Chapter 1015: Inverted Eight
"See!" Qiao Jiaying said with a smile. "I told you! This character only has one pronunciation, it's read as 'bīn'."
Qi Xia didn't know how to explain this situation, so he could only nod silently.
Regardless, the pronunciation of "梹" was fairly easy to guess. If they encountered other rare characters later, that would truly be a gamble.
Although Dilong mentioned in the "rules" that "writing homophones" was meant to prevent both teams from using obscure characters, Qi Xia had calculated for a long time and felt that forming twenty-eight characters without using rare ones seemed like a fantasy.
Qi Xia lowered his head and looked at the "兵" in his hand. Strictly speaking, now wasn't the best time to form "characters," since they had too few components. But since the opponent had already launched an attack, they had to take it one step at a time.
He picked up the "兵"—specifically, a "丘" and an "八." The "八" was welded together as a whole and couldn't be separated.
Qi Xia first placed the "丘," earning one point, then placed the "八" separately. Unfortunately, the "八" was a single piece, so he couldn't further form "乒" and "乓" to gain two more points.
Thus, Qi Xia's team now had a total of seven points: "兵," "木," "目," "相," "梹," "丘," and "八." They were still twenty-one "characters" short of the twenty-eight-point goal.
That being said... Could the radicals in his hand form other "characters"...?
Qi Xia experimented, placing several combinations onto the "Phoenix Holding the Book Platform," but soon discovered that not every combination was recognized as a character by the screen.
After trying a few possibilities, a strange "character" appeared before their eyes. The screen clearly displayed:
"Received character prototype '朳'. Please write a homophone."
"This..." Qiao Jiaying was stunned again. "Is this character read as 'pá' or 'bā'?"
Qi Xia felt that Qiao Jiaying had actually raised a valid question.
Although "八" was pronounced "bā," in many common characters, when "八" was combined with radicals, its pronunciation often changed, such as in "趴着" and "扒手."
But "扒" also had the pronunciation "bā," as in the word "扒开." Another common one was the onomatopoeia "叭."
Beyond these, Qi Xia couldn't think of any other common characters containing "八." In his current memory, there were two characters that read either "pā" or "bā."
"Still got to take a gamble..." Qi Xia said.
He reached out, thought for a few seconds, and wrote the homophone on the screen: "巴."
—"Creation Successful."
Total: eight points.
"Phew..." Qi Xia let out a deep breath, shook his head, and said, "I really don't like this reckless feeling. It's no different from an ordinary gambler."
"It's okay, liar boy!" Qiao Jiaying patted Qi Xia on the shoulder. "As long as we scored, that's great!"
Qi Xia nodded and continued to look at the scattered "characters" in his hand. He had already done many calculations but felt something was missing.
Why were there so few "characters" they could form?
"There's still one more character we can make," Qiao Jiaying pointed at the radicals in Qi Xia's hand. "This one, and this one—these two can form a 'character.'"
Qi Xia looked down and saw that Qiao Jiaying was pointing at "目" and "八."
"These two...?"
"Yeah," Qiao Jiaying nodded. "It's the '贝' from '贝壳.' Liar boy, how did you miss such a simple 'character'? Overlooking what's right under your nose?"
"This...?" Qi Xia frowned slightly. He knew what character Qiao Jiaying meant, but it wasn't a case of "overlooking"—it was a direction he had never considered.
Traditional characters...?
"'贝'..." Qi Xia rubbed his chin. Whether it could form a character or not, they could just try it directly.
So he picked up "目" and "八," placed them one above the other, and set them on the platform.
The screen flickered for a moment, then displayed a line of text they had never seen before:
"Received character '贝'. This character does not count toward the game score. Please create again."
"Huh...?" Qiao Jiaying reached out and tapped the screen. "Broken, liar boy! This screen doesn't even recognize '贝'!"
"It's probably not that it 'doesn't recognize it'..." Qi Xia said. "Think about it—from the very beginning, Dilong gave us 'characters' that omitted the traditional forms. '车' was '车,' '马' was '马.' So purely traditional characters probably don't count toward the score. At least '贝' doesn't."
Qiao Jiaying was silent for a long time before slowly saying, "Is this game targeting me...?"
Qi Xia knew that this game didn't just target Qiao Jiaying—it targeted all "participants." If both simplified and traditional characters could be used freely, their chances of winning would increase a bit.
But now...
"Wait a second..." Qi Xia stared at the scattered characters on the screen, his eyes flickering slightly. "I've been too rigid in my thinking about radicals and components... When Cangjie originally compiled these characters, how could he have been constrained by such concepts..."
With that thought, Qi Xia reached out and picked up the "八."
He gently moved his fingers, rotating the small metal character "八" one hundred and eighty degrees, then placed it on the "Phoenix Holding the Book Platform," forming an inverted "八." Under Qiao Jiaying's puzzled gaze, he then picked up "木" and placed it under the inverted "八."
"Huh...?" Qiao Jiaying was bewildered. "What is this...?"
"Only like this can we get enough characters..." Qi Xia murmured. "No wonder I felt like we were short on 'characters'..."
This time, the screen flickered even longer than before. After a few seconds, a line of red text appeared:
"Received character prototype '米'. Please write a homophone."
Qiao Jiaying stared at it for a long time before exclaiming in amazement, "I... I'll be damned!! This can form '米'... Liar boy, you've got a sharp mind!"
"I should have thought of it sooner," Qi Xia said. "Now we have more 'characters' we can form."
Qiao Jiaying stared at the screen for a while before noticing something off: "Liar boy... Do you... know the homophone for '米'?"
"'米'...?"
Qi Xia rubbed his chin. The most common character with this pronunciation was undoubtedly "米" itself, but writing "米" now obviously wouldn't count.
"Got it." Qi Xia raised an eyebrow and reached out to tap the screen.
His sharp, knife-like strokes traced across the screen, leaving behind a vivid red character:
"芈."
"...?" Qiao Jiaying was momentarily stunned. "Liar boy, you really know a lot..."
"Creation Successful."
Total: nine points.