(3/3)
Anchor Hall
Chapter 539: I feel like I’ve been played
“……”
The entire second floor of the casino was shrouded in a deathly silence. The air grew thick and oppressive, flowing into one’s lungs like a heavy liquid.
Staring into Wen Jianyan’s eyes, Mesvis’s lips slowly stretched into a grin. An uncontrollable laugh spilled from his throat, growing increasingly maniacal: “Haha… Hahahahahahaha!”
The high-pitched laughter echoed throughout the second floor, making one’s scalp tingle.
After an unknown amount of time, Mesvis, who had been bent over with laughter, finally stopped. He clutched his stomach, wiping away the physiological tears at the corners of his eyes, and said with a smile, “Oh my, my apologies, I lost my composure a bit.”
Mesvis stared intently at Wen Jianyan with his eyes that had very little white and terrifyingly large pupils, his smile deepening: “It’s just that I haven’t encountered something this interesting in a very long time.”
He slowly rose from the sofa. Only then did Wen Jianyan realize how tall Mesvis was, standing at least two meters.
“Ten times leverage, is it?” The casino manager lowered his head, a fearsome smile on his face. “I agree.”
Even though he got a positive answer, Wen Jianyan’s heart suddenly relaxed. Everything was moving in the direction he had anticipated.
Mesvis was a seasoned gambler—this was not just evident from the commands he gave the dealer. For someone like him, the fascination with high risk and high stakes was an addiction that ran bone-deep. The more dangerous, the more addictive; the more thrilling, the more irresistible… This was the instinct of a gambler. That’s why he couldn’t refuse Wen Jianyan’s wager.
However, after a brief moment of relief, a new wave of pressure washed over him. This was a bet of one point five billion points.
—One point five billion.
A number so vast that even imagining it was terrifying.
Wen Jianyan looked up at Mesvis, who was standing with his hands behind his back, watching with a smile as the waiters bustled about. In the blink of an eye, a clear space had been made in the salon, and a gambling table with a blood-red cloth was placed in the center.
“…”
He took a slow, deep breath.
Did he have a chance of winning? It was hard to say.
Wen Jianyan didn’t like gambling, and he disliked casinos even more. If not for the extreme circumstances, he would never have chosen this method.
As Chen Mo had said… There were too many high-level anchors on the ship. Not only anchors like Figaro who came specifically for the auction, but also survivors of the top-ten challenge, invited by the Nightmare, who were essentially the core members of major guilds. There were even four of the top ten!
This meant that if this instance truly formed, its difficulty would be terrifying. The SS-rated [Yuying Comprehensive University] instance had a survival rate in the double digits out of over a thousand people. And this one? The answer was chilling.
Based on his analysis of the screen data, the cruise ship ran on the points lost by gamblers. Under the sweet trap deliberately set by the Nightmare, all the gamblers on board were swept into a frenzy. In this group hysteria, no one could stop. This was gambling. The more they bet, the more they lost; the more they lost, the more they bet. And all their lost points became mileage for the cruise ship. The noose of death was tightening, set to strangle everyone on board.
If Wen Jianyan had a choice, he wouldn’t want to be caught in this deadly high-stakes game either, but… this was the only chance to level the score. As long as he could win back the points lost by others on the ship, the ship’s speed would be suppressed—and if he could delay for 24 hours, he could get his guild members off the ship. As for the fate of the others on this death ship, it was none of his concern. After all, gamblers always reap what they sow.
Wen Jianyan glanced at the time. It was already past midnight. In a way, his day had been a little too full—from the casino to the celebration banquet, from the banquet to the cockpit, and from the cockpit back to the second floor of the casino. He had been spinning like a top all day, passing an entire day without even realizing it.
Wen Jianyan thought for a moment, then looked at Mesvis and asked, “Do you mind if I start a live stream?” Since it was past midnight anyway, he might as well stream to complete some tasks and earn some points. Although these points were nothing compared to his current bet, every little bit counts—especially for someone who might go bankrupt today.
Mesvis: “Of course not.”
With Mesvis’s approval, Wen Jianyan started his live stream. After a brief blank period, comments began to appear sporadically in the “Integrity First” live stream room.
[?]
[Did I wake up too early? I think I saw the anchor starting a stream at midnight.]
[What? I just clicked in to try my luck. Is he really streaming?]
[Wait, such a big anchor is doing a late-night show for us? Am I dreaming?]
[Speaking of which, where is this?]
“Good evening.” Wen Jianyan blinked. “As you can see, I’m on the second floor of a casino, about to start a one-point-five-billion-point gamble.” The young man narrowed his light-colored eyes and smiled. “I thought you all might be interested, so I started the stream early.”
In the “Integrity First” live stream room:
[…]
[…]
[…Wait a minute?]
[What second floor of a casino? What one-point-five-billion-point gamble?? Hold on a sec! What the hell is going on? What did we miss in the few hours we were offline ahhh!!!]
Wen Jianyan ignored the screen full of question marks and closed the interface. Since he had just started, he figured the audience would understand if they just watched for a while.
“How much do you know about the rules of the red table?” Mesvis asked.
Wen Jianyan: “Not much.”
“Alright, then I’ll start from the beginning.” Once it came to his area of expertise, Mesvis was surprisingly patient. “First, what’s in front of you now is a red table, which only appears when the chips reach a million. Unlike any other table in the casino, there is no house or player on this table.”
…What?
Wen Jianyan was surprised. This was the first time he had heard of such a thing.
“That’s right.” Mesvis clapped his hands with a smile, and several sets of footsteps echoed from the darkness. Soon, four dealers in crisp tailcoats emerged—one female, three male. These were clearly the core dealers under Mesvis’s command that Figaro had mentioned.
“Only head-to-head betting is allowed at the red table,” Mesvis pointed to the four behind him and introduced, “And they are your opponents.”
“You can decide on the specific content of the gamble among yourselves, but once decided, it cannot be changed for ten rounds. Of course, if you choose an item with a house and player, you and your opponent will take turns being the house.”
Wen Jianyan processed this information. As he had initially guessed, the rules of the red table were very special, completely different from a normal casino. In a normal game, the dealer is only responsible for dealing cards and handling payouts. But at the red table, the dealer is on equal footing with the gambler. The gambler has the right to decide the type of game, but that’s it. Even if they choose a game with a house and player, they will take turns to ensure fairness—the reason Wen Jianyan could join Dan Zhu’s bet in the underground casino was probably that it wasn’t Dan Zhu’s turn to be the house. This was less a casino-run game and more… a 1v1 gambling game.
“Secondly, besides points, you can also bet on physical items at the red table—as long as you can put up equivalent chips,” Mesvis said. Wen Jianyan immediately thought of Dan Zhu’s bet in the underground casino. After her victory, the dealer not only gave her the corresponding chips but also asked her to leave with him. So, Dan Zhu must have been betting on a physical item.
“Finally, no cheating is allowed at the table,” Mesvis looked at Wen Jianyan, his smile slowly widening. “If you are caught, you will have to pay ten times the bet—of course, since you’ve already added a ten-times leverage, if you’re caught cheating, the amount you need to pay will be one hundred times the bet.”
A hundred times. That was a terrifying ratio that made one’s heart pound. Wen Jianyan’s face remained impassive, but he couldn’t help but shiver inwardly.
A waiter approached, holding a transparent box filled neatly with blood-red chips—a full one hundred and fifty of them. Each worth one million, for a total of one hundred and fifty million points in chips. According to the leverage agreement between Wen Jianyan and Mesvis, each one-million-point chip on the table was worth ten million off the table. This meant the chips in the box were worth a full one point five billion.
The waiter bent down and placed the box of chips on the table in front of Wen Jianyan. Seeing this, Mesvis seemed to remember something and spoke again: “Oh right, one more thing… because your game is leveraged, once you lose chips equivalent to your entire principal, you cannot leave the table early until all your chips are lost.”
The so-called “backing” meant the value of the chips was multiplied tenfold off the table. An ordinary gambler with 150 chips who loses 20 at the table and stops still has 130 chips’ worth of principal. But under the backing condition, a gambler with 150 chips who loses just 20 at the table is considered to have lost 200 chips. Not only is their principal gone, but they also owe the casino 50 chips. And the rule Mesvis just added, though seemingly simple, was extremely malicious.
In a casino, a gambler who realizes their luck is bad has the option to cut their losses (though few can actually seize this chance, and even if they do once, they can’t do it every time). But for Wen Jianyan, with his leveraged chips, once his losses exceeded the limit his total points could cover—that is, 15 chips—he couldn’t leave the table until he had lost all his chips. The subtext was: either win or be one point five billion in debt. Win or die. There was no middle ground.
The audience in the live stream had pretty much figured out what was going on by now.
[…Damn, this isn’t just regular gambling, this is a life-or-death gamble!!! Just hearing the rules makes me tremble.]
[I’m scared too, ahhh, what devil possessed the anchor to get himself into such a game, it’s too terrifying. The consequence isn’t just bankruptcy, it’s a suicide mission!!]
[Does anyone know what happens if you owe the casino money?]
[Negative points, and you have to clear subsequent instances to repay the debt—of course, the Nightmare will charge interest and a commission.]
[That’s for ordinary debt, what if you’re one point five billion in debt?]
[…]
[Who knows, I’ve never even heard of such a huge debt!!!]
“That’s about all the rules,” after introducing the red table rules to Wen Jianyan, Mesvis smiled and stepped aside. “Alright, you can choose your opponent now.”
“…”
Wen Jianyan’s gaze swept over the four dealers. Finally, his eyes rested on Mesvis in front of them. He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully and suddenly asked, “And you?”
Mesvis: “Hmm?”
Wen Jianyan smiled and asked, “Can I choose to gamble with you?”
In the “Integrity First” live stream room:
[…]
[Heart… heart stopped.]
[Who? You said who? Gamble with whom?]
[Ahhh, I’m panicking, anchor, snap out of it!! Where did the old Wen Jianyan go? I’m not used to this crazy person!!!]
“…Me?” Seemingly not expecting Wen Jianyan to ask such a question, Mesvis was slightly taken aback, a look of surprise on his face.
Wen Jianyan blinked and asked innocently, “What? Is it not allowed?”
The moment he spoke, a shiver of a smile seemed to flash across Mesvis’s face, but it quickly vanished. He returned to being the calculating casino manager. “Unfortunately, it is indeed not allowed. It’s against the rules,” he said. “But don’t worry…”
Mesvis looked up, staring unblinkingly at Wen Jianyan. It might have been an illusion, but the white part of his eyes seemed to have shrunk even more, looking very creepy under the lights. “Perhaps there will be a chance in the future.”
Wen Jianyan met his gaze silently for a few seconds before casually looking away. “I look forward to it.” After that, he turned back and once again began to carefully examine the four dealers before him.
The first was a baby-faced man of indeterminable age. He smiled at Wen Jianyan, revealing two sharp canine teeth. A black and gold nameplate was pinned to his chest: ‘No. 8’. A blonde, frosty-faced woman in a tailored suit had a similar nameplate: ‘No.6’. ‘No.4’ was a handsome, well-built man whose face Wen Jianyan recognized—he was the dealer who had served Dan Zhu’s table in the underground casino. The last one was an unassuming middle-aged man with sharp, gleaming eyes in their narrow sockets. His nameplate read ‘No.3’.
“Do their rankings mean anything?” Wen Jianyan’s gaze lingered on their nameplates.
“Of course,” Mesvis’s voice came from behind. “I have a total of ten core dealers. The ranking is their win rate—these four are just the ones who are currently free. The other six are at other tables in the casino.”
“So?” Mesvis asked, “Have you chosen?”
Wen Jianyan pointed at the baby-faced dealer with the lowest rank. “Him.”
In the “Integrity First” live stream room:
[…]
“Oh?” Mesvis looked surprised. “I didn’t expect your choice to be so conservative.” Throwing down 1.5 billion with ten times leverage, boasting about wanting to bet against him, and in the end, he chooses the dealer with the lowest win rate on the field?
Wen Jianyan smiled and nodded. “Yep.” He said shamelessly, “Can’t be helped, I have to win. Of course, I have to pick the softest persimmon to squeeze.”
Mesvis: “…”
Though it was a shameless statement, his tone was so matter-of-fact that it was hard to argue.
In the “Integrity First” live stream room:
[…Okay, that’s you alright.]
[Talking a big game is one thing, action is another, right?]
[I feel so stupid for worrying two minutes ago that the anchor had gone crazy—your thick skin and courage are really consistent!!!]
After being called, No. 8 slowly walked up and sat behind the blood-red table. He smiled at Wen Jianyan, revealing two sharp canines. “Shall we begin?”
“What would you like to play?”
Wen Jianyan thought for a moment. “Anything?”
No. 8 smiled. “Of course, what would you like?”
Wen Jianyan: “Gomoku.”
Everyone around: “…………”
What?
After Wen Jianyan’s words fell, the “Integrity First” live stream room fell silent. Even Mesvis, who was watching from the side, had a brief blank look on his face.
After a few seconds of silence, sporadic comments finally began to appear on the screen again.
[What did he say? I didn’t hear clearly. What is he planning to play in the casino? What is he going to play with a one-point-five-billion-point stake against the core dealer of the casino management on the second floor?]
[Gomoku.]
[…]
[What is happening? I feel so weak.]
[Me too.]
[I feel like I’ve been played.]
[…………Me too.]
Even No. 8’s expression froze. After a brief silence, he confirmed, “Gomoku?”
Wen Jianyan nodded with a serious face. “Mhm.” He asked, “Is that not allowed?”
“…”
No. 8 smiled again, but it might have been an illusion; his voice seemed to be grinding his teeth. “Of course, it’s allowed.”
