# Chapter 1016: All Rely on Guessing
"That's already nine points!" Qiao Jiajin said. "Two characters, nine points!"
"It's partly luck," Qi Xia replied.
"That means each character gets four point five points. To reach twenty-eight points we only need..." Qiao Jiajin stretched out his hand and counted for a while, "about six 'characters'... and we'd be certain to win..."
Qi Xia paused upon hearing this. "That's not how the math works..."
"I trust you, Liar!" Qiao Jiajin said. "If you can come up with a 'character' like 'rice', then there are way too many combinations from here."
"That's true..." Qi Xia nodded. "But now I need to test one more possibility..."
"What possibility?" Qiao Jiajin asked.
"That's whether three 'components' can form a 'character'."
Qi Xia looked at the 'eight' radical and 'wood' on the screen, but didn't remove these two radicals. Instead, he reached out again and picked up an 'eye' component, placing it cautiously on the left side.
*Clack.*
The metal character was attracted.
"Hey...? This... this is..."
A few seconds later, the screen flickered again:
"Character prototype 'squint' received. Please write a homophone character."
"What the... I'll be damned!"
Qiao Jiajin stared at the black metal piece engraved with "Phoenix Book-Holding Platform" that had attracted three metal characters, his eyes wide. He felt like he'd been suffering from "dark under the lamp"—such an obvious 'character' and he hadn't even noticed it.
But then he thought again, he hadn't even noticed 'rice' either.
At this moment, with just two 'characters' they had already earned ten points. If they added another 'character', wouldn't the score double again?
Qi Xia nodded. "Just as I suspected... not only can radicals be rotated, but multiple radical components can be used to form a single character... This opens up even more possibilities..."
"This is way too fun..." Qiao Jiajin stared at the screen for a long time. "Liar, if I'd had a toy like this when I was a kid, I could've played with it all day."
"But right now, lives are on the line," Qi Xia said. "Fist, in a little while, put your 'elephant' piece back on and wait in a room near Han Yimo."
"Writing kid?" Qiao Jiajin hesitated. "Isn't he a spy?"
"Whether he's a spy or not doesn't matter," Qi Xia said. "If Wen Qiaoyun snatches his 'character', you snatch both Wen Qiaoyun's 'character' and his 'character' back together."
"Alright... but do you know what 'character' that pretty girl has?" Qiao Jiajin asked.
"No," Qi Xia shook his head. "But like I said, the only 'characters' that can 'cross the river' are 'chariot', 'horse', 'cannon', and 'pawn'. She can't be a 'pawn', so I hope she's a 'cannon'."
"Okay! I understand!"
Qiao Jiajin nodded, took back his 'elephant' piece from Qi Xia's hand. Just as he was about to string the 'wood' and 'eye' back onto the chain, he suddenly thought of something.
Qi Xia looked at him quizzically. "What's wrong?"
Qiao Jiajin stared at the 'wood' and 'eye' for a long time, muttering to himself, "Liar, you said 'eye' and 'rice' form 'squint'... so what do 'eye' and 'wood' form?"
"...?"
Qi Xia was momentarily stunned, as if he hadn't quite heard the question clearly.
Qiao Jiajin scratched his head. "Can it form a 'character'?"
Qi Xia cleared his throat slightly. "Is it possible that character is 'elephant'?"
"Uh..."
An awkward atmosphere lingered between them for a moment before Qiao Jiajin spoke again. "Then what if 'eye' is on the left... would that work?"
"Well..."
Qi Xia wasn't sure about this one. Would an 'eye radical' plus 'wood' form a 'character'?
He supposed there was only one way to find out—send it to the "Phoenix Book-Holding Platform" and see.
So he took the characters back from Qiao Jiajin, placed 'eye' on the left and 'wood' on the right, and waited for the screen to light up.
After a few seconds, the screen lit up red:
"No character prototype received. Please create again."
"So it really isn't a 'character'," Qi Xia said.
But Qiao Jiajin didn't seem ready to give up. He stepped forward, extended a finger, and placed it beneath the 'eye' component.
Then, like moving a chess piece, he used one finger to push the 'eye', rotating it half a turn so it lay horizontally above the 'wood'.
Qi Xia paused and looked again at the arrangement on the "Phoenix Book-Holding Platform." Originally it was 'eye' on the left and 'wood' on the right.
Now it was a horizontal 'eye' component on top and 'wood' on the bottom.
"Liar, what about this?" Qiao Jiajin asked. "Would it be a 'character'?"
Qi Xia naturally had no idea if this counted as a 'character', so he waited quietly for the screen to light up.
Hard to say if it was good luck or bad luck. After flickering for a while, the screen slowly displayed text:
"Character prototype '[unknown character]' received. Please write a homophone character."
The silence between them grew even deeper than before.
What kind of character was this...?
Qi Xia would rather the screen hadn't received this 'character', because he knew he had never seen this character in any book or any reference material. The structure of this character made it impossible to even guess blindly.
"I really don't like this feeling..." Qi Xia said. "Every step relies on guessing."
"Hey!" Qiao Jiajin said carelessly. "Liar, cheer up! You've got such a sharp mind, think fast—how do you pronounce this 'character'?"
"Is this something you can figure out by thinking...?" Qi Xia furrowed his brow. "How could anyone possibly know the pronunciation of this 'character' through thinking alone?"
"Let's just try it!" Qiao Jiajin said. "Each of us makes a guess. Nothing to lose! I'll go first!"
Qiao Jiajin imitated Qi Xia's gesture and stroked his chin, then slowly said, "Is it possible it's pronounced 'lin'?"
"'Lin'...?" Qi Xia paused. "Why?"
"Because there's a 'four' and a 'wood'," Qiao Jiajin said confidently. "Four pieces of wood means lots of trees, so it must be 'lin'."
Qi Xia kept frowning. He felt something was off, but Qiao Jiajin had a special ability—whenever he said something, you couldn't really argue against it.
"Liar... if it were you... how would you guess?"
Qi Xia thought for a long time, then said, "In Yantai, Shandong, there's a district called 'Zhifu District'. The second character is pronounced 'fu'. Its structure is very similar to this character, except one has 'not' on the bottom and the other has 'wood'. Starting from that point... I feel like it might be pronounced 'mu'."
Qiao Jiajin thought about it too. "Like in 'a mold made from a pattern'?"
"Yes," Qi Xia said. "But I have absolutely no confidence in this. I think the chance of getting it right is only ten or twenty percent."