The Gambling Freak Chen Daozai and His Fiery Senior Sister

White Lotus Sect.

Sword-Wielding Pavilion.

In the center of a massive lotus-shaped pedestal stands a nine-story sandalwood pagoda.

The ninth floor.

Moonlight, like woven gauze, spills into the vermilion pavilion.

On the four walls inside, scrolls of small regular script carved by swords hang, the brushwork delicate and graceful.

In the center of the pavilion, a long table holds over a dozen celadon teapots of various sizes, a pot of ice water, and a porcelain dish in the middle filled with dark green lotus hearts.

Before the long table, on a rush mat, sits a woman in white robes, legs crossed.

Her long hair is coiled into a cloud bun, and a pale pink lotus mark is painted between her brows.

She has the appearance of a mature fairy, her figure slender and elegant, her features refined. Her eyes reveal a sense of tranquility, and her temperament is graceful and gentle as jade, giving one the impression of a virtuous fairy...

That is, if she didn't open her mouth to speak.

"The White Lotus Sect is playing a grand game of chess?"

"A grand game that even the White Lotus Sect itself is unaware of?"

"Do they take my White Lotus Sect for a mere pawn?"

"What on earth is Fan Ni playing at?"

Her voice sounds cold and calm, yet there is a sense that she could fly into a rage at any moment.

It is like a clear pool atop a volcanic crater, ready to boil, erupt, and destroy the world at any time.

"I will go and bring him back."

Saying this quietly, the woman rises abruptly, her figure trembling slightly as she prepares to head east.

Just then—

An ethereal male voice drifts into the pavilion, the tone calm and distant, carrying a sense of Zen.

"The world is so beautiful, yet you are so irritable. This is not good, not good at all."

The woman glances sideways with clear eyes, and the moonlight retreats before her.

"Which eye of yours saw me being irritable? If your eyes are blind, I shall cut them out."

The ethereal male voice sighs faintly.

"You see, this is why I am the Sect Master and you are only an Elder."

The woman is taken aback.

"Are you not the Sect Master who won by cheating?"

The man retorts:

"Senior Brother Yun is such a steady person. He only intentionally lost to me so that I would become the Sect Master, fearing that your irritability would ruin the sect. Think about it: with Senior Brother's strength, could I possibly deceive him by cheating?"

He actually could!

At the very peak of the White Lotus Sect, looking out across the distance toward the Sword-Wielding Pavilion's Lotus Heart Palace, stands a cube-shaped pavilion.

The cube pavilion is suspended on a giant rock by a single vertex.

The square pavilion is not large, only three zhang wide, and is entirely jade-white. Every white wall is engraved with a lotus totem.

However, the number of lotus flowers on each wall is completely different.

One side has one lotus flower.

One side has two.

One side has three...

Four, five, six!

In other words, this is actually a die, a massive die suspended on a single point with no fixed value.

It is the traveling palace of the White Lotus Sect Master, Chen Daozai—

Suspended Dice Palace.

This location was once Yun Zhonghe's Suspended Cloud Palace, but it has now become the Suspended Dice Palace.

The current Sect Master, Chen Daozai, is a man with handsome features and very fair skin.

He is fond of gambling and particularly skilled at cheating—not by using spiritual power, but through pure technique.

He is known as the Gambling Freak.

Others who are fond of gambling often end up missing a finger, yet Chen Daozai has eleven fingers.

It is rumored that his master, White Lotus Ancestor, forcibly attached the extra digit to ensure he could never hide his cheating, hoping to break his gambling addiction so he would focus on cultivation.

But in reality, this is merely his excuse.

He was born with twelve fingers, and his gambling skills are peerless under heaven; the extra two fingers are the "golden fingers" he uses to cheat and gain an unfair advantage.

Later, because being invincible under the heavens was too boring, he severed one of his own fingers to see if he could find a decent opponent.

Unfortunately, none existed; he remained invincible.

Invincibility meant that no one dared to gamble with him.

He planned to sever another finger during his leisure time within the sect, completely becoming a normal person, so he could climb to the peak of gamblers once more in the guise of a mortal.

His most glorious moment was winning the position of Sect Master from Yun Zhonghe through a gamble.

At that time, Yun Zhonghe was forced to step down as Sect Master because the Kunpeng Brothers were harming people everywhere.

Before entering seclusion, he prepared to pass the position of Sect Master to the most powerful Zhang Lianxin.

Zhang Lianxin was the Sword-Wielding Elder of the White Lotus Sect and a Three-Star Immortal Venerable; it was only natural and right for her to succeed as Sect Master.

But this Senior Sister of his... was simply too hot-tempered!

Back then.

When Zhang Lianxin was teaching at the East Floating Immortal Academy, she refused to submit to the official authority of a Half-Step Immortal Venerable headmaster parachuted in by the Immortal Court. She rolled up her sleeves, drew her Lotus Heart Sword, and with the strength of the Nine Star Immortal Sect, fought the Half-Step Immortal Venerable head-on!

After fighting for half an hour, covered in blood like a pillar, and just as she was about to be defeated, her lotus heart stirred. She broke through to the Half-Step Immortal Venerable realm mid-battle and quickly suppressed her opponent. Had the principal not intervened, she would have crippled the man.

Zhang Lianxin was subsequently expelled from the Immortal Academy and imprisoned by the Xingtian Pavilion.

In the end, it was Yun Zhonghe who pulled strings through various connections to bring her back to the White Lotus Sect as a Sword-Wielding Elder. Even so, she had yet to be listed among the Immortal ranks, losing the opportunity to reach a higher stage.

Her exploits were widely circulated in the Immortal Academy and were once the idol of the Wine Fox Immortal!

Influenced by her, after Liu Xuanye was expelled from the academy due to her constitution, the Wine Fox Immortal also caused a scene at the school. During the battle, she unleashed her three tails, entered the Immortal Sect realm, and beat the instructor who expelled Liu Xuanye to a pulp.

These were the dark histories of the Immortal Academy and the talk of the town in the East Floating District after tea and meals.

It is worth mentioning.

Back then, in order to get Zhang Lianxin out of prison, Yun Zhonghe had to host a banquet for the high-ranking officials of the Immortal Court to smooth over relations.

Among them, a high-ranking Immortal Saint from Caiyun City specifically requested to eat Yun Zhonghe's mount—

The Void Kun.

This led to the defection of the Kunpeng Brothers from the White Lotus Sect.

Which subsequently changed the historical landscape of the East Floating District for a thousand years.

Yun Zhonghe, Yunzhongzi, the Kunpeng Brothers, Fan Ni, the Wine Fox Immortal, Li Wuxie, every small sect destroyed in the White Cloud District, and even the millions of innocent Immortal Commoners...

It could be said that it was Zhang Lianxin's temper that changed the history of the East Floating District!

She inadvertently changed the fates of countless people.

And she also changed the fate of Chen Daozai.

When Yun Zhonghe wanted to choose a successor, Chen Daozai was only a One-Star Immortal Venerable and the Discipline Elder; his name was not justified, his position was not proper, and his strength was not as good as Zhang Lianxin's.

But at the time, Chen Daozai was deeply infatuated with this delicate-looking, hot-tempered Senior Sister.

So he recommended himself to his Senior Brother, Yun Zhonghe.

He set up a gambling match, won against Yun Zhonghe, and thus won the position of Sect Master.

For the public, and for the private.

For the public, he wanted to use the position of Sect Master to restrain Zhang Lianxin, lest she do something outrageous again, ruin her reputation, and cause the White Lotus Sect to suffer as a result.

For the private, he wanted to use the status and face of the Sect Master to pursue Zhang Lianxin.

He said what he had to say, but ended up being beaten by Zhang Lianxin until even his mother wouldn't recognize him. His handsome white face was beaten with scars, so much so that he stayed indoors all day, hiding in his Suspended Dice Pavilion to study mortal gambling techniques.

Of course, this was also him taking the opportunity to slack off.

He left the major and minor affairs of the sect to Zhang Lianxin, acting only as an advisor on the side.

At the same time, he possessed the Lotus Lock left behind by Yun Zhonghe, specifically to control his Senior Sister when she went berserk.

Staying in the Suspended Dice Palace all day, he was quite content with his leisure.

But now...

All signs indicated that the East Floating District was about to change!

Putting down the broken dice in his hand, Chen Daozai suddenly asked.

"Don't you find it suspicious?"

"What's suspicious?"

"In the half-month since Senior Brother Yun gave up his seclusion and left the Colored Cloud Immortal Domain, don't you think too many strange things have happened in the East Floating District?"

"Many strange things?"

"The Black Lotus capsized, Yunzhongzi—who was just as steady as Senior Brother Yun—was killed, Liu Xuanye took a partner, the Bamboo Spring Sect built a city against the trend, your fan girl the Wine Fox Immortal went to the Bamboo Spring Sect as a Sect Resident Envoy with Immortal Sect cultivation, then the beast tide went out of control, and Fan Ni finally killed the Kunpeng Brothers after a thousand years of tracking..."

Zhang Lianxin frowned, realizing that the matter was not simple.

"Are you saying that all of this is related to the Bamboo Spring Sect?"

"Exactly."

Chen Daozai was exceptionally keen-eyed, having spent years obsessed with the art of gambling.

"Though Liu Xuanye's cultivation is low, she is no simple character. Perhaps a major transformation is occurring within her, one that could very well plunge the entire East Floating District into chaos."

"Are you shaking your dice and guessing wildly again?"

Zhang Lianxin said coldly, waving her sleeve to throw open the lattice window.

"I'll go drag Fan Ni back and ask him; I'll be back before dawn."

"I fear that the Junior Brother Fan you bring back will no longer be in human shape."

"Hah, colluding with an outside sect behind our backs? I'll leave him his human shape, but I'll have him castrated. If I don't, he won't behave; he's always stirring up trouble and dragging our sect's reputation through the mud."

"There is no need to rush. Junior Brother Fan may have been deceived or coerced. This matter requires a covert investigation; we must not alert the enemy... Furthermore, as it stands, this may not necessarily be a bad thing. Both our sect's reputation and Junior Brother Fan's have been preserved; it is merely Liu Xuanye who has benefited."

Liu Xuanye?

A chilling, eerie smile appeared on Zhang Lianxin's bland, elegant face.

"I'll go find Liu Xuanye right now. Back at the East Floating Immortal Academy, although I never personally taught that student, her name and beauty were legendary."

"Absolutely not."

Chen Daozai refused flatly.

"With the beast tide now out of control, while our sect has the mountain-protecting formation, I heard Yun Zhonghe say before he left that outsiders have been spotted in the Beast Nest Forest recently. I suspect this beast tide may be controlled by an expert, and the danger is unpredictable. As our sect's highest combat power, you must not leave the sect during this time."

"An expert? Isn't it said that the lecherous fox did it?"

As Zhang Lianxin spoke, the image of a lecherous fox chasing after girls appeared before her eyes.

Back then, he had pestered her, his teacher, incessantly, wanting to learn this and that.

It wasn't until he met Liu Xuanye that the lecherous fox stopped caring about his studies...

Chen Daozai said:

"Although the Wine Fox Immortal has a complex background and unclear motives, she currently lacks the ability to control a beast tide of this scale. The loss of control must be the work of an outsider. I suspect the objective is related to the Bamboo Spring Sect."

"And so?"

"It seems I must personally make a trip to the Bamboo Spring Sect."

"You're going through all this trouble just to see a beauty? Watch out, or I'll slaughter you!"

As she said this, Zhang Lianxin's brow twitched. She suddenly felt the same way she had when the Wine Fox Immortal abandoned her to go spar with Liu Xuanye every day.

Although she had felt much more relaxed because of it, what was this faint sense of loss?

She was a dignified Three-Star Immortal Venerable, the woman who stood at the absolute peak of combat power in the East Floating District after Yun Zhonghe left to follow Li Wuxie to herd sheep. Could she really be inferior to a newly promoted Immortal Sect Master like Liu Xuanye?

Was even Chen Daozai, who had secretly loved her for so long, attracted to her?

Chen Daozai's pale face twitched slightly, and his scars began to ache.

A simp has his limits, he thought. Have you ever seen a simp get beaten up?

He would rather like Junior Brother Fan than ever provoke this violent Senior Sister again!

With that thought, Chen Daozai said in a stern, deep voice:

"Stop messing around, I have serious business."

"Serious business doesn't necessarily require you. You are the dignified leader of the White Lotus Sect; wouldn't it be beneath your status to go to a small place like the Bamboo Spring Sect yourself? Send your disciple Qi Ming instead."

"Since even Fan Ni has met with an accident, only I can go. I will disguise myself as a low-level rogue immortal; I won't tarnish our sect's dignity. Besides, Liu Xuanye has never seen me."

"I'll give you three days. If the problem isn't solved in three days, I won't spare Fan Ni."

"Ten days. I must go to the Beast Nest Forest first to understand the situation of the beast tide."

"Don't get yourself killed."

With that, Zhang Lianxin waved her sleeve to close the window. She calmed her mind and slowly sat down cross-legged.

Under the soft moonlight, her clear eyes were filled with gentleness and tranquility, like a refined lady of a noble house. She picked up the cup on the table and took a light sip of Lotus Heart Tea.

Clatter—

The cup shattered heavily against the wall.

"It's bitter as hell!"