“Ah?” Zhang Chenze and Zheng Yingxiong both exclaimed in surprise at the same time.

“Chen Junnan…” Zheng Yingxiong looked utterly speechless. “Why don’t you let Qi Xia be by himself for a while…”

After hearing this, Qi Xia frowned slightly and turned to look at Chen Junnan.

“What’s wrong?” Chen Junnan ignored Zheng Yingxiong and simply held up his middle finger, saying to Qi Xia, “Why are you looking at me? Old Qi, write it! Don’t you know how to write the character ‘草’ (cao)? The ‘草’ from ‘plum, orchid, bamboo, and chrysanthemum’!”

After hearing this, Qi Xia sighed and said with a helpless expression: “Why didn’t you say you recognized this character earlier?”

Zhang Chenze and Zheng Yingxiong were stunned again after hearing this.

“You recognize it…?” Zheng Yingxiong asked.

“Damn it…” Chen Junnan felt somewhat devastated. “Wait… Old Qi, even this can’t fool you?… Didn’t I act convincingly this time?”

“A middle finger meaning ‘草’—that reasoning isn’t very sound,” Qi Xia said. “Try something else next time.”

Without another word, Qi Xia wrote “草” on the screen.

Sure enough, after the screen flickered for a few seconds, it displayed “Creation Successful.”

“Chen Junnan,” Qi Xia called out. “What’s really going on? Do you recognize many obscure characters?”

Qi Xia always felt that appearances could be deceiving. Although Chen Junnan seemed unreliable, perhaps he really had read through an entire dictionary during his idle time.

“Now you’re thinking a bit too highly of Master Chen…” Chen Junnan said. “Old Qi, though it’s a bit embarrassing, you should know that Master Chen’s specialty is neither using my hands nor using my brain, but cursing people out.”

After hearing this, Qi Xia nodded: “Then what does that have to do with you recognizing this character?”

“This character ‘屮’ (cao) is a curse word!” Chen Junnan said. “When I curse people out, I use all kinds of variations of ‘草’! Sometimes I write it, sometimes I draw it, sometimes I even use symbols to represent it! Over time, I’ve mastered all the ways to write this character—it’s what you might call ‘thorough understanding through integration’!”

What excellent “thorough understanding through integration.”

Qi Xia had thought Chen Junnan would have some brilliant insight, but he never expected the reason to be both absurd and reasonable.

But fortunately, a “巾” that seemed to have no use had actually become a second character in Chen Junnan’s hands, which could be considered earning back the point that Qiao Jiajin had rashly lost earlier.

They had lost one point due to an obscure character and earned one point with an obscure character—overall, the team broke even.

At this moment, Qi Xia turned to look at Zhang Chenze and Zheng Yingxiong: “What was your reason for rushing back?”

“I obtained a ‘車’ (che) from that fake Chen Junnan,” Zheng Yingxiong said. “Although I’m also a ‘車,’ getting this character is better than not getting it, right?”

“Of course.” Qi Xia nodded, then looked at Chen Junnan. “Does the other side’s screen now have ‘車’ on it?”

“Fuck!” Chen Junnan suddenly seemed to remember something and slapped his thigh. “Now that you mention it, I remember—although the other side’s screen doesn’t have ‘車,’ there are several very strange ‘characters’! I was stunned looking at them!”

“Strange ‘characters’…?” Qi Xia asked in confusion.

Chen Junnan: “Right! I looked at them for ages and couldn’t even figure out where those ‘characters’ came from!”

“What were they?” Qi Xia said.

“‘夕’ (xi) from sunset!” Chen Junnan said. “And ‘寸’ (cun) from one cun or two cun! There was even a damn ‘十’ (shi)! Where the hell did these ‘characters’ come from? These characters look far more useful than ours!”

After pondering for a few seconds, Qi Xia nodded: “As expected… just as I thought.”

“What?” Chen Junnan was stunned. “You know where these characters came from?”

“If I’m not mistaken, we’ve all been misled by the ‘characters’ on our own side,” Qi Xia said. “Because all of the ‘Red Side’s’ characters can only be split into two parts at most, we assumed the other side would be the same. But I feel the other side has two ‘characters’ that can be split into three parts.”

Chen Junnan suddenly realized which “character” those strange “characters” on the screen had been separated from.

“Is it ‘將’ (jiang)?!” Chen Junnan was startled. “This single ‘character’ was actually split into ‘丬’ (pan), ‘夕’ (xi), and ‘寸’ (cun)?”

“Yes,” Qi Xia said. “Thinking about it carefully, it’s easy to understand. Fist and I tested it once—using three parts can indeed form new ‘characters,’ which means existing ‘characters’ can also be split into three parts.”

After thinking it over, Zhang Chenze nodded: “Indeed, the ‘characters’ in this game can be split both left-right and top-bottom, and after ‘將’ is split left-right, it can be split top-bottom. This means the other side has more ‘characters’ than us from the start.”

“Then you can rest easy,” Chen Junnan said. “I just glanced over—the other side should only have seven or eight points. We now have eleven points with ‘屮’ added.”

Chen Junnan stared at the screen and counted: “木” (mu), “目” (mu), “相” (xiang), “兵” (bing), “丘” (qiu), “八” (ba), “米” (mi), “眯” (mi), “梹” (bing), “包” (bao), “巾” (jin), “屮” (cao)—a total of twelve characters.

Among them, “眯” didn’t score, so the total was eleven points.

“We’ll have more points in the early stage—that’s normal.”

Chen Junnan stared at the screen, then after a long moment, he was slightly startled: “Old Qi… that ‘十’ on the other side, it couldn’t also be from a ‘character’ split into three parts, could it…?”

“Of course,” Qi Xia said. “This is the other side’s most important ‘character.’ As I see it now, this ‘character’ has a great many possibilities for what it can form…”

“You mean ‘卒’ (zu)…?” Chen Junnan lowered his head and traced with his hand, discovering that “卒” could be divided into “亠” (tou), “從” (cong), and “十” (shi). No matter which part it was, it could form other “characters”—extremely useful.

Zhang Chenze also stared at the screen and calculated for a bit, discovering that although this game entirely used “characters,” there were many things that needed to be calculated.

“In that case…!” Chen Junnan pondered. “Is ‘卒’ with Little Chu?”

“Hard to say,” Qi Xia turned his head. “Do you still remember whether the other side scored with ‘十’ first or scored with ‘寸’ first?”

After hearing this, Chen Junnan lowered his head in silence. Since he had glanced at the already-formed “characters” on the screen at that time, he had been instantly attracted by these strange individual characters and momentarily forgot the sequence.

“It seems like ‘十’ came first…” After confirming, Chen Junnan said, “First ‘十,’ then ‘寸.’ I saw ‘十寸’ (ten cun) at a glance and thought the other side had formed a sentence on the screen.”

“Good,” Qi Xia nodded. “I suspect Chu Tianqiu doesn’t have ‘卒,’ but rather ‘將.’ We may need to temporarily give up on the three characters ‘夕,’ ‘寸,’ and ‘將,’ and in the time ahead, find the right opportunity to focus all our efforts on attacking Jin Yuanxun.”