BXBX NOVEL Chapter 33.2: Face Slap (II)
Song Xinyi: “This round is a tie. Let’s continue.”
Su Bei: “Okay.”
The next round was to fill in the missing characters of a poem. This time, Su Bei’s team got the first turn. After observing Xie Minxuan in the previous round, Su Bei has picked up some general tactics. To avoid getting cornered by the opponent, they should fill the longest grids and the ones with most intersecting parts first. Kept the simple grids that weren’t easy to be controlled by the opponent until the end.
Then she didn’t need to be polite.
Su Bei smiled slightly, a cunning light flashed through her eyes. She directly wrote [摄……陬兮，惟庚……降。皇览揆……兮，肇锡……名]. The missing characters happened to be: ‘陬、揆、肇’ (1)
After Su Bei wrote the verses, there was another commotion among the students.
“Oh my god. Male god Xie is too cruel!”
“How to complete this poem? I don’t even know how to browse it on my phone.”
“Never make male god Xie angry. I really understand the reason today, haha.”
Male god Xie:…He has nothing to do with this.
Seeing the verses written by Su Bei, Song Xinyi’s expression turned a little ugly. Next to her, Ye Chen also frowned slightly. The two people barely filled in two blanks together but were stuck on the last one.
Ye Chen: “We should give up this round.”
Although Song Xinyi was unwilling, she also helpless. Even Ye Chen couldn’t remember this poem, not to mention herself.
The third round: historical figures, the fourth round: idioms, the fifth round: mathematical formulas…
“I’ll take this question.” Xie Minxuan, who had been reduced into a decoration vase for three rounds, finally said to Su Bei. Anyway, he needed to do something by himself. Otherwise, if Su Bei won the rounds by herself but all the rainbow farts were directed towards him, he would be very embarrassed.
“Ah, okay.” Su Bei smiled apologetically and handed the pen to Xie Minxuan. Math was his strong point, so in this round, he won cleanly and neatly.
After that, Song Xinyi interrupted the game and proposed to change a partner for the next rounds. To show fairness, she took the initiative to replace Ye Chen and selected another boy with average grades from her class.
Su Bei chose Xu Yangyang. He could be ranked into the top 20% of the ‘Red Hacker Challenge’, so his brain must be quite bright. The ignorant Xu Yangyang was very moved when Su Bei selected him. He walked to her side, patted his chest, and promised: “Don’t worry, I will do my best to protect you!”
Su Bei chose him among so many people in the class, she must regard himself highly! Although his strength wasn’t enough to sweep through the enemy with Su Bei as brother Xuan did, he will try his best. At least to not make them lose too ugly.
A new round began. Who knew if Xu Yangyang was really a ‘lucky guy’ like the person himself said, but their first round was actually about computer. So ‘Decorative Vase Su Bei’ was online once again. She lazily stood behind Xu Yangyang and enjoyed their win.
At the end of the round, Song Xinyi suggested again: “In order to give everyone a chance to play, why don’t we change our partner each round?”
Su Bei didn’t reject Song Xinyi’s suggestion. But behind her, a crowd of class averages and last scorers represented by Dong Wenqi shook their heads in fear. They don’t have the power of male god Xie, nor the luck of Xu Yangyang. It was impossible for them to support Su Bei, ah!
Su Bei turned her head to look for Su Xiaobao. However, it turned out that he and Xie Minxuan had started a new round of 1v1 crossword game in the corner, surrounded by their respective fans.
Su Bei: “…”
Song Xinyi looked at Su Bei: “If you can’t find a partner, we can also do 1v1.”
Song Xinyi had just finished talking when Xie Minxuan suddenly exclaimed: “No longer playing, it’s boring.”
Xie Minxuan dropped his pen and stared at a student who was part of the organizing committee: “Is there any other interesting game that isn’t using brain?”
“Of course, of course. There are indoor basketball, solitaire, pinball…”
“Indoor basketball then.” Xie Minxuan slammed the game board and glanced at Ye Chen “Do you have any other opinion?”
Ye Chen shook his head: “No.”
The indoor basketball was a 3v3 game. Class 8-2 quickly selected their three best players. Meanwhile, class 8-7’s lineup was Su Xiaobao and Xie Minxuan, plus Chen Zian to fit the number.
Su Bei had finished the game with Song Xinyi and retreated to the side of the room to sit with other girls from class 8-7. Even before the game started, the girls already starting to gossip:
“I think our class will win.”
“Haha, I also think so. In P.E. class, male god Xie and young master Su always led an opposing team. This time they finally joined forces. Our team must be invincible.”
(1) Okay….first, I’m not sure if I correctly translated all the game rules/mechanics, please bear with it. Second, via a quick google search, this poem was titled ‘Li Sao’ (離騷, Encountering Trouble) by Qu Yuan from the Kingdom of Chu, who lived during the Warring States period. The three missing characters’ 陬、揆、肇’ aren’t used daily. They are respectively ranked 6101, 4593, and 3200 on the ‘most frequent characters’ list. Many Chinese learning books/courses advised that 3000 most frequent characters are enough to be moderately literate.