Trapped in the Same Day for a Thousand Years: The Deadly Nine of Spades

The stakes were far too high this time. Shen Guangjun had always had a gambler's streak, and he decided to take the bet.

Wu Chen had not even looked at his hole card. Shen Guangjun refused to believe Wu Chen's luck could be that outrageous. It was impossible, unreasonable, unscientific.

Shen Guangjun strode out, with Bao Wei following him to transfer the money and collect the chips.

The Crown Club offered no credit. If Shen Guangjun wanted chips, he had to transfer the money in person. A boss like him naturally had no transfer limit on his account.

Of course, if he won, he could exchange his chips for cash when he left the Crown Club.

Li Ruotai was utterly reliable on that point. The rules were ironclad, and he would never break them.

Everyone in the private room waited for Shen Guangjun to return. Covers had been placed over the cards on the table, temporarily sealing the hand. Both sides were present and keeping watch, but sealing the cards was still the rule.

Wu Chen leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head. Suddenly, he tilted his head and whispered something to Li Ruobing.

Confusion crossed Li Ruobing's face. She looked at Wu Chen, unsure what he meant. "What good would it do for me to go call someone over?"

"Just play along."

Wu Chen smiled softly. "Stop bossing me around."

Li Ruobing shot back, but she got up and went out anyway.

She returned a few minutes later and sat down beside Wu Chen.

Half a minute after that, Shen Guangjun came back carrying a small tray with twenty-five chips worth five million each.

He had brought an expert to crush the house this time and had scraped together 150 million in starting capital. It had not been easy; he had borrowed it.

The expert had not disappointed him, though. After exchanging thirty million for chips at the start, he had never needed to exchange more. Shen Guangjun could still come up with the hundred million.

There were another twenty million left in his account.

Shen Guangjun handed a stack of chips to Yao Bin. Wu Chen pushed every chip on his side of the table forward, then gestured to Bao Wei, who had followed Shen Guangjun back in.

After the earlier betting rounds, Yao Bin's all-in bet came to eighty million. Including what he had already put in, his total wager was ninety million.

Wu Chen matched his eighty-million all-in, bringing his own total to ninety million as well. Then he raised by another hundred million, for a total of 190 million. But he only had 150 million in chips.

Fortunately, Bao Wei had brought over a hundred million earlier. Wu Chen had told him to take it away, but he had left it on a table in the corner of the room.

Bao Wei brought the small box over. Wu Chen took forty million in chips from it, tossed them onto the table, and pushed the whole pile forward again.

"Your call. I'm raising another hundred million."

Wu Chen said, "One hand decides it. Come on."

"All right. I call."

Yao Bin pushed all his chips forward too. Then he picked up his hole card and stood. Adjusting his glasses, he smiled. "Young man, the worst thing you can do when gambling is lose your composure. Win or lose, if you can't control your state of mind, you won't get far."

Wu Chen smiled at Yao Bin as he lectured him. The man must have been holding it in for too long.

He had. Ever since Wu Chen had bluffed him in the eleventh hand, Yao Bin had been forced to hold back, unable to win no matter what he did.

Wu Chen won small and lost big. He had been two hundred million ahead, then watched it trickle away. How could that not weigh on him?

Losing to a famous gambling master would have been one thing. Losing to an unknown young man like Wu Chen was humiliating.

Now he could finally let it all out. "You have talent, really, but you have every problem young players tend to have."

"You rely on little tricks and luck. You have habitual movements when you play, and an opponent can spot the openings."

"You have plenty of problems, but if you're interested, you can come with me to the gambling city. I could be your teacher. I'd teach you. You don't even look at your hole card. I've never heard of anyone playing like that. Only someone your age would try it."

"Our faceup cards are the same rank. What makes you think you can beat me?"

At last, Yao Bin finished his long speech. Even a god of gamblers did not talk this much.

Yao Bin flipped over his hole card and slapped it onto the table.

"The nine of diamonds. I have a pair of nines. It's not much, but your faceup cards are the same as mine. Only one card can beat me: the nine of spades. I honestly don't understand why you didn't look at your hole card."

Yao Bin laughed. Then he planted both hands on the table and leaned forward, glaring at Wu Chen. "I don't believe for a second your hole card is the nine of spades. You never even looked at it. You're really betting on luck against me?"

Yao Bin finally ran out of words. Everyone in the private room went pale.

In stud poker, hands were compared by type first, then by rank if the types matched, and finally by suit if the ranks matched.

For example, if both players had high-card hands topped by an ace, the ace of spades would win. The suits ranked from highest to lowest: spades, hearts, clubs, diamonds.

Yao Bin had the nine of diamonds, nine of hearts, seven of diamonds, six of clubs, and three of clubs: a pair of nines. Wu Chen's faceup cards were also a nine, seven, six, and three.

If Wu Chen's hole card did not match any of them, he had only a high-card hand and would naturally lose to a pair.

A matching seven, six, or three would give him a pair, but none could beat Yao Bin's pair of nines. Only one card remained that could win him the hand: the last nine, the nine of spades.

If Wu Chen held the nine of spades, they would both have a pair of nines, leaving the suits to decide it. Spades outranked hearts. That was why Yao Bin was so confident.

One card was Wu Chen's sole chance of winning. With four nines in the deck, the odds that this last one was in his hand were vanishingly small—a sliver of hope at best.

If Wu Chen had looked at his hole card, Yao Bin might have given it more thought. Looking first and then raising would mean he believed he could win. That would be normal betting.

But Wu Chen had not looked. As far as Yao Bin could see, he was relying entirely on luck, and Yao Bin did not believe anyone could be that lucky.

Everyone present realized Wu Chen's chances were worse than winning the lottery.

Li Ruotai's expression soured at once. He did not blame Wu Chen. Even if Wu Chen lost, he had won before losing. Overall, Crown Club would be down more than two hundred million today, and Wu Chen would be responsible for only a little over forty million of that. Li Ruotai blamed himself for not stopping him.

This brother-in-law of his looked dependable but apparently was not. Why stake so much on the final hand? Why gamble on luck?

"Young Master Li, the Li Family can afford to lose a little pocket change. You're not angry, are you?"

Shen Guangnian clapped Li Ruotai on the shoulder and laughed.

Li Ruotai jerked his shoulder and shook Shen Guangnian's hand off.

"Are you finished?"

Wu Chen, still leaning back with his hands behind his head, finally spoke. He looked at Yao Bin with the same smile on his face.

"Show your card."

Yao Bin smiled faintly and gestured for him to go ahead.

"Then I hate to disappoint you."

Wu Chen sat up and pressed an elbow against the table. He picked up his hole card between two fingers without looking at it, holding it straight out for Yao Bin to see. "It really is a spade."

"A nine." Wu Chen slapped the card onto the table. Yao Bin's pupils contracted sharply, and the color drained from his face. The room fell so silent a pin could have dropped. Everyone was stunned.

Wu Chen slowly rose. "Did you really think I hadn't looked at my hole card?"

"Did I ever say I hadn't?"

Everyone there knew how tiny the odds were. If a player called an all-in bet and raised without looking at his hole card, when only one card could win, drawing it through sheer luck was almost impossible.

But what Wu Chen said as he stood seemed to make them understand.

Having the card all along and betting on luck to draw it were two very different things.

It was like three-card poker. Betting recklessly with a blind hand and revealing three of a kind at the end was nothing like looking at your cards, betting hard, and then revealing three of a kind. The first took miraculous luck. The second still took luck, but there was nothing wrong with the way you played.

You were not gambling on your luck. You knew you had three of a kind, so of course you bet hard to win more.

"You peeked at your card?"

"That's impossible!"

"When did you look?"

Yao Bin's voice shot up. The man who had been so smug moments ago lost all composure. His eyes bulged and reddened; the loss had left him reeling.

"Why do you think I straightened my card before deciding whether to look at it in every hand, from the first through the thirty-eighth?"

Wu Chen spoke as he pushed his chair aside and walked out from behind it.

"You casino veterans have plenty of experience. There's nothing wrong with relying on experience. Your mistake was being too full of yourself."

"Did you really think a few hands were enough to figure out how I play?"

"What if I was putting on a show for you?"

Yao Bin's eyes widened further. Wu Chen had not spelled it out, but he understood. That compulsive-looking habit of twisting his hole card until it faced him had been deliberate.

Wu Chen had seen what his hole card was the instant his fingers turned it.

In truth, Wu Chen did not trust luck when it came to gambling. Luck existed, but it counted for very little against an expert.

Wu Chen had looked at his hole card from the very first hand. Sometimes, when he looked again at the end, it was only to mislead them. He had known his card all along. But his move was too skillful and too fast for anyone to catch, including Yao Bin, a top expert from the Ao Society in the gambling city. From where they stood, Wu Chen had merely straightened a crooked card on the table.

He had done it for thirty-eight hands in a row.

"I thought that if I didn't cheat or create an opening for myself, I'd have to wait at least fifty hands for a chance to finish you."

"But it seems my luck was decent today after all. It only took thirty-eight."

As Wu Chen spoke, he circled the table and stopped in front of Yao Bin. Li Ruobing followed close behind him.

Yao Bin's eyes were still wide as a bull's and bloodshot. His whole body trembled.

For a gambler, one big loss was not terrifying. The way Yao Bin had lost this one was.

"Did you really think I believed in luck?"

Wu Chen tilted his head and smiled faintly at Yao Bin. "Did you really think the openings in my play, the cracks in my composure, were real?"

"Did you think that little movement was actually a habit of mine?"

"Or did you think that because I bluffed you once, I liked taking risks and was bluffing you again?"

"And you wanted to be my teacher? To teach me?"

"Are you qualified?"

"Did you think being older automatically made you better than me?"

Wu Chen did not hold back his barbs.

It had all been a trap. Yao Bin understood now that Wu Chen had been laying it since the first hand.

Not looking at his hole card was an act. Believing in luck was an act. The little habitual movement was an act. The bluff was an act. Every bit of it had set up this last hand.

Yao Bin could no longer remember how he had walked into Wu Chen's trap step by step. His mind was a muddle.

All he had left was regret. Why had he called that final hand? Why had he agreed when Wu Chen proposed that they each add another hundred million?

He understood now. Wu Chen had not simply gotten lucky—not in the slightest. He had waited for the cards in the thirty-eighth hand. Sooner or later, Wu Chen would have a hand that beat his. The key was how to use that chance to win as much as possible.

Wu Chen had spent thirty-seven hands setting up Yao Bin before finishing him in one stroke.

Even a small hand could win big money. In those thirty-eight hands, Wu Chen had not waited for anything spectacular. Straight flushes and four of a kind did not come easily. Yet he had taken 190 million from Yao Bin with a pair of nines. The strength of his own hand did not matter; it only had to beat his opponent's.

And this time, Wu Chen had won more than Yao Bin's money. He had shattered Yao Bin's confidence as a gambling expert.

Wu Chen had not wanted to go this far. They had no personal grudge; each was simply working for someone else.

But Yao Bin had broken the rules.

Wu Chen stood before Yao Bin, with Shen Guangnian a step away to one side. Shen looked as though his whole family had died, and sweat covered his forehead. He had no money left and owed a great deal. He had already gambled away his company's cash the last time. For this attempt to crush the house, even his 150 million in starting capital had been borrowed. He had lost 130 million, leaving just twenty million.

That twenty million was useless. Even Yao Bin was no match for Wu Chen; Shen Guangnian knew he could not win it back with what remained. It was not even enough to pay his debts.

A company without cash flow was in terrible danger. Even an enterprise worth hundreds of billions could collapse overnight, let alone Shen Guangnian's company, which was worth only a few billion.

"We're in trouble, Boss Shen." Yao Bin turned stiffly toward Shen Guangnian, no longer knowing what to say.

Shen Guangnian had paid a fortune to bring him here. And he had lost—lost badly!

Shen Guangnian's face gradually darkened. He knew Li Ruotai had played him again, but he could not make a scene on Li Ruotai's turf, nor did he dare threaten him. He knew Li Ruotai would be finished soon, but he was not finished yet. "We'll talk when we get back."

Shen Guangnian spoke heavily and shot Wu Chen a vicious glare before leaving.

Yao Bin followed Shen Guangnian toward the door.

"Wait. We're not done!"

Wu Chen raised his eyes and called out. A bodyguard blocked the doorway—one of Li Ruobing's.

"What's this supposed to mean?"

Shen Guangnian's pent-up anger erupted. He glanced at Wu Chen, then shouted at Li Ruotai, "Young Master Li, you've taken our money, and now you won't let us leave?"

"How much more do you want me to lose?"

"Your Li Family is too arrogant!"

Li Ruotai had no idea what was going on either. He turned to Wu Chen.

Why wouldn't he let them leave?

Wu Chen said nothing. He stepped closer to the two men, grabbed Yao Bin's left forearm, and barked, "Don't move!"

Yao Bin froze for an instant. Then he struggled fiercely, like an animal with its hackles raised.

"What are you doing?"

"Let go of me!"

"Let him go!"

"Not quite." Wu Chen gripped Yao Bin's forearm and gave it a hard shake.

A playing card flew from Yao Bin's sleeve and landed faceup on the floor. It was the ace of spades.

Everyone's expression changed. The way they looked at Yao Bin changed with it.

"Before the thirty-fifth hand was dealt, you asked to cover the cards. That was when you stole the ace of spades and hid it in your sleeve. Did you really think I didn't see?"

"Do you think I'm blind?"

"I didn't expose you because I wasn't finished with you yet."

Wu Chen stared at Yao Bin.

"You broke the rules. Do you know what happens now?"

Terror filled Yao Bin's eyes.

Wu Chen still held Yao Bin's left arm. As he spoke, he gestured behind him with his right hand.

Li Ruobing pulled a short blade from inside her coat and handed it to Wu Chen. He yanked Yao Bin to the table and pinned his left arm down. The blade flashed down. Cheat at cards, lose a hand!