“We’re already at nine points!” Qiao Jiajin said. “Two characters, nine points!”

“That was partly luck,” Qi Xia said.

“If we put it that way, each character can earn us four point five, so to reach twenty-eight points we only need…” Qiao Jiajin stretched out his hand and calculated for a while. “About six ‘characters’… and we’ll definitely win…”

Qi Xia was slightly stunned after hearing this. “That’s not how you calculate it…”

“I believe in you, liar boy!” Qiao Jiajin said. “If you can even think of a ‘character’ like ‘rice’… then there are way too many combinations from here on out.”

“That’s not wrong…” Qi Xia nodded. “But now we still need to test one possibility…”

“What possibility?” Qiao Jiajin asked.

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

Qi Xia looked at the “丷” and “木” on the screen. Without removing these two radicals, he once again reached out to pick up a “目”, placing it on the left side with a cautious expression.

*Click.*

The metal character was absorbed onto it.

“Eh…? This… this is…”

A few seconds later, the screen flashed again—

“Text prototype ‘眯’ received. Please write down a homophone.”

“I… I’ll be damned!”

But then he thought about it—he hadn’t even discovered “米” himself.

Right now, with just two “characters” they had already earned ten points. If they added another “character,” wouldn’t the score multiply again?

Qi Xia nodded. “Just as I thought… not only can radicals be rotated, but multiple radicals and components can also be used to form a character… This way, there are even more options…”

“This is so fun…” Qiao Jiajin stared at the display screen for a long time. “Liar boy, if I had this kind of toy when I was little, I could play with it all day.”

“Right now is a life-or-death moment,” Qi Xia said. “Fist, in a bit you’ll take back your own ‘phase’ and wait in a room near Han Yimo.”

“Writer boy?” Qiao Jiajin paused. “Isn’t he a traitor?”

“Whether he’s a traitor or not doesn’t matter,” Qi Xia said. “If Wen Qiaoyun seizes his ‘character,’ you’ll snatch back both Wen Qiaoyun’s ‘character’ and his ‘character’ together.”

“Okay… but do you know what ‘character’ that beautiful lady is?” Qiao Jiajin asked.

“I don’t know,” Qi Xia shook his head. “But as I said… 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! I understand!”

Qiao Jiajin nodded and took back his own “phase” from Qi Xia’s hand. Just as he was about to thread “木” and “目” back onto the chain, he suddenly thought of something.

Qi Xia looked at Qiao Jiajin with confusion. “What’s wrong?”

Qiao Jiajin held “木” and “目” for a long time, muttering to himself, “Liar boy, you said ‘目’ and ‘米’ can form ‘眯,’ so what can ‘目’ and ‘木’ form?”

“…?”

Qi Xia was slightly stunned, as if he didn’t quite understand the question.

Qiao Jiajin scratched his head. “Can they form a ‘character’?”

Qi Xia cleared his throat slightly and said, “Is it possible that the character is ‘相’?”

“Uh…”

An awkward atmosphere lingered between the two for a moment before Qiao Jiajin spoke up. “Then what if ‘目’ is on the left side… would that work?”

“This…”

Qi Xia wasn’t quite sure about this question. A “目 radical” plus a “木”—would they form a “character”?

Thinking about it, this wasn’t really a problem. Whether it was a “character” or not, they could just put it on the “Phoenix Book-Bearing Platform” and try it to find out.

He could only take the “character” from Qiao Jiajin’s hand again, then place “目” on the left side and “木” on the right side, waiting for the display screen to light up.

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

“Text prototype not received. Please recreate.”

“So this really isn’t a ‘character,'” Qi Xia said.

But Qiao Jiajin didn’t seem to give up. He stepped forward and placed one finger below “目.”

Qiao Jiajin, as if playing chess, used one finger to push “目” from below, rotating it half a circle so it turned horizontal and was positioned above “木.”

Qi Xia paused and looked again at the layout on the “Phoenix Book-Bearing Platform.” Originally, there was a “目” on the left side and a “木” on the right side.

But now there was a “罒” on top and a “木” below.

“Liar boy, what about this?” Qiao Jiajin asked. “Would this be a ‘character’?”

Qi Xia naturally didn’t know whether this counted as a “character,” and quietly waited for the screen to light up.

Whether their luck was good or bad was hard to say. After the screen flickered for a while, text slowly emerged—

“Text prototype ‘?’ received. Please write down a homophone.”

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

What kind of character was this…?

Qi Xia would have preferred if the display screen hadn’t received this “character,” because he knew he had never seen this character in any book or any material. The structure of this character made it difficult to even guess.

“I really don’t like this feeling…” Qi Xia said. “Every step relies on guessing…”

“Hey!” Qiao Jiajin said with a nonchalant expression. “Liar boy, cheer up! Your brain works so well—think quickly about how this ‘character’ should be pronounced!”

“Is this a problem that can be solved through thinking…?” Qi Xia said with a furrowed brow. “No matter how you look at this ‘character,’ it’s impossible to know its pronunciation through thinking, right?”

“Just try!” Qiao Jiajin said. “The two of us will each guess one. We won’t lose anything anyway! I’ll go first!”

Qiao Jiajin imitated Qi Xia’s gesture of touching his chin, then slowly said, “Is it possible it’s pronounced ‘lín’?”

“‘Lín’…?” Qi Xia paused. “Why?”

“Because there’s a ‘罒’ and a ‘木,'” Qiao Jiajin said with a confident expression. “Four trees—describing many trees—so it’s pronounced ‘lín.'”

After hearing this, Qi Xia kept frowning. He always felt something was off, but Qiao Jiajin had a special ability—what he said always left people unable to refute it.

“Liar boy… if it were you… how would you guess?”

Qi Xia thought for a long time and said, “In Yantai, Shandong, there’s a district called ‘Zhifu District.’ The second character is pronounced ‘fú.’ Its structure is very similar to this character, except one has ‘不’ below and one has ‘木.’ Starting from this point… I feel it might be pronounced ‘mú.'”

Qiao Jiajin also thought about it. “‘Mú’ as in ‘cast from the same mold’?”

“Right,” Qi Xia said. “But I have absolutely no confidence. I estimate the probability of guessing correctly is only ten or twenty percent.”