A Crushing Defeat

"You don't believe me?

"Fine, then I'll explain."

Lu Xinyi said unhurriedly, "It's obvious that all three of you are 'conservative types' – the kind who must have principal and interest guaranteed when buying wealth management products from a bank, refusing any risk.

"I saw it from the very beginning. You resisted the gamble, resisted risk, and that's why you chose this plan.

"And this point can also be seen from the number of your chips.

"I pretended to ask casually before, if your chips were around 18,000 points, and you all defaulted.

"This means that when you exchanged chips, you chose the lowest tier of 20,000 and only bet the minimum of two rounds before cutting your losses and withdrawing.

"Since you are all people who extremely dislike risk, you absolutely wouldn't dare to bet everything and go all-in with me right now.

"We are simply not on the same level in terms of psychology and chip count."

Qin Yao was a little surprised, "Chips? Didn't you also have 20,000 chips at the start?"

Before, she had subconsciously assumed that everyone's starting chips should be around 18,000 points, unless someone got lucky and won with good cards, but even then, it would only be a little over 20,000.

Lu Xinyi smiled, "Of course, I had more chips from the beginning than you imagined.

"Moreover, those three people will continue to lose chips to me.

"The gap in our chip counts will only widen. If you understood a little about gambling, you would know that players with more chips have an absolute advantage."

As she spoke, Su Xiucen folded due to exceeding the time limit.

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

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

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

"I understand..."

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

It was clear that the players from Community No. 3 had agreed on a strategy: two would fold, and two would raise.

Why not all four raise together?

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

So Lu Xinyi's strategy was for only two of the four to raise, and these two were not fixed. They would only raise if they felt their hand was strong enough.

The remaining two would fold to preserve their chips as much as possible.

By having two people raise, they could maintain their strongest hand while continuing to raise without revealing their cards, creating maximum psychological pressure on Jiang He and the others.

If Jiang He and Qin Yao continued to call, Lu Xinyi and another player from Community No. 3 would keep raising until everyone's chips were gone.

With hands that weren't strong enough, Jiang He and Qin Yao couldn't risk going all-in like this; it was far beyond their psychological tolerance.

If they were seasoned gamblers, daring to take extremely high risks and possessing strong acting skills, they might have found a way to break through.

But unfortunately, Jiang He, Qin Yao, and Su Xiucen were none of those things. They were all risk-averse players.

Lu Xinyi had seen this from the beginning, which was why she had specifically chosen this strategy to manipulate them.

"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 isn't working, is it? We haven't even revealed our hands so far. If we revealed them, we might not necessarily lose?"

Jiang He sighed softly, "But, without a strong hand, are you sure you can handle the risk of going all-in to see the cards?"

Qin Yao was speechless for a moment. Clearly, she couldn't.

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

"There are a few more rounds. If we can get a good hand, then we'll go all-in and try to win back the chips we lost.

"I don't believe luck will always be against us."

Qin Yao thought for a moment, "Then... what counts as a good hand?"

Jiang He considered for a moment, "To be safe... I think at least a straight or better.

"After all, it looks like two people are calling, but in reality, they're choosing the two best hands out of four. If our hand is just a pair, it's probably not stable enough."

Qin Yao nodded, "Understood."

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

Lu Xinyi naturally saw them whispering, but she didn't seem to care, just continuing to deal, raise, and collect chips as usual.

Soon, eight rounds passed, and the chips in front of Lu Xinyi had piled up into a small mountain.

As the cards were dealt again, Jiang He turned over her hand with no hope.

Then her eyes instantly lit up, and her breathing became rapid.

Three of Clubs, Seven of Clubs, Queen of Clubs.

A Flush in Q University!

Although Jiang He didn't play cards often and didn't know the exact odds, she knew this was definitely a very strong hand.

The probability that the other six people at the table had a hand stronger than this was very, very low.

"Calm down, calm down, don't show it...

"And don't add too many chips at once, that's too obvious. I'll just call for now and let the opponent keep raising..."

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

When it was her turn, Jiang He hesitated for a long time. She took a 1000 chip from her own stack and placed it in the betting area.

"I'll call this round."

However, in the next second, everyone folded.

Lu Xinyi smiled and threw her cards on the table, "It seems your luck is good this round. Take these chips, they're yours to keep."

Jiang He's expression froze instantly.

The robotic arm swept the chips towards her, but looking at those few 1000 chips, Jiang He, despite winning, felt worse than if she had lost.

It was as if the last string had snapped, and Jiang He completely collapsed.

Before, even though she had been losing, there was still a sliver of hope. She thought that if she could get a big hand and go all-in against the opponent, she could win back all the losses.

Even though she didn't have many chips left, going all-in would only win her a few thousand, but that would have been enough.

But now she understood that she was not on the same level as Lu Xinyi at all.

Her emotions had been completely manipulated, and her clumsy acting couldn't fool anyone.

The last round began to deal cards, but Jiang He, Qin Yao, and Su Xiucen were already dejected, completely helpless, and could only hope the game would end quickly.

After looking at their hands, a miracle didn't happen again.

They were all very ordinary, mismatched cards.

"Fold."

"Fold."

"Fold."

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

"Then thank you all for the entertainment. We hope you'll have the chance to visit Community No. 3 in the future."

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

She had been lucky; in the round where she got the Flush, she had won the pot of 6,000 chips. If she hadn't won that round, she would only have 8,000 left now.

Qin Yao and Su Xiucen were in even worse situations.

Su Xiucen had folded the entire time, but fortunately, she only lost the ante and still had 8,000 points.

Qin Yao had followed Jiang He's bet once and only had 7,000 points left.

They had lost miserably, to say the least.

Together, the three of them had lost a total of 26,000 chips, which translated to about 18 days of Visa Time.

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

On the big screen, the game countdown continued to tick.

1:02:59

1:02:58

Because everyone had folded so quickly in this multiplayer game, it had actually only taken about ten minutes. There was still an hour left in the total game time.

However, Jiang He and the other two couldn't do anything during this time; they could only wait.

But just then, the locked booth at the chip exchange area actually opened.

"Huh?"

Qin Yao looked over with some surprise.

Lin Sizhi walked out of the booth, his left hand in his suit pocket, calmly surveying the surroundings.