The Bomb

The apparition came to an abrupt halt, and the eerie entities shattered with a crash.

A hint of frustration seemed to appear on the eerie entity's blank face. It was wary of Moonlit Night's blade.

If it took the initiative to break the rules and kill them, he would certainly catch it in the act of breaking the rules too. That was far too dangerous.

It hadn't forgotten how this little joker had appeared. The clown's smile was just like it now: it hated this, but could do nothing about it.

But it couldn't admit to cheating either. The rules had never applied to humans alone; they bound the eerie entities themselves as well.

The eerie entity looked at An Ying. Ever since he had stood up and shouted that it was cheating, he had been careful not to make a single move. It couldn't even find an excuse to frame him, nor could it find evidence that he had cheated.

—His movement when he touched the rabbit hadn't leaked any energy; it had only been a distraction.

So it decided to deny it. "Where did I break the rules? How did I cheat? The little joker is higher than a three. I won."

An Ying raised a hand and crushed the ice shards in front of him, breathing out a cloud of frosty vapor. "The game rules said there were no jokers in the fifty-two cards."

"Oh, this is a new round. We changed the rules. This is... uh, Texas hold'em... no, wait, this is comparing cards in fight the landlord."

An Ying laughed in anger. "Listen to yourself. Does that sound like anything a person would say?"

The eerie entity said, "I'm not a person."

The white-haired young man seemed genuinely angered by it. After breathing out several deep breaths of cold air, he sat down as if resigned to his fate. "Fine. Since the rules are different from before, this round doesn't count. We'll start over. This time, no one gets to cheat."

Seeing that he had chosen to let the round go, the eerie entity laughed at his stupidity inwardly, but remained exceedingly polite. "All right. Since that's what you say, guest, I certainly won't refuse."

Heh, the older an eerie entity gets, the thicker its skin! An Ying grumbled inwardly.

A new round began, and An Ying and the eerie entity each drew a card. He glanced at his card. It was only a little higher than the one he had swapped for last time: the four of hearts.

A playing card that couldn't get much lower—this was his luck, all right. But it was more likely that the eerie entity had tampered with it using some method he didn't know about, deliberately humiliating him and mocking his failure.

He looked up and, sure enough, found the eerie entity staring at him with malice, waves of killing intent emanating from it.

An Ying looked away, turned the card face down in his palm, and pulled the tattered rabbit off his shoulder. He set it in his lap and kneaded it, not forgetting to give the eerie entity a furious look.

Moonlit Night covered his eyes. The acting was painful to watch. Would the eerie entity really believe it?

"You first."

An Ying held out a hand, gesturing for the eerie entity to go first, while gripping the card in his palm tightly.

Several chuckles came from the eerie entity's throat. He was only pretending to be calm, a dying man stalling for time.

It slowly turned over its card. It was a familiar silver joker.

The little joker.

In a deck without the big joker, the little joker was the undisputed winner.

"Impossible! That's cheating! How could you get the same card two rounds in a row?" An Yi​​ng said coldly, his voice angry.

"Good luck." The eerie entity folded its hands on the table, maliciously enjoying the anxious, angry look on the white-haired youth's face.

It found it strange that its favorite emotions, fear and hatred, were the only ones missing, but the joy of victory had already left it eager to see the outcome.

"Your turn."

The varied expressions vanished from An Ying's face, and a smile curved his lips.

For some reason, the eerie entity suddenly had a bad feeling.

The white-haired youth exchanged the card he had just drawn for the four cards in the rabbit's belly and swiftly slapped them down.

"Four twos!"

???

The eerie entity stared dumbfounded at the four twos of different suits, as though it might force a pair of eyes out of its blank mask.

"You said it yourself. We're comparing cards in fight the landlord. A bomb beats the little joker, so mine is higher than yours." An Ying felt a little guilty as he spoke. After glancing at Moonlit Night, who was thoroughly enjoying the show below the platform, his voice somehow gained a trace of confidence. "That's right. That's how it is."

"You—you despicable human!" The malice around the eerie entity nearly surged out of control. "You broke the rules! You played four cards!"

"This is one hand. The rules never said I could only play one card."

"A bomb beats the little joker. I won."

The amusement in An Ying's pink eyes gradually faded. He looked the eerie entity straight in the face. "Accept your loss and let us leave."

The eerie entity sprang to its feet and raised the pitch-black blade in its hand. Everything went dark before An Ying's eyes.

Oh no, it's going to attack...

"Buzz—"

His vision went dark, then bright. An Ying felt his body grow light, and after a brief moment of weightlessness, warm light dispelled the freezing cold of the card game.

An Ying opened his eyes and glimpsed a dazzling array of colorful lanterns and clothing hanging along both sides of the street. Stalls had been set up, with antique-style hair ornaments and utensils neatly arranged on them.

The eerie entity had sent him out.

He looked around and met the eyes of the others who had also survived, his heart heavy.

That damned eerie entity! It said it would let us leave, but did it only mean leaving the game, not the dungeon? We're clearly still in the dungeon!

The eerie entity seemed to have tossed them at random onto an empty street. But it was already daytime in the dungeon. Instead of the moon, a sun hung in the sky, larger and more blazing than even the blood moon.

If they hadn't been able to sense the intense energy fluctuations in the dungeon, they might have thought they were visiting an antique-style street. There was no sign at all of the bloodshed and cruelty that took place on this street at night.

An Ying quickly adjusted his mindset and went over to examine a stall.

None of the stalls had anyone watching them, yet they held plenty of goods. Nothing looked amiss, either. Aside from the patterns, which resembled a certain religious style, the objects were no different from ordinary ones.

The dungeon looked somewhat different by day than it did at night. They weren't sure whether the nighttime rules applied during the day, so they didn't dare make a sound.

Wang Xiaoxiao had already crouched down and begun writing and drawing on the ground with her finger.

Wang Xiaoxiao: Rules, any?

An Ying held up one finger, then placed his index finger vertically against his lips. He hadn't spent much time on the street and only knew one rule: street rule one, keep quiet, shh—

Mei Long shook her head, indicating that she too had stayed inside the gambling house the whole time and didn't know the rules outside.

Instead, Fang Yi, the leader of the three-person pickup team, quickly wrote a line on the ground.

Street rule two: There are no guests on the street at night. If there are any, please inform security immediately. Security will take them away.

Street rule three: Everyone is responsible for protecting the environment. Please do not dump trash around the street.

Translated, those two rules meant that anyone who appeared on the street at night was prey and would be captured by an eerie entity if discovered. The eerie entity that captured people was probably the so-called "security."

There were many possible interpretations of rule three. What exactly the trash referred to was still unknown.

Out of the corner of her eye, Wang Xiaoxiao caught what seemed to be a figure moving behind her. She turned for a look and stumbled straight backward, knocking An Ying off balance.

"What are you doing? What are you doing? You scared me!" The middle-aged woman opposite her was badly startled by her reaction and shouted in a high-pitched voice.