Chapter 170
Chapter 170
Zhang Ru felt a headache coming on. She knew this girl was hopelessly obsessed with romance and good looks, but how could she still be thinking about that at a time like this?
“Hey, look farther down!”
Li Wei suddenly exclaimed beside her.
Zhang Ru picked up the phone, and her eyes immediately widened.
An astonishing list of goods appeared farther down the screen.
[Immortality Pill]
[Longevity Potion (One Hundred Years)]
[Revival Card]
[Fiend (No Risk of Losing Control)]
…
Every item on the list was enough to make someone drool. More importantly, none of them were particularly expensive. The Revival Card, for example, could resurrect any designated person and cost only three hundred thousand.
Zhang Ru immediately thought of herself. With that card, she could return to life and would never again have to remain inside Wang Weiwei’s jade pendant.
Her breathing quickened despite herself. Li Wei, standing beside her, reacted in much the same way.
Zhang Ru could hardly wait to start earning money. Then, all of a sudden, she noticed Liu Ye sitting nearby and drinking fruit juice.
“Brother Liu, aren’t you going to play?”
“No. Brother Guiwa always says there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Prostitution, gambling, and drugs-you never touch any of them.”
Liu Ye’s voice was resolute. Even in a dream, he would not gamble. Once a person tried it, they would always want to play again.
Liu Ye’s point had been that prostitution, gambling, and drugs were all forbidden. But Zhang Ru seized on something else he had said.
There was no such thing as a free lunch!
“That’s right!”
The realization struck Zhang Ru like a bolt of lightning, instantly clearing her head. Everything in the catalog was both extraordinarily tempting and surprisingly inexpensive. But would the other side really give them those things for next to nothing?
This was a mission in the Fiendish World. Would the Fiendish World truly be so generous as to hand over such treasures this easily?
Zhang Ru found a seat near Liu Ye, closed her eyes, and emptied her mind. Only once her excitement subsided did she slowly open them again.
The Fiendish World was filled with danger. She could not let a rush of excitement send her charging in blindly. At that thought, she looked gratefully at Liu Ye.
She knew Brother Liu must have noticed her problem and deliberately offered that small hint.
As for why he had not simply told her outright, that was obvious. Brother Liu was no indiscriminate do-gooder. If someone insisted on courting death, why should he stop them?
With that in mind, Zhang Ru did not start gambling immediately. Instead, she observed the others.
First she went to stand behind Li Wei, who was playing blackjack. She could clearly sense that he was losing himself in the game.
“Dealer, nineteen. Player, twenty!”
“Fantastic!”
Li Wei pumped his fist and took a drink from the beer beside him. He had won more than a hundred thousand in that single hand. He was drawing ever closer to the Revival Card.
But as Zhang Ru watched, she noticed something strange. She examined the cards and the shoe on the table. It was an old-fashioned transparent shoe that let everyone see inside, and they were playing with only a single deck.
After watching for a while, Zhang Ru could even predict which card would be dealt next. She had memorized the exact order of all fifty-four cards.
Li Wei had clearly done the same. More than three million in chips were already piled beside him.
His eyes were bloodshot. He no longer wanted merely to reach thirty million. He wanted to buy every item in the catalog.
“I won! I won!”
Wang Weiwei’s excited shriek rang out nearby. Zhang Ru turned and saw her jumping up and down amid a mountain of gold coins.
Music erupted throughout the casino. The slot machine in front of Wang Weiwei displayed the numbers 777. She had obviously hit the top prize.
“There really is something wrong here.”
Slot machines were among the most suspicious gambling devices to begin with. And given Wang Weiwei’s poor reaction speed, her chances of landing Qiqi Seven-the triple-seven jackpot-were effectively zero.
Zhang Ru looked around. Everyone else had amassed piles of chips as well. At a glance, each of them appeared to have won several million.
Big Gold Tooth was playing roulette, and nearly every number he bet on came up.
Zhang Yanyan was playing mahjong. It was almost as though the other three players were feeding her every tile she needed, falling over themselves to give her money.
“Why is this happening?”
Zhang Ru had originally assumed the difficulty of the game lay in earning thirty million. In reality, however, that did not seem to be the case at all.
At their current pace, reaching thirty million could hardly be easier.
Everyone was now striving to earn enough to purchase every item in the catalog.
Zhang Ru bit her lip, her thoughts growing muddled. She looked toward Liu Ye, intending to ask what he thought.
Instead, she heard him singing.
“Win or lose, live boldly! At worst, we’ll start all over again!”
Liu Ye stood onstage with a microphone, singing at the top of his lungs. A crowd had gathered around him, clapping with guilty consciences. They had no choice. His singing was truly unbearable.
Worse, he knew only that single line and kept repeating it endlessly.
Zhang Ru was speechless.
No one was perfect, it seemed. Brother Liu’s voice was truly… beyond description. Now her head was filled with “start all over,” “begin again”…
She froze.
Start all over again!
Zhang Ru seemed to realize something. She jerked her head toward Liu Ye on the stage. Was this the real message Brother Liu was trying to send them?
Start from the beginning!
Zhang Ru immediately reviewed everything that had happened since they entered.
“The purpose of our prison is to cultivate villains…”
“Doing good deeds will extend your sentences…”
“This level is called the Chamber of Betrayal…”
That was it!
Zhang Ru’s eyes flew open. It was the theme. This level’s theme was betrayal! Reaching thirty million did not matter at all. Even if they did nothing, Mr. Huo might simply give them the money. His true goal was to turn the seven of them against one another and make them commit betrayal.
As for how he would do it…
Zhang Ru looked at the mountains of chips.
Could there be any more effective tool?
It was an open scheme. Did they want the goods in the catalog? Did they want to return to life? Did they even want to escape this place?
If Mr. Huo used those desires to sow discord, everyone except Brother Liu-including Zhang Ru herself-would fall for it.
“What do I do?”
She had guessed Mr. Huo’s true objective, but she could not tell the others. Even if the final game truly involved Mr. Huo sowing discord as she suspected, would they care? No. They would care only about what they personally stood to gain or lose.
Zhang Ru could even guess how Mr. Huo would turn them against one another.
“What do I do… What do I do…”
Her fingernails dug into her palms, and blood dripped onto the carpet.
“Don’t put so much pressure on yourself.”
A handkerchief was suddenly placed in her hand. Zhang Ru looked up and saw Patient No. 1, Zhang Shun.