Ch24 – Everything is ready, all we need is an east wind

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Leaving aside the trainees, even the bullet chat was a flood of ‘…’

[No way, actually playing Fight the Landlord in such an extravagant casino? Stunned.] 

[I’m amazed too, oh boy.
This is a real person of quality, the system has picked up a treasure.]

[That isn’t the point! You can actually play Fight the Landlord in Las Vegas?!!!]

 

 

[Huh, but y’know, Fight the Landlord is also considered a form of gambling, it’s just less classy compared to Blackjack, Texas Hold’em, etc.
The gameplay just isn’t as exciting.
Even if it’s quite fun to watch, it pales a little on such a big stage.]

The onlooking trainees also critiqued. 

“What a letdown; he took ten thousand chips just to run off to play Fight the Landlord at a hundred-chips table.”

 

“Yeah, shouldn’t he be playing something else with how provocative he looks?”

“I can’t believe we thought he’d put down ten thousand in one shot, is he even a man?”

Zong Jiu impatiently slapped the gambling table.
“I’m the first player to start the game, so it’s my choice what to play.
You can open your own table if you want to play anything else, don’t be a nuisance over here.”

 

Just then, the trainees to join the game were decided.

The two C-ranks who won the privilege were seated opposite Zong Jiu.
One of the C-ranks looked slightly familiar to Zong Jiu.
His eyes were filled with deep resentment.
It was the trainee who was 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 directly empty their pockets.

“The players are seated.
The game will begin shortly.” 

A transparent air barrier suddenly appeared around the gambling table, forming a clear boundary that partitioned the space several metres away from everyone else.
Even if the player held the cards facing the spectators beyond the barrier, the spectator could not see what was on the cards in the player’s hand, and even the bullet chat, unable to communicate with the trainees, were unable to see the cards, affording them absolute privacy.

The dealer picked up a deck of cards from the table, her fingers flying as she began to swiftly shuffle the cards.

Zong Jiu propped his head up with a hand, quietly watching the movements through the gaps between his fingers.

Actually, he wasn’t the only one doing this.
Everyone at the gambling table was watching the dealer, trying to make out any possible hint.
It was a pity that they couldn’t catch anything with their naked eyes, for the dealer washed the cards so rapidly that the cards had morphed into flickering afterimages. 

The cards were also dealt rapidly, three cards in a go in a clockwise direction, and soon the cards were fully distributed, leaving only three cards facedown on the table for the landlord.

The three players at the table picked up the cards before them, contemplative.

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Following the rules of Fight the Landlord, the three players could each choose whether to raise their bid after the cards were dealt, and the highest bidder would become the landlord, getting the three undealt cards on the table.
The other two would form a team as peasants, grouping up to fight against the landlord.

If the landlord won, it would win the shared pot of the peasants.
If the farmers won, they would divide the landlord’s pot equally. 

“Seizing the landlord position will now begin.
The player with the three spades can be the first to bid.”

The dealer smiled.
“The opening bet for the E-rank table is 100, 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 to the left of the white-haired young man clenched his fist.

Yi Ruisi felt that his luck was seriously crap.

He had wanted to use his identity as a veteran to give this young upstart a piece of his mind.
Instead, he ended up getting taught a hard lesson in public by this newly promoted C-rank, and was so disgraced that he could hear the silent jeers of the people around him wherever he went.

As a result, he now sat at the gambling table, and the cards dealt to him stunk to high heaven. 

Looking at the scattered useless cards in his hand, Yi Ruishi gnashed his teeth in anger.

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection.
If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

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As Yi Ruisi stewed in frustration, the C-rank opposite him suddenly gave him a look.

Although communication wasn’t permitted in casinos, it was still permissible to send looks with the eyes and their mannerisms. 

He soundlessly motioned with his lips at the cards in his hand, nodded, and gave a winning smile.

Yi Ruisi immediately cottoned on.
The man opposite him was hinting that he had a good hand.

That’s true; peasants simply had to join hands to topple the landlord.
It was better for two people to work together than for one to fight alone.

Although his cards weren’t good, his turn was behind Zong Jiu, so he could still coordinate to lend support.
As long as he could help his partner win, then Yi Ruisi would still win. 

[Ehhh, dull.
This landlord can only get 500 chips, he can’t even double it.]

[I was thinking of that too.
Fight the Landlord isn’t as exciting as Texas.
But I just went to peek at the high-ranking tables for a while.
I don’t think they allow Fight the Landlord there, so it’s only this E-rank here.]

[That’s reasonable, really.
What’s the point if everyone played Fight the Landlord in such a big casino?]

[But I still feel on the edge of my seat 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.”

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Now that the landlord was established, the dealer turned over the three facedown 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 in the first round.” 

Landlord Zong lifted his eyebrows, adding the cards to the fan of cards in his hand.
He casually flung out a card.

The spectators watched on with wide eyes.
What was flung out was the smallest card, the three of spades.

“A single card as his first move, is it possible that he has a pair of jokers in his hand?”

“That’s quite likely in my opinion.
But it might also be because he doesn’t have a triplet to attach a single card to.
There was a joker in the landlord cards; if the landlord has both jokers, his position is very stable.” 

Since Zong Jiu played the three of spades, the other two followed with a single card.
When it was back to Zong Jiu’s turn with a 10 added to the table, he flippantly used the jack of spades landlord card.

The opposite C-rank gave Yi Ruisi a sharp look.
Yi Ruisi understood, tossing out a 2.

In Fight the Landlord, 2s were the biggest cards.
As long as this card was played in the early stages, it would usually be able to overpower the round.

But no one expected that the white-haired young man would directly toss out a card. 

The clown on the black and white joker card cracked a wide grin.

[??? A joker this early on? I think that the possibility of the landlord having a joker pair is really very high.
If both jokers are in his hands, most people would take them out in the early stage.]

[But it’s also possible that the landlord doesn’t have a joker pair.
Maybe he’s sensing out who has the bigger joker with this little one?]

[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 couldn’t see what was on the cards, he knew that the landlord had just played three cards, and still had seventeen cards remaining in his hands.

Seventeen cards; it wasn’t a big deal to let him start the round again.
It wasn’t as if he could beat them in an instant with seventeen cards. 

“Pass.”

He hesitantly waved a hand.

 

Zong Jiu showed an expectant smile, and his sleeve silently shook.

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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 hands? But it’s hard to tell, if the landlord still has a joker in his hand, it would indeed be more advantageous to play single cards.”

Apparently, the landlord playing like this had finally riled up the C-rank holding onto the bigger trump.
In this round, when Zong Jiu played a 2, he finally played the joker in his hand.

Zong Jiu’s mouth curled, and he mentally subtracted a card from the C-rank’s hand.
He then pushed out four cards. 

Four kings, bomb!

Bombs could blow up a single trump card.
Only a pair of jokers could win a bomb.

Goddamnit! He shouldn’t have given the landlord position to him at the start! He didn’t expect that the three landlord cards would give Zong Jiu a bomb.

Yi Ruisi had a bad premonition.
He looked at the cards in his hand, then at the odd expression on the C-rank’s face. 

Nevermind, the landlord should still have ten cards left.

The next second, the young man lazily propped his head up, putting down a straight.

The other two at the table sweated buckets.

Three cards left. 

Zong Jiu tepidly tossed out a pair of aces.

The C-rank manically made eyes at Yi Ruisi.

But Yi Ruisi didn’t have anything bigger than an ace pair.

There were four 2s.
The landlord had one, he had two, and the other person had the last one. 

In order to cooperate with his teammate in the first round, Yi Ruisi had split the 2 pair in his hand, which got swallowed by the joker and the opportunity was lost.
Later, when he wanted to play a 2, the landlord directly launched a bomb.

“Looks like it’s my win.”

 

Seeing that no one could play any cards, the other two players were dead silent.

The dealer declared the landlord as the winner. 

“I don’t believe it.
You must have cheated!”

The C-rank fiercely flung down the cards that he hadn’t managed to play on the table.

How could this be? If he had used the bigger trump back then, or if he had seized the landlord position, then would there be a completely different outcome?

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He had a very strong feeling that he was being led by the nose.
Not only did every card he played fall within the white-haired guy’s expectations, but even the hand he held also seemed to have been seen through from the very beginning.
The most unsettling thing was that this guy even read their thought processes like the back of his hand! 

[Lol, is this guy an idiot, how can someone cheat at Fight the Landlord.]

[Yeah.
Isn’t Fight the Landlord quite fair, just match everyone’s hands together and you’d know.]

[Speaking of cheating, the noticeboard that the system hung up doesn’t seem to address cheating?]

[Replying to upstairs: it’s true they don’t say no cheating is allowed, but I’m thinking this could be something implicitly allowed by the system? After all, cheating is also a matter of skill.] 

[Anyway, to out a cheater, you’d have to have proof.
Directly calling someone out for cheating like this without proof is just kicking a tantrum.]

The white-haired young man, who was about to leave, arched his eyebrows, spreading his arms.

Zong Jiu really didn’t cheat in this round, rather, he was only doing an experiment.

Just now, with his hands behind his back, he had strutted around the whole casino.
But it wasn’t for the purpose that everyone assumed, bringing everyone on a stroll like a rich young master at a gala party. 

During this, he had glanced around, and succeeded in filching a deck of cards.

The cards used in Las Vegas were all the same, which also made it easier to play.

So, during that time, Zong Jiu very casually began a basic magic technique: swapping cards.

He didn’t change the size of the cards, nor did he touch the others.
He only swapped the cards issued by the dealer with those in his own deck and mentally kept count of the hands of the other two players. 

As Zong Jiu madly swapped the cards around, the system remained quiet as a mouse.

The mechanical voice of the system 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 judgements.]

As expected. 

The system didn’t care if trainees cheated or not; it only cared about who had the skill to hide it from the dealers.

A cheat that wasn’t caught couldn’t be called a cheat; it was called skill.

The curve on the lips of the white-haired young man broadened.

He spun the golden Magician’s tarot card between his fingers, waving his hand at the two stormy-faced C-ranks at the table.
Without a single look back, he took his 11,500 chips and walked to the next table. 

The onlooking crowd drew in a sharp, chilly breath watching him.

Because Zong Jiu was walking straight for the central gambling pool that started at 10,000 chips.

Everything was ready; all he needed was a propitious wind.