Chapter 265: The Final Tactic
Qi Xia's words left everyone thoroughly baffled.
The sentence seemed riddled with loopholes at first glance, and even Di Yang couldn't quite grasp what Qi Xia was thinking.
“You mean… you’re not leaving?” the aunt asked.
“I’ll leave last,” Qi Xia said. “I have a few questions for Di Yang.”
The group exchanged glances. Leaving last… wouldn’t that mean being left alone?
Was this guy stupid?
And also… one fan in exchange for one “Sorrow”?
“Can we trade with you right now?” a woman asked.
“No, not now,” Qi Xia shook his head. “As I said, someone needs to obtain Di Yang’s ‘Sorrow’ first. My exchange will begin at that moment.”
“This…”
The people hesitated. Di Yang’s “Sorrow” required three fans to exchange, but no one was willing to give up those three fans.
“Everyone, you’re now a single unit,” Qi Xia said. “As soon as someone secures Di Yang’s fan, I’ll give you all my ‘Sorrow’ immediately. Then you can escape. If you can’t do it, I won’t give a single one.”
Qi Xia’s words were firm and resolute, leaving everyone stunned.
After a moment, an older participant said, “How about… we pool our resources?”
“Sixteen of us pooling three fans shouldn’t be too hard…?” someone in the crowd began to echo.
Qi Xia paid no attention to how they gathered their funds. He simply closed his eyes and waited silently.
After a few minutes, they scraped together three fans and exchanged one “Sorrow” from Di Yang.
Everyone now looked at Qi Xia.
Qi Xia nodded and said, “Good. Now I want all of you to elect a leader.”
“A leader…?”
“I don’t want to make deals with each of you individually—that’s too troublesome,” Qi Xia shook his head. “I need an intermediary. This person will collect fans from each group and trade them with me. I’ll give all the ‘Sorrow’ to that person in one go.”
The participants hadn’t expected that, under Qi Xia’s subtle influence, they would gradually begin to unite.
“Why not let this big brother be the leader!” a young girl suggested. “He just contributed a fan to trade with Di Yang for ‘Sorrow’.”
“Yeah, let big brother do it!”
A somewhat introverted man was pushed to the front, looking a little embarrassed.
“Since… since everyone recommends me as the ‘leader,’ I won’t be modest,” the man nodded to the crowd. “Please, each group give me one fan, and I’ll trade them all at once with this brother.”
Hearing this, the others didn’t hesitate. After a brief discussion, each team produced one fan. Qi Xia also decisively pulled all his “Sorrow” from his pocket in one go.
He showed each one to the crowd, confirming there were seven “Sorrow” fans.
“Brother… shall we trade?” The man looked a bit sheepishly at Qi Xia, since nearly all the fans in his hand were “Joy” and “Happiness.”
“Exactly. We’ll exchange ‘money’ for ‘goods’ in one go,” Qi Xia said. “But not here—we need to move somewhere else.”
“Somewhere else?”
“That’s right.” Qi Xia nodded. “Please, everyone follow me.”
Though somewhat puzzled, since they had already handed over their fans and elected a “leader,” they had no choice but to follow the crowd.
Di Yang watched as the group slowly moved away from him, his expression unusually cautious.
He couldn’t figure out what benefit Qi Xia could gain by exchanging the “Sorrow” he had accumulated for so long in a one-for-one trade with the crowd.
He had been monopolizing, could have made a huge profit, exchanging for at least twenty fans—but now a one-for-one?
Qi Xia gathered the people around him and said a few words softly.
After hearing him, everyone showed strange expressions.
“Young man… have you lost your mind?” the aunt asked tremblingly.
“Of course not,” Qi Xia nodded, then turned to the “leader” and said, “Let’s trade now.”
The leader hesitated for a moment, then nodded with a grave expression, handing over seven fans to Qi Xia, who in turn gave all his “Sorrow” to the group.
After the “leader” distributed all the “Sorrow” to everyone, they exchanged glances, then scattered in teams in different directions.
Di Yang frowned slightly, feeling something was off, but at that moment, Qi Xia walked toward him.
“Di Yang,” Qi Xia called.
Di Yang didn’t answer, just stared coldly at this man.
“You should still have a full set of ‘Joy, Anger, Sorrow, Happiness,’ right?” Qi Xia asked.
“Didn’t you see?” Di Yang replied coldly. “What’s on the table is all I have.”
“No.” Qi Xia shook his head. “You started with three fans, and after you killed someone, you took their five fans as well. So besides the six on the table, you still have eight.”
Di Yang remained silent.
“To ensure you could escape with any teammate at the final moment, I don’t believe you’d leave yourself without a single ‘Sorrow,’” Qi Xia continued. “So you must have a complete set of ‘Joy, Anger, Sorrow, Happiness.’ After all, you never know what kind of teammate you’ll encounter.”
“So what?”
“So today you’ve fallen into my trap,” Qi Xia said.
Before Di Yang could react, the crowd in the distance, who were “matching,” suddenly erupted in chaos.
“Matching failed?! You fucking lied to me?!”
“Oh my god! Ours failed too?!”
“What’s going on?! Our fans were swallowed!!”
Di Yang frowned and glanced at the distant crowd, but made no extra move. He knew fraud was very common in his venue.
When only a dozen or so people remained on the field, the ugliest side of human nature would fully emerge.
Even without knives, people might beat each other to death over a single fan.
In past games, by the final stage, the place would be littered with corpses.
Now the crowd was in utter chaos, all shouting and rushing to the center of the hall, seemingly about to break into a fight.
Di Yang gradually realized something was wrong. It seemed every one of the seven groups was fighting.
Even if fraud occurred… could seven groups all start cheating at the same time?
Before Di Yang could react, all the participants sprinted toward the exit.
It seemed they had been carefully shifting their positions from the very beginning, just waiting for this moment to escape.
Di Yang’s eyes widened. Sensing disaster, he immediately flipped over the table and ran toward the crowd.
But he was too slow. The seven teams scrambled out the door as if fleeing from demons.
Di Yang now stared incredulously at the “matching machines” beside him. Every single one showed “Matching Successful.”
He looked at the exit, his eyes slowly widening. He knew he had been tricked.
He had to stop that man immediately!
He turned and sprinted toward Qi Xia, but again he was too late.
“Di Yang, I want to bet my life against yours,” Qi Xia said with a smile.