“Half of ‘Soldier’…” Qinglong’s expression darkened noticeably. “Xuanwu… are you lying to me?”
“No, I don’t lie,” Xuanwu shook her head, her long hair swaying gently with the motion.
“Then you simply can’t read,” Qinglong said. “You don’t even recognize the character ‘soldier,’ so how could you possibly know that Qixia used only half of it?”
“I might not recognize ‘soldier,'” Xuanwu replied coolly, “but I recognize half of ‘soldier.'”
Qixia found this amusing. Within the boundaries of the rules, even Xuanwu had stood by her side.
“I don’t believe you,” Qinglong said again. “I need to come see for myself.”
“Dare you,” Xuanwu snapped coldly. “There’s no such rule.”
“You…” At Xuanwu’s words, Qinglong’s eyes instantly filled with murderous intent.
But Xuanwu seemed completely unaffected, meeting his icy gaze with her own unflinching stare.
“Today, here, I am the referee,” Xuanwu declared. “Abide by the rules.”
“You’ve truly gone mad,” Qinglong said. “Do you even understand the consequences of speaking to me like this?”
Xuanwu hesitated briefly before replying, “The consequences are serious.”
“…’Consequences’?”
“Failure to perform the referee’s duties carries serious consequences,” Xuanwu explained, “and defying you also carries serious consequences. But you yourself said this one time, defiance is allowed.”
Qinglong wanted to rush forward and show Xuanwu who the real ‘god’ was here, but doing so would prematurely end the game and invalidate the life-or-death stakes.
For the first time in years of unchecked freedom within the “Endland,” Qinglong tasted the bitterness of being constrained by rules.
“Qinglong has lost his senses,” Chen Junnan whispered quietly to Qiao Jiajin. “That ‘soldier’ character was chosen by Big Sister Xuanwu herself. Even if she can’t read, wouldn’t she know what she picked? She must have recognized it immediately upon seeing it used.”
“Yeah, yeah, he’s lost it.”
Qinglong’s face flickered with anger, but he still couldn’t figure out how Qixia had managed to piece together that strange character ‘Sheng.’
This peculiar character couldn’t even be pronounced, and its structure didn’t resemble the usual components of ‘soldier.’
“Two ‘mu’…” Qinglong’s eyes flashed with realization. Could it be that there were now two ‘xiang’ characters in the pile?
After confirming the answer, Qixia quickly removed all the characters from the Fenghuang Xianshu Platform, then approached the massive wall.
“So what do you say, Qinglong?” Qixia asked. “Isn’t the outcome of this round obvious?”
After hearing this, Xuanwu gave a slight nod. “Your character looks more complex, so it has more strokes.”
“Then may I take that as the referee declaring my victory?” Qixia stared at Qinglong and asked.
Qinglong nodded slightly with obvious reluctance. After all, the rules were already this clear; continuing to argue would serve no purpose.
“I concede your win,” Qinglong said. “Best two out of three. Let’s start round two.”
Xuanwu nodded and walked toward the wooden box to draw the rules for the second round.
She extended her pale gray arm into the box, rummaged around for a moment, and pulled out another slip of paper.
This time she didn’t bother reading it herself, simply unfolding it to show everyone present.
Everyone tilted their heads as they looked at the slip in her hand, because Xuanwu was holding it upside down.
Chen Junnan tilted his head for a while, then softly read aloud, “The one that is more important to humanity wins?”
Seeing everyone tilting their heads, Xuanwu seemed to realize something and turned the slip right side up with her hand.
Everyone straightened their necks and saw that the phrase indeed matched what Chen Junnan had read.
“So abstract…” Lawyer Zhang said beside them. “Something more important to humanity?”
Tiantian also pondered for a moment before asking, “Does this refer to physical objects… or something on a spiritual level?”
“Either is acceptable,” Qinglong answered for Xuanwu. “As long as the ‘character’ we create is considered important to humanity, it qualifies. The one that’s more important wins. But the premise is that we can only use one single character, and it must contain part of the character ‘soldier.'”
Everyone fell silent at these increasingly difficult rules.
Only being able to use a single character, having to determine the winner based on its meaning, and the character needing to include either all or part of ‘soldier’—these conditions made things extremely challenging.
“You’re just plain cheating,” Chen Junnan frowned. “You’ve probably thought about these rules countless times already. How is Old Qi supposed to compete with you when he’s hearing these rules for the first time?”
“Sorry…” Qinglong said. “The arrow has left the bow. Besides, I’ll still go first this time.”
After saying this, he turned to look at Qixia with a mocking expression and asked, “No objections, right?”
Qixia knew this was clearly a trap.
After all, there weren’t many characters containing ‘soldier’ to begin with, and even fewer that could meet the conditions. In other words, this difficult question might have only one possible answer.
Once Qinglong went first, her chances of losing would increase infinitely.
But at this point, only under such high-stakes conditions could the game truly push her potential and allow her to grow again.
“No problem,” Qixia said. “You go first.”
Qiao Jiajin saw the trickery in this game and hurriedly tried to stop her. “Don’t do it, kid. Didn’t he go first last time? This time you should go first.”
“It’s okay,” Qixia said. “Consider it me going easy on him.”
“Showing off,” Qinglong smirked, then stepped behind the giant wall and began rummaging through the various characters on the ground.
Soon he had selected his answer, placing ‘mu’ on the screen.
A few seconds later, he added ‘ba.’
‘Rice.’
“Damn it…” Chen Junnan couldn’t help but curse when he saw the character. “Old Qi… you see how unfair this old guy is being?”
Qixia nodded. Qinglong’s choice was indeed reasonable—’rice’ represented ‘food,’ naturally extremely important to human survival. This might be the only possible definitive answer.
After all, characters containing ‘soldier’ and meeting the requirements were extremely rare.
“I just want to state upfront that I don’t accept this!” Chen Junnan quickly explained to Xuanwu. “Even though what he wrote on the screen is ‘rice,’ I don’t think it’s that important. I usually feel full just eating meat and vegetables.”
“Yeah, yeah, I can get full just drinking alcohol,” Qiao Jiajin nodded beside him.
At worst, I can always have a bowl of zhajiangmian noodles with jiaoquan pastries and douzhi. I definitely don’t accept “rice.”
“Yeah, yeah, curry fish balls and wan zai chi would work too. ‘Rice’ doesn’t cut it.”
Qixia helplessly shook her head after hearing this.
After hearing this answer, Xuanwu looked up at the large ‘rice’ character displayed on the screen, as if studying how to write it. A few seconds later, she slowly spoke:
“‘Rice’… is truly important to humanity.”
Tai Sui Yellow Amulet Paper FuLu Taoist Love Talisman Traditional Chinese Spiritual Charm Attracting Love Protecting Marriage