The Gambling Game

He opened the card pool, and the familiar black hole appeared. His Fame balance was now 17,990 points. Thanks to Moonlit Night's strength and the sudden shock of Bai Yang's rabbit doll, his Fame was still climbing nonstop. Such were the wonderful benefits of livestreaming.

Lin Nieran tapped the center of the black hole and silently asked for ten draws.

[Spend 10,000 Fame for ten draws?]

"Yes."

His balance instantly shrank by ten thousand. An incredibly deep echo came from the black hole, and before long, it spat out ten cards whose ranks were impossible to make out.

[Congratulations, host! You obtained Universal Identity Card ×1, Delicious Mint Candy ×2, Delicious Orange Candy ×3, Horn ×2, Disguise Time ×1, and Bank Card ×1!]

The row of cards flipped over. The identity card, mint candies, and the like needed no introduction; they were all familiar. The Horn and Disguise Time, however, were unfamiliar items.

He had seen Disguise Time in the shop, where it sold for 2,000 points. It wasn't cheap. The Horn seemed to be there too, available for only 100 points.

[Horn: Makes your voice audible for a hundred li around. The best tool for hawking your wares.]

[Disguise Time: It's riddle time! Can you guess who I am within five minutes?]

[Bank Card: Contains 100,000 units of the world's universal currency. Even an unregistered person can use it!]

Holding the stack of cards, Lin Nieran said expressionlessly, "007, doesn't your card-draw system have a pity guarantee?"

He had made ten draws because he wanted an identity card!

What was all this junk he'd gotten instead?!

007, the little black-and-white ball, backed away slightly, sounding a little guilty. [We do! An identity card is guaranteed after 100 draws, but there's no guarantee of its rank. Hehe.]

Hehe?

Hehe, my ass!

Lin Nieran, who had been lounging lazily in his chair, sat upright. Seeing that his Fame had already jumped to 8,000, he decided to try his luck with single draws. He refused to believe it!

A thousand Fame points went down, and a pitch-black card flew out.

[Congratulations, host! You obtained Universal Identity Card ×1!]

Lin Nieran continued drawing expressionlessly. His balance fell by another 1,000.

[Congratulations, host! You obtained a strange object: Transport Skateboard.]

[Congratulations, host! You obtained Delicious Mint Candy ×1!]

[Congratulations, host! You obtained Weather Card · Fog ×1!]

[Congratulations, host! You obtained Identity Card · B-Rank.]

Huh? He got one!

Lin Nieran looked at the red card as it flipped over. Unlike Bai Yang's understated white card and Moonlit Night's ostentatious gold one, this card had scarlet patterns along its edges, giving off an ominous air.

[Specter / Identity card not activated

Rank: B

Identity: Strangeness]

A strangeness!

He had drawn a card from the strangeness faction?

Even Lin Nieran was a little stunned. The system had told him before that he could draw a strangeness from the card pool, but he hadn't expected to get one so soon.

After all, the combat strength of strangenesses and humans was on entirely different levels.

"System, are you sure there's nothing wrong with this strangeness card? It won't turn on me?"

007 nodded its little ball. [Don't worry, host, there won't be a problem. You can think of it as a person with a strangeness's abilities. But strangenesses are all a little crazy. It won't hurt you, but you should prepare yourself mentally.]

Crazy? His mind had never lacked madmen. Lin Nieran could hardly wait to see what the strangeness card would be like.

[Identity Card · Specter activated.]

[Naming successful! Card: Flower Language sends you greetings.]

Oh? What a polite strangeness.

After leaving Bai Yang, Moonlit Night killed another strangeness on the road and received a three of clubs. He also had a nine of diamonds dropped by the hammer strangeness he had killed in the corridor not long ago.

The hammer strangeness had dropped a diamond, while the club had come from the strangeness lurking behind someone that he had just killed. It seemed different strangenesses dropped cards of different suits. At the same time, weaker strangenesses dropped cards with lower values, while stronger ones dropped higher-value cards.

As Moonlit Night walked, the bell at his waist jingled. It was piercingly loud on the quiet street, breaking the rule that required silence there.

Unfortunately, perhaps because he had just dealt with a strangeness, he walked for quite a while without encountering another.

A strong smell of blood wafted over from around the street now and then, while occasional screams came from the lit-up pavilions in the distance, making the quiet here seem even eerier.

Moonlit Night tightened his grip on his long blade, his green eyes sweeping over three corpses in a corner, their faces ashen and their bodies stiff.

The strangenesses in this instance really were quite powerful.

He sighed. In truth, he was neither skilled at killing strangenesses nor particularly keen on it. If only his younger brother could come out too. He would love it here.

As he thought this, a row of bloody characters appeared out of thin air before him, drawing his full attention.

[Instance time: 2:30. The first round of the manhunt has ended. Game time begins. Welcome, everyone, to the game arena. Win yourselves a chance to survive.]

[Registration for the first round of gambling has begun. Countdown: 29:59.]

"A gambling game?" Tao Yuan thought of something and quickly pulled the flyer from her pocket to examine it closely.

Sheng Qingqiao had just finished reading the bloody text when he saw Tao Yuan leaning against the corridor wall, staring at the flyer in thought. He couldn't help saying, "Sister Tao, you kept that flyer?"

"Cut the chatter." Tao Yuan's eyes suddenly lit up, and she handed the flyer to Qin Rang. "Look here."

Qin Rang followed Tao Yuan's pointing finger and saw a conspicuous line amid the brightly colored flyer.

{Celebrations are held periodically on the gambling house's top floor, offering you an unparalleled experience. Just take part for a chance to win a grand prize of ten million!}

"What about it?" Sheng Qingqiao leaned over to look too, but he didn't understand.

"Think about the other rules written on that list," Tao Yuan said.

[3. Gambling is allowed in the gambling house. Please gamble to your heart's content. Gambling is not allowed in the gambling house. Gambling is dangerous.

4. The gambling house does not welcome paupers.]

An Ying silently recalled the third and fourth rules and said, "We knew beforehand that we couldn't gamble in the gambling house, or we'd trigger the rule and die. But this rule also says gambling is allowed, which means there really is a place to gamble in this gambling house. That part of the rule is correct too, but like the second rule, it applies in a different context."

Tao Yuan nodded. "Right. At the time, I was still wondering whether this rule was true. There could very well be misleading rules. Now it looks like the top floor is probably the game arena where gambling is allowed."

Everyone looked up. They were currently on a floor roughly thirty stories up in Gambling House · Spring.

An hour ago, they had parted ways with Bai Yang. After coming back and finding the rules, they had planned to leave, but on the way back, a strangeness from the battle royale had spotted them. Only after a fierce fight had they managed to deal with it.

After that, they kept running into strangenesses. Later, they rescued several people being hunted by strangenesses. By the time they got another chance to catch their breath, an hour had passed.

Only once they were safe did they discover that the collapsed Gambling House · Spring had somehow risen beneath the moon again. The familiar long staircase still hung undamaged outside the building, as though nothing had happened.