Chapter 1016: All Based on Guessing

“This is already nine points!” Qiao Jiajing exclaimed. “Two characters, nine points!”

“It’s partly luck,” Qi Xia replied.

“If that’s the case, then each character would be worth four and a half points. We just need to gather twenty-eight points, which means…” Qiao Jiajing calculated for a while, “about six ‘characters’… and we’ll definitely win.”

Qi Xia hesitated slightly after hearing this: “That doesn’t seem right…”

“I believe in you, trickster!” Qiao Jiajing said. “If you can even think of a character like ‘rice,’ then there are so many combinations left…”

“Well, that’s true…” Qi Xia nodded. “But now we still need to test another possibility…”

“What possibility?” Qiao Jiajing asked.

“That is… whether three ‘components’ can form a single ‘character.'”

Qi Xia looked at the “丷” and “木” on the screen. Instead of removing these two radicals, he picked up another “目” and cautiously placed it on the left side.

“Snap.”

The metal character was attracted upward.

“Ah…? This… this is…”

A few seconds later, the screen flickered again—

“A primitive character ‘眯’ has been received. Please write a homophone for it.”

“I… dang it!”

Qiao Jiajing stared wide-eyed at the black metal plate marked “Phoenix Carrying Book Platform,” which had absorbed three metal characters. He felt as if he had been blinded by something obvious, missing such an apparent character.

But then he thought again—he hadn’t even noticed “mi.”

Now, with just two characters, they had already scored ten points. If they added another character, wouldn’t the points double?

Qi Xia nodded: “Exactly… Not only can the radicals be rotated, but multiple radicals can also be used to form a single character… This opens up far more possibilities…”

“This is really fun…” Qiao Jiajing stared at the screen for a long time. “Trickster, if I had a toy like this when I was a kid, I could play with it all day.”

“But right now, it’s a matter of life and death,” Qi Xia said. “Fist, you go back and take your ‘elephant’ to the room near Han Yimo and wait.”

“Writing guy?” Qiao Jiajing paused. “Isn’t he a spy?”

“Whether he is or not doesn’t matter,” Qi Xia replied. “If Wen Qiaoyun steals his character, you must snatch both Wen Qiaoyun’s and his characters back.”

“Alright… but do you know what character that pretty girl has?” Qiao Jiajing asked.

“No,” Qi Xia shook his head. “But as I said before… the only characters that can ‘cross the river’ are ‘chariot,’ ‘horse,’ ‘cannon,’ and ‘soldier.’ She can’t possibly be a ‘soldier,’ so I hope she’s a ‘cannon.'”

“Got it!”

Qiao Jiajing nodded and took back his “elephant” from Qi Xia’s hand. As he was about to reattach the “木” and “目” components to the chain, he suddenly thought of something.

Qi Xia looked at him in confusion: “What’s wrong?”

Qiao Jiajing stared at the characters “木” and “目” for a while, murmuring: “Trickster, you said combining ‘目’ with ‘米’ forms ‘眯,’ so then what does combining ‘目’ with ‘木’ make?”

“…”

Qi Xia was slightly taken aback, seemingly not quite understanding the question.

Qiao Jiajing scratched his head: “Can they form a character?”

Qi Xia cleared his throat slightly: “Could it be the character ‘xiang’?”

“Uh…”

An awkward silence lingered between them for a moment before Qiao Jiajing asked, “Then what if ‘mu’ is on the left… would that work?”

“This…”

Qi Xia wasn’t quite sure about this question either. Could a “radical eye” plus a “wood” form a real character?

Well, it wasn’t too hard to find out. Whether it was a valid character or not, they could just test it on the “Phoenix Carrying Book Platform.”

He could only take the characters from Qiao Jiajing again, placing “目” on the left and “木” on the right, waiting for the screen to light up.

After a few seconds, the screen lit up red—

“No primitive character received. Please create again.”

“Now it’s definitely not a valid character,” Qi Xia said.

But Qiao Jiajing didn’t seem ready to give up. He stepped forward,伸出一根手指放在了”目”的下方。

Qiao Jiajin, as if playing a game of chess, used one finger to push the character “目” (mù), rotating it halfway to turn it horizontal, and then placed it above the character “木” (mù).

Qi Xia paused, then looked again at the layout on the “Fenghuang Xianshu Platform”. Originally, there was a “mu” (wood) on the left and a “mu” (eye) on the right.

But now it is a “罒” on top and a “木” at the bottom.

“Brat, what about this?” Qiao Jiajin asked, “Could it be the character ‘zi’ (word)?”

Of course, Qi Xia didn’t know whether this could even be considered a “word,” and simply waited quietly for the screen to light up.

Not knowing whether to call it good luck or bad, the screen flickered for a moment, then slowly displayed the text—

“The draft character ‘䍒’ has been received. Please write down the homophonic characters.”

At this moment, the atmosphere between the two was even more silent than before.

What kind of character is this again…?

Qi Xia wished the display hadn’t received this “character,” because he knew he had never seen it in any book or any materials before. The structure of this character made it difficult for him to even guess its meaning.

“I really don’t like this feeling…” Qi Xia said, “Having to guess every step…”

“Ai!” Qiao Jiajin said carelessly, “Hey, little liar, cheer up! You’ve got such a sharp mind. Quick, think about how to pronounce this ‘character’?”

“This is a matter of thinking…?” Qi Xia said, frowning. “There’s no way one could figure out the pronunciation of this ‘character’ just by thinking about it, right?”

“Give it a try!” Qiao Jiajing said. “Let’s each guess one. It won’t hurt, right? I’ll go first!”

Qiao Jiajin imitated Qixia’s gesture by touching his chin and then slowly said, “Is it possible that the word is ‘Lin’?”

“Lin…?” Qixia paused, “Why?”

“Because there’s a ‘four’ and a ‘mu’ (wood),” Qiao Jiajin said confidently. “Four ‘mu’ characters combined mean many trees, so it’s pronounced ‘lin’ (forest).”

After hearing this, Qi Xia kept frowning. He always felt something was strange somewhere, but Qiao Jiajing had a special ability—whatever he said always left others speechless in response.

“Come on… If it were you… how would you guess?”

Qi Xia pondered for a while and said, “In Yantai, Shandong, there’s a district called ‘Zhifu District.’ The second character is pronounced ‘fú.’ Its structure is quite similar to this character, except one has ‘不’ at the bottom, while the other has ‘木’. Starting from this clue… I feel like it might be pronounced ‘mú’.”

Qiao Jiajin also pondered for a moment: “Do you mean the ‘mold’ in ‘carved from the same mold’?”

“Yeah,” Qi Xia said, “but I have absolutely no confidence in this. I’d say the chances of me guessing correctly are only about one or two out of ten.”