophone.”

Qiao Jiejin stared in astonishment for a long moment before exclaiming, “Holy crap! You can even form ‘米’ (mǐ) like this…骗子仔, you’ve got a sharp mind!”

“I should’ve thought of it sooner…” Qixia said. “Now we can form more characters.”

Qiao Jiejin stared at the screen for a while before feeling something was off. “骗子仔… do you know a homophone for ‘米’?”

“米…?”

Qixia stroked his chin. The most commonly used character with this pronunciation was “米” itself, but writing “米” again obviously wouldn’t count.

“Got it.” Qixia raised an eyebrow and tapped the screen.

His sharp, knife-like handwriting swept across the screen, leaving behind a vivid red character:

“芈.”

“…?” Qiao Jiejin was slightly taken aback. “骗子仔, you really know a lot…”

“Creation successful.”

Total score: nine.

“I should’ve realized it earlier…” Qi Xia said. “Now we have more possibilities.”

“Look!” Qiao Jiejin said with a laugh, “I told you! This character only has one pronunciation—’bīn’.”

Qixia didn’t know how to explain the situation and could only nod silently.

No matter how you looked at it, the pronunciation of “梹” was relatively easy to guess. If they encountered other rare characters later, it would truly become a high-stakes gamble.

Although Earth Dragon mentioned in the “rules” that “writing homophones” was meant to prevent both teams from using obscure characters, after some deduction, Qixia felt that forming twenty-eight characters without using rare ones seemed nearly impossible.

Qixia lowered his head and looked again at the “兵” in his hand. Logically, now wasn’t the best time to form “characters,” as he had too few components. But since the opponent had already launched an attack, he could only take things one step at a time.

He picked up the “兵.” To be precise, it was a “丘” and an “八,” with the “八” welded together as a single unit that couldn’t be separated.

Qixia first placed the “丘,” earning one point, then separately placed the “八.” Unfortunately, since “八” was a single piece, he couldn’t further form “乒” and “乓,” which would have earned him two more points.

With that, Qixia’s team had a total of seven points: “兵,” “木,” “目,” “相,” “梹,” “丘,” and “八.” They were still twenty-one “characters” short of the twenty-eight points needed.

Given the circumstances… could the components in hand be combined to form other “characters”?

Qixia experimented, placing several possible combinations onto the “Phoenix Scroll Platform.” However, he quickly realized that not every combination was recognized by the screen.

After trying a few possibilities, another strange “character” caught their attention. The screen clearly displayed:

“Received character prototype ‘朳.’ Please write a homophone.”

“This…” Qiao Jiejin was stunned once again. “Does this character read ‘pá’ or ‘bā’?”

Hearing this, Qixia felt that Qiao Jiejin had raised a worthwhile question.

Although the character “八” is pronounced “bā,” in many common characters, when “八” combines with other components, its pronunciation often changes—for example, “趴着” (pā zhe, lying down) and “扒手” (pá shǒu, pickpocket).

But the character “扒” can also be pronounced “bā,” as in “扒开” (bā kāi, to pry open). Similarly, the onomatopoeic word “叭” (bā) is also commonly used.

Beyond that, Qixia couldn’t think of any other common characters containing “八.” In his current memory, there were two characters each for both the “pā” and “bā” pronunciations.

“We’ll have to take a gamble…” Qixia said.

He reached out, thought for a few seconds, and then wrote the homophone on the screen—”巴.”

—”Creation successful.”

A total of eight points.

“Whew…” Qixia let out a deep breath, shaking his head. “I really don’t like this reckless feeling. It’s no different from being an ordinary gambler.”

“No problem,骗子仔 (Trickster)!” Qiao Jiejin patted Qixia’s shoulder. “Scoring points is good enough!”

Qixia nodded and continued examining the scattered “characters” in his hand. He had already deduced many possibilities but felt something was missing.

Why were there so few characters they could form?

“We can form one more character,” Qiao Jiejin said, pointing at the components in Qixia’s hand. “This one and this one—these two can form a ‘character.'”

Qixia looked down. Qiao Jiejin was pointing at “目” and “八.”

“These two…?”

“Yeah,” Qiao Jiejin nodded. “This is ‘贝’ as in ‘贝壳’ (bèi ké, shell). How did you overlook such a simple character,骗子仔? It’s like being kept in the dark right under the lamp?”

“This…?” Qixia frowned slightly. He naturally knew which character Qiao Jiejin was referring to, but it wasn’t a case of “being kept in the dark.” It was a direction he had never considered.

A traditional character…?

“贝…” Qixia stroked his chin. Whether it could be formed or not, it was worth a try.

So he placed “目” and “八” one above the other on the platform.

The screen flickered for a moment before displaying a line of text they had never seen before:

“Received character ‘貝.’ This character does not count toward the game score. Please create again.”

“Ah…?” Qiao Jiejin reached out and tapped the screen. “It’s broken,骗子仔! This screen doesn’t seem to recognize characters! It doesn’t even know ‘貝’!”

“It’s probably not that it ‘doesn’t recognize characters’…” Qixia said. “Think about it—from the beginning, Earth Dragon gave us simplified characters. ‘車’ became ‘车,’ ‘馬’ became ‘马.’ So, purely traditional characters shouldn’t count toward the score. At the very least, ‘貝’ doesn’t count.”

Qiao Jiejin fell silent for a long moment before slowly saying, “Is this game targeting me…?”

Qixia knew the game wasn’t just targeting Qiao Jiejin but all “participants.” If traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would increase.

But now…

“Wait…” Qixia’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the scattered characters on the screen. “I’ve been too fixated on the concept of components and radicals… When Cang Jie first created these characters… how could he have been limited by such concepts…?”

With that thought, Qixia reached out and picked up the “八.”

He gently moved his fingers, rotating the small metal character “八” 180 degrees and placing it on the Phoenix Scroll Platform, forming an “inverted eight.” Under Qiao Jiejin’s puzzled gaze, he then picked up “木” and placed it below the “inverted eight.”

“Huh…?” Qiao Jiejin was baffled. “What is this…?”

“Only this way can we form enough characters…” Qixia murmured. “No wonder I felt we didn’t have enough ‘characters’…”

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:

“Received character prototype ‘米.’ Please write a homophone.”

Qiao Jiejin stared in astonishment for a long moment before exclaiming, “Holy crap!! You can even form ‘米’ this way…骗子仔, you’ve got a sharp mind!”

“I should have thought of it sooner…” Qixia said. “Now we can form more characters.”

Qiao Jiejin stared at the screen for a while before sensing something amiss: “骗子仔… do you know the homophone for ‘米’?”

“米…?”

Qixia stroked his chin upon hearing this. The most commonly used character with this pronunciation was naturally “米” itself, but writing “米” now obviously wouldn’t count.

“Got it.” Qixia raised an eyebrow and reached out to tap the screen.

His sharp, knife-like handwriting swept across the screen, leaving behind a vivid red character:

“芈.”

“…?” Qiao Jiejin was slightly taken aback. “骗子仔, you really know a lot…”

“Creation successful.”

A total of nine points.

“Look!” Qiao Jiajin said with a laugh, “I told you! This character only has one pronunciation—’bīn’.”

Qixia didn’t know how to explain the situation and could only nod silently.

No matter how you looked at it, the pronunciation of “梹” was relatively easy to guess. If they encountered other rare characters later, it would truly become a high-stakes gamble.

Although Earth Dragon mentioned in the “rules” that “writing homophones” was meant to prevent both teams from using rare characters, after some deduction, Qixia felt that forming twenty-eight characters without using rare ones seemed nearly impossible.

Qixia lowered his head and looked again at the “兵” in his hand. Logically, now wasn’t the best time to form “characters,” since he had too few components. But with the opponent already on the offensive, he had no choice but to take things one step at a time.

He picked up the “兵.” To be precise, it was a “丘” and an “八,” with the “八” welded together as a single unit that couldn’t be separated.

First, Qixia placed the “丘” on the platform, earning one point. Then he placed the “八” separately. Unfortunately, since “八” was a single piece, he couldn’t use it to form “乒” or “乓,” which would have earned him two more points.

With that, Qixia’s team had a total of seven points: “兵,” “木,” “目,” “相,” “梹,” “丘,” and “八.” They were still twenty-one “characters” short of the twenty-eight needed.

Given the circumstances… could the components in hand be combined to form other “characters”?

Qixia experimented, trying various combinations on the Phoenix Book Platform. But he soon realized that not every combination would be recognized by the screen.

After testing a few possibilities, another strange “character” caught their attention. The screen displayed:

“Received character雏形 ‘朳.’ Please write a homophone.”

“Uh…” Qiao Jiajin was stunned again. “Does this character read ‘pá’ or ‘bā’?”

Qixia felt that Qiao Jiajin had raised a worthwhile question.

Although the character “八” is pronounced “bā,” in many common words, when “八” combines with other components, its pronunciation often changes—like in “趴着” (pāzhe, lying down) or “扒手” (páshǒu, pickpocket).

But the character “扒” can also be pronounced “bā,” as in “扒开” (bākāi, to pry open). Similarly, the onomatopoeic word “叭” (bā) is also commonly used.

Beyond that, Qixia couldn’t think of any other common characters containing “八.” In his current memory, there were two characters each for both “pā” and “bā.”

“We’ll have to take a gamble…” Qixia said.

He reached out, thought for a few seconds, and then wrote the homophone on the screen—”巴.”

—”Creation successful.”

Total: eight points.

“Whew…” Qixia let out a deep breath and shook his head. “I really don’t like this reckless feeling. It’s no different from being an ordinary gambler.”

“No worries,骗子仔!” Qiao Jiajin patted Qixia’s shoulder. “Scoring points is good enough!”

Qixia nodded and continued examining the scattered “characters” in his hand. He had already deduced many possibilities but felt something was missing.

Why were there so few characters they could form?

“You can form one more character,” Qiao Jiajin said, pointing at the components in Qixia’s hand. “This one and this one—these two can form a ‘character.'”

Qixia looked down. Qiao Jiajin was pointing at “目” and “八.”

“These two…?”

“Yeah,” Qiao Jiajin nodded. “It’s ‘贝,’ as in ‘贝壳’ (bèiké, shell). How did you overlook such a simple character,骗子仔? Blind spot right under your nose?”

“This…?” Qixia frowned slightly. He naturally knew which character Qiao Jiajin was referring to, but it wasn’t a matter of oversight—it was a direction he had never considered.

Traditional characters…?

“贝…” Qixia rubbed his chin. Whether it would work or not, he might as well try.

So he placed “目” and “八” on the platform, one above the other.

The screen flickered for a moment before displaying a line of text they had never seen before:

“Received character ‘貝.’ This character does not count toward the game score. Please create again.”

“Huh…?” Qiao Jiajin tapped the screen. “It’s broken,骗子仔! This screen doesn’t seem to recognize characters! It doesn’t even know ‘貝’!”

“It’s probably not that it ‘doesn’t recognize characters’…” Qixia said. “If you think about it, the characters Earth Dragon gave us from the start were simplified—’车’ instead of ‘車,’ ‘马’ instead of ‘馬.’ So purely traditional characters shouldn’t count toward the score, at least ‘貝’ doesn’t.”

Qiao Jiajin fell silent for a long moment before slowly saying, “Is this game targeting me…?”

Qixia knew the game wasn’t just targeting Qiao Jiajin—it was targeting all “participants.” If both traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would be higher.

But now…

“Wait…” Qixia’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the scattered characters on the screen. “I think I’ve been too fixated on the concept of components and radicals… When Cang Jie first created these characters… how could he have been limited by such concepts…”

With that thought, Qixia reached out and picked up the “八.”

He gently moved his fingers, rotating the metal character “八” 180 degrees and placing it on the Phoenix Book Platform, forming an “inverted eight.” Under Qiao Jiajin’s puzzled gaze, he then placed “木” beneath the “inverted eight.”

“Hey…?” Qiao Jiajin was baffled. “What is this…?”

“This is the only way to get enough characters…” Qixia murmured. “No wonder I felt we were short on ‘characters’…”

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:

“Received character雏形 ‘米.’ Please write a homophone.”

Qiao Jiajin stared in astonishment for a long moment before exclaiming, “Holy… crap!! You can even form ‘米’ like this…骗子仔, you’ve got a sharp mind!”

“I should’ve thought of it sooner…” Qixia said. “Now we can form more characters.”

Qiao Jiajin stared at the screen for a while before sensing something off. “骗子仔… do you know a homophone for ‘米’?”

“米…?”

Qixia stroked his chin. The most common character with this pronunciation was “米” itself, but writing “米” again obviously wouldn’t count.

“Got it.” Qixia’s eyebrows lifted as he reached out and tapped the screen.

His sharp, knife-like handwriting swept across the screen, leaving behind a vivid red character:

“芈.”

“…?” Qiao Jiajin was slightly taken aback. “骗子仔, you really know a lot…”

“Creation successful.”

Total: nine points.

“Look!” Qiao Jiajin said with a laugh, “I told you! This character only has one pronunciation—’bīn’.”

Qixia didn’t know how to explain the situation and could only nod silently.

No matter how you looked at it, the pronunciation of “梹” was relatively easy to guess. If they encountered other rare characters later, it would truly become a high-stakes gamble.

Although Earth Dragon mentioned in the “rules” that “writing homophones” was meant to prevent both teams from using rare characters, after some deduction, Qixia felt that forming twenty-eight characters without using rare ones seemed almost impossible.

Qixia lowered his head and looked again at the “兵” in his hand. Logically, now wasn’t the best time to form “characters,” as he had too few pieces. But since the opponent had already launched an attack, he could only take things one step at a time.

He picked up the “兵.” To be precise, it was a “丘” and an “八.” The “八” was welded together as a whole and couldn’t be separated.

Qixia first placed the “丘” on the platform, earning one point, then placed the “八” separately. Unfortunately, since the “八” was a single piece, he couldn’t further form “乒” and “乓,” which would have earned him two more points.

With that, Qixia’s team had a total of seven points: “兵,” “木,” “目,” “相,” “梹,” “丘,” and “八.” They were still twenty-one “characters” short of the twenty-eight-point goal.

Given the circumstances… could the components in his hand form other “characters”?

Qixia experimented, placing several possible combinations onto the “Phoenix Scroll Platform.” However, he quickly realized that not every combination was recognized by the screen.

After trying a few possibilities, another strange “character” caught their attention. The screen clearly displayed:

“Received character雏形 ‘朳.’ Please write a homophone.”

“This…” Qiao Jiajin was stunned once again. “Is this character pronounced ‘pá’ or ‘bā’?”

Qixia felt that Qiao Jiajin had raised a worthwhile question.

Although the character “八” is pronounced “bā,” in many commonly used characters, once “八” is combined with other components, its pronunciation often changes—for example, “趴着” (pāzhe, lying down) or “扒手” (páshǒu, pickpocket).

But the character “扒” can also be pronounced “bā,” as in “扒开” (bākāi, to pry open). Similarly, the onomatopoeic word “叭” (bā) is also commonly used.

Beyond that, Qixia couldn’t think of any other commonly used characters containing “八.” In his current memory, there were two characters each for both the “pā” and “bā” pronunciations.

“We’ll have to take a gamble…” Qixia said.

He reached out, thought for a few seconds, and then wrote a homophone on the screen—”巴.”

—”Creation successful.”

A total of eight points.

“Whew…” Qixia let out a deep breath and shook his head. “I really don’t like this reckless feeling. It’s no different from being an ordinary gambler.”

“No problem,骗子仔!” Qiao Jiajin patted Qixia’s shoulder. “Scoring points is good enough!”

Qixia nodded and continued examining the scattered “characters” in his hand. He had already deduced many possibilities but felt something was missing.

Why were there so few characters they could form?

“You can form one more character,” Qiao Jiajin said, pointing at the components in Qixia’s hand. “This one and this one—these two can form a ‘character.'”

Qixia looked down. Qiao Jiajin was pointing at “目” and “八.”

“These two…?”

“Yeah,” Qiao Jiajin nodded. “This is ‘贝,’ as in ‘贝壳’ (bèiké, shell). How did you overlook such a simple character,骗子仔? It’s like being kept in the dark.”

“This…?” Qixia frowned slightly. He naturally knew which character Qiao Jiajin was referring to, but it wasn’t a matter of being “kept in the dark.” It was a direction he had never considered.

Traditional characters…?

“贝…” Qixia stroked his chin. Whether it would work or not, they might as well try.

So he placed “目” and “八” on the platform, one above the other.

The screen flickered for a moment before displaying a line of text they had never seen before:

“Received character ‘貝.’ This character does not count toward the game score. Please create again.”

“Ah…?” Qiao Jiajin tapped the screen. “It’s broken,骗子仔! This screen doesn’t seem to recognize characters! It doesn’t even know ‘貝’!”

“It’s probably not that it ‘doesn’t recognize characters’…” Qixia said. “If you think about it, the characters Earth Dragon gave us initially omitted traditional forms. ‘車’ became ‘车,’ ‘馬’ became ‘马.’ So, purely traditional characters likely don’t count toward the score—at least, ‘貝’ doesn’t.”

Qiao Jiajin fell silent for a long moment before slowly saying, “Is this game targeting me…?”

Qixia knew the game wasn’t just targeting Qiao Jiajin—it was targeting all “participants.” If traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would be higher.

But now…

“Wait…” Qixia’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the scattered characters on the screen. “I think I’ve been too fixated on the concept of components and radicals… When Cang Jie first created these characters… how could he have been limited by such concepts…?”

With that thought, Qixia reached out and picked up the “八.”

He gently moved his fingers, rotating the small metal character “八” 180 degrees and placing it on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform” to form an “inverted eight.” Under Qiao Jiajin’s puzzled gaze, he then picked up “木” and placed it below the “inverted eight.”

“Huh…?” Qiao Jiajin was baffled. “What is this…?”

“This is the only way to get enough characters…” Qixia murmured. “No wonder I felt we didn’t have enough ‘characters’…”

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:

“Received character雏形 ‘米.’ Please write a homophone.”

Qiao Jiajin stared in astonishment for a long moment before exclaiming, “Holy…! This can form ‘米’…?骗子仔, you’ve got a sharp mind!”

“I should have thought of it sooner…” Qixia said. “Now we can form more characters.”

Qiao Jiajin stared at the screen for a while before sensing something off. “骗子仔… do you know a homophone for ‘米’?”

“米…?”

Qixia stroked his chin. The most commonly used character with this pronunciation was naturally “米” itself, but writing “米” now obviously wouldn’t count.

“Got it.” Qixia raised an eyebrow and reached out to tap the screen.

His sharp, knife-like handwriting swept across the screen, leaving behind a vivid red character:

“芈.”

“…?” Qiao Jiajin was slightly taken aback. “骗子仔, you really know a lot…”

“Creation successful.”

A total of nine points.

“Got it.” Qi Xia’s eyebrows lifted as he tapped the screen.

His sharp, knife-like strokes left behind a vivid red character:

“Look!” Qiao Jiejin said with a laugh, “I told you! This character only has one pronunciation—’bīn’.”

Qixia didn’t know how to explain the situation and could only nod silently.

No matter how you looked at it, the pronunciation of “梹” was relatively easy to guess. If they encountered other rare characters later, it would truly become a high-stakes gamble.

Although Earth Dragon mentioned in the “rules” that “writing homophones” was meant to prevent both teams from using obscure characters, after some deliberation, Qixia felt that forming twenty-eight characters without using rare ones seemed nearly impossible.

Qixia lowered his head and looked again at the “兵” in his hand. Logically, now wasn’t the best time to form “characters,” given how few he had. But since the opponent had already launched an attack, he had no choice but to take things one step at a time.

He picked up the “兵.” To be precise, it was a “丘” and an “八,” with the “八” welded together as a single unit that couldn’t be separated.

Qixia first placed the “丘” on the platform, earning one point, then separately placed the “八.” Unfortunately, since the “八” was a single entity, he couldn’t further form “乒” and “乓,” which would have earned him two more points.

With that, Qixia’s team had a total of seven points: “兵,” “木,” “目,” “相,” “梹,” “丘,” and “八.” They were still twenty-one “characters” short of the twenty-eight needed.

Given the circumstances… could the components in his hand form other “characters”?

Qixia experimented, trying various combinations on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform.” But he soon realized that not every combination was recognized by the screen.

After testing a few possibilities, another strange “character” caught their attention. The screen displayed clearly:

“Received character雏形 ‘朳.’ Please write a homophone.”

“This…” Qiao Jiejin was stunned once again. “Does this character read ‘pá’ or ‘bā’?”

Hearing this, Qixia felt that Qiao Jiejin had raised a worthwhile question.

Although the character “八” is pronounced “bā,” in many commonly used characters, when “八” combines with other components, its pronunciation often changes—for example, “趴着” (pāzhe, lying down) or “扒手” (páshǒu, pickpocket).

But the character “扒” can also be pronounced “bā,” as in “扒开” (bākāi, to pry open). Similarly, the onomatopoeic word “叭” (bā) is also commonly used.

Beyond that, Qixia couldn’t think of any other commonly used characters containing “八.” In his current memory, there were two characters each for both “pā” and “bā.”

“We’ll have to take a gamble…” Qixia said.

He reached out, thought for a few seconds, and then wrote the homophone on the screen—”巴.”

—”Creation successful.”

A total of eight points.

“Whew…” Qixia let out a deep breath, shaking his head. “I really don’t like this reckless feeling. It’s no different from being an ordinary gambler.”

“No worries, trickster!” Qiao Jiejin patted Qixia’s shoulder. “Scoring points is good enough!”

Qixia nodded and continued examining the scattered “characters” in his hand. He had already run through numerous simulations but felt something was missing.

Why were there so few possible character combinations?

“You can form one more character,” Qiao Jiejin said, pointing at the components in Qixia’s hand. “This one and this one—these two can form a ‘character.'”

Qixia looked down. Qiao Jiejin was pointing at “目” and “八.”

“These two…?”

“Yeah,” Qiao Jiejin nodded. “This is ‘贝’ as in ‘贝壳’ (bèiké, shell). How did you overlook such a simple character, trickster? It’s like not seeing what’s right under your nose.”

“This…?” Qixia frowned slightly. He naturally knew which character Qiao Jiejin was referring to, but it wasn’t a matter of oversight—it was a direction he had never considered.

Traditional characters…?

“贝…” Qixia stroked his chin. Whether it would work or not, he might as well try.

So he placed “目” and “八” on the platform, one above the other.

The screen flickered for a moment before displaying a line of text they had never seen before:

“Received character ‘貝.’ This character does not count toward the game score. Please create again.”

“Ah…?” Qiao Jiejin tapped the screen. “It’s broken, trickster! This screen doesn’t seem to recognize characters! It doesn’t even know ‘貝’!”

“It’s probably not that it ‘doesn’t recognize characters’…” Qixia said. “Think about it—from the beginning, Earth Dragon gave us simplified characters. ‘車’ became ‘车,’ ‘馬’ became ‘马.’ So, purely traditional characters shouldn’t count toward the score. At the very least, ‘貝’ doesn’t qualify.”

Qiao Jiejin fell silent for a long moment before slowly saying, “Is this game targeting me…?”

Qixia knew the game wasn’t just targeting Qiao Jiejin—it was targeting all “participants.” If traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would improve.

But now…

“Wait…” Qixia’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the scattered characters on the screen. “I think I’ve been too fixated on the concept of components and radicals… When Cang Jie originally created these characters… how could he have been limited by such concepts…?”

With that thought, Qixia reached out and picked up the “八.”

He gently moved his fingers, rotating the small metal character “八” 180 degrees and placing it on the “Phoenix Scroll Platform” to form an “inverted eight.” Under Qiao Jiejin’s puzzled gaze, he then picked up “木” and placed it below the “inverted eight.”

“Huh…?” Qiao Jiejin was baffled. “What is this…?”

“This is the only way to get enough characters…” Qixia murmured. “No wonder I felt like we were short on ‘characters’…”

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:

“Received character雏形 ‘米.’ Please write a homophone.”

Qiao Jiejin stared in astonishment for a long moment before exclaiming, “Holy crap!! You can even form ‘米’ like that… You’ve got a sharp mind, trickster!”

“I should’ve thought of it sooner…” Qixia said. “Now we can form more characters.”

Qiao Jiejin stared at the screen for a while before sensing something off. “Trickster… do you know the homophone for ‘米’?”

“米…?”

Qixia stroked his chin. The most commonly used character with this pronunciation was naturally “米” itself, but writing “米” now obviously wouldn’t count.

“Got it.” Qixia raised an eyebrow and tapped on the screen.

His sharp, knife-like strokes swept across the screen, leaving behind a vivid red character:

“芈.”

“…?” Qiao Jiejin was slightly taken aback. “Trickster, you really know a lot…”

“Creation successful.”

A total of nine points.

“…?” Qiao Jiajin blinked. “Trickster, you really know everything…”

*”Creation successful.”*

Total score: nine points.