Cards Are Better

Two days had passed since his meeting with Yin Yinyin. Le Yu had gotten quite a lot done during that time.

For example, he had swept through the Statistics Department's internal Combat Arts Cards tournament undefeated, claimed the championship, and earned the title of Combat Arts Cards Master of the Statistics Department.

In reality, he had just been playing cards.

Combat Arts Cards was one of the few distinctive forms of entertainment Le Yu had found in this world. With all the pressure of life weighing on him, he had fallen in love with it the moment he came into contact with it. Now, he relied on playing cards for amusement every day after returning to the Statistics Department.

The full name of Combat Arts Cards was Combat Arts Card Duels. It was a one-on-one game. Each player had a deck of forty Combat Arts Cards. Players started by drawing three cards, then drew one card each round and could play one card. The player who moved first gained no benefit, while the player who moved second received two extra health points. (A direct-hit card yielded two health points on average.)

Combat Arts Cards were mainly divided into three types: direct hits, counters, and critical hits. A direct hit was a direct attack that could deal damage to a player. A counter was a counterattack that could nullify a direct hit and deal damage. A critical hit was a charged attack that accumulated power for one round before dealing massive damage.

Direct hits were played face-up, while counters and critical hits were played face-down. When a player played a counter or critical hit, the card's face remained hidden. If the opponent played a direct hit, the face-down card had to be revealed:

If the hidden card was a counter, the direct hit failed and the counter dealt damage;

If the hidden card was a critical hit, the direct hit not only succeeded, but the critical-hit card also failed because its charge had been "interrupted."

When both sides played hidden cards, a counter automatically became invalid after one round, while a critical hit activated after one round and dealt massive damage.

Simply put, direct hits broke critical hits but were weak against counters; counters broke direct hits but were weak against critical hits; critical hits broke counters but were weak against direct hits.

Looking only at the rules, it seemed rather dull. Wasn't it just rock-paper-scissors in turn-based form? But the true focus of Combat Arts Cards was its card pool. There were eighteen Combat Arts Card decks in total. That number might sound familiar, because there were also eighteen official Radiance Combat Arts lineages!

That's right—the eighteen Combat Arts Card decks corresponded to the eighteen Combat Arts lineages in reality! Every lineage's direct-hit, counter, and critical-hit cards were completely different. Even the initial health points varied between lineages. As a result, every Combat Arts Card duel was ever-changing and immensely entertaining!

Combat Arts Cards were said to have been created by the founding emperor of Radiance. After two thousand years of development, they had become a form of entertainment deeply rooted in the hearts of every Radiant Person. Many ordinary people might not cultivate Combat Arts at all, but they were certainly familiar with Combat Arts Cards!

For many martial artists, Combat Arts Cards were also a shortcut to learning Combat Arts. They were not merely educational entertainment; Combat Arts Card duels also bore a remarkable similarity to real battles. Someone skilled at playing cards would naturally have a solid understanding of Combat Arts in reality as well.

There were a full eighteen Combat Arts Card decks, so how was their balance maintained? This was interesting too. Combat Arts Cards were produced by the Yan Jing Royal Academy, and whenever the Royal Academy updated the curriculum for a Combat Arts lineage, Combat Arts Cards were updated accordingly.

Most people could not detect minor revisions to Combat Arts, but things were different when those revisions appeared in Combat Arts Cards. Whenever a deck was strengthened, players would quickly notice the change in its win rate and realize that the corresponding Combat Arts lineage had become stronger!

Humans were practical creatures. They used whichever deck was strongest and naturally learned whichever Combat Arts were strongest. Therefore, a high win rate for a Combat Arts Card deck could very well drive the flourishing of a lineage while causing other lineages to decline.

The other lineages naturally refused to sit back and do nothing. But the Royal Academy represented the official authorities, and no lineage could pick a fight with them. Therefore, aside from hoping the Royal Academy would weaken an overpowered deck, the best option was to strengthen their own Combat Arts system and make the authorities strengthen their deck as well.

Although Combat Arts Cards were merely a form of entertainment, they could still drive the development of Combat Arts and even reflect the competition and rise and fall of Combat Arts over two thousand years. The eighteen Combat Arts Card decks currently available were all products of hundreds of iterations and updates, and their balance had reached an extreme level.

All right, time to play cards at work.

Le Yu got out of bed and changed his clothes. Aside from his pocket watch and work credentials, the first thing he put in his pocket was his own Wolf-Eagle Fist Deck.

Although the Combat Arts he excelled at were the Eight-Grain Flow Bite Combat Arts, after getting into Combat Arts Cards, he found the Wolf-Eagle Deck more interesting.

The Biting Combat Deck was a fast-attack, card-drawing deck. Its initial health was low, and its main feature was that every time it played a direct hit that was not countered, it could play another direct hit. This perfectly matched the Biting Combat Arts' characteristic of "biting someone to death."

The Wolf-Eagle Deck, on the other hand, was a stacking-attack deck with high initial health. Its main feature was that every time one of its direct hits was countered, the damage of its next direct hit increased. The way Kui Zhao and Li Shijie had grown more and more ferocious as they fought that day also reflected this characteristic.

After leaving his bedroom and going downstairs, Le Yu saw Qian Yuya eating breakfast. She suddenly sped up, wolfed down her food, and hurried out the door. He suddenly remembered something and called out, "My clever little sister."

Qian Yuya stopped and opened the inner door with both hands without looking back. "What is it?"

"Is your school holding its graduation assessment today?"

"Yes."

"It doesn't matter if you do badly. I'll support you forever. Your brother loves you."

Qian Yuya turned around. Her calves trembled with anger as she fiercely glared at Le Yu. She shoved the door open and left without bothering to say a word to him.

Thanks to his life-and-death struggles with his biological younger sister in his previous life, Le Yu had some understanding of how to guide a rebellious young girl. By using such a nauseating attitude to show that he was willing to accept Qian Yuya's failure, he had guaranteed that she would bottle up her anger and desperately want to slap him in the face with her success.

Le Yu had essentially used verbal tactics to cast a Bloodlust spell on Qian Yuya. His efforts were truly painstaking.

Of course, teasing his quiet, rigid little sister with a nauseatingly handsome attitude was also extremely entertaining. In any case, Qian Yuya could accept the "fact" that her brother had put on a different mask, so Le Yu let himself go completely. Profanities flew alongside vulgar jokes, while cold jokes shared the stage with dirty ones. He played cards at work during the day and chatted nonsense at home at night. His life was quite colorful.

He went to the backyard to draw water and wash up. After dipping his toothbrush in a little salt and brushing his teeth for a while, he suddenly heard something tear through the air.

Whoosh!

Le Yu reached out and caught it, discovering another pebble wrapped in silk cloth.

Where did Yin Yinyin get so many pebbles? There wasn't even a river nearby. Was he the sort of person who went jogging along Haizhu Embankment every morning? Le Yu secretly complained as he opened the silk cloth and found four words written on it:

"The plan begins."

Le Yu raised an eyebrow slightly, washed the writing from the silk cloth, and put it away. This world had no disposable tissues, and there were always times when he would need a handkerchief outside.

After breakfast, Le Yu also walked to the Statistics Department for work. He had not gone far when he sensed something strange: someone was following him.

Awakened could evade even bullets in advance, so they naturally had a sensitivity to gazes as well. However, Awakened did not react to every gaze. Most people's gazes were "emotionless" and would not trigger a mental alert. Only gazes carrying "emotion" would draw an Awakened's attention.

Therefore, peeping at a beautiful woman was a very dangerous thing in this world. Even without using their eyes, women could keenly detect such colored gazes. If the beauty was weak or good-tempered, that was one thing. But if someone peeped at a woman who was not to be trifled with, it was hardly rare for the beauty to beat him up on the spot. Such a gaze, filled with "intense malice," was an extremely unpleasant experience for an Awakened.

Le Yu was now feeling that kind of "intense malice," as if someone wanted to tear off his pants.

When he wore the Statistics Department's uniform, he had long since grown accustomed to such gazes. But he had not even started work yet.

The farther he went, the denser the malicious gazes became. When Le Yu reached the Lecture Plaza where the Radiant Bell Tower stood, those gazes had almost become tangible, surrounding him from all directions.

It was not an illusion.

Because a crowd had gathered around Le Yu.

He was surrounded.

"Qian Yuliu."

Le Yu stopped. Three men and women emerged from the crowd and stood opposite him. The leader was Lin Xue—the daughter of Lin Jinyao.

Today, she wore a short white-sleeved tunic. Her long hair was gone, replaced by a brisk, short haircut. Her eye bags were slightly swollen, as if she had cried a great deal over the past two days.

"What is it?" Le Yu glanced around. "Are you... planning to attack a government official in broad daylight? I don't really mind, but could you pick a more secluded place? The Patrol Guards over there are already coming over."

"After becoming a Running Dog of the Statistics Department, you've turned arrogant and vicious... Does the Statistics Department warp people's nature, or were you pretending all along?" Gao Jin said coldly. "Don't you have even the slightest sense of shame?"

"Xue'er!"

A sorrowful-looking middle-aged man hurriedly pushed his way out of the crowd and grabbed Lin Xue's hand. "Don't go. Let your second uncle do it! This isn't something you should have to bear!"

Le Yu recognized the middle-aged man. He was Lin Jinyao's younger brother, Lin Xue'en. He had also been in the courtyard when Lin Jinyao died. Unlike Lin Jinyao, a military academy instructor, Lin Xue'en was merely an ordinary ready-to-wear merchant with very poor Combat Arts cultivation.

"Second Uncle, don't stop me. This is... the only thing I can do for Father."

Lin Xue gently shook off her second uncle's hand, then turned and looked at Le Yu.

"Captain Qian, we only came to seek justice. We won't do anything illegal."

Lin Xue slowly exhaled and said each word clearly:

"We want to settle our grudge with you!"

P.S. A new week, a new beginning! Ting Ri updated six thousand words today!