Leaving aside the trainees, even the bullet chat was flooded with ellipses.
[No way. He’s actually playing Fight the Landlord in such an extravagant casino? I’m stunned.]
[I’m amazed too, damn. This is a real person of quality. The system picked up a treasure.]
[That isn’t the point! You can actually play Fight the Landlord in Las Vegas?!!!]
[Huh, but you know, Fight the Landlord is also considered a form of gambling. It’s just less classy compared to Blackjack, Texas Hold’em, and so on. The gameplay simply isn’t as thrilling. Even if it’s pretty fun to watch, it still feels a little out of place on such a grand stage.]
The trainees watching from the side also began criticizing.
“What a letdown. He took ten thousand chips just to run off and play Fight the Landlord at a hundred-chip table.”
“Yeah. With how provocative he looks, shouldn’t he be playing something else?”
“I can’t believe we thought he’d put down ten thousand in one shot. Is he even a man?”
Zong Jiu slapped the gambling table impatiently. “I was the first player to start the game, so it’s my choice what to play. If you want to play something else, open your own table. Don’t make a nuisance of yourselves here.”
Just then, the trainees joining the game were decided.
The two C-ranks who had won the privilege sat down opposite Zong Jiu. One of them looked slightly familiar to him. His eyes were filled with deep resentment. It was the trainee Zong Jiu had humiliated outside his room not long ago.
The two C-ranks would undoubtedly possess more chips than trainees two ranks lower. That made things simpler for him. He could just empty their pockets directly.
“The players are seated. The game will begin shortly.”
A transparent air barrier suddenly appeared around the gambling table, forming a clear boundary that separated the space several meters away from everyone else. Even if a player held his cards facing the spectators beyond the barrier, the spectators could not see the cards in his hand. Even the bullet chat, which could not communicate with the trainees, was unable to see the cards, granting the players absolute privacy.
The dealer picked up a deck of cards from the table. Her fingers flew as she began swiftly shuffling them.
Zong Jiu propped his head up with one hand, quietly watching her movements through the gaps between his fingers.
In fact, he was not the only one doing so. Everyone at the gambling table was watching the dealer, trying to catch even the slightest hint. Unfortunately, their naked eyes could not make anything out. The dealer shuffled so quickly that the cards had already blurred into flickering afterimages.
The cards were dealt just as quickly, three at a time in clockwise order. Soon, the cards were fully distributed, leaving only three face-down cards on the table for the landlord.
The three players at the table picked up the cards before them, each falling into thought.
According to the rules of Fight the Landlord, after the cards were dealt, each of the three players could choose whether to bid. The highest bidder became the landlord and received the three undealt cards on the table. The other two formed a team as peasants and joined forces against the landlord.
If the landlord won, he would take the combined pot of the peasants. If the peasants won, they would split the landlord’s pot equally.
“Bidding for the landlord position will now begin. The player holding the three of spades may bid first.”
The dealer smiled. “The opening bet for the E-rank table is 100 chips, with a maximum raise to 500 chips, which is the opening bet for the D-rank table.”
Zong Jiu lazily tossed out the three of spades. “Then I’ll raise it straight to five hundred and take the landlord position. Any objections?”
No one spoke.
The C-rank on the white-haired young man’s left clenched his fist.
Yi Ruisi felt that his luck was truly terrible.
He had wanted to use his identity as a veteran to teach this young upstart a lesson. Instead, he had been publicly taught a hard lesson by this newly promoted C-rank, disgracing himself so thoroughly that wherever he went, he could practically hear the silent jeers of those around him.
And now, sitting at the gambling table, the hand dealt to him stank to high heaven.
Looking at the scattered, useless cards in his hand, Yi Ruisi gnashed his teeth in anger.
Five hundred chips were nothing to a C-rank trainee, but he could not stand this little white-haired brat’s arrogant manner and wanted to shoot him down. But from the look of his current hand, it was not worth fighting for the landlord position with such lousy cards.
Just as Yi Ruisi was stewing in frustration, the C-rank opposite him suddenly gave him a look.
He immediately understood what the other meant.
The man opposite him had a good hand.
The meaning was obvious. Since Yi Ruisi’s cards were not good, he should not seize the landlord position. He could simply join hands with the other C-rank and let Zong Jiu become the landlord instead.
That was true. The peasants only needed to work together to topple the landlord. Two people working as a team was better than one person fighting alone.
Since Yi Ruisi’s cards were bad, his turn was behind Zong Jiu’s, so he could still cooperate and provide support. As long as he helped his partner win, then Yi Ruisi would win as well.
[Ehhh, boring. This landlord can only get 500 chips. He can’t even double it.]
[I was thinking the same thing. Fight the Landlord really isn’t as exciting as Texas Hold’em. But I just went to peek at the high-rank tables for a while. I don’t think they allow Fight the Landlord there, so it’s only available at this E-rank table.]
[That’s reasonable, honestly. What would be the point if everyone played Fight the Landlord in such a huge casino?]
[But I still feel tense watching this. Although I can’t see his hand, this C-rank seems to be brimming with confidence.]
“Player 1 is the first to raise to 500 chips. The bet has reached the upper limit for this table and can no longer be raised. Congratulations to Player 1 for seizing the landlord position.”
Now that the landlord had been established, the dealer turned over the three face-down cards on the table.
Everyone could see these three landlord cards.
They were a black joker, the king of hearts, and the jack of spades.
“According to the rules, the landlord has the privilege of starting the first round.”
Landlord Zong lifted his eyebrows, added the cards to the fan of cards in his hand, and casually flung out one card.
The spectators watched with widened eyes.
What he had thrown out was the smallest card: the three of spades.
“A single card as his first move? Is it possible he has a pair of jokers in his hand?”
“I think that’s very likely. But it might also be because he doesn’t have a triplet to attach a single card to. There was a joker among the landlord cards; if the landlord has both jokers, then his position is very stable.”
Since Zong Jiu had played the three of spades, the other two also followed with single cards. By the time it returned to Zong Jiu’s turn and a 10 had been added to the table, he casually used the jack of spades from the landlord cards.
The C-rank opposite him gave Yi Ruisi a sharp look.
Yi Ruisi understood and tossed out a 2.
In Fight the Landlord, 2s were the highest ordinary cards. As long as this card was played early, it could usually overpower the round.
But no one expected the white-haired young man to directly toss out another card.
The clown on the black-and-white joker card split into a wide grin.
[??? A joker this early? I really think the possibility of the landlord having a pair of jokers is very high. If both jokers are in his hand, most people would take them out early.]
[But it’s also possible the landlord doesn’t have the joker pair. Maybe he’s using the small joker to test who has the big joker?]
[If the same person has both trump cards, then the biggest card on the table would be 2.]
The C-rank frowned anxiously.
He was holding the bigger trump card, the red joker, in his hand.
Although he could not see the landlord’s cards, he knew that the landlord had just played three cards and still had seventeen remaining in his hand.
Seventeen cards. Letting him start the round again was not a big deal. It was not as if he could beat them instantly with seventeen cards.
“Pass.”
He hesitantly waved a hand.
Zong Jiu showed an expectant smile, and his sleeve moved silently.
Then… he played another single card.
“Why does he keep playing single cards? Does this landlord not have any pairs?”
“Could it be that he has too many loose cards in his hand? But it’s hard to say. If the landlord still has a joker in his hand, then playing single cards would indeed be more advantageous.”
Apparently, the landlord’s style of play had finally provoked the C-rank holding the bigger trump card. In this round, when Zong Jiu played a 2, he finally played the joker in his hand.
The corner of Zong Jiu’s mouth curved up, and in his mind, he subtracted one card from the C-rank’s hand.
Then he pushed out four cards.
Four kings.
Bomb!
A bomb could blow up a single trump card. Only a pair of jokers could beat a bomb.
Goddammit!
He should never have let him take the landlord position at the start. He had not expected those three landlord cards to give Zong Jiu a bomb.
Yi Ruisi had a bad premonition. He looked at the cards in his own hand, then at the strange expression on the other C-rank’s face.
Never mind. The landlord should still have ten cards left.
The next second, the young man lazily propped up his head and laid down a straight.
The two others at the table broke out in cold sweat.
Three cards left.
Zong Jiu unhurriedly tossed out a pair of aces.
The C-rank frantically made eyes at Yi Ruisi.
But Yi Ruisi did not have anything bigger than a pair of aces.
There were four 2s. The landlord had one, he himself had two, and the last one was in the other player’s hand.
In order to cooperate with his teammate during the first round, Yi Ruisi had split the pair of 2s in his hand. The one he played had been swallowed by the joker, and the opportunity had been lost. Later, when he wanted to play a 2 again, the landlord directly launched a bomb.
“Looks like I win.”
Seeing that no one could play any cards, the other two players fell into dead silence.
Zong Jiu placed another single card on the table. His finger moved almost imperceptibly, and he stood up from his seat.
The dealer declared the landlord the winner.
“I don’t believe it. You must have cheated!”
The C-rank fiercely flung the cards he had not managed to play down onto the table.
How could this be? If he had used the bigger trump back then, or if he had seized the landlord position, would the outcome have been completely different?
He had an extremely strong feeling that he had been led by the nose. Not only had every card he played fallen within the white-haired guy’s expectations, even the hand he held seemed to have been seen through from the very beginning. The most unsettling thing was that this guy had even read their thought processes like the back of his hand!
[Lol, is this guy an idiot? How could someone cheat at Fight the Landlord?]
[Yeah. Isn’t Fight the Landlord pretty fair? Just match everyone’s hands afterward and you’d know.]
[Speaking of cheating, the noticeboard the system hung up doesn’t seem to say anything about cheating, does it?]
[Replying to the person upstairs: it’s true they don’t say cheating is forbidden, but I’m thinking this might be something implicitly allowed by the system? After all, cheating is also a kind of skill.]
[Anyway, if you want to expose a cheater, you need proof. Calling someone out for cheating without proof like this is just throwing a tantrum.]
The white-haired young man, who had been about to leave, arched his eyebrows and spread his arms.
Zong Jiu really had not cheated in this round.
Rather, he had only been conducting an experiment.
Just now, with his hands behind his back, he had strolled around the entire casino. But it had not been for the purpose everyone had assumed, leading them around like a young master touring a gala.
During that time, he had glanced around and successfully filched a deck of cards.
The cards used in Las Vegas were all the same, which made them even easier to play with.
So during that time, Zong Jiu had very casually begun a basic magic technique: card switching.
He had not changed the values of the cards, nor had he touched anyone else’s. He had only swapped the cards dealt by the dealer with the cards in his own deck and mentally kept count of the other two players’ hands.
As Zong Jiu frantically swapped the cards around, the system remained as quiet as a mouse.
No matter how skilled Zong Jiu was, it would still be difficult to hide his tricks from a higher-dimensional existence. But since the system did not point it out, then this was tacitly understood as part of Las Vegas’ rules.
The system’s mechanical voice spoke.
[Cheating can only be identified on the spot if the casino dealer is able to find evidence of cheating. The system is not responsible for making such judgments.]
As expected.
The system did not care whether trainees cheated or not. It only cared who had the skill to hide it from the dealers.
A cheat that was not caught could not be called cheating.
It was called skill.
The curve of the white-haired young man’s lips widened.
He spun the golden Magician tarot card between his fingers and waved his hand at the two dark-faced C-ranks at the table. Without looking back, he took his 11,500 chips and walked to the next table.
The onlooking crowd sucked in a sharp, chilly breath as they watched him.
Because Zong Jiu was walking straight toward the central gambling pool, where the starting bet was 10,000 chips.
Everything was ready.
All he needed was a propitious wind.