Chapter 1081: Whose Victory?
"What... is going on?" Yan Zhichun asked incredulously.
She found it hard to imagine that Chu Tianqiu himself would make seven consecutive wrong guesses in front of the screen.
But if it wasn't Chu Tianqiu... then who was it?
Seven points had already been deducted... Didn't that mean that most of the "characters" they had guessed were invalidated?
A flicker of a smile crossed Chu Tianqiu's face, and he said, "This is quite a long story."
"A long story...?"
"The game rules state that you can only score points through the 'commander,'" Chu Tianqiu said, turning back. "But what about 'deductions'?"
"You mean..."
"I assumed the opposing side's men were all under control," Chu Tianqiu said. "So among the remaining people, no one would be able to smash a display screen with their bare hands within a minute."
After saying this, he looked back at Yan Zhichun with a hint of self-mockery. "If it were you, could you smash your own TV with your bare hands in under a minute?"
Yan Zhichun felt that smashing a TV wasn't the hard part—the difficulty lay in the time limit. With only one minute, it really was tough.
"But I missed one step," Chu Tianqiu said. "When I saw that the character '眯' on Qi Xia's screen didn't score, I should have realized... Would he make such a low-level mistake? Did he write the wrong pronunciation?"
Yan Zhichun tried her best to follow Chu Tianqiu's reasoning and asked tentatively, "So why didn't that '眯' character score...?"
"Because he guessed wrong on other characters," Chu Tianqiu said. "My estimation of Qi Xia was still too conservative... His screen even had characters like '?' and '屮'—God knows how many bold guesses he made... And he understood better than I did the consequences of 'guessing wrong.'"
Yan Zhichun's mind was a bit muddled for a moment, but she realized that they were already on the brink of failure.
"What can we do...?" Chu Tianqiu continued with a bitter smile. "The other side doesn't even need to smash our display. All they have to do is send someone here to write the wrong 'homophones' as fast as possible to keep deducting points..."
"I still don't understand," Yan Zhichun said. "Weren't you here the whole time? How did we keep getting deductions?"
"That's also a long story," Chu Tianqiu said. "It's precisely because I didn't trust anyone else with certain tasks that I went personally to smash their display. At the time, I judged that anyone who posed a threat to us would be under control. Even if someone could move, it would only be Zhang Chenze, who appeared after the game ended."
"I..."
"But I didn't expect..." Chu Tianqiu said. "I assumed Zhang Chenze would definitely lose to you, so she would have lost her 'character' and couldn't possibly go to our 'preparation zone'... What happened?"
Yan Zhichun thought for a few seconds. She had indeed won the 'wrap' from Zhang Chenze, but then Qi Xia had appeared. The two had whispered something to each other with their backs to her, and then she and Qi Xia had entered the room. After that... where had Zhang Chenze gone?
Thinking about it, Yan Zhichun said, "I've noticed a habit of Qi Xia's. I wonder if it's the reason for our loss this time."
"What habit?"
"Every time he moves, he first takes the safest path straight to the 'river channel,' then moves laterally along the 'river channel' to find the room he wants to enter."
Chu Tianqiu found this a bit odd... Did this habit mean that even when entering their own game area, Qi Xia would always go through the 'river channel'? With 'shapeshifting' in play, wouldn't this make his teammates suspicious?
But from another perspective... Qi Xia's move would perfectly bypass all 'defense lines.' The people setting up those 'defense lines' would never expect the enemy commander to be casually walking behind their backs.
"After Zhang Chenze and I finished our game, Qi Xia opened the 'door' from the 'river channel,'" Yan Zhichun continued. "So Zhang Chenze should have retreated back to our 'preparation zone,' but instead she unconsciously went to the 'river channel' to talk with Qi Xia. I didn't think much of it at the time, but now I realize it was all part of Qi Xia's plan."
"So it must have been Zhang Chenze who came here just now," Chu Tianqiu said. "Her goal from the start wasn't to smash the display screen."
Chu Tianqiu still found Qi Xia's tactics hard to fathom. If this were a real battle, both sides could be said to have made a 'killer move' aimed straight at the enemy's base camp, but the strange thing was that the activation condition for Qi Xia's 'killer move' was his own activation of a 'killer move.'
In other words, if he had stayed in the 'preparation zone' and not left, Zhang Chenze's entry would have only been a free delivery of 'characters.'
"I feel like we're on the back foot now..." Chu Tianqiu said. "Our score is less than ten, while Qi Xia has nearly twenty. I don't know if the 'smashed display screen' counts as a score. If we just tough it out until time runs out like this, it's hard to say who the final winner will be."
"So what do we do...?" Yan Zhichun asked. "Try to take the other side's 'characters' at the cost of death?"
"Too naive," Chu Tianqiu said. "For the remaining time, they could just rest in their 'preparation zone.' Their display is already destroyed by me, so now the whole team has no 'weakness.'"
"This..." Yan Zhichun was at a loss for words for a moment. She felt that the current situation was similar to what Qi Xia had predicted, so she had no choice but to say, "Qi Xia said... if you want, you can bring all the 'characters' to meet him at the 'river channel.' He will personally give you a defeat."
"Personally give me a defeat...? At the 'river channel'?" Chu Tianqiu seemed to catch something important. "Now that both sides are heavily damaged, if we leave it alone, the victor is uncertain... but he wants to give me a defeat?"
Yan Zhichun felt Chu Tianqiu had a point, but she still didn't know what Qi Xia was plotting.
"Maybe..." Yan Zhichun asked softly, "since the broken screen can't show the score, Qi Xia will be judged as 'defeated'?"
Chu Tianqiu thought about this explanation for a moment. It could make sense from some angles.
If the opponent's counting screen was blind, could the final outcome really be determined by their previous scores?
Does 'previous scores' count as the final score? That clearly wouldn't align with Qinglong's logic for setting the game.
"It seems Qi Xia thought of that..." Chu Tianqiu said. "He doesn't think he'll win, so he has to make a gamble with me at the last moment."
"Do we really have to go...?" Yan Zhichun asked again. "If we think he's going to lose, it's better to stay put. We should guard the 'preparation zone' and wait for victory. There isn't much time left."
"But we've all overlooked one thing," Chu Tianqiu said. "The other side has Tiantian. That's the biggest variable."
"Tiantian...?" Yan Zhichun rarely interacted with others and didn't know Tiantian's ability well.
"It's 'Ingenuity,'" Chu Tianqiu said. "Because she rarely uses her ability, I don't even know the upper limit of 'Ingenuity.' If she can do something like 'repairing a display screen,' then for us... Qi Xia's faction would have gained seven points without any loss, like getting something for nothing."
"'Ingenuity'... used to repair a display screen?" Yan Zhichun frowned, feeling that this explanation was a bit far-fetched.