“Ahh?” Zhang Chenzhe and Zheng Yingxiong exclaimed in unison.
“Chen Junnan…” Zheng Yingxiong looked extremely speechless, “Can you at least let Qi Xia have some time alone…”
After hearing this, Qi Xia slightly frowned and turned his head to look at Chen Junnan.
“What’s wrong?” Ignoring Zheng Yingxiong, Chen Junnan raised his middle finger and said to Qi Xia, “Why are you staring at me? Old Qi, keep writing! Don’t you know how to write the word ‘cao (grass)’? I mean the ‘cao’ in ‘mei lan zhu ju (Plum, Orchid, Bamboo, Chrysanthemum)’!”
After hearing this, Qi Xia sighed and said helplessly, “Since you know this character, why didn’t you say so earlier?”
Zhang Chenzhe and Zheng Yingxiong were stunned again after hearing this.
“You actually know…” Zheng Yingxiong asked.
“Damn it…” Chen Junnan seemed a bit overwhelmed. “No way… Old Qi, you’re not falling for little爷’s trick again this time? Wasn’t my performance convincing enough?”
“One middle finger equals the word ‘cao (grass)’? That reasoning doesn’t sound very convincing,” Qi Xia said, “Try something else next time.”
Without another word, Qi Xia wrote ‘cao (grass)’ on the screen.
Sure enough, after flickering for a few seconds, the screen displayed “Creation Successful.”
“Chen Junnan,” Qi Xia called out, “What’s going on exactly? Do you know a lot of obscure characters?”
Qi Xia always believed that one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Although Chen Junnan seemed unreliable, he might have actually finished reading an entire dictionary out of boredom.
“You’re flattering young master a bit too much…” Chen Junnan said, “Old Qi, although it’s somewhat embarrassing, you should know that my specialty is neither manual labor nor mental work, but rather cursing people.”
Qi Xia nodded after hearing this, “Then what does that have to do with you knowing this character?”
“There was a time when I wanted to verbally spar with someone online, but I found it hard to express myself online since many words would turn into asterisks when typed. So I started studying ‘related techniques’…” Chen Junnan laughed. “This character ‘che’ is something little爷 came up with after mastering various online cursing techniques.”
What a way to “master various techniques.”
Qi Xia originally thought Chen Junnan would have some profound insight, but he never expected the reason to be both absurd and reasonable.
But at least the seemingly useless “jin (巾)” was transformed into the second character by Chen Junnan, compensating for the point lost because of Qiao Jiajin’s recklessness.
Losing one point because of an obscure character and gaining one point through another obscure character, overall the team wasn’t at a disadvantage.
At this moment, Qi Xia turned his head to look at Zhang Chenzhe and Zheng Yingxiong again, “What’s the reason you rushed back?”
“I received a ‘che (车)’ from the fake Chen Junnan,” said Zheng Yingxiong. “Although I am also a ‘che (车)’, isn’t it better to have this character than not?”
“Of course,” Qi Xia nodded and then looked at Chen Junnan, “Does the opponent’s screen now display the character ‘che (车)’?”
“F***!” Suddenly, as if recalling something, Chen Junnan slapped his thigh and said, “Now that you mention it, I just remembered that although the opponent’s screen didn’t display a ‘che (车)’, there were several extremely strange ‘characters’! I was even stunned by them back then!”
“Strange ‘characters’…” Qi Xia asked in confusion.
“Yeah!” Chen Junnan said, “I stared at them for a long time and couldn’t even figure out where those ‘characters’ came from!”
“What were they?” Qi Xia asked.
“The character ‘xi (夕)’ meaning sunset!” Chen Junnan said, “Then there was ‘cun (寸)’ meaning an inch or two! And there was even a damn ‘shi (十)’! Where the hell did these characters come from? These characters seem much more useful than ours!”
After pondering for a few seconds, Qi Xia nodded, “Indeed… Just as I thought.”
“What?” Chen Junnan was taken aback, “You know where these characters came from?”
“If I’m not mistaken, we’ve all been misled by our own characters,” Qi Xia said, “Because all the characters on the ‘Red Team’ can be divided into at most two parts, we assumed the same for the opponent. However, I suspect that two of the opponent’s characters can be divided into three parts.”
Suddenly, Chen Junnan realized which character those strange ‘characters’ on the screen had come from.
“Is it ‘jiang (将)’?!” Chen Junnan exclaimed in surprise. “Was this single character split into ‘jiang (丬)’, ‘xi (夕)’, and ‘cun (寸)’?”
“Yes,” Qi Xia replied, “Actually, it’s quite easy to understand. I experimented with fists and confirmed that using three parts can indeed form new characters, which means existing characters can also be divided into three parts.”
After thinking for a moment, Zhang Chenzhe nodded and said, “Indeed, in this game, characters can be divided both horizontally and vertically. ‘Jiang (将)’ can first be split vertically, then horizontally. This implies that the opponent begins with more characters than we do.”
“Then you can relax,” Chen Junnan said, “I just took a quick glance. The opponent probably has only seven or eight points, while we now have eleven points with ‘che’ included.”
Chen Junnan stared at the screen and counted: “mu (wood), mu (eye), xiang (resemble), bing (soldier), qiu (mound), ba (eight), mi (rice), mi (squint), bin (betel nut), bao (wrap), jin (towel), che (sprout),” totaling twelve characters.
Among them, “mi (眯)” didn’t score any points, so there were eleven points in total.
“It’s normal for us to have more points in the early game.”
Chen Junnan continued staring at the screen for a while, then suddenly looked puzzled and said, “Old Qi… Could the opponent’s ‘shi (十)’ possibly also come from a character split into three parts?”
“Of course,” Qi Xia said, “This is the opponent’s most important character. From my perspective, this character has many possible combinations…”
“You mean ‘zu (卒)’…” Chen Junnan lowered his head and scribbled with his hand, realizing that “zu (卒)” could be broken down into “tou (亠),” “cong (从),” and “shi (十).” Each of these components could form other characters and was extremely useful.
Zhang Chenzhe also stared at the screen, calculating, and realized that although this game entirely uses “characters,” there is a lot to calculate.
“In that case…” Chen Junnan pondered, “Is it ‘zu (卒)’ on Xiao Chu?”
“It’s hard to say,” Qi Xia turned his head and said, “Do you remember whether the opponent scored first with ‘shi’ or ‘cun’?”
After hearing this, Chen Junnan lowered his head in silence. At that time, he had only taken a quick glance at the already formed characters on the opponent’s screen and was immediately drawn to those strange single characters, forgetting the order in the process.
“It seemed like ‘shi’ came first…” Chen Junnan confirmed, saying, “First ‘shi’, then ‘cun’. I saw ‘shicun’ at a glance and thought the opponent had formed a phrase on their screen.”
“Good,” Qi Xia nodded. “I guess Chu Tianqiu doesn’t have ‘zu (pawn)’ but instead has ‘jiang (general)’. We might need to temporarily set aside the three characters ‘xi (evening)’, ‘cun (inch)’, and ‘jiang (general)’, and focus on attacking Kim Won-hoon in the upcoming period.”
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