Chapter 1017: First Mistake

“Maybe we should give it a try first…?” Qiao Jiajing said, “What’s the worst that could happen if we fail? Will the ‘character’ be swallowed away?”

“I’m not sure,” Qi Xia replied, “I just know it’s going to be risky.”

Qiao Jiajing looked at the character ‘䍒’ on the screen and sighed, “Dang it! In this game, how often do we encounter obscure characters like this?”

“Quite often, I suppose,” Qi Xia answered, “After all, the thickness of a dictionary exceeds normal imagination. No matter how strange a radical might be, it could still form an uncommon character.”

“If that’s the case…” Qiao Jiajing mused, “Rather than trying other ‘characters’ and making mistakes, why not just go with this one? Since it’s practically impossible to guess correctly anyway, it won’t be a big loss if we’re wrong.”

Qi Xia felt Qiao Jiajing made sense. Guessing wrong on an obscure character was easier to accept than accidentally writing the wrong character for something simple.

“Alright then,” Qi Xia nodded, “Besides, Chu Tianqiu will make mistakes too. This round will come down to who makes fewer errors.”

Thinking carefully about the current situation, Qi Xia felt that even if the ‘character’ would be swallowed upon guessing wrong, it was still acceptable.

After all, he had already successfully earned points using the character “xiang.” If this character were to disappear from the game entirely, Chu Tianqiu would suffer a far greater loss.

He would permanently lose the opportunity to use radicals such as ‘木,’ ‘目,’ and ‘罒.’ Even if neither side managed to collect all twenty-eight ‘characters,’ Qi Xia’s collection wouldn’t necessarily be smaller.

Qi Xia stretched out his hand and touched the rough screen.

Next, he would write a homophone for ‘䍒’.

Unfortunately, this ‘character’ was now impossible to guess its pronunciation from context alone. He only knew for sure that its pronunciation wasn’t ‘lin’ as Qiao Jiajing had suggested.

Considering all the possible pronunciations in Chinese, there should be over 1,300 variations. He could only be grateful that Qiao Jiajing had at least eliminated one possibility.

“Dang it… Which character are you planning to write?” Qiao Jiajing asked.

“The character ‘mó’ you mentioned earlier, the one from ‘a mold’ (same pattern),” Qi Xia replied.

Qiao Jiajing paused and asked, “Are you really not considering ‘Lin’ anymore?”

“Maybe next time…” Qi Xia said.

In his mind, “模” was probably the best choice at this point. After all, “模” could be pronounced either “mó” or “mú”. Either of these similar-sounding pronunciations might score points if guessed correctly.

So he moved his fingertip and slowly wrote “mo” on the screen, his heart involuntarily tightening at the same time.

After all, the probability of the pronunciation being wrong was extremely high, and it might very well bring the consequences of a wrong guess.

Sure enough, a few seconds later, the entire display turned red, and then a line of red text appeared—

—”Creation failed.”

What surprised Qi Xia was that the ‘Phoenix Holding the Writing Platform’ didn’t swallow the ‘character’. Instead, it suddenly lost its magnetism, and several metal ‘characters’ fell to the ground like unglued pendants with a clattering sound.

The font on the screen flickered a few times before changing—

“Red team’s first creation failed. Final score reduced by one.”

After seeing this message, both Qi Xia and Qiao Jiajing frowned. The score on the screen dropped from ’10’ back to ‘9’. One of the ten previously created ‘characters’ that had been floating nearby also dimmed in brightness.

The character ‘眯’ appeared noticeably darker than the others, as if it had become disabled.

“I… dang it…” Qiao Jiajing was momentarily stunned. “So not only does the ‘Lin’ character not count, but the ‘Mi’ character doesn’t count anymore either.”

Qi Xia bent down to pick up the ‘character’, feeling somewhat strange.

He wasn’t surprised that they had guessed wrong, but the punishment felt too light.

The ‘character’ didn’t disappear, no one died, the ‘game’ didn’t change, and even the ‘referee’ didn’t show up—it was just a one-point deduction…?

If that were the case, wouldn’t it still be worth taking a calculated guess when encountering slightly plausible obscure ‘characters’?

Guessing correctly earned a point, while guessing incorrectly only cost one point. It sounded too much like an ordinary gamble.

Although this was the ‘earthworm’ game, ultimately it originated from the ‘Azure Dragon’. Would he really set up such a mundane game?

“Wait a second…”

Qi Xia’s gaze fixed on the line of text on the screen. One word caught his attention—

—”First creation failed.”

“‘First’…” Qi Xia seemed to have realized something crucial.

In other words, the reason one point was deducted this time was because it was the ‘first creation failure’. Following this logic, would the ‘second creation failure’ result in a two-point deduction…?

Or perhaps the punishment would become increasingly severe afterward, even including penalties like ‘swallowing the character’?

Qi Xia reached out and touched the ‘Phoenix Holding the Writing Platform’. Although initially, everyone’s ‘characters’ were revealed by flipping this black metal magnet, it was now completely jammed and wouldn’t move at all.

In other words, if it weren’t just losing magnetism but actually flipping over, hiding all the ‘characters’ on its back, then there would be no way to retrieve those ‘characters’ anymore.

“‘Swallowing the character’ is possible… just not now,” Qi Xia said.

“What are you talking about?” Qiao Jiajing asked.

“The cost of making mistakes will increase each time,” Qi Xia explained, “But he has given us some room for error. However, no matter what, ‘creation failure’ is a loss for us. The ‘characters’ we worked hard to create might become invalid. From now on, we should avoid using uncertain obscure characters as much as possible.”

“Alright,” Qiao Jiajing nodded, “This was my fault.”

“No, we had to ‘make mistakes to learn’,” Qi Xia said, “Chu Tianqiu will definitely ‘make mistakes to learn’ too. But there’s a difference between ‘making mistakes’ and ‘crossing the river’. If their pieces that can’t ‘cross the river’ commit violations, both sides would share the information and learn the consequences of the mistakes. But creating characters is different… Chu Tianqiu certainly won’t tell us the results of his mistakes. So sooner or later, we had to try it ourselves. Now, we can just pretend that strange ‘character’ never existed.”

“Fine,” Qiao Jiajing nodded, then turned around, “Since that’s the case… Dang it, I’ll go wait by the character-writing area until their game ends.”

“Fists, you…” Qi Xia hesitated for a moment, “You know where the best place to wait for them is, right?”

“Of course.”

Qiao Jiajing stretched his neck, swung his arms, and squatted down to stretch his legs, “If you want to completely block their way back, you should naturally guard the ‘river’. Once I spot the big guy there, that’ll be the time to act.”

“Just be careful,” Qi Xia said.

“I know.”