Chapter Eleven: The Big Gamble

  More and more guests are gathering around the gambling table, so it's not possible to rashly go in and catch people now, which would affect the guests' interest and ruin the reputation of the Xiaoluan.

  It's been a long time since the gamblers saw the god of gambling get angry. The guy who made the god of gambling angry last time first lost his house and land, then lost his wife and children, and finally even bet his own two hands, but still lost. He watched with his own eyes as the god of gambling chopped off his two hands with an axe. From then on, he disappeared from the gambling world and begged for food by the Qinhuai River, eventually starving to death on the street.

  Now someone else is going to follow in his footsteps, and the crowd looks at Liu Ziguang and the young man with sympathetic eyes. Zhou Wenqiang holds down the dice cup, his ferocious smile looking a bit eerie, and the toothpick has been bitten off. If he loses even such a simple game of dice to two unknown young whippersnappers, then the "God of Gambling" label is going to be ruined.

  "Let's make it bigger, the two of you." Zhou Wenqiang beckoned with his hand, and a tray of chips was brought up from behind, each one being a large-denomination chip worth 1,000 taels. "This is 100,000 taels, I don't know if you two have that much silver."

  Liu Ziguang and the young man's chips added up to just over 30,000 yuan. They looked at each other, shook their heads, indicating that they didn't have that much money on them either.

  Zhou Wenqiang smiled and said, "No silver is no big deal, we can mortgage the house deed. The deed isn't on me, that's no big deal either. You two can mortgage something on your body, like a hand or foot... or even your life!" Zhou's tone became increasingly ominous, his words almost threatening as he stared at Liu Ziguang with an intimidating gaze, trying to overwhelm him with his presence.

  Liu Ziguang suddenly regretted not bringing a sharp object with him, otherwise he would have slammed the long knife on the table and said "Grandpa is betting on this". How cool would that be? It felt like a Shanghai detective slapping a gun on the gambling table.

  "One hundred thousand taels of silver to gamble with our lives? You must be out of your mind! Do you think my life is so cheap? You're underestimating us too much! Alright, I'll make it interesting - add another one hundred thousand taels and I'll gamble with you!" Liu Ziguang stared back at Zhou Wenqiang without flinching.

  The young man looked a bit flustered and asked Liu Ziguang in a low voice, "Are you sure we can win? I don't want to lose my hand." Liu Ziguang also whispered, "If there's a guarantee, it wouldn't be called gambling. You won't run away if you lose, stupid!"

  Since he's already on the pirate ship, there's only one way to go down with it. Zhou Wenqiang has seen the thugs gathered at the cabin door and knows that regardless of winning or losing, neither of these two people can return home intact.

  "Alright, I'll follow your lead. I'll add another 100,000 taels and see if you have the ability to take it away." Along with Zhou Wenqiang's loud finger snap, another 100,000 taels of chips were sent over.

  Two hundred thousand chips plus some scattered chips from other guests had already filled the table, almost thirty million chips in total. The outcome would be decided in this one round.

  New dice were brought up, and Liu Ziguo and Zhou Wenqiang each took three. Liu Ziguo put the dice in his hand, closed his fist, blew a breath, recited a few sentences of Buddha's blessing, and then put the dice into the gambling pot.

  Under the gaze of the crowd, two people started shaking the dice cup with a fast speed, low frequency but great force, while staring at each other intensely.

  After a while, they finally stopped. The casino was silent, with countless eyes staring at the two dice, waiting for the outcome. "You go first." "No, you go first." The two people surprisingly became modest.

  After hesitating for half a day, Zhou Wenqiang lost his patience. Whoever starts first will start first, anyway you can't win no matter what! He suddenly lifted the gambling pot. Suddenly, it was a pile of fragments, and the dice were all shaken to pieces.

  "Zero!" The surrounding crowd gasped in shock. The God of Gamblers had won for sure. No matter how formidable Liu Ziguang was, it was impossible to roll a negative number.

  Zhou Wenqiang sneered at Liu Ziguang: "Still opening? I'm waiting to take your hand."

  "Ha! Look at what I've got!" Liu Ziguang also lifted the betting pot, and to his surprise, it was empty.

  The dice, everyone was puzzled, Liu Ziguang wasn't a magician, of course he wouldn't hide the dice, with both hands using force, he pried open the lacquered ceramic gambling pot, small pieces of ivory dice fragments were embedded in the inner wall of the pot. It turned out that the dice had been secretly injured by him beforehand, then violently shaken, the fragments pierced into the pot wall. Now comparing scores was meaningless, insiders could see that the gambler and this newcomer were not just skilled gamblers, but also masters of martial arts.

  "You see, you've got a pile of trash, I don't even have any scraps, my points are smaller than yours. It's me who won." Liu Ziguang said as he scooped up all the chips on the table into his arms.

  The casino boss, who was originally not going to disturb the guests, was about to explode with anger. Are these two really courting death? Without regard for the impact. "Take them out and beat them up." With a single order, eight burly men walked in with an intimidating air.

  It's going to be a thrilling fight, in such a luxurious painting boat. Liu Ziguang kicked the gambling table with his knee, overturned it, and pulled out two legs of the table. He handed one to the young man beside him and took one himself. He coldly watched as the thugs walked over.

  Many chips were scattered on the ground, and no one picked them up. The guests were all dignitaries who didn't bother to scramble for chips, but the excitement was still worth watching.

  The small gang's thugs were specially hired practitioners, ordinary civilians under their hands were just sandbags. But these men with clenched fists in Liu Ziguang's eyes were not even as good as sandbags, the Qing army's elite cavalry, fully armed and armored to the teeth, was more than ten times stronger than these thugs, and they would end up being chopped like vegetables.

  The leg of the rosewood table was hard and heavy, smashing into a punch to the face, a ball of blood and flesh containing teeth flew out, and the whole person immediately fell to one side.

  "Get the stuff!" The thugs quickly pulled out their nunchucks from behind, a type of weapon similar to a double-section staff, with the difference being that the front half was shorter and less likely to hit oneself. Seven nunchucks danced in the air, surrounding Liu Ziguang and his companion.

  Seeing blood, the guests all shied away, and Zhou Wenqiang also dodged to one side. Although his finger strength was very strong, when it came to fighting, he wasn't a strong suit.

  Liu Ziguang noticed that the boy's hand holding the table leg was shaking slightly, thinking he was afraid, patted his shoulder and said: "Don't be afraid, follow me."

  The young man raised his head with a wicked smile, and it turned out he wasn't afraid, but excited.

  Two table legs against seven iron rods, like two fierce tigers against seven sheep, of course most of the effort was put in by Liu Ziguang. Although the young man wielded the table legs with some style, he had too little experience and not enough strength. It took him seven or eight moves to knock down one of his opponents.

  Liu Ziguang didn't dare to kill people openly in the capital, although he was confident that he could smash their brains out with one blow. He still showed mercy and only used 20% of his strength. After a few blows, several thugs either fell unconscious or broke their arms and rolled around in pain.

  The thugs were all cowards who bullied the weak and feared the strong. Seeing that Liu Ziguang was really formidable, they retreated one after another. One of the leaders, flustered and exasperated, shouted: "Quickly, blow the whistle to call for help."

  There was another thug fighting the young man, Liu Ziguang went over and kicked him eight feet away with one kick: "Still practicing? Time is not early, someone has blown the whistle to call people, if you don't leave now, you'll have to stay overnight."

  The young man looked at the several thugs groaning on the ground, then looked at the chaotic hall, nodded and gave a thumbs up: "Good job, brother! Today's fight was really enjoyable!"

  "Dealing with these small fries is a piece of cake, nothing worth mentioning. Let's go!" Liu Ziguang kicked the table leg and led the young man towards the cabin door.

  Next to the cabin door was the chip exchange, and the fellow inside saw Liu Ziguang coming over and hastily hid under the counter. Liu Ziguang's eyes lit up when he saw the rows of small boxes inside the exchange, that must be where they kept the money. He had just won so much silver and hadn't even had a chance to exchange it yet!

  He took the initiative to enrich himself, and with a kick, he opened the cabinet's partition, pulled out his partner, and quickly twisted open the small silver lock on the small box. In the chaotic casino, everyone was betting big, no one dared to use chips worth less than 100 taels, so the exchange counter mostly had 500 or 1,000 yuan silver tickets. Liu Ziguang grabbed a handful of silver tickets and stuffed them into his pocket, his quick hands and eyes reaching their peak, taking only the largest denomination of 1,000 taels, a thick stack, definitely worth over 200,000 taels, with plenty to spare.

  "I'm just taking back my own money, you can pick up the scattered chips on the ground yourselves later, haha. The little rascal is not bad, but the service staff are too rough. I'll come back to play again in two days." Liu Ziguang loudly said to the cowering casino owner and the silent guests in the corner.

  The remaining sailors did not dare to block them, and Liu Ziguang and the young man walked out of the cabin onto the deck. Under the gangway was a small boat that allowed guests to disembark at any time, but it had already been rowed away by the servant, apparently intending to trap the two on board until reinforcements arrived and they could be captured in one fell swoop.

  No boat, no problem. The Qinhuai River isn't very wide anyway, and they could just jump across. Liu Ziguang was estimating the young man's weight, calculating whether he could carry him together with a jump, when someone spoke up beside them, "Are you leaving just like that? You're not putting certain people in your eyes at all." He looked up to see an old man in black robes standing at the bow of the boat, his back to them. The demeanor of a transcendent who has retired from the world.

  I said, how could a small disturbance have only a few three-legged cat level thugs, it turns out the mastermind was waiting here.

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