Chapter 1027: The Strange Characters
"Ah?" Zhang Chenze and Zheng Yingxiong exclaimed simultaneously.
"Chen Junnan..." Zheng Yingxiong looked speechless. "Could you maybe let Qi Xia have some time to himself...?"
Qi Xia furrowed his brow slightly upon hearing this and turned to look at Chen Junnan.
"What's wrong?" Chen Junnan ignored Zheng Yingxiong and just raised his middle finger at Qi Xia. "What are you looking at me for? Write it, Old Qi! You don't know how to write 'grass'? The 'grass' from 'plum, orchid, bamboo, and chrysanthemum'!"
Qi Xia sighed and said helplessly, "If you knew this character, why didn't you say so earlier?"
Zhang Chenze and Zheng Yingxiong were stunned again after hearing this.
"You knew...?" Zheng Yingxiong asked.
"Damn it..." Chen Junnan felt a bit crushed. "Wait... Old Qi, you can't even be fooled by me this time? Did I not act convincingly enough?"
"A middle finger meaning 'grass' isn't a very reasonable explanation." Qi Xia said. "Try something else next time."
Without another word, Qi Xia wrote 'grass' on the screen.
Sure enough, after a few seconds of flickering, the screen displayed 'Creation Successful.'
"Chen Junnan." Qi Xia called out. "What's going on? Do you know a lot of obscure characters?"
Qi Xia always felt that appearances could be deceiving. Although Chen Junnan seemed unreliable, maybe he had actually finished reading a dictionary out of boredom.
"You're giving me way too much credit..." Chen Junnan said. "Old Qi, as embarrassing as it is, you should know that my specialty isn't fighting or thinking—it's trash talk."
Qi Xia nodded after hearing this. "And what does that have to do with you knowing this character?"
"Once, I wanted to spar with someone online, but I found it hard to curse effectively on the internet. A lot of things I could normally say would just turn into asterisks. So I delved into some 'related techniques'..." Chen Junnan grinned. "This character '屮' was something I came up with after mastering various online cursing techniques."
What a 'mastery' that was.
Qi Xia had thought Chen Junnan might have some brilliant insight, but he never expected the reason to be both absurd and reasonable.
Still, a seemingly useless '巾' had turned into a second character in Chen Junnan's hands, essentially earning back the point Qiao Jiajin had recklessly lost earlier.
Lost a point due to an obscure character, gained a point from one—overall, the team wasn't at a loss.
Qi Xia then turned to Zhang Chenze and Zheng Yingxiong. "Why did you two come back?"
"I got a '车' from that fake Chen Junnan." Zheng Yingxiong said. "Even though I'm also '车', having this character is still better than not having it, right?"
"Of course." Qi Xia nodded and looked back at Chen Junnan. "Does the opponent's screen have '车' now?"
"Shit!" Chen Junnan suddenly seemed to remember something and slapped his thigh. "Now that you mention it, the opponent's screen doesn't have '车', but it has a few really strange 'characters'! I was dumbfounded when I saw them!"
"Strange 'characters'...?" Qi Xia asked doubtfully.
Chen Junnan: "Yeah! I stared at them for a long time and couldn't even figure out where those 'characters' came from!"
"What were they?" Qi Xia said.
" '夕' as in sunset!" Chen Junnan said. "And '寸' as in inch! There was even a damn '十'! Where the hell did those 'characters' come from? They look way more useful than ours!"
Qi Xia was silent for a few seconds before nodding. "Sure enough... Just as I thought."
"What?" Chen Junnan was stunned. "You know where those characters came from?"
"If I'm not mistaken, we've all been misled by our own side's 'characters'." Qi Xia said. "Because all of the 'red side's' 'characters' can be split into at most two parts, we assumed the opponent was the same. But I suspect that two of the opponent's 'characters' can be split into three parts."
Chen Junnan suddenly realized where those weird 'characters' on the screen had come from.
"From '将'?!" Chen Junnan was taken aback. "That one 'character' was split into '丬', '夕', and '寸'?"
"Yes." Qi Xia said. "Think about it; it's easy to understand. Fist and I tested it once. Using three parts, we can indeed form a new 'character'. This means that existing 'characters' can also be split into three parts."
Zhang Chenze thought for a moment and nodded. "Indeed. In this game, 'characters' can be split either left-right or top-bottom. '将' can be split left-right first, then top-bottom. That gives the opponent a few more 'characters' from the start."
"Then you can rest easy." Chen Junnan said. "I took a quick glance earlier. The opponent should only have seven or eight points. Now, with '屮', we have eleven."
Chen Junnan stared at the screen and counted: '木', '目', '相', '兵', '丘', '八', '米', '眯', '梹', '包', '巾', '屮'—a total of twelve characters.
Among them, '眯' hadn't scored any points, so total was eleven.
"We'll have more points in the early stage. That's normal."
Chen Junnan stared at the screen for a while and then froze. "Old Qi... Could the opponent's '十' also come from a 'character' split into three parts...?"
"Of course." Qi Xia said. "That's the opponent's most important 'character'. As I see it now, the number of possibilities that 'character' can form is very high..."
"You mean '卒'...?" Chen Junnan lowered his head and wrote it out by hand, finding that '卒' could be split into '亠', '从', and '十'. Each of these parts could form other 'characters', making it extremely useful.
Zhang Chenze also stared at the screen and calculated, realizing that although this game only used 'characters', there was still a lot of calculation involved.
"If that's the case...!" Chen Junnan mused. "Is '卒' on Little Chu?"
"Hard to say." Qi Xia turned his head. "Do you remember if the opponent scored first with '十' or with '寸'?"
Chen Junnan was silent for a moment after hearing this. Since he had only glanced at the 'characters' already formed on the screen at the time, he was immediately drawn to those strange single-component characters and forgot the order.
"I think '十' came first..." Chen Junnan confirmed. "First '十', then '寸'. I saw '十寸' at a glance and thought the opponent had formed a sentence on the screen."
"Good." Qi Xia nodded. "I suspect that Chutianqiu doesn't have '卒', but '将'. We might have to temporarily give up on the three characters '夕', '寸', and '将'. In the time we have left, we'll find an opportunity to focus our efforts on besieging Jin Yuanxun."