Chapter 67: Tit for Tat

Just one glance, and an indecipherable flicker of emotion flashed through the eyes of the woman beside Third Sister Red. But Gu Xianwang couldn’t quite catch it before her attention was completely stolen by Yang Baibai. She saw undisguised surprise, suspicion, and disgust all mingling across his face. His thin lips parted silently as he mouthed a single word:

“Gu.”

The instant Gu Xianwang recognized him, electricity surged through her entire body. Even after all these years, the memories of what she’d endured at the Yang Family still triggered an instinctive wave of discomfort.

Yang Baibai had hesitated at first, but the moment their eyes met, something seemed to click for him. His dull, dead-fish eyes sharpened in an instant. There were plenty of people surnamed Gu in the world, but none of a matching age whose looks so closely resembled that person’s—except her. He still remembered those eyes: once like those of a helpless little beast stripped of all protection. The only thing that hadn’t changed was the underlying madness in them, the desperate willingness to do anything for self-preservation.

Their stare lasted only three seconds. Yang Baibai snapped out of it quickly and glanced toward the gaze turning back from up front. That person looked away as if by accident, and soon everyone had refocused on the astonishing Snake Spirit Pearl on the display stand.

“How are you feeling? If you’re not well, we can head out,” Ye Chan said, full of concern.

Gu Xianwang lowered her head. The tissue clutched in her hand had soaked through two sheets by now, but the bleeding had finally stopped. “I’m okay. It’s stopped. Since we’re already here, let’s at least stick around till the end.”

“Pfft, it’s just one pearl. How amazing can it be? But Sister Gu, this nosebleed problem—hasn’t it cleared up at all since we got back from Guizhou?”

Gu Xianwang wasn’t entirely sure if there was anything seriously wrong with her body, but the bandages wrapped around her were proof she’d seen a doctor. Neither Master nor Nanny Chen had brought up anything extra, so it was probably nothing major.

“I’m fine.”

She shook her head, searching for an excuse to brush it off, when Yang Baibai suddenly raised his hand. He’d just chugged the rest of his iced Coke in one go, and now—in front of the entire hall—he let out a thunderous belch. Only then did he call out: “Dart.”

One slap, fivefold.

Gu Xianwang froze. He wanted to claim the Snake Spirit Pearl? The Yang Family’s treasure-spotting prowess was unmatched in these parts, their Eye Technique second to none. At this range, if he dared enter the dart betting auction, it meant the pearl was almost certainly the real deal.

The whole hall exploded into uproar. Calls for the dart bet echoed one after another. Yang Baibai’s big bid was fivefold; lesser experts settled for onefold without much risk. As long as they had the capital to back it, they might just outmaneuver the Yang Family.

Ye Chan jumped in surprise, but now her eyes lit up at the excitement. “Whoa, this is way more hype than the last two items. Wonder what’s so special about that pearl?”

Gu Xianwang couldn’t exactly explain it to her. Their table was missing Ye Zhen, the group’s walking encyclopedia, so they had no choice but to guess and eavesdrop on the proceedings. The previous two rounds had been onefold bets, with darts thrown from ten meters at a forty-centimeter colored disc target divided into twelve segments. The rules were simple: call out a segment name within two seconds, and hit two out of three darts to win.

Everyone was geared up to watch Yang Baibai throw when a booming voice cut through from a table midway back, right on the edge. The guy’s throat was like a megaphone, drowning out the crowd’s rising clamor in an instant.

“Two hundred thousand.”

No more messing with darts—this was straight-up price bidding.

Ye Chan had just tugged Gu Xianwang to the crowd’s outer edge for a better view when someone sharp-eyed inside recognized the bidder and muttered under his breath: “Tsk, those Xiang Ling folks are crafty. They said they weren’t coming, but they snuck a guy in on the fringe.”

“What do you care if Xiang Ling jumps in? With both treasure-spotting factions bidding, this pearl’s gotta be legit. Boys, what’re we waiting for? Let’s get in on this!”

The man rubbed his stubble, looking sheepish. “It’s already at two hundred thousand. How am I supposed to jump in?”

Another fellow chimed in quick: “Old Huang, how about we three pool our cash? Snag this pearl, flip it, and we’ll make at least this much.”

He hid his hand behind a folded fan, but from Gu Xianwang’s angle, she could make out the rough shape of an eight.

Eight times over? One point six million?

Gu Xianwang’s heart tightened, and she subconsciously started tallying up the balances across her few cards. She had figured that if this round stuck to the previous bidding format, she might be able to swing a few hands within a hundred thousand. But the bidder from Xiang Ling had jumped straight to two hundred thousand right out of the gate. Sure, she’d squirreled away some savings under Master’s protection over the years, but she’d wired a huge chunk of it directly to the Nursing Home before heading to Guizhou. Now… the most she could scrape together was a little over a hundred and ten thousand. She didn’t even qualify to call a bid.

In the midst of her disappointment, a sudden chill ran through her, and she turned the question on herself: If she trusted what Master had told her—that the pearl she’d brought back was a fake—then why was she so eager to snap up this one, which was probably the real deal?

From the crowd, Yang Baibai let out a scornful snort and called out loudly, “Old Six Zhuang, didn’t your North Faction ever teach you how to spell ‘rules’? Your father hasn’t even bid yet—what are you yelling your head off for? If you’ve got that much hot air with nowhere to blow it, how about settling up those three dog barks you still owe me first?”

The moment Ye Chan caught that tone, her eyes lit up like fireworks. She had no clue about the bad blood between the two factions, but a fight brewing right in front of her? That gossip was sweeter than candy. She gave Gu Xianwang’s sleeve a sneaky tug and buzzed with excitement, “Whoa, that little bro looks all scrawny, but he’s got some real fire in him! No idea how this five-times dart bet shakes out, but let’s shove our way up front!”

The Flower Fair crowd was already short on women and long on men—especially a pair of young ladies like them, who stood out like sore thumbs. Getting Gu Xianwang to spectate from the sidelines had been pushing it; squeezing through the throng to the front was flat-out impossible.

Before she could voice her refusal, the wall of bodies ahead of them suddenly parted like the Red Sea. From the front came a woman’s voice, clear and tinkling like silver bells: “Bet.”

Gu Xianwang peered over the crowd and locked eyes with her. The woman stood tall and straight, left hand clasped behind her back, right arm thrust high overhead in a gesture where her index and middle fingers twisted together.

The hall exploded in a collective gasp. Ye Chan cupped her ear, eavesdropping on the chatter, then whispered back the scoop: “They say she’s betting ten times! Word is, nobody’s gone that high in over a decade.”

By Flower Fair rules, the dart betting gambit had to precede the formal auction, with options limited to one, five, or ten times the stake. All used darts to settle the score, but the difficulty ramped up exponentially. And you couldn’t call “bet” lightly—failure meant paying double the penalty: two thousand, ten thousand, or twenty thousand, depending on your choice.

No need to elbow through the masses now. The host swiftly cleared the central space. Had to hand it to Ye Chan—her luck was straight-up legendary. As the crowd peeled back, it deposited them right in the front row of the viewing area.

With all the gravity of a sports announcer, she filled Gu Xianwang in: “They say normal bets go one at a time, but five- or ten-times? Those skip the line—can run head-to-head. These so-called jianghu folk are just like us: suckers for a good show.”

At that point, two staffers whisked away the display pedestal and set up a pair of colored target disks side by side—one about thirty centimeters across, the other a mere twenty.

Yang Baibai shot the woman a sidelong glance. “Grandstanding’s no fun. This is mudlegs’ turf for showing off—goldfinches like you can sit this one out.”

The woman didn’t say a word. She strode calmly to a spot behind him. Five-times meant fifteen meters; ten-times stretched to twenty. Distance aside, with the disks spinning at different sizes, both had to nail the marked floral segments. Five-times allowed three darts with two hits; ten-times demanded all three dead center to win.

She held her silence, but Third Sister Red beamed at Yang Baibai. “Little Baibai, how can you tell this big sis is just a pretty pet?”

No matter how cocky Yang Baibai got, Third Sister Red had a way of shrinking him down to size. He wouldn’t dare trash-talk women in front of that legend. He just rubbed his nose and drawled, “Dunno. She just looks loaded.”

The staff handed each of them three darts. Gu Xianwang’s sharp eyes caught the difference: same design, but the woman’s were noticeably larger. Big darts, tiny target—how was that even playable? To slot into that narrow floral slot without clipping the edge meant a perfectly flat trajectory into the corner. But with the disk spinning on its axis, building inertia over twenty meters? It was rigged to cough up twenty grand, plain as day.

Although that woman was Third Sister Red’s friend and surely didn’t lack for twenty thousand bucks, Ye Chan just didn’t want Yang Baibai to win.

“Tch, what’s so impressive about her?” Ye Chan rolled her eyes and waved at the woman, shouting, “Go, Rich Sister! Slap his face!”

Her voice wasn’t particularly loud, but it happened to land in a brief lull in the chatter. Everyone had been riled up by Yang Baibai’s words and was scrutinizing the “girlfriend” Third Sister Red had brought along, which made Ye Chan’s shout ring out especially clearly. Gu Xianwang hurriedly pressed her hand down and murmured apologies to those around them.

Ye Chan was still mumbling under her breath. “What’s the big deal? Can’t a girl cheer at a match? That Yang Baibai clearly looks down on women. Pfft—just ’cause he’s got a couple extra ounces in his pants, he thinks his eyes are on his forehead.”

Gu Xianwang frowned slightly and covered her mouth, whispering, “Have you forgotten what your brother told you at lunch?”

Remember: in a place like this, don’t yap on randomly. Don’t draw attention to yourself. You have no idea what kind of bigwigs, ghosts, and monsters are lurking here—people who might look shabby but have insanely complicated networks behind them. Whatever you do, don’t go making enemies lightly.

Those were Ye Zhen’s heartfelt warnings to her.

Only then did it click for Ye Chan. She deflated with a pout. “Oh no, Yang Baibai looked over here. What if he calls up his folks after this and gets them to trash my brother’s company?”

“He won’t,” Gu Xianwang said. “The Yang Family are all lone wolves. He would never drag anyone else into it.”

In truth, it wasn’t just Yang Baibai who’d glanced their way—the woman who’d gotten the cheer had looked over too. Gu Xianwang inexplicably met her gaze and gave her an unconscious little smile.

It carried a hint of apology, but even more, it felt like a show of solidarity.

“Tch.” Yang Baibai turned away, lifting his chin at the host. “Let’s get started.”