Chapter 197
Chapter 197
Heat from the charcoal made the meat sizzle, releasing delicate beads of fat and an enticing aroma.
Cheng Miao mixed a dipping sauce with bird’s-eye chilies and ate with lively delight.
Qi Jiajia wanted to eat the same thing as Cheng Miao, but after dipping a piece into Cheng Miao’s sauce and taking one bite, her expressionless little face flushed bright red.
Seeing Qi Jiajia’s watery catlike eyes and the little tongue she stuck out from the heat, Qin Musong laughed heartily while Lin Zhu frantically poured her lemon water.
Cheng Miao did not tell Li Cheng’s group too much about the truth behind the Game. Unlike Cheng Miao’s team, they were ordinary players who had begun considering making a home inside the Game.
To them, the truth and purpose of the Game were too distant. They only wanted to live every day outside the instances well.
So Cheng Miao simply offered them a few pointers. For people like them, a Hotel was actually a very suitable place to live.
Grand Hotels offered excellent conditions, and so did Resorts, but players like them could not afford either.
Rather than constantly thinking about climbing higher, they were better off building a good, modest life.
Fortunately, all six of them were shrewd, and that had been their plan from the start.
“It’s just that we can’t buy a home…” Li Cheng, an old slave to his mortgage, muttered and sighed.
Tong Qian changed the subject. Their lives revolved around domestic concerns and struggling to make ends meet.
But Cheng Miao’s group was different. Tong Qian did not want to burden Cheng Miao with negativity, so she asked about the instances instead.
She wanted to learn more so she could stay with Bai Jiang longer.
Cheng Miao appreciated Tong Qian’s thoughtfulness and understood her intention, so she slowly described every detail of the instances she had cleared.
High-level and low-level instances differed greatly. Li Cheng and the others clicked their tongues as they listened, both frightened and excited.
Knowing the possible dangers of high-level instances in advance was unquestionably an opportunity that could help them survive.
They ate until late at night. Cheng Miao pinched the tip of Qiudong’s ear as he rested with his eyes closed, scooped up the cat, and returned to the Grand Hotel with him.
“I’m going to see King tomorrow. Do any of you want to come?”
Qiudong had awakened before they returned to their rooms. He extended the invitation to the few people who remained interested in the casino.
Cheng Miao remembered that in the last instance, Qiudong had approached King to ask her to lure away the chairman. She nodded.
“Of course I’ll go. You did it to help me clear the instance.”
Qiudong knew Cheng Miao tended to carry too much on her mind, but he did not deliberately try to console her. He settled beside the freshly washed Cheng Miao, and they fell asleep together.
King’s casino remained the liveliest establishment around. Since it was not combined with any other business, plenty of female players visited too.
King was not on the casino floor, but only a few minutes after Cheng Miao’s group appeared, King emerged before them in heavy makeup and towering stilettos, her voluptuous figure all dramatic curves.
Ignoring the covetous gazes of the male players around her, King drew from the smoking pipe in her hand and slowly exhaled a cloud of smoke. Her red lips curved upward. “I thought you weren’t coming.”
Qiudong jumped onto the table. “You refused to simply count your help as repaying the favor. Do you enjoy owing people?”
King had security clear a card table, then sat down gracefully and tapped her smoking pipe lightly against its surface. “What you did was a life-saving favor. If I repaid it with something that minor, I’d be completely disloyal.”
King extended her vivid red tongue and licked the corner of her mouth. “Besides, repaying a favor isn’t nearly as interesting as gambling with you.”
Qiudong sat primly on the card table. A few curious players were still whispering to their companions. “How can that kitty talk? Is it a player?”
“Probably not. If it knows the casino owner, maybe it’s an NPC?”
Qiudong ignored the discussion behind him, and Cheng Miao’s group paid it no attention either.
They had discussed it before. As they cleared more instances and met more people, word would inevitably spread that their team included a cat and that an exceptionally handsome man accompanied them during instances.
There was nothing shameful about it. Instead of trying to hide, they might as well be open about it.
Given their team’s strength, they could handle any ideas or schemes other players might harbor.
“I’m a cat right now. How am I supposed to gamble with you?” Qiudong flicked his tail with perfect composure. Hearing him, King tossed an Item over.
Qiudong pinned it beneath one paw. It was a four-leaf clover.
“It can keep you in human form for half a day,” King added. The Item was far from cheap, but compared with the chance to gamble against Qiudong, she did not care at all.
Qiudong did not stand on ceremony. He lowered his head and swallowed the [Four-Leaf Clover]. With a pop, a cloud of mint-scented mist exploded around him.
The handsome man appeared within the mist.
Cheng Miao and the others were used to seeing Qiudong like this, but the ordinary players had never seen anyone so pleasing to the eye.
Several young women squealed softly, blushing as they crowded closer.
Qiudong flexed his wrists, then used his thumbs to bend each hand all the way back toward the wrist.
Cheng Miao could tell that Qiudong was an experienced gambler, and a very skilled one at that.
She needed only look at his soft, nimble hands. She remembered reading in a novel that an excellent gambler’s most important asset was a flexible pair of hands.
“What are we betting on?” Qiudong sat in the chair and looked without expression at the great beauty across from him.
King clapped her hands. A bodyguard brought over two dice cups, each containing five dice.
“Let’s keep it simple. We’ll compare totals.” King lifted both cups and showed them to Qiudong. They were old friends, so there was no need for either of them to cheat.
Qiudong took one cup and tested it before nodding. “Fine.”
King’s eyes began to shine. She straightened her back and leaned slightly forward. “Then are you betting high or low?”
Qiudong glanced up at Cheng Miao, who stood beside him studying the dice cup, and smiled. “Do you want high or low?”
Cheng Miao was first startled by Qiudong’s rare smile, then began considering the question in earnest.
Since this was only a friendly contest, Cheng Miao did not feel much pressure. After weighing it for a moment, she said, “High.”
Qiudong looked at her tenderly. “All right. Then we’ll bet high.”
King rolled her eyes. With a swift, forceful sweep of her right hand, she caught up the dice cup.
The cup flew through King’s hands as she performed flourish after beautiful flourish.
In comparison, Qiudong’s shaking technique looked utterly plain. He swept up the cup and merely held it suspended vertically above the table while rapidly shaking it from side to side, yet not a single die fell out.
Bang!
King slammed her dice cup onto the table. Watching King’s chest rise and fall slightly and her eyes glitter with excitement, Cheng Miao almost laughed. King truly loved gambling.
Qiudong set down his cup as well. His movement was slow, but the force behind it was exquisitely controlled, and both cup and dice landed steadily on the table.
King tilted her head and listened, then frowned slightly. She could not determine the points Qiudong had rolled.
That shouldn’t be possible.
King narrowed her eyes and opened her own dice cup first.
Inside were ten half-dice. King had used skillful force to split every die down the middle, creating separate halves showing one point and six points.
With five dice, King had rolled a total of thirty-five points.
Qiudong applauded from across the table and gave a low chuckle. “You lost.”