On the night of May 3rd, Ruidanshen Casino, Jiang City branch.
The smell of alcohol and curses, blood and the clatter of chips; rookies looking around at everything with fresh curiosity; walking corpses with vacant eyes and nothing left but breath—countless contradictory yet harmonious sights, descriptions that could scarcely coexist in the world outside, were all tangled together here in a strange and twisted form.
Disheveled men and women crowded around the tables. Neon lights flashing through madly shifting colors cast every face in a ghostly pallor. The rattle of dice, the slamming of hands on tables, cheers, sobs, the sour stench of sweat, the reek of urine... Chaos, filth, ugliness, madness—every negative word combined still failed to describe this place.
After spending a fortune to win the bid for the Ruidanshen nameplate, the casino had become even stingier about investing money in maintaining an elegant environment. Fortunately, the red-eyed gamblers who had lost themselves in the thrill never cared about such trivial details.
Rain poured outside the casino. Yang Yao had left home wearing only a raincoat and hurried here, stepping through muddy puddles all the way. The foul water splashed onto his trouser cuffs, and once he entered the building, droplets continued to drip onto the floor, leaving a trail of dark wet marks.
"Yang Yao, you dared come back? They hauled you off last time—didn't they break your legs?" A gambler who knew him bared a mouthful of yellow teeth and teased him loudly.
Thinking of the horrifying experience of being locked up at Ruidanshen headquarters, Yang Yao's eye twitched. But he immediately composed himself, puffed out his chest, and held his head high. "You don't know anything. I wasn't taken there—they invited me to join the Survivor Game and play that... right, Blackjack!
"I was never