Prev | Table of Contents | Next
Chapter 72: Ridiculous Savior Complex
As An Wujiu anticipated, this gambling game wasn’t just about luck; it was about human nature.
Luck couldn’t determine the outcome, and winning or losing in the game couldn’t determine whether one would ultimately survive because not everyone would make it to the end.
“What kind of joke is this?”
Protests erupted in the hall against such rules. “Who would want to be a chip if that’s the case? We might as well all join the game!”
The rabbit chuckled. “While there may seem to be plenty of gambling options here, not every game can accommodate multiple players. Moreover, each team can only have one participant per game, gambling against players from other teams. Do you really think there will always be a spot for you?”
There would inevitably be people left, forced to become chips for their teammates.
“And if… say, the team with the highest score has already sacrificed someone when the game ends, can they still come back to life?”
The rabbit replied, “If they’re in the first place, of course they can. All nine members can survive.”
Meanwhile, the numbers on their heads abruptly stopped changing.
The hall erupted into chaos as everyone checked their chip values.
“Why do I only have 900?”
“It’s not calculated based on the value of life, is it? You must be low in value.”
“Oh my, I have 2,000!”
“I’ve got 1,000.”
An Wujiu looked up at his own.
Ten thousand.
It exceeded his expectations a bit.
“Stay put, all of you,” An Wujiu instructed those around him. “I’ll go gather everyone; let’s regroup.”
“Don’t we need to claim a game first?” Toudou Sakura tried to stop An Wujiu. “They’ve already started. If we don’t claim one, won’t we miss our chance to participate?”
“No need, that’s not the most important thing.” An Wujiu was decisive, and he left without further ado.
Toudou Sakura couldn’t quite understand, but she had no choice. She glanced around and saw everyone checking their chip amounts above their heads. She sighed and turned to see the little girl An Wujiu had brought in, who was also earnestly observing the numbers above others’ heads.
“Noah,” she squatted down, her smile gentle as she took Noah’s hand. “How did you end up here?”
Noah’s big eyes looked up at her. “I came to find my mommy.”
“Mommy?” Toudou Sakura asked, puzzled. “Really? Your mom is here at the altar too?”
Noah nodded.
Toudou Sakura was perplexed. “Then how did you survive? Is this your first round?”
“Did someone bring her here?” the uncle beside them, stooping down, asked.
Noah hesitated, “Earlier… there was a brother who brought me, but then he, he…”
“Died?” Toudou Sakura asked bluntly.
Noah nodded, her expression filled with sadness.
Feeling she might have touched a sore spot, Toudou Sakura reached out and gently patted her head: “What a good person. How come I’ve never met someone like you at the altar…”
The uncle man smiled and straightened up. “I think our little team leader here is just fine.”
Upon hearing these words, Toudou Sakura lifted her head and happened to see An Wujiu, with a stern expression, leading the others toward them briskly.
Well, indeed, he was truly a great person.
An Wujiu returned with the others, and they found an empty corner to gather and discuss.
“We still have five hours and forty minutes left,” An Wujiu confirmed the time. “Let’s make sure everyone knows their chip count.”
Zhong Yirou ran her fingers through her hair. “I have 3,000; that seems about right.”
Yang Erci said, “6,000.”
Noah spoke softly, “I have 1,500, less than Jiejie.”
Toudou Sakura smiled and added, “I have 2,000, not much either.”
“I have 1,500.” Nan Shan wasn’t surprised at all. “Perhaps because of my congenital condition, my life is valued less.”
Wu You said, “I have 1,000.”
It was normal, and An Wujiu and Shen Ti knew the reasons, so they didn’t dwell on it.
“I have 900,” the uncle scratched his head sheepishly. “Probably because I still owe debts in real life.”
An Wujiu asked with concern, “Chen-ge, why do you owe debts?”
Chen-ge shook his head and sighed, “My youngest daughter has Crohn’s disease, which is hard to treat. She’s still in the hospital and requires a large sum of money regularly. I can’t repay it all, so I ended up borrowing electronic loans, which just keep accumulating.
Earlier, I was desperate, so I went to an underground gambling den to help others set up traps. I got retaliated against and had no choice but to come here to lay low, hoping to get lucky and bring back more money to pay for her medical bills.”
Although he only briefly summarized his situation, An Wujiu could still feel his hardship and helplessness.
“I’m sorry, because of my personal reasons, my chips are a bit less…” Chen-ge apologized sincerely.
“What’s this?” Shen Ti laughed and spoke up. “I only have 500.”
For some reason, although it was undoubtedly bad news, An Wujiu found it somewhat amusing.
“Are you really that cheap?” An Wujiu turned to look at him; the coldness usually present in his eyes softened slightly, a hint of liveliness appearing. A smile danced in his eyes, reflecting the light from the crystal chandelier, resembling two moons shimmering on water.
For a moment, Shen Ti was a bit lost in his gaze. When he snapped out of it, he reached out and pretended to be angry as he pinched An Wujiu’s cheek.
“I’m that cheap; just buy me already.”
Wu You watched from the side, looking disdainful.
“Alright, enough flirting.” Zhong Yirou clapped her hands. “Erci and I just went through all the available games.”
As Zhong Yirou was about to pull up the electronic notes, the large screen in the hall, which had been dark, suddenly lit up. It was quite long, and gradually, everyone’s chip values appeared on it, from high to low.
“Congratulations! Congratulations to player Maguire!”
In an instant, accompanied by cartoonish sound effects, the chip leaderboard on the screen changed. Maguire, who had been in 12th place from the beginning, jumped to 8th place.
He had won 500 points just at the beginning.
“So fast?” Toudou Sakura frowned, glancing over at their table, only to be startled by sudden screams.
An Wujiu also followed the sound, and at first glance, he saw the floor covered in blood.
In the pool of blood, he saw a person standing at the side of the gambling table, clutching their arm in pain.
“No, his… his…” Chen-ge’s lips quivered in fear as he took a couple of steps back. “His arm, it’s gone, completely disappeared.”
Not even a severed arm remained, as if it had been swallowed by the air, leaving only a mangled shoulder, a gaping wound the size of a bowl, and blood continuously oozing from between the fingers. The scene was horrifying.
Shen Ti looked coldly at Maguire, who was nearby, his face filled with the joy of victory.
With just one round of gambling, he had won 500 chips and also severed the arm of another player from a different team.
“This is unfair!” shouted the captain of the team whose member lost his arm, his voice loud as he looked up. “Since you took 500 chips and took my teammate’s arm, we’ll give you 500, and you give his arm back!”
“That won’t do.”
Rabbit’s voice was filled with sarcasm. “Since you became the chips, you have to give them up if you lose. Otherwise, that would be unfair. Even if we give you this opportunity, whose 500 chips are you planning to use to get his arm back? Your own?”
Upon hearing the rabbit’s words, the captain bowed his head, clenched his fists, and stopped fighting further.
The teammate, who had lost his arm, continued to profusely bleed from the wound. However, it was witnessing such a horrific scene that prevented the captain or any other teammate from making such a selfless decision.
I sacrifice myself for others, but who will sacrifice themselves for me?
Seeing this scene, Toudou Sakura couldn’t help but admire An Wujiu’s decisiveness. If they had rushed to occupy the gambling table as they originally intended, they might have been the ones losing limbs and feet now.
“However…”
The rabbit spoke again, as if about to bestow upon them some great favor. “There’s plenty of alcohol here—the punishment drink you had before. Drinking a little can help alleviate the pain. Of course, you can also use your accumulated points to treat your teammate who lost a body part.”
The rabbit clicked their tongue. “But the effect, well, it’s like a drop in the ocean.”
Noah huddled behind An Wujiu, tugging at his clothes, but she didn’t speak.
An Wujiu was afraid she was too scared to speak, so he told her not to look over there.
Seeing this scene, everyone would become even more panicked, fearing that being a chip meant putting their lives in the hands of their teammates.
“Our current distribution of chips is like a staircase,” An Wujiu said to everyone. “I just noticed that the person who was just used as a chip had 3,000 chips before. That means Maguire just took away 1/6 of his chip value, equivalent to an arm.”
Yang Erci quickly understood An Wujiu’s meaning and continued, “If the situation just now had involved a player with only 1,000 chips, it would have been very dangerous.”
The others also realized this possibility.
But what if they were only worth five hundred chips to begin with?
Wu You observed for a moment and saw that Maguire had occupied the gambling table and seemed to intend to continue gambling.
“According to Maguire’s strategy,” Wu You said, “he might be trying to gather chips and gamble on behalf of the team. Moreover, he’s the team leader, so he has the final say.”
Shen Ti stretched lazily, then, as if being playful, he reached out his two long arms from behind An Wujiu and wrapped them around An Wujiu’s neck, like a giant human-shaped pendant hanging from him.
“Save me, team leader; I’ll be out of chips after just one round.”
“Yeah,” Nan Shan chuckled, as if imagining something amusing, “Will he just vanish directly?”
“Maybe he’ll leave behind just a head.” Zhong Yirou teased, giving An Wujiu a bit of a scare, as he couldn’t help but shiver at the thought, his mind conjuring up unsettling images.
“It won’t happen,” An Wujiu reassured them. “Because it’s too dangerous to have such a large portion of chips at stake. So, I’ll start as the chip; I have plenty. Even if I lose 500 like this, it’s just a drop in the bucket, maybe just losing a hand.”
“Just a hand??” Wu You strongly disagreed. “I won’t do it. We can’t just use you as the chip. If that’s the case, then I’ll be the chip too.”
“Or me, I have 6,000.” Yang Erci intervened to stop Wu You.
“What’s with all this?” Toudou Sakura laughed. “Our team is being too self-sacrificing, isn’t it? So positive even before we’ve started. Even if we do need to allocate, we need to see who’s better at which game, calculate the winning odds, and then talk about the bet. That’s how we can win first place.”
“Xiao You, listen to me,” An Wujiu said to everyone. “Our goal is, of course, to win first place, but we have an advantage; look at the leaderboard.”
Listening to him, everyone looked up at the leaderboard.
“The total amount in the chip pool remains constant, which is the sum of all players’ chip values. I just roughly calculated, and the total chip value of the nine of us is currently in first place, meaning there are many low-chip players on other teams.”
Shen Ti leaned against An Wujiu and nodded. “If we go out now, we’ll most likely be giving away chips.”
“Exactly,” An Wujiu added, “but we’ll have to move sooner or later because players like Maguire exist, and the possibility of his team accumulating chips will increase. They might catch up to us soon.”
Toudou Sakura nodded. “And there’s also Zhou Yijue’s team.”
Chen-ge asked, “So what should we do now?”
“Learn,” An Wujiu looked toward the gambling tables. “Some of us on our team aren’t frequent gamblers. Firstly, we need to understand the rules of the various tables, and secondly, we need to observe and familiarize ourselves with the most common gamblers sent out by each team and understand their strategies as quickly as possible.”
Wu You lowered the brim of his hat: “Know thyself, know thy enemy, a hundred battles, a hundred victories.”
Zhou Yijue had been watching their team all along.
Beside him, his henchman approached and asked, “Jue-ge, what are you looking at?”
Zhou Yijue smirked. “I’m looking at something interesting.”
“The members of that team over there aren’t doing anything, and they’re not participating in anyone’s games. Do you think they’re planning to just wait until the game ends?”
“Who knows?” Zhou Yijue crossed his arms, his sharp eyebrows resting above narrowed eyes, his expression seemingly friendly but exuding a strong sense of oppression. “Maybe he wants to protect every teammate.”
He chuckled, “Ridiculous savior complex.”
“Go.” Zhou Yijue turned his head and ordered the person beside him, “invite them to join the game.”
“Tell them that if they win, they’ll get double compensation.”
“D-Double?” The henchman looked hesitant.
“Yes, double.” Zhou Yijue’s lips curled slightly. “If we win, they’ll have to pay us double the chips too.”
“But that An Wujiu looks pretty powerful…”
“He won’t participate.” Zhou Yijue asserted.
Prev | Table of Contents | Next
