At the table, Chi Wei was showing a Six, while Master Appraiser was showing a Five.
Judging only by the cards they had revealed, Chi Wei had every reason to raise.
If she ignored the results of the first two rounds, she could even raise now and possibly scare Master Appraiser into folding—assuming he couldn’t review those rounds and use them to draw conclusions.
But the raptor-sharp look in his eyes told her he was at least an old and shrewd opponent.
His keen gaze held a hint of anticipation and excitement. Read between the lines, and Master Appraiser was hoping Chi Wei would raise.
Better yet, he wanted her to throw everything she had into a raise and fight him to the death.
The first two rounds had already exposed half the information about Chi Wei’s hand.
Master Appraiser calculated that his odds of winning were at least eighty percent—perhaps even close to certain.
In three rounds of watching his opponent draw and replace cards, he hadn’t seen a trace of what people called good fortune. In other words, he believed Chi Wei wasn’t the sort of person luck favored. A sudden comeback or a stroke of chance was unlikely to happen to her.
Confident as he was, he was almost impossible to scare off with an ordinary raise.
Chi Wei could almost smell the sparks coming off him, the blaze of his hunger roaring, burning itself down, all in pursuit of a chance to erupt.
Put another way, if they were sitting at a casino table, Master Appraiser would be the gambler trying to seize his lucky break and devour his opponent whole.
And right now, in his eyes, she was a juicy prize.
Chi Wei looked at the Ace of Diamonds facing her. Yes. That’s exactly right.
As she thought, both players moved their hands. The third round’s choices were soon over.
At these stakes, every move was worth a fortune. Master Appraiser had chosen:
“Mountain Gazer: Raise 5 seconds”
But Chi Wei had no intention of laying everything on the line yet. For her, folding was worth far more than a raise.
“Resurrection Plant: Showdown”
When the result appeared, Master Appraiser looked briefly stunned.
He stared at Chi Wei without speaking, his eyes questioning whether she was even a proper gambler.
She never raised? She had no desire to risk everything?
She didn’t belong at a table like this.
“I have to choose again…” Chi Wei muttered to herself, as if she hadn’t noticed Master Appraiser’s doubts. Following the display’s instructions, she reached in and chose Fold.
She gave up the doubled opening bet of forty seconds without the slightest hesitation.
“Results of this round—”
“Resurrection Plant: Fold”
“Total oxygen wagered: 40 seconds”
“Mountain Gazer wins!”
Master Appraiser watched the result appear. He was certainly relieved. His tank now held another little bit of hope for survival.
But he wasn’t as excited as he’d expected. A feeling of loss rose alongside his relief, as if something had slipped away from him.
Later, he realized what he had lost: an opportunity.
He had been blessed with a rare stroke of god-given luck, only to spend it on an opponent who could calmly walk away from any cost.
Against a different opponent, his good fortune would have won him far more than this.
The tank labeled with the player name “Resurrection Plant” held only twenty seconds of oxygen now.
Pushed to the brink from the very start, Chi Wei propped her chin in her hands. As she waited for the other players to finish their matches, her mind seemed to wander.
The other two pairs at their table were still playing. The machine had stopped prompting Chi Wei and Master Appraiser to replace their cards.
It was obvious: three rounds was the limit for each pair. After that, the belt carrying their chairs would begin to move.
If it didn’t, Chi Wei’s dangerously low reserve of twenty seconds wouldn’t even be enough to cover the opening bet in the next round against Master Appraiser.
It looked as if she had lost utterly from the start.
That was what her terrible luck deserved.
Chi Wei frowned. No matter how good her composure was, she couldn’t help pinching the bridge of her nose.
As they waited, Master Appraiser asked, “Why didn’t you raise in any of the three rounds?”
Chi Wei laughed. “Master Appraiser, haven’t you noticed how bad my luck is?”
He shook his head. “You don’t have any confidence in yourself. You’re not suited to gambling. Even if you hadn’t lost to me, you’d have lost to someone else.”
She was certainly calm, but she lacked the gambler’s appetite for risk.
A Survival Game like this demanded an all-or-nothing gamble. Without the very thing a gambler needed most, she would never seize victory.
As someone who had once spent time around gambling tables, Master Appraiser didn’t hesitate to offer his opinion of Chi Wei.
He had already won. From the eyes of a victor, he saw something in Chi Wei that foretold defeat—a quality that had no place at a gambling table. Perhaps she was a university student, better suited to academic debate.
Of course. Once people got hold of a rope to climb up, they liked to look down and offer a few opinions about those beneath them. It made them feel they were above everyone else, able to see right through the people below.
“Mm-hmm.” Chi Wei nodded without arguing.
Because she wasn’t a gambler.
She didn’t deny that Master Appraiser was right.
But she had never planned to play this game by gambling.
If she had the nerve to stake everything in one go, that would have been strange.
Chi Wei watched Ink in Water and the buzz-cut man finish their match on her right. The game was only just beginning.
The last pair to finish their three rounds were the Blonde Woman and the White-Haired Man.
By then, Master Appraiser had the most oxygen of anyone at their six-player table. He had won a full minute and ten seconds from Chi Wei alone, an easy victory that made the others envious.
The rest of the table stood at: Ink in Water, two minutes; the buzz-cut man, one minute; the White-Haired Man, one minute forty seconds; and the Blonde Woman, one minute twenty seconds.
The other two pairs were close. Only Chi Wei’s tank was in dire shape, with a pitiful twenty seconds left.
At the bottom of the deep blue sea, the fate of anyone who ran out of oxygen was obvious.
Now that everyone had experienced oxygen draining from their tanks, the pressure seemed to descend with the movement of the water, settling slowly over their heads.
Suffocation. Dying.
They had experienced that when they sank beneath the sea. They had no desire to go through it again!
The belt began to move.
Everyone at the table rotated counterclockwise by one seat.
Chi Wei now sat in the middle, opposite the White-Haired Man.
He knew little about her. All he knew was that during the Lottery Game, she had spent a lot of time with their captain, Ink in Water.
Maybe she learned a thing or two from Ink in Water? he thought. No matter. She and I are the same kind of player—just ordinary team members.
He breathed a sigh of relief.
Then he looked at Chi Wei’s oxygen tank. She had only twenty seconds left.
It might have been unkind to put it this way, but he could only look out for himself now.
“We used to be teammates, but I’m not going to go easy on you. This game is cruel sometimes. Don’t blame me.”
Chi Wei had been reduced to twenty seconds of oxygen. The White-Haired Man thought she was an easy target—and one that would probably disappear after a little squeeze.
This was a dog-eat-dog game. Even if he won all her oxygen and left her with none, it wouldn’t be his fault.
“Waah… waah…”
A sudden burst of sobbing came from the other end of the table. Before Chi Wei could answer the White-Haired Man, she turned toward the sound.
The voice was coming from the Blonde Woman, just as she’d expected.
She was sprawled over the table, fists clenched as she pounded it. Tears poured from her eyes, one after another, like a little shower.
Hatred and regret flared across her face. Chi Wei glanced at the Blonde Woman’s tank.
One minute and thirty-five seconds of oxygen remained.
She had gained five seconds since the start. What was she crying about?
Chi Wei soon found out.
The Blonde Woman looked devastated. “We could have all made it out alive. Why does it have to come to this…? Why do we always have to end up here…?”
She sobbed as she spoke, unable to accept what was happening.
There was also the pain of carrying a burden.
Perhaps she was afraid someone would send her to her death—or that she might have to send someone else to theirs, and live with the guilt.
Chi Wei wasn’t surprised to see that kind of emotion from the Blonde Woman.
The display began telling the players to choose which card to replace. The Blonde Woman’s sobs had to stop. She sat up and wiped her eyes.
Chi Wei turned back to her own table. Only then did she remember the White-Haired Man.
Had he thought he would beat her?
Chi Wei admitted that she was unlucky.
But in her heart, she thought the most unfair part of the game was that everyone else had to face her.
Besides, she’d already said it: the game was only just beginning.
“Fine. Show me what you’ve got,” Chi Wei told the White-Haired Man. “I won’t go easy on you either.”
The display counted down—
“Choose one card to replace.”
“Countdown: 42 seconds.”
Just as Chi Wei had said, for her, the real game was only beginning now.
