A Crushing Defeat

"You don't believe me?

"Fine, then let me explain."

Lu Xinyi spoke unhurriedly. "Obviously, the three of you are all the 'conservative type'—the kind who demand guaranteed principal and interest even when buying bank wealth-management products, unwilling to accept any risk at all.

"I could tell from the very beginning that you resisted gambling and risk, which was why you chose this approach.

"And that was also clear from the number of chips you had.

"I casually asked before whether you had around 18,000 points' worth of chips, and you tacitly admitted it.

"That meant that when you exchanged for chips, you chose the lowest 20,000-point tier, then stopped your losses and withdrew after playing only the minimum two rounds.

"Since you're all people who are extremely risk-averse, you definitely wouldn't dare to risk everything and go all-in against me now.

"Psychologically and in terms of chip count, we're simply not on the same level."

Qin Yao was somewhat surprised. "Chips? Don't you have 20,000?"

Before this, she had instinctively assumed that everyone's starting chips should have been around 18,000 points, unless someone had gotten lucky, drawn good cards, and won. But even then, they would have only a little over 20,000.

Lu Xinyi smiled. "Of course. I started with more chips than you imagined.

"And the three of them will keep losing their chips to me.

"The gap between the chips in our hands will only grow wider. If you know even a little about gambling, you should understand that the player with more chips holds an absolute advantage."

As she spoke, Su Xiucen had already timed out and folded.

Jiang He gritted her teeth and chose to call 1,000.

To help Jiang He, Qin Yao also chose to call 1,000.

The Community No. 3 player to Qin Yao's right chose to raise. The next player folded, and Lu Xinyi raised again.

"I understand now..."

When it was Jiang He's turn again, she looked at the timer marker on the table and seemed to collapse completely.

Clearly, the Community No. 3 players had already coordinated: two would always fold, and two would raise.

Why not have all four raise together?

Because if all four raised together, someone might quickly run out of chips and leave early.

So Lu Xinyi's strategy was to have only two of the four raise. Those two were not fixed either; they would raise only when they felt their cards were relatively strong.

The remaining two would fold, preserving as many of their chips as possible.

With two people raising, they could both retain their strongest hands and keep raising without revealing their cards, creating the greatest psychological pressure on Jiang He and the others.

If Jiang He and Qin Yao continued calling, then Lu Xinyi and another Community No. 3 player would continue raising, all the way until everyone's chips were exhausted.

Without sufficiently strong cards, Jiang He and Qin Yao could not possibly risk all their chips like this. It had already far exceeded the limits of what they could bear psychologically.

If they had been seasoned gamblers, willing to take extremely high risks and possessing strong acting skills, they might have found a way to break the deadlock.

But unfortunately, Jiang He, Qin Yao, and Su Xiucen were not people like that. They were all risk-averse players.

Lu Xinyi had seen this from the start, which was why she had specifically chosen this strategy to keep them in check.

"Forget it. We fold."

Jiang He and Qin Yao ultimately chose to fold, each losing 2,000 chips.

The game continued.

Qin Yao lowered her voice. "Sister Jiang He, this won't work, will it? Up to now, we haven't even revealed our cards once. If we reveal them, we might not necessarily lose, right?"

Jiang He sighed softly. "But if your cards aren't strong enough, would you really be able to bear the risk of going all-in and revealing them?"

Qin Yao was at a loss for words. Clearly, she could not.

Jiang He lowered her voice. "There's only one last way now.

"There are still a few rounds left. If we can get strong cards, then we'll go all-in and try to win back the chips we lost earlier.

"I refuse to believe luck will never be on our side."

Qin Yao thought for a moment. "Then... what counts as strong cards?"

Jiang He considered it for a while. "To guarantee a win... I think we need at least a straight or better.

"After all, it looks like two of them are calling, but in reality, they're picking the strongest two hands out of four. If we only have a pair, I'm afraid it won't be safe enough."

Qin Yao nodded. "Got it."

Jiang He leaned closer to Su Xiucen and told her the same thing.

Naturally, Lu Xinyi saw their whispering, but she did not seem to care. She merely continued acting as dealer, raising, and collecting chips as usual.

Soon, eight rounds had passed, and the chips before Lu Xinyi were nearly piled into a small mountain.

When the cards were dealt again, Jiang He flipped over her hand without any hope.

Then her eyes suddenly lit up, and even her breathing became rapid.

Three of clubs, seven of clubs, queen of clubs.

A queen-high flush!

Although Jiang He had not played many card games and did not know the exact odds, she knew this was definitely a very strong hand.

The odds that any of the other six players at the table had a stronger hand were very, very low.

Stay calm, stay calm. Don't let it show...

And I can't raise too many chips at once. That would be too obvious. Call first, and wait for them to slowly raise...

Jiang He lowered her eyes, putting on a dejected expression.

When it was her turn, Jiang He hesitated again and again before taking a 1,000-chip token from her stack and placing it in the betting area.

"I call this round."

Yet the very next second, everyone folded.

Lu Xinyi smiled and tossed her cards onto the table. "Looks like you got lucky this round. Take these chips—they're all yours."

Jiang He's expression instantly froze.

The mechanical arm swept the chips before her, but as she looked at those few 1,000-chip tokens, Jiang He felt worse than if she had lost.

It was as though the last string inside her had snapped. Jiang He completely crumpled.

Though she had kept losing before, she still had a sliver of hope. She had thought that if she got a strong hand and went all-in against them, she could win back everything she had lost.

Although she did not have many chips left, even winning an all-in would only earn her a few thousand. But that would have been enough.

But now she understood that she and Lu Xinyi were not opponents on the same level at all.

Her psychology had been thoroughly controlled, and her clumsy acting could not deceive anyone.

The final round began dealing cards, but Jiang He, Qin Yao, and Su Xiucen were already utterly dejected and completely helpless. They could only hope the game would end sooner.

They each looked at their hands. The miracle did not happen again.

They were all ordinary mismatched cards.

"Fold."

"Fold."

"Fold."

A smile appeared on Lu Xinyi's face as she once again won all the chips by herself.

"Then thank you three for your hospitality. I hope you'll have a chance to visit our Community No. 3 someday."

Jiang He left the gambling table in a daze and looked at the chips remaining in her hand—14,000.

She had been lucky. In the round where she got the flush, she had won the 6,000-point ante from the entire table. If she had not won that round either, she would have had only 8,000 left now.

Qin Yao and Su Xiucen were in even worse shape.

Su Xiucen had folded throughout, but fortunately, she had lost only the antes and still had 8,000 points left.

Qin Yao had raised along with Jiang He once and had only 7,000 points remaining.

It could be said that they had suffered a complete defeat.

Together, the three of them had lost a total of 26,000 points' worth of chips. Converted into Visa Time, that was roughly eighteen days.

Jiang He returned to the rest area in a daze and sat down on the sofa.

On the large screen, the game countdown continued ticking.

1:02:59

1:02:58

Because everyone had folded quickly during this multiplayer round, it had actually taken only a little over ten minutes, leaving one hour of total game time.

But Jiang He and the other two could no longer do anything during that time. They could only wait.

However, at that moment, the locked compartment in the Chip Exchange Area unexpectedly opened.

"Hm?"

Qin Yao looked over in surprise.

Lin Sizhi walked out of the compartment, his left hand tucked into his suit pocket, his expression calm as he looked around.