The crux of tonight's gambling match wasn't about winning or losing, but the life-and-death struggle behind it.
Regardless of the final outcome, my sole request and objective was to lead the team out safely.
It was a slight pity that the person I most wanted to see, Xiao Tianci, the magnate who made his fortune through shady dealings before successfully going legitimate, had still not appeared at the casino.
While waiting for Xiao Tianyu and Mu Haitang's replies, my thoughts flickered and shifted incessantly.
I knew my time was running out.
Fortunately, even though the wait felt incredibly long, making me feel as though every second was an eternity, I eventually received replies from both Xiao Tianyu and Mu Haitang.
Xiao Tianyu replied that to convince me of his lack of ill intentions, he would remain in the private room until the end of the gambling match.
I knew very well that Xiao Tianyu's actions were akin to covering his ears while stealing a bell.
His aim was to placate me first, allowing me to focus on competing for Tianci Lou.
If he truly had no ill intentions, there would have been no need to "invite" Cheng Minglang and the others to his office.
However, Xiao Tianyu's departure did present me with an opportunity.
Because Mu Haitang replied that she was currently at Tianci Lou.
I could use Xiao Tianyu's newly acquired mistress, Mu Haitang, this "Orchid Girl," to deliver a false decree in Xiao Tianyu's office.
The goal was to see if I could lure away all the bodyguards stationed inside, making it easier for Camel to act.
Before leaving the restroom, I didn't reply to Xiao Tianyu. Instead, I sent separate messages to Mu Haitang and Camel, instructing them to proceed with their respective tasks.
Having done all that, I returned to the gambling table and continued participating in the match.
...
Time flowed by silently.
Unknowingly, the card game reached its conclusion.
The card sharps competing with me were mostly employed in various casinos. Besides possessing considerable skill, this group also had extensive experience in gameplay.
Although each person only had a million in chips, their stakes fluctuated back and forth, increasing or decreasing repeatedly.
Coupled with professional poker dealers managing the game, almost all of us were racking our brains to calculate our opponents' moves or devising ways to exploit the rules and employ subtle tactics to create opportunities for cheating ourselves.
It was a battle of wits and strategies between evenly matched opponents!
Only in the final half-hour did two players, having lost all their chips, get eliminated first.
The chips lost by these two players were then distributed among the remaining eight of us.
Even though it wasn't an even distribution, everyone received a share.
Therefore, up to this point, the chip disparity among us at this table was almost negligible.
A single hand of cards could alter the amount of chips and the ranking.
The subsequent final half-hour, the more brutal eight-player to one-player elimination… had truly begun!
In the new round, after approximately seven or eight minutes of intense play, Su Liuli ultimately secured victory for that hand.
Just as the foreign male dealer was pushing chips with his card shovel, preparing to deliver all the chips for this hand to Su Liuli...
"Stop!"
I suddenly stood up, pointed at Su Liuli, and shouted, "You cheated!"
The reason for suddenly confronting Su Liuli was that just before this hand began, my phone in my pocket vibrated.
The vibration was very short, only once.
This was a signal.
While in the restroom sending messages to Mu Haitang and Camel, I had added a line to my message to Mu Haitang: "Do not reply."
This was to prevent her frequent fiddling with her phone in the crowded office from being secretly suspected.
My message to Camel was very simple.
Besides forwarding the information Mu Haitang had sent me regarding the office location directly to Camel, I also sent him an additional message.
I asked him to let me know immediately after he succeeded.
And our agreed-upon signal was: one phone call and then hang up!
Clearly, Camel had succeeded.
Seeing that Xiao Tianyu had not reacted yet, I deduced that Camel had likely subdued those bodyguards.
Therefore, I immediately used the action of taking out a cigarette to signal Su Liuli, asking her to cooperate with me in creating a conflict, catching Xiao Tianyu off guard!
And also… to leave him with nothing!
...
As soon as I spoke, all the players at the table and other contestants at adjacent tables involuntarily gasped in unison.
Following that, they all looked at Su Liuli with schadenfreude.
Even Xiao Tianyu, who was sitting upright on the poker competition stage, chatting and laughing with several referees, immediately stopped his hushed conversations and cast a mocking gaze in our direction.
As for the person involved, Su Liuli, she looked at me with disdain.
After giving me a cold glance, Su Liuli slowly said, "Handsome, you can eat whatever you want, but you can't say whatever you want!"
My acting skills in full bloom, I looked at Su Liuli and said with a half-smile, "The rules of the martial world dictate that cheaters have three fingers chopped off!"
"Do you want to do it yourself, or shall I help you?"
Upon hearing this, Su Liuli coldly replied, "I didn't cheat!"
"Then do you dare let me search you!?"
"Why wouldn't I dare!?" Su Liuli retorted without hesitation.
To further simulate the mindset of catching a cheater, I eagerly walked up to Su Liuli, then quickly unfastened the cuffs of her sleeves and pulled them up forcefully...
Empty.
"Impossible, absolutely impossible!" I shouted as if driven mad. "You cheated, I clearly saw you cheat just now!"
"Don't think you can get away with it by transferring the marked cards! Dealer, examine the cards right now!!!"
The female translator quickly translated my words into English, and then the foreign male dealer pushed the poker cards facing him onto the table.
Sixteen hand cards for eight people, plus five community cards, and in the deck on the table, there were exactly 31 cards, with no shortage of any suit from Ace to King!
"How is this possible!?"
"No! It's not like this! I clearly saw you cheat just now..."
With dazed eyes, I mumbled incessantly, my entire being like a defeated rooster.
As for Xiao Tianyu, who was watching the spectacle from the stage, he was also completely bewildered, having no idea why I had failed.
Little did he know, only I knew the true reason.
I had to admit that Su Liuli's ability to react and adapt was swift.
After receiving the secret signal to cooperate with me, every word she spoke, every expression and gesture she displayed, had no script or pre-written lines. Instead, she continued to act according to the template I had left behind.
This act, this charade between her and me, deceived everyone!