Cheating

An Ying paid the farce no mind. He was still considering which card to play in the first round.

He had obtained all his cards by killing anomalies, but he had also heard that some high cards had already been found in all sorts of obscure places.

The ace of hearts, possibly the highest card of all, had been hidden in the flesh of someone's back. That person had dug it out of himself.

His cards were certainly no match for an ace.

In the silence, someone was the first to turn on An Ying. "I know An Ying has high-ranking playing cards! At least jacks, queens, or kings!"

In an instant, everyone looked at An Ying.

An Ying looked up, not at all surprised that someone had sold him out. Many people had seen the ranks of the cards he obtained later; he had made no particular effort to hide them.

Besides, Weird Objects that could see through things were not uncommon.

Perhaps they had been wary of his ability, so no one had dared try to snatch his cards then. Now that there were more of them, they apparently felt emboldened enough to try.

Someone said angrily, "Are you crazy? The livestreams outside are still broadcasting, following everyone in the Calamity Crossing Squad! And you're saying this..."

These were people who had just come in. They had been watching the livestream here earlier, so they knew what had happened.

"We don't have a choice. His cards are higher than all of ours. If we leave him alone, he'll keep winning and take all our cards. Then we'll have no way out but death! As for anything else, I can't worry about that now!"

Those words clearly swayed many people.

None of them wanted to die. Staying alive mattered more than being cursed at.

"He has lots of cards. Let's join forces and take them all!"

"Even if we can't take them, destroying them would be fine too. At least then we'd have a chance to live," a short-haired man said. Though he kept drawing everyone else into his words, many people noticed the greed in his eyes.

He had long coveted An Ying's ability, status, and items. If he could kill him, he could not only take his high cards and get out alive, but also make a name for himself by killing An Ying. Then wouldn't he have his pick of the official squads?

Quite a few people voiced their agreement, but some remained where they were, expressionless and unreadable.

The woman who had sneered earlier opened her eyes and looked at An Ying. Her beautiful, long, curly hair was tied in a low ponytail that hung beside her leather jacket.

If An Ying had been at his peak, he could still have put up a fight in such a predicament. But now the Weird Objects in his hands were depleted of energy. Forcing them to work would only worsen his injuries and hasten their revival. If a fight really broke out, he would definitely be the one to suffer.

He quickly weighed his options and abandoned the most convenient solution: beating them all into submission.

An Ying's gaze settled, very slowly, on those itching to make a move. "Have you all forgotten the rules here?" he said coldly.

The newcomers were taken aback. They had seen the rules in the livestream, but An Ying had looked through them so quickly that they hadn't seen them all clearly.

The dozen or so people who had entered earlier, however, realized what he meant. Although not all of them had obtained the rules from the NPCs, each had learned what they said through their own methods.

[Rules of game arena no. 2:

1. Gambling is permitted, welcomed, and mandatory in this game arena.

2. Complete * rounds of gambling and win to obtain the key to leave this uncanny scene.

3. Losing ** will result in death.

4. Cheating is forbidden. It is disrespectful to the game.

5. Kill ** and ** to achieve a perfect clear.

6. ***...]

The rules were incomplete, but An Ying could already fill in the blank in one of them. He was also one hundred percent certain of it.

[3. Losing your playing cards will result in death.]

He also had some guesses about the rules omitted after the sixth, but he couldn't be one hundred percent certain.

The third rule was the main reason for the current farce.

"You remember the fourth rule, don't you?" An Ying stared at them. "The rules say cheating is forbidden because it's disrespectful to the game. Aren't you cheating right now?"

"Snatching playing cards is cheating."

An Ying said, "Will you risk being sentenced to death for cheating, or find another way to survive? Choose for yourselves."

"If we're going to die anyway, why not kill you and die together?"

An Ying raised an eyebrow slightly. Though his face remained expressionless, his gaze seemed as cold as ice, without a trace of fear.

"I can't kill you if you attack me now, but I can easily hold out for ten minutes. Once those ten minutes are up, who knows whether the people who cheated will live or die?"

The white-haired young man smiled, his eyes icy. "You can take that gamble."

At those words, the entire room fell silent.

After about half a minute, someone sat down. He already had a card in his hand; he had only stood up to fish in troubled waters and get as many extra cards as he could.

But if this had anything to do with the rule against cheating, he would rather wait and see what happened to the person who had snatched a card first.

At that thought, quite a few people looked at the first person to snatch a card. Half his body was covered in blood, and he sat in his seat in a daze, his face pale.

More and more of those fishing in troubled waters sat down. Only those without cards remained, seven in all. With so few people, it was nearly impossible to rob An Ying.

After hesitating, they turned their attention to those missing arms or legs.

They were going to die anyway, so why not try?

Suddenly, one of the seven sat down as well. His gaze swept over An Ying before finally settling on the pale-faced person who had been the first to snatch a card.

They were seated one behind the other.

The rules forbade cheating, and cheating was also the greatest taboo in a casino. But one must not forget that, whatever the game, cheating only counted as cheating if it was discovered.

When it went undiscovered, that was luck, talent, a godly move.

Those people had openly moved to snatch cards, and so many others knew about it. Of course it would be considered cheating.

But what if no one noticed?

He thought of one of his special invisible Weird Objects, and an idea stirred in his mind.

At the same time, An Ying was also thinking about this. When it came to cheating, his thoughts coincided with that person's.

But he glanced at the four NPCs kneeling before him and the NPC in charge of holding the prop playing cards. He understood that the four were not merely background figures; they were also watching the players to prevent cheating.

To cheat by stealing or switching cards, he would have to avoid everyone's eyes, including those of the easily overlooked NPCs. It would be extraordinarily difficult.

His gaze rested on the tray. Seven minutes remained on the countdown, and he still hadn't chosen which card to play.

If Tao Yuan and Qin Rang were here, they would certainly be able to make the right decision immediately. They might even have guessed most of the rules already. But An Ying knew himself well: he was just a slightly smarter-than-average ordinary person.

The two freaks on the team often made him give up thinking for himself.

A normal deck contained fifty-four cards, with four suits: spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs. Each suit had thirteen cards: ace, two, three, four... jack, queen, and king.

He had seen about a dozen cards while killing anomalies, and he also knew the ranks of some other people's cards. So far, he had never seen two cards with the same rank and suit, such as two fives of hearts.

So, for the time being, he could guess that the game arena contained only one deck's worth of cards: fifty-four in all.

But he still hadn't seen or encountered the most important cards in the deck, the jokers—the big and little jokers.