Chapter 1015: Upside Down Eight

"Look!" Qiao Ji Jin said with a laugh, "I told you! This character has only one pronunciation, read as 'bin'."

Qi Xia didn't know how to explain and could only nod silently.

No matter how you looked at it, the pronunciation of "bin" was easy to guess, but if they encountered other rare characters next, it would truly be a gamble.

Although Di Long had mentioned in the "rules" that writing down homophones was to prevent both teams from using rare characters, Qi Xia thought about it for a long time and felt that forming twenty-eight characters without using rare ones was nothing short of a fantasy.

Qi Xia lowered his head and looked again at the "bing" in his hand. Strictly speaking, now wasn't the best time to form characters, since he had too few in hand, but with the opponent already attacking, he had no choice but to take it step by step.

He picked up the "bing," which was actually a "qiu" and a "ba" welded together as a whole, impossible to separate.

First, Qi Xia placed the "qiu" on the Feng Huang Xian Shu Tai, earning one point, and then placed the "ba" separately. Unfortunately, "ba" was a complete unit and couldn't be used to form "ping" and "pang," or he would have gained two more points.

With that, Qi Xia's team's total score reached seven points: "bing," "mu," "mu," "xiang," "bin," "qiu," "ba." They were still twenty-one characters short of twenty-eight points.

In that case... could the radicals in his hand form any other characters...?

Qi Xia experimented by trying out several possibilities on the Feng Huang Xian Shu Tai, but soon discovered that not every combination was accepted by the screen as text.

After trying a few options, a strange character appeared before their eyes again. The screen displayed:

"Text prototype 'bo' received, please write down a homophone."

"This..." Qiao Ji Jin was stunned once more, "Is this character pronounced 'pa' or 'ba'?"

After hearing that, Qi Xia felt Qiao Ji Jin had raised a question worth considering.

Although "ba" is pronounced as "ba," when it's combined with radicals in many common words, the pronunciation changes, like in "pa zhuo" or "ba shou."

But the character "ba" in "ba kai" is also pronounced "ba," and there's the onomatopoeic word "ba."

Beyond that, Qi Xia couldn't think of any other common words containing "ba." From his memory, whether pronounced "pa" or "ba," there were two possibilities each.

"Still have to take a gamble..." Qi Xia said.

He reached out his hand, thought for a few seconds, and wrote the homophone on the screen—"ba."

—"Creation successful."

Total of eight points.

"Huff..." Qi Xia let out a deep breath and shook his head, saying, "I really don't like this reckless feeling; it's no different from an ordinary gambler."

"It's okay, De Ren Zi!" Qiao Ji Jin patted Qi Xia on the shoulder and said, "As long as we score points, it's great!"

Qi Xia nodded and continued looking at the scattered characters in his hand. He had already thought through it many times and felt like something was missing.

Why were there so few characters they could form?

"You can still form one more character, you know." Qiao Ji Jin pointed at the radicals in Qi Xia's hand and said, "This one, and this one—these two can make a character."

Qi Xia looked down and saw that Qiao Ji Jin was pointing at "mu" and "ba."

"These two...?"

"Yeah." Qiao Ji Jin nodded, "It's the 'bei' in 'bei ke.' De Ren Zi, how did you overlook such a simple character? It's right under your nose!"

"This...?" Qi Xia furrowed his brow slightly. He naturally knew what character Qiao Ji Jin meant, but it wasn't a case of "right under your nose"—it was a direction he had never considered before.

Traditional characters...?

"'Bei'..." Qi Xia stroked his chin. Whether it worked or not, he could just try it directly.

So, he placed "mu" and "ba" one above the other on the Feng Huang Xian Shu Tai.

The screen flickered for a moment and displayed a line of unfamiliar text:

"Text 'bei' received, this character does not count toward the game's score. Please create again."

"Ah...?" Qiao Ji Jin reached out and tapped the screen upon seeing this, "It's broken, De Ren Zi! This screen doesn't recognize characters! It doesn't even know 'bei'!"

"It shouldn't be that it doesn't recognize characters..." Qi Xia said, "Think about it—the characters Di Long gave us at the beginning were all simplified; 'che' is 'che,' 'ma' is 'ma,' so pure traditional characters probably don't count toward the score. At least, 'bei' doesn't."

Qiao Ji Jin fell silent for a long time before slowly saying, "Is this game targeting me...?"

Qi Xia knew that this game was targeting not just Qiao Ji Jin, but all "participants." If traditional and simplified characters could be used freely, the chances of winning would increase a bit.

But now...

"Wait..." Qi Xia looked at the scattered characters on the screen, his eyes flickering slightly, "I think I've been too fixated on the concepts of radicals and components... When Cang Jie first organized these characters, how could he be limited by those ideas...?"

Thinking of that, Qi Xia reached out and picked up the "ba."

He gently moved his fingers, rotating the metal character "ba" by 180 degrees and placing it on the Feng Huang Xian Shu Tai to form an upside-down "ba." Under Qiao Ji Jin's puzzled gaze, he then placed "mu" below the upside-down "ba."

"Hey...?" Qiao Ji Jin was a bit confused as he watched, "This is...?"

"Only this way will we get enough characters..." Qi Xia murmured quietly, "No wonder I felt like we didn't have enough..."

This time, the screen flickered longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:

"Text prototype 'mi' received, please write down a homophone."

Qiao Ji Jin stared at it for a long time before exclaiming in surprise, "I... I'm impressed! It even forms 'mi'... De Ren Zi, your mind is sharp!"

"I should have thought of it earlier..." Qi Xia said, "Now, the characters we can form have increased."

Qiao Ji Jin stared at the screen for a while before feeling something was off: "De Ren Zi... do you... know the homophone for 'mi'?"

"'Mi'...?"

Qi Xia touched his chin after hearing that. The most common word with that pronunciation was "mi" itself, but writing "mi" obviously wouldn't count.

"Got it." Qi Xia raised an eyebrow and reached out to tap the screen.

His sharp, knife-like strokes drew a bright red character on the screen—

"Mi."

"...?" Qiao Ji Jin paused slightly after seeing it, "De Ren Zi, you know so much..."

"Creation successful."

Total of nine points.