“Should we just try it first…?” Qiao Jiajin said. “What happens if we fail? Will the ‘character’ be swallowed?”

“I’m not sure,” Qi Xia answered. “I only know this will be very risky.”

Qiao Jiajin looked at the “?” on the screen and sighed. “Liar boy… are there many situations in this game where ‘rare characters’ will be used?”

“There should be quite a few,” Qi Xia said. “After all, the thickness of a dictionary exceeds normal people’s imagination. No matter how strange the radical, it’s possible to form uncommonly used characters.”

“If that’s the case…” Qiao Jiajin pondered. “Rather than using other ‘characters’ to make trial errors, we might as well use this one, because there’s no way to answer it correctly anyway. Even if we’re wrong, it’s not a pity.”

Qi Xia felt that what Qiao Jiajin said made sense. Guessing wrong on this kind of rare character was easier to accept than accidentally writing wrong on a simple character.

“That works,” Qi Xia nodded. “Anyway, Chu Tianqiu will make mistakes too. This round just depends on who makes fewer mistakes.”

Qi Xia carefully considered the current situation and felt that even if guessing wrong caused the “character” to be swallowed, it was still acceptable.

After all, he had already fully utilized the “phase” character to score points. If this “character” disappeared completely from this game, Chu Tianqiu’s loss would be even greater.

He would forever lose the opportunity to use radicals like “木,” “目,” and “罒.” Even if in the end neither of them could gather twenty-eight “characters,” his own “characters” wouldn’t necessarily be fewer.

Qi Xia reached out his hand and touched the rough screen.

Next, he needed to write down a homophone for “?.”

Unfortunately, this “character” was completely impossible to determine the pronunciation through guessing. He only knew that this “character’s” pronunciation probably wasn’t “lín” as Qiao Jiajin had said.

Calculating all the pronunciations in Chinese characters, there should be more than thirteen hundred types. He could only thank Qiao Jiajin for eliminating one of them.

“Liar boy… which character are you planning to write?” Qiao Jiajin asked.

Qiao Jiajin paused and asked, “You’re really not considering ‘lín’?”

“Let’s consider it next time…” Qi Xia said.

In his thinking, “mó” should be the optimal solution at this moment. After all, “模” could be pronounced as “mó” or “mú.” As long as one of these two similar-looking pronunciations could be guessed correctly, points could be earned.

So he moved his fingertip and slowly wrote the character “模” on the screen. His mood involuntarily became tense at this moment.

After all, the probability of this pronunciation being wrong was extremely high, and it was very likely to bear the consequences of “guessing wrong.”

Sure enough, as expected, after a few seconds, the entire display screen emitted a red glow, and then a line of red text appeared—

—”Creation failed.”

What Qi Xia hadn’t anticipated was that the “Phoenix Book-Bearing Platform” didn’t swallow the “character.” It just instantly lost its magnetic force, and several metal “characters” fell to the ground with a clatter, like unglued pendants.

The text on the screen also flickered a few times before changing its appearance—

“Red side’s first creation failure. Final score reduced by one.”

After Qi Xia and Qiao Jiajin saw this sentence, they both frowned. The score on the screen also retreated from “ten points” back to “nine points.” Among the ten created “characters” that had appeared on the side earlier, the light of one of them dimmed.

The light of “眯” looked darker than the other “characters,” as if it had become ineffective.

“I… damn…” Qiao Jiajin was stunned for a moment. “Not only does this ‘lín’ character not count for points, but the ‘眯’ from just now doesn’t count either.”

Qi Xia bent down to pick up the “characters,” feeling a bit strange.

He wasn’t surprised that he had guessed wrong this time; he just felt the punishment was too light.

The “characters” didn’t disappear, “people” wouldn’t die, the “game” didn’t change, and even the “referee” didn’t show up—just one point deducted…?

If that was the case, when encountering slightly familiar “rare characters,” wouldn’t it still be possible to try guessing?

Guessing correctly earned one point, guessing wrong deducted one point—it sounded too much like an ordinary gamble.

But although this was “Earth-Dragon’s” game, it ultimately came from “Qinglong.” Would he set up such an ordinary game?

“Wait…”

Qi Xia’s gaze focused on that line of text on the screen. One word caught his attention—

—”First creation failure.”

“First…” Qi Xia seemed to have thought of a key point.

In other words, the reason for deducting one point this time was “first creation failure.” Following this line of thinking, would the “second creation failure” then lose two points…?

Or would the subsequent punishments become increasingly severe, even leading to punishments like “character swallowing”?

Qi Xia reached out to touch the “Phoenix Book-Bearing Platform.” Although initially everyone’s “characters” were presented after this black metal magnet flipped, now it was stuck tight and completely immobile.

In other words, if at this moment it didn’t lose magnetic force but actually flipped, turning all the “characters” to the back side, there would be no way to get those “characters” anymore.

“‘Character swallowing’ is possible… just not right now,” Qi Xia said.

“What are you saying?” Qiao Jiajin asked.

“The cost of making mistakes will be higher each time, but he’s reserved several opportunities for us to make mistakes,” Qi Xia said. “But no matter what… ‘creation failure’ will be a loss for us. The ‘characters’ we worked so hard to create might become void because of this. From now on, let’s try not to use ‘rare characters’ we’re not sure about.”

“Alright,” Qiao Jiajin nodded. “This time is my fault.”

“No, we always have to ‘trial and error,'” Qi Xia said. “Chu Tianqiu will definitely ‘trial and error’ too, but this ‘trial and error’ is a bit different from whether to ‘cross the river.’ Once those chess pieces on the other side that can’t ‘cross the river’ violate the rules, both sides will share the intelligence and know the result of the mistake at the same time. But ‘character creation’ can’t… Chu Tianqiu definitely won’t tell us the results of ‘trial and error,’ so sooner or later we have to try it ourselves. Now is just right… let’s just pretend that strange ‘character’ doesn’t exist.”

“Fair enough,” Qiao Jiajin nodded, then turned around. “If that’s the case… liar boy, I’ll go wait near Writer boy’s place for them to finish their game.”

“Fist, you…” Qi Xia hesitated for a moment. “You know where the best place to wait for them is, right?”

“Of course.”

Qiao Jiajin moved his neck, then swung his arms, then squatted down and stretched his legs. “To completely block the opponent’s path back, naturally I should still guard the ‘river,’ right? Once I see the big guy there, that’ll be the time to make a move.”

“Be careful yourself,” Qi Xia said.

“I know.”