Chapter 1016: All Guesswork

"It's already nine points!" Qiao Jia Jin exclaimed. "Two characters, nine points!"

"It's partly luck," Qi Xia replied.

"In that case, each character is worth four point five points. If we need to reach twenty-eight points, we'll only need about... six characters..." Qiao Jia Jin counted on his fingers for a moment, "and we're guaranteed to win..."

Qi Xia paused slightly upon hearing this. "That's not how you calculate it..."

"I believe in you, Deceiver!" Qiao Jia Jin declared. "If you could even figure out a character like 'mi,' then the combinations are practically endless."

"That's true..." Qi Xia nodded, "but we still need to test one possibility..."

"What possibility?" Qiao Jia Jin asked.

"That is... whether three components can form a single character."

Qi Xia looked at the "ba" and "mu" on the screen but didn't remove those radicals. Instead, he reached out and picked up another "mu," carefully placing it on the left side.

There was a click.

The metal character was absorbed.

"Ah... this... what is this...?"

A few seconds later, the screen flashed again—

"Received text prototype 'mi,' please write the homophone."

"I... I'm speechless!"

Qiao Jia Jin stared at the Feng Huang Xian Shu Tai, which had just absorbed three metal characters, his eyes wide. He felt as though he had completely overlooked something obvious, like "missing it right under the lamp." How could he not have noticed such a clear character?

But then he thought again—he hadn't even noticed "mi."

Now, with just two characters, they had scored ten points. If they added another one, wouldn't that more than double their score?

Qi Xia nodded. "As expected... Not only can the radicals be rotated, but you can also use multiple radicals to form a character... That significantly expands the options..."

"This is so much fun..." Qiao Jia Jin stared at the display screen for a long time. "Deceiver, if I'd had a toy like this as a kid, I would have played with it all day."

"But this is a matter of life and death right now," Qi Xia said. "First, you go and put your 'xiang' back on, then head to the room near Han Yi Mo and wait."

"Writer?" Qiao Jia Jin hesitated. "Isn't he the spy?"

"Whether he's the spy or not doesn't matter," Qi Xia said. "If Wen Qiao Yun steals his character, you snatch both her character and his character back."

"Alright... But do you know what character that pretty girl has?" Qiao Jia Jin asked.

"No idea." Qi Xia shook his head. "But as I said... The only characters that can 'cross the river' are 'che,' 'ma,' 'pao,' and 'zu.' She can't be 'zu,' so I hope she's 'pao.'"

"Got it!"

Qiao Jia Jin nodded, took his "xiang" back from Qi Xia's hand, and as he was about to thread the "mu" and "mu" back onto the chain, he suddenly thought of something.

Qi Xia looked at Qiao Jia Jin in confusion. "What is it?"

Qiao Jia Jin stared at the "mu" and "mu" for a while, muttering to himself, "Deceiver, you said 'ba' and 'mu' can form 'mi.' So, what can 'mu' and 'mu' form?"

"...?"

Qi Xia was slightly taken aback, as if he hadn't fully grasped the question.

Qiao Jia Jin scratched his head. "Can they form a character?"

Qi Xia cleared his throat a bit and said, "Is it possible that the character is 'xiang'?"

"Uh..."

An awkward silence hung between the two for a moment before Qiao Jia Jin spoke, "What if 'mu' is on the left... Would that work?"

"This..."

Qi Xia wasn't certain about this. Could a "mu radical" plus a "mu" form a character?

Well, it wasn't a major issue—they could just try it on the Feng Huang Xian Shu Tai to find out.

So, he took the characters back from Qiao Jia Jin's hand, placed the "mu" on the left side and the "mu" on the right side, and waited for the screen to light up.

After a few seconds, the screen lit up with a red light—

"Text prototype not received, please try creating again."

"Now it's definitely not a character," Qi Xia said.

But Qiao Jia Jin wasn't giving up. He stepped forward, extended a finger, and placed it under the "mu."

Like he was playing chess, he used his finger to nudge the "mu," rotating it halfway so that it lay horizontally above the "mu."

Qi Xia paused and looked again at the arrangement on the Feng Huang Xian Shu Tai. Originally, it was "mu" on the left and "mu" on the right.

Now, it was "si zi kuang" on top and "mu" below.

"Deceiver, what about this?" Qiao Jia Jin asked. "Is this a character?"

Qi Xia had no idea if this counted as a character, so he quietly waited for the screen to light up.

Whether by good luck or bad, after flickering for a bit, the screen slowly displayed text—

"Received text prototype '?', please write the homophone."

The atmosphere between the two became even more silent than before.

What on earth was this character...?

Qi Xia would have preferred if the screen hadn't recognized this character, because he knew he had never seen it in any books or materials. The way it was structured made it hard to even guess.

"I really don't like this feeling..." Qi Xia said. "Every step is just a guess..."

"Ah!" Qiao Jia Jin said nonchalantly, "Deceiver, cheer up! You're so quick-witted—think about how this character should be pronounced."

"Is that something you can figure out by thinking...?" Qi Xia frowned. "This character doesn't look like it could be pronounced just by reasoning it out."

"Give it a try!" Qiao Jia Jin said. "We can each guess one—it's not like we're losing anything! I'll go first!"

Qiao Jia Jin stroked his chin like Qi Xia did, then slowly said, "Is it possible it's pronounced 'lin'?"

"'Lin'...?" Qi Xia hesitated. "Why?"

"Because there's a 'four' and a 'mu'," Qiao Jia Jin said confidently. "Four 'mu's mean a lot of trees, so it sounds like 'lin.'"

Qi Xia kept frowning after hearing this. He felt something was off, but Qiao Jia Jin had this uncanny ability—whatever he said was hard to argue against.

"Deceiver... if it were you... how would you guess?"

Qi Xia thought for a long time and said, "In Shandong Yantai, there's a district called 'Zhi Fu District,' and the second character is pronounced 'fu.' Its structure is similar to this one, except one has 'bu' below and this has 'mu' below. Based on that... I feel it might be pronounced 'mu.'"

Qiao Jia Jin thought about it too. "'Mu' as in 'from the same mold'?"

"Exactly," Qi Xia said, "But I have no confidence at all—maybe just a one or two in ten chance of being right."