Chapter 60

Zhou Chenhao busted, and the three other players received game coins.

The 50 million couldn’t be divided equally among the three, so the two extra coins were awarded to Bai Xuechao and Gong Ting, the two players who got 21 points.

【City Lord: 550,000,001】

【Player A: 169,999,998】

【Player B: 243,333,331】

【Player C: 1,036,666,670】

While Gong Ting was shuffling, Zhou Chenhao and Ling Feng stared intently at his movements, thinking about how to stop him from cheating. They couldn’t just not let him shuffle, could they?

…Wait, it seems that’s not impossible?

A flash of inspiration struck Zhou Chenhao. He raised a hand like a student asking a question and said in a simple and crude manner: “City Lord Gong, how about I shuffle for you?”

Ling Feng was speechless, and helplessly facepalmed.

Do you even hear what you’re saying? Would Gong Ting agree to that request??

As expected, Gong Ting didn’t answer him directly. With a smile, he skillfully deflected the question while shuffling, “Why?”

“Ah, well…” Zhou Chenhao scratched his cheek.

He couldn’t just say it was to prevent him from cheating, could he? If he said that, he didn’t know if the system would judge him as trying to catch Gong Ting cheating, after all, he was counted as trying to catch Gong Ting cheating just for asking to see his cards before.

In his haste, he thought of a new method: “Let’s each shuffle once, that’s fairer!”

“Oh?” Gong Ting raised an eyebrow and looked at him, “You mean, it’s not fair if I shuffle by myself?”

Zhou Chenhao gave a few embarrassed laughs. He felt that this Gong Ting was impervious to reason, so he gave up.

Ling Feng glanced at Bai Xuechao beside him. The other party was resting his chin on one hand, watching Gong Ting shuffle with a bored expression on his face. This gave him a new idea for a tactic: “City Lord Gong, wouldn’t it be more interesting if we each shuffled the cards once? It could add some excitement.”

He deliberately emphasized the word “excitement,” reminding Gong Ting that Bai Xuechao had said he liked excitement.

Ever since Gong Ting had been guided by Bai Xuechao to exchange his own life and special ability for game coins, Ling Feng could be sure that Gong Ting, perhaps unwilling to lose to Bai Xuechao, wanted to keep him in the game. That’s why he used adding excitement as an excuse.

It turned out to be somewhat effective, because Gong Ting’s shuffling motion paused for a moment.

Just then, Bai Xuechao also spoke up. A hint of interest appeared on his face, giving them a boost: “That proposal sounds quite interesting.”

Zhou Chenhao couldn’t help but shout in his heart: nice!

Ling Feng, on the other hand, was taken aback. He hadn’t expected Bai Xuechao to speak up and help them. He didn’t believe that Bai Xuechao couldn’t tell he had just used him as an excuse.

So… was Bai Xuechao’s stance actually leaning towards them?

Thinking of this, Ling Feng’s wariness towards Bai Xuechao decreased a little, but because the other party held over 1 billion game coins, he still couldn’t completely rest easy. As long as Bai Xuechao’s purpose for coming to the Dream Game City was a mystery, he couldn’t trust him.

But in any case, it seemed they weren’t enemies for now, otherwise Bai Xuechao could have just kept his mouth shut.

Hearing Bai Xuechao say so as well, Gong Ting tapped his fingers on the playing cards, thought for a moment, and smiled, “Sure, but I’ll shuffle last.”

“That won’t do, will it?” Zhou Chenhao propped his hands on the table, his dark brown eyes staring seriously at Gong Ting. The voice with which he spoke also became a little deeper, sounding somewhat solemn, “You must be first. If you’re last, what’s the difference from you shuffling by yourself?”

It was rare for him to show such a serious and solemn expression, and it actually felt a bit oppressive.

Gong Ting was stunned for a moment by his gaze. After coming to his senses, he let out a “heh.” It seemed like a compromise, but in reality, he was still screwing them over, saying sarcastically, “Then you and Ling Feng can’t be last, otherwise I’m afraid you’ll tamper with the cards to harm me.”

Who would be last was already self-evident.

“Fine.” Neither Zhou Chenhao nor Ling Feng knew that Bai Xuechao was secretly cooperating with Gong Ting, so they fell into the trap just like that.

The shuffling order was Gong Ting first, then Zhou Chenhao and Ling Feng, and finally Bai Xuechao.

For the sake of being more “fair and just” and to increase the difficulty for everyone to possibly cheat, they used all the remaining playing cards when shuffling. Therefore, they had to hold a thick stack, nearly three decks thick. Even if they wanted to do something, such thickness would drastically reduce the dexterity of their fingers, making even cutting the deck difficult, let alone cheating.

Gong Ting shuffled the cards honestly. Both Zhou Chenhao and Ling Feng could confirm that he didn’t make any small movements.

When it was Bai Xuechao’s turn to shuffle, he shuffled as usual, but he did a flourish he had never done before—he fanned the cards out face up, then flipped the bottom-most card, causing that card to act like a domino and flip all the other cards over, looking like a wave of playing cards.

This flourish was done smoothly and quickly. Bai Xuechao’s right hand had pushed the cards halfway when his left hand had already followed, flipping the bottom-most card.

The whole process only took a few short seconds.

Although the cards were face-up, allowing everyone to see them, there were over one hundred and forty of them. Unless one had a photographic memory, who could remember them all?

Unfortunately, Bai Xuechao could.

After the cards were flipped back, he seemed to just casually cut the deck a few times, but in reality, just like Zhou Chenhao had done in the previous round, he had arranged the cards in a specific order. Furthermore, the number of cards he arranged was several more than Zhou Chenhao’s eight.

And because his mind was sharp, he had instantly simulated the changes in the cards after cutting in his head. He didn’t even need the obvious and clumsy action of cutting the cards back and forth; he just stacked them from back to front, a completely normal cutting motion that no one could find fault with.

After cutting the cards, Bai Xuechao gathered them into a stack and pushed them to Gong Ting.

His posture was relaxed and casual, and he didn’t even glance at Gong Ting, as if he wasn’t cooperating with him.

But in fact, as long as Gong Ting wasn’t foolish and dealt the cards in the order he had shuffled them, Zhou Chenhao and Ling Feng were bound to lose.

After receiving the cards, Gong Ting was also a little suspicious.

He had been staring at the white-haired young man opposite him shuffling the cards without blinking, and the other’s actions showed no suspicion of cheating at all. He wanted to believe that Dongfang Bubai had cheated, but that would mean he was truly less skilled, unable to even see when the other was cheating. But if he didn’t believe the other had cheated, the outcome of this round would be uncertain.

Gong Ting began to deal the cards with a conflicted heart. When he saw that the first face-up card dealt to him was an Ace of Hearts, he let out an “hmm?” in his heart.

He impassively dealt the cards to everyone in order.

Ling Feng had a 4 and a 7, adding up to 11 points.

Bai Xuechao had a 6 and a 2, adding up to 8 points.

Zhou Chenhao had a 5 and a 7, adding up to 12 points.

Everyone’s card totals were not large. Given the situation where they had dealt out so many large cards by cheating before, the proportion of small cards in the remaining undealt deck was high. Such a result was quite normal, so no one noticed any problem.

After dealing the cards, Gong Ting, according to the rules, lifted a corner of his face-down card to take a look. The value was 9, and with the Ace representing 11, although it wasn’t 21, 20 was also very high.

He was sure that Dongfang Bubai had cheated, otherwise his initial hand wouldn’t be so high and just right. But he couldn’t figure out how on earth Dongfang Bubai had cheated. The prerequisite for cheating was to at least know where which cards in your hand were, so you could tamper with them and shuffle them to the position you needed. But the way the other had done it just now was like a blind man trying his luck.

Gong Ting was bewildered and confused, yet he had a deeper understanding of Bai Xuechao’s cheating skills. The usually proud him actually felt a little ashamed of his own inferiority.

Ling Feng, being the next player after him, chose to hit.

Gong Ting gave him a card, and Ling Feng flipped it over to reveal a 6.

Now Ling Feng had 17 points.

This awkward total, not high and not low, presented a problem. If Ling Feng was afraid of busting, he could completely stand. And Gong Ting didn’t know whether the next card was arranged by Bai Xuechao on the premise that Ling Feng would continue to hit, or on the premise that Ling Feng would not hit.

Ling Feng was currently struggling.

Blackjack had a very famous card counting method called the Hi-Lo system, which Bai Xuechao also knew.

Simply put, J, Q, K, 10, and A were counted as -1, 2 to 6 as 1, and the rest as 0. By adding and subtracting, one could calculate the cards on the table and at the same time calculate the true count to determine whether the odds of winning or losing were greater.

The principle of this method was actually to calculate the probability of the dealer busting.

Ling Feng had been calculating in his head since the beginning of the Blackjack game.

Because many large cards were used for cheating on the table before, the number he calculated was very bad, the count was only 3, and the true count was only 0.75, not even 1.

This meant that rather than hoping for Gong Ting to bust, his own odds of winning by continuing to hit were greater.

He recalled the seventy-odd cards that had already appeared, quickly calculating his probability of getting a card with a value below 5. It was also not very good, about 31%.

“Hit.” However, he still chose to hit.

While Ling Feng was struggling, Gong Ting was also counting the cards in his head. As someone who played this game year-round, he was naturally very skilled at calculating and had gotten the answer a few seconds earlier than Ling Feng.

His answer was: Ling Feng should not continue to hit.

However, when Ling Feng chose to hit, he just dealt him a card, without any other thoughts.

Ling Feng’s card was a 7, and he busted. A flash of regret crossed his eyes, but this was the result of his own choice, and he accepted it.

At this time, Gong Ting was still not sure if this card was arranged by Dongfang Bubai, or if it was a card that should have belonged to Dongfang Bubai.

Before he could think further, Bai Xuechao had already said “hit.”

Gong Ting dealt him a card.

Bai Xuechao flipped the card over, and the 10 of Clubs on its face made Gong Ting’s pupils tremble.

10 points!

What did this mean?

Assuming the card that was just dealt to Ling Feng was dealt to Dongfang Bubai instead, Dongfang Bubai would have 15 points and would definitely have to hit again. But if he hit again, it would be a 10, and he would bust!

Therefore, that 7 was arranged for Ling Feng.

Gong Ting took a deep look at the impassive young man opposite him.

The other party had calculated human hearts.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep