Round Two.
Brother Qiang rolled again: a three, a six, a three, and a five.
He rubbed his bald head smugly, looking like a man who already had the game won and the two hundred thousand dollars practically in his pocket.
Then, it was Shu Shu’s turn to lift the cup.
Inside, two fives and four sixes stared back at them.
Thirty-four points! Exactly one point higher than Brother Qiang.
The smirk froze on Brother Qiang’s face, a look of pure disbelief washing over him.
This… had to be dumb luck.
The Final Round: Match Point.
Brother Qiang subconsciously dialed his focus up to eleven.
This time, he rolled five sixes and a five.
Thirty-five points—nearly a perfect score!
To roll dice with that level of precision, Brother Qiang genuinely had talent.
He grinned, unable to hide his impatience. “Little girl, you probably don’t even need to roll. Just transfer the money and save us both some time!”
He figured dumb luck only struck once. There was absolutely no way Shu Shu could beat this score.
“I still have to roll,” Shu Shu replied smoothly.
Her long, slender fingers gripped the black dice cup. She lifted it and shook; the dice rattled inside with a perfectly synchronized, crisp rhythm.
Thud.
The cup came to a rest on the table.
Shu Shu’s lips curved slightly. Under the flashing lights of the bar, her shimmering, downturned eyes seemed to catch a brilliant spark. Then, under the intense, collective gaze of everyone in the room, she lifted the cover.
Six dice lay perfectly aligned, every single one of them showing a six.
Six sixes. A perfect thirty-six points! Max score.
“We won! We actually won!” Shu Lingchen erupted with excitement beside her.
Brother Qiang stared in utter disbelief, his face turning an ugly shade of sour.
Shu Shu looked at him. “I won. A bet’s a bet. Though, you can keep the ten-thousand-dollar deposit. Is he free to go now?”
Getting ten grand for free without taking any losses wasn’t a bad deal. Brother Qiang glared at Shu Lingchen, biting his lip. This kid got incredibly lucky. Usually, anyone trying to walk out of his place had to lose a layer of skin first.
He waved his hand dismissively. “Get lost!”
On the way back, Shu Lingchen looked at Shu Shu with absolute worship in his eyes.
He had always known his mom was amazing, but this was the first time he’d ever seen her handle a dice cup.
“Mom, did you throw that first round on purpose? You know, to make Brother Qiang let his guard down?”
Shu Shu shrugged. “I threw that exactly how I wanted to. I can roll whatever number I want.”
Shu Lingchen’s jaw dropped. “What?! For real?!”
“Uh-huh.”
“That is so cool! Did you teach yourself? Or did someone show you how?”
Shu Shu’s steps faltered. She went dead silent for a solid three seconds before murmuring, “…Someone taught me.”
Shu Lingchen grinned and leaned in closer. “Hey, uh, Mom… could you teach me too?”
“Why do you want to learn this?”
“It just looks badass. I want to learn.”
Shu Shu shut him down instantly. “Not happening. No way in hell.”
God only knew what this little idiot would do with a skill like that.
Truth be told, Shu Shu could have easily resolved the situation just by paying Brother Qiang off. But she chose not to. She wanted Shu Lingchen to see with his own two eyes exactly how dangerous and terrifying things could get the moment you flirted with the wrong side of the law.
“…Oh, okay,” Shu Lingchen mumbled. Sensing the brief flash of hesitation from her a moment ago, his inner curious child took over. He guessed, “Mom, was the person who taught you… my dad? The one who died on land, air, and sea?”
When Shu Lingchen was a little kid and saw everyone else with a dad, he used to ask Shu Shu why he didn’t have one, and where his dad had gone.
The first time he asked, Shu Shu told him his dad was a fisherman who got swallowed whole by a shark at sea.
The second time he asked, she told him his dad was a street sweeper who got run over by a car.
Later on, when he asked yet again, she claimed his dad was an airline pilot whose plane exploded mid-air, blowing him to smithereens.
To this day, Shu Lingchen had no idea what his dad actually did for a living.
All he knew for sure was that the man was dead.
Shu Lingchen stared at her expectantly, waiting for an answer.
Shu Shu reflexively looked up, meeting her son’s gaze. Every time she looked closely into his eyes, she couldn’t help but marvel at how terrifyingly strong genetics were.
He really was his father’s son.
Shu Lingchen’s eyes were a carbon copy of that man’s—deep, pitch-black ink.
The only difference was that the boy’s eyes were gentle and innocent, while the father’s had always been sharp, cold, and profoundly deep, making it impossible to ever read what he was thinking.
At the mention of his question, a memory flashed vividly in Shu Shu’s mind:
A well-defined, slender hand gripping a black dice cup. As he lifted it, a smooth, deep voice that sounded like fine jade striking together echoed with a lazy, sighing tone.
“So silly. You missed the sixes again.
That’s thirty-two kisses you owe me now.”
She had paid a massive “price” to learn how to roll those dice.
Shu Shu had spent a long time consciously forcing herself not to think about him. In the dream she had right before she died, it said she was his… “White Moonlight”—his ultimate, unforgettable love.
What a joke.
She still clearly remembered the last time they parted. He had looked at her with pure, unadulterated hatred in his eyes, his words cutting like ice: “You better roll as far away as possible. I never, ever want to see your face again.”
So how could she possibly be his White Moonlight?
Shu Shu vigorously shook her head, forcing the memories away and dragging herself back to reality.
Besides, it didn’t matter. They would never “see” each other again anyway.
She was already “dead.”
Regaining her composure, Shu Shu smacked her son right upside the head. “What, do you think your mom is Baidu Encyclopedia? Why do you have so many questions?”
Shu Lingchen clutched his forehead, his bright, neon-dyed hair shaking as his face contorted in pain. “Mom! Can you stop hitting me in the head? I’m gonna go stupid!”
Shu Shu scoffed. “Does it even matter? You’d just go from being a little idiot to a big idiot.”
Shu Lingchen: “…”
Late at Night.
This was Shu Shu’s very first night staying in her new apartment, Unit F1600 in Yujing Garden.
She wasn’t the type to suffer from insomnia in a new bed; usually, she could fall asleep anywhere with ease. But perhaps because that little idiot Shu Lingchen had brought him up, Shu Shu’s sleep was plagued by a chaotic, tangled mess of dreams.
In her dream, a pair of pitch-black eyes locked onto her.
Intense, obsessive, and deeply toxic.
They felt like a suffocating, airtight net wrapping tightly around her whole body, winding closer and closer until she couldn’t breathe.
His large hands pinned her against his chest, his thin lips brushing against her ear as his low, magnetic voice murmured into her skin, word by agonizing word.
“Don’t even think about leaving me. Not unless you die.
If you die, I won’t live either. I’ll go with you, and then I’ll have them burn us together and put us in the exact same urn. How does that sound…?”
Crazed lunatic!
Shu Shu lay flat on the soft mattress, her brows tightly knit as a thin layer of cold sweat broke out across her forehead.
For a long time after she left him, these kinds of nightmares had haunted her nights, though they had gradually faded away with time.
But tonight, it returned.
Shu Shu’s fingers unconsciously gripped the bedsheets, fighting with everything she had to break free from the nightmare.
Finally, she tore herself away from his grip—only to plummet instantly into a completely different dream.
This time, the scene before her was entirely unfamiliar. And the main character of this dream wasn’t her.
It was Shu Lingchen—
Sansukini: Shu Shu’s favorite song is probably Train’s 50 Ways to Say Goodbye. Hehehe.