Chapter 670: Whose Hole Cards
"Double Ninth Festival," the ninth day of the ninth lunar month.
Qi Xia's "shown card" was "New Year's Eve," the thirtieth day of the twelfth lunar month.
The "community card" in the center of the table was "Minor Snow," the twenty-third day of the tenth lunar month.
Nine-nine, one-two-three-zero, one-zero-two-three—when all the numbers were added together, the total came to thirty points.
A tie counts as a loss, and busting also counts as a loss.
"You red-assed monkey, are you fucking cheating?!" Chen Junnan slammed the table hard. "How the hell do you know what our cards are?!"
"Handsome boy!" Qiao Jiajin quickly signaled him with his eyes. "You can't say that!"
"Damn... crap..." Chen Junnan covered his mouth, then thought of something. "Why the hell can't I say that?! This bastard's cheating—he can read our cards!!"
"Hahaha!" Di Hou let out a manic laugh, then said, "Maybe my 'Double Ninth Festival' was just a guess, and you fell for it. What, it really is 'Double Ninth Festival'?"
"Guess my ass!!" Chen Junnan pointed fiercely at Di Hou. "I've had my suspicions about you for a long time! Last round I tried to bluff you, and you took one look at the back of my card and said I wasn't good enough. Old Qi tried to bluff you too, and you took one look at the face of his card and knew he was lying. Did you mark the backs of the cards?!"
"Oh?" Di Hou shrugged. "Is that possible? If I had marked them, would someone of Qi Xia's caliber not notice?"
"You—"
"This is exactly my 'hole card.'"
As Di Hou said this, a faint, barely visible flash sparkled in his eyes.
That flash was like a shooting star streaking across the sky, fleeting and gone in an instant.
And far away, Zheng Yingxiong let out a muffled groan. The nosebleed he had just barely managed to stop spurted out again.
Xiao Cheng was so startled his face changed color. He quickly tore a piece of cloth from his own clothes and tried to stuff Zheng Yingxiong's nostrils.
"You fucking..." Chen Junnan slowly stood up, staring at Di Hou's eyes in disbelief. "Are you pulling that 'Fiery Golden Eyes' crap on me? Do you really think you're the fucking Monkey King?"
"I don't understand what you're saying." Di Hou shook his head. "I just happened to, by chance, accidentally be able to see through your cards. That's all there is to it."
Chen Junnan's expression was extraordinarily complex—mixed with shock, anger, and resentment. It took him a long time to choke out one sentence.
"Are you saying that cheating is allowed in your casino?"
"This is probably where you don't understand the business," Di Hou laughed. "Nine out of ten gambles involve deception. Which casino in this world doesn't have cheats?"
"What...?"
"The most interesting thing I do here every day is watch the various gamblers try their best to cheat. As long as they're good enough and don't get caught red-handed, I naturally turn a blind eye," Di Hou said. "If you guys can now see through my cards, or steal my 'hidden card,' as long as I don't catch you, I'll still allow it. But can you do it?"
"CLANG!!!"
As soon as Di Hou finished speaking, a tremendous gong sound rang out from somewhere far away.
The sound startled Di Hou. He looked somewhat puzzled toward the door, then turned back to look at the three men in front of him, only to find that all their expressions had changed.
Chen Junnan stood still, reached up to smooth his hair, and chuckled lightly. "Your mom's finally fallen for it..."
"What...?" Di Hou stared blankly at Chen Junnan, his mind suddenly going blank.
Qi Xia wanted to say something too, but his whole body started to tip to one side again. Qiao Jiajin reached out and steadied him.
"Liar boy, hang in there! Everything's just as you said!"
Qi Xia forced his eyes open and lifted his head to look at Di Hou. There was a trace of coldness in his gaze.
Di Hou immediately felt something was wrong. A glimmer flashed in his eyes, and his gaze pierced through the table, directly looking at the hand cards in Qi Xia's hands.
Where on that card was the "Double Ninth Festival"? It was clearly "Zhongyuan" (Ghost Festival)!
"How... how..."
"Hey!!" Qiao Jiajin suddenly shouted, "Fat monkey, stop cheating!"
As soon as the words were spoken, Di Hou saw a flash of light in front of his eyes, and his vision could no longer penetrate the table.
Seeing this flash of light, Qiao Jiajin also smiled slightly. "A bit of a cheap trick, but this time the only ones cheating are us."
"Yeah, Brother Monkey," Chen Junnan laughed. "You said it yourself. In this game, we can cheat as we like, as long as we don't get caught by you."
A trace of fear slowly crept onto Di Hou's face. He couldn't figure out what was going on.
His "Spiritual Sight" had actually been nullified?
He frowned and quickly thought of countermeasures, trying to calm himself down in the shortest possible time.
"Wait... wait..." Di Hou kept persuading himself in his mind. "What am I afraid of? Only one of my 'hole cards' has been broken... I still have a second hole card."
He quickly reviewed what had just happened in his mind, and only then barely managed to calm himself down.
So what if they could break his "Spiritual Sight"?
So what if they secretly switched cards?
But that was "Zhongyuan"!
Ghost Festival—the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month.
The face value of this single card is "thirteen"! And the sum of Qi Xia's "shown card" and the "community card" is only "six" each. Added all together, it's twenty-five points.
Yes, this "Ghost Festival" card is enough to send Qi Xia to his death.
"Di Hou, I want to 'raise the stakes.'" Qi Xia's voice came faintly, instantly interrupting Di Hou's train of thought.
"What...?"
"I want to continue 'raising the stakes,'" Qi Xia said. "You said that in this round, as long as I 'raise the stakes,' you will call."
These words instantly shattered the sense of security Di Hou had just built up.
"You... want to 'raise the stakes' now?" His lips moved mutteringly, feeling that things were still beyond his control.
Why would Qi Xia want to "raise the stakes" now?
Could it be... that he didn't know he had just glimpsed that "Zhongyuan" card?
"Right..." Di Hou leaned forward, reached out, and pinched his forehead hard, as if this could make his brain work faster. "That's right... it's a 'bluff'... He wants to scare me off!"
After all, in this game, "raising the stakes" not only earns more "Tao," but also has an important use: to persuade the opponent to concede.
At this moment, to verify whether his own thoughts were correct, there was one simplest method—to listen to what stake Qi Xia wanted to raise.
If the bet he added was, on hearing it, beyond what a normal person could accept, then he was one hundred percent bluffing. After all, for an ordinary bet, he would just directly "call," and it wouldn't have any deterrent effect.
"Qi Xia, what do you want to raise?"
Qi Xia took a deep breath and said slowly, "The stake I'm laying down is this: the loser of this round must serve the winner forever, until they completely perish."