Chapter 1096: Elimination

“Adding rules…?” Qinglong narrowed his eyes at Qixia. “You haven’t even experienced this game yourself, yet you want to interfere with the rules?”

“Isn’t it a good thing?” Qixia countered. “Let’s make the game even more unpredictable.”

After speaking, Qixia glanced at Xuanwu behind Qinglong and noticed she seemed distracted. He cleared his throat and asked,

“Referee, what do you think?”

Hearing this, Qinglong’s expression darkened slightly. “I designed this game. I am the referee.”

“No, you’re clearly a participant in this game,” Qixia said. “How can a participant act as the referee?”

Xuanwu found Qixia’s words reasonable and nodded, saying, “It’s not standard practice for someone to referee their own game.”

Qinglong paused, then nodded. “Since the referee has spoken, go ahead and add your rule.”

Qixia then said, “We should still use all the existing ‘characters’ from before to break apart and reassemble into new ‘characters,’ right?”

“Correct.”

“I have an idea then,” Qixia continued. “Each of us will designate one ‘character’ that cannot be used, removing it from this game. In the subsequent character-creation rounds, the eliminated ‘character’ cannot be used. However, to increase unpredictability, we won’t inform each other which ‘character’ we’ve eliminated.”

Everyone present looked at him in silence, including Qinglong and Xuanwu, who didn’t immediately understand Qixia’s meaning.

“You want to add this rule without even knowing what the ‘requirement’ in this box is?”

“Mm-hmm,” Qixia nodded. “What do you think?”

Qinglong’s eyes flickered as he considered the possibilities. Something felt like a trap, but refusing now might damage morale.

Besides, the referee had already agreed.

“Fine,” Qinglong said. “Go ahead then. Which ‘character’ do you want to eliminate?”

“I’ll take Xuanwu to choose,” Qixia said. “She might not know how to read, but she can at least recognize that something is a ‘character.’ We’ll each go to the pile of ‘characters’ separately to choose, then hand our selected ‘characters’ to Xuanwu.”

Qinglong considered Qixia’s proposal. Since Xuanwu truly couldn’t read, she wouldn’t know which ‘characters’ either side had eliminated. Overall, this requirement seemed reasonable.

“Fine,” Qinglong nodded. “You go first.”

Without another word, Qixia turned and walked toward the nearby pile of ‘characters,’ with Xuanwu closely following like a statue standing beside him.

Then Qixia bent down with his back to Qinglong, causing a rustling sound like “哗哗” as he sifted through the pile.

Under everyone’s unclear gaze, Qixia selected a ‘character,’ held it up in his hand, and suspended it in front of Xuanwu.

Xuanwu hesitated for a few seconds before reaching out from her black hair to take the ‘character’ from Qixia’s hand.

Qinglong watched all of this unfold, beginning to sense some potential flaw in Qixia’s plan.

This ‘elimination’ round started with Qixia choosing first, then himself. In theory, when he went to check the pile of ‘characters,’ he could discover which one Qixia had taken.

Even so, Qinglong still couldn’t understand why Qixia would add such seemingly useless rules.

After Qixia finished choosing, Qinglong stepped forward, quickly counted the remaining ‘characters,’ and soon noticed a strange problem.

The number of ‘characters’ hadn’t decreased.

Besides the ‘pawn’ that had been taken, there were still thirteen ‘pieces’ left.

Suddenly, Qinglong felt something was wrong and bent down, preparing to rummage through the pile.

At this moment, Qixia turned his head and gave Chen Junnan and Qiao Jiajin a meaningful look.

The two immediately understood Qixia’s intention.

“Hoooo~~~”

Then came the sound of wild geese flying across the sky.

“Handsome Jun! What’s wrong with you?! Are you in too much pain? You need to stay strong!”

“Maybe I’ve gone blind, old Qiao, help me check!” Chen Junnan shouted. “Some old guy is afraid of losing too badly and is now trying to find clues among the ‘characters.’ Am I blind?!”

“Handsome Jun! You’re not blind!” Qiao Jiajin also shouted. “He really is looking at the ‘characters’!”

“Oh my God!” Chen Junnan slapped his forehead. “I really wish I had misread the situation. The famous Qinglong is actually playing for real? Not only is he biased, cheating, but now he’s actually playing fair! Old Qi, you’re so foolish!”

“So foolish!”

Hearing Qiao Jiajin and Chen Junnan’s outbursts, Qinglong couldn’t help but furrow his brow, his mind becoming increasingly restless.

Why hadn’t the number of ‘characters’ decreased?

The many ‘characters’ broken into various radicals were tangled together with iron chains, making Qinglong feel even more confused.

If the number of ‘characters’ really hadn’t decreased, that meant there had been fourteen ‘characters’ in total before Qixia chose one and handed it to Xuanwu.

When had an extra ‘character’ appeared?

He had been observing the entire game from the high platform, but after all, he had ‘Spirit Hearing’ rather than ‘Spirit Seeing.’ Had he missed some crucial information?

He had personally witnessed that even Zhang Lijuan hadn’t successfully created a ‘character’ on-site. The ‘character’ in front of her had been swapped by Qixia. So what exactly…

“Old Qi! Go in peace!!” Chen Junnan screamed tearfully. “We’ll pass on your heroic image for generations!”

“Stay strong, Handsome Jun!” Qiao Jiajin added. “You still need to tell them about Qinglong’s heroic image!”

“Can I tell it?!” Chen Junnan retorted. “He’s a god after all.”

“Sure you can! About a heroic god who bullies us!”

The noisy voices kept echoing from afar, making Qinglong feel increasingly restless.

Although these two were being unreasonable, what they said wasn’t entirely wrong.

What exactly was he afraid of…?

Afraid of some extra ‘character’ Qixia had somehow conjured from nowhere?

Afraid that Qixia might defeat him?

Or perhaps afraid that Xuanwu could truly kill him?

Even if he lost this game and Xuanwu went on a rampage, there was no way he could be overpowered by Xuanwu’s physical strength.

“Ridiculous,” Qinglong said. “Without realizing it… I’ve actually become serious.”

He casually picked up an ‘Elephant’ piece from the ground and handed it to Xuanwu.

“This one.”

Xuanwu hesitated for a moment before reaching out to take the ‘character.’

At this moment, Qixia’s lips curled upward. All the ‘preparations’ had been completed. Now it was time to see the ‘rules.’

As he and Qinglong stood in front of the display screen, Xuanwu reached into the wooden box and pulled out a slip of paper.

This slip contained the rules for the first round of character creation.

Xuanwu looked at the slip in confusion for a while, then reluctantly handed it to Qinglong.

Qixia took a step forward and looked closely. Written clearly on the slip were the words:

“Victory goes to the one with the most strokes.”