Chapter 28: Lottery Game (16)

“My actions don’t need an explanation from me to you.”

Silver-Masked Woman refused to answer.

“Why did you come to play this game?” Hearts Girl had a feeling it wasn’t for money or fame. She stared at Silver-Masked Woman and pressed her through clenched teeth.

Silver-Masked Woman still said nothing.

Hearts Girl’s hand tightened around the railing beside the ship.

“One last question. When you warned me back then, why didn’t you tell me why I should do it?”

For once, Hearts Girl lowered her head. Her voice held a trace of regret.

If. She meant, if.

If Silver-Masked Woman had told her why she needed to “Betray” early, she would’ve listened!

At the time, she’d never imagined Resurrection Plant would pull off that sort of shell game with a “Prediction.”

“Oh?” Silver-Masked Woman watched her with interest. “Warn you? I told you I was giving you an order. You would’ve been wise to follow it.”

“Do you know why I was waiting outside the Lottery Room for you today?”

“I wanted to see what happened when you disobeyed. That expression of yours today was priceless. Good thing I didn’t miss it.”

Now Hearts Girl understood. Silver-Masked Woman hadn’t been trying to warn her out of concern.

She’d been controlling her, toying with her—even trying to manipulate her mind.

Hearts Girl hung her head, her shoulders trembling. Then she burst into a deranged laugh.

I might be about to die.

At last she’d stumbled in this game, and she’d run into opponents like this—and Resurrection Plant, too.

Hearts Girl spoke in a low voice, but there wasn’t a trace of fear in it.

“You’re good. I admit it. You’re good.”

“It doesn’t matter if King of Hearts disappears from this game. The Guild President will avenge me.”

“Hahahaha… I’ll give your own words back to you. Don’t think too highly of yourself. In front of the Guild President, you’re just an ordinary person. Hahaha…”

A confidence seemed to buoy Hearts Girl’s wild laughter. It didn’t come from her, but from someone else.

Silver-Masked Woman asked, “What Guild President?”

Hearts Girl raised her head halfway. A venomous, knowing smile curled across her lips, and the sea breeze seemed to turn colder.

“You haven’t been in this game long, have you? Keep going and you’ll meet the Guild President. She’ll love someone like you… and slowly grind you into the dirt.”

Then a rasping, “Heh, heh, heh,” rose from her throat.

A strange frenzy settled over the loser, who had accepted that she was about to cross the bridge to her death.

Silver-Masked Woman glanced at her, but didn’t ask for an answer. She left, no longer interested.

The game was far from over.

Round Three was coming soon.

The Blonde Woman, who had just received 5.75 million yuan along with Team Three, stood on the edge of a crowd of Team Two players, watching them panic and rage in disbelief.

It felt as if someone had stomped on her heart.

Team Two had brought this on themselves by choosing “Betray,” but still—

“Why did you ‘Betray’?” she demanded, her voice breaking with urgency. She sounded as if she were one of them.

She was just as frustrated on their behalf as she sounded.

Why had they “Betrayed”? Yes, it was their own fault, but now everyone on Team Two had been driven to a dead end before the third round had even begun.

Pushing four people who were already at the end of their rope over the edge did no one any good.

The Magician’s hat shadowed his lashes and hid his eyes. His voice was dead and flat.

“You think I wanted to?”

There was a trace of mockery in his voice. His gaze slid toward the teammate who’d chosen “Betray” alongside Hearts Girl.

If that teammate hadn’t switched sides at the last moment, they could’ve split four million yuan in prize money among themselves.

Now, thanks to greed, they hadn’t won a single yuan—and they were even facing the possibility of Game Failure and death.

The Magician left at a brisk pace, his heart already dead. Everything disgusted him now—even the air outside the Lottery Room. He was sick of suffering the consequences of someone else’s choices.

The Blonde Woman wandered through the cruise ship in a daze.

When she ran into Silver-Masked Woman again, her expression suddenly changed.

Something seemed to click. She stared at Silver-Masked Woman, as if trying to read something in the endless depths of her eyes.

“When you turned around last time, did you go back to ‘Predict’?”

The previous time they’d been in the Lottery Room, no one on their team had talked about “Predicting” another team. Only Silver-Masked Woman had turned around once, just as everyone was about to leave and the others weren’t paying attention.

At the time, no one had noticed what she did—or so the Blonde Woman had thought. Perhaps the only person she could speak for was herself.

Thinking back, that sudden prize they’d earned through a “Prediction” must’ve been Silver-Masked Woman’s doing.

Silver-Masked Woman answered without hesitation. “Yes.”

“How… how did you know they’d ‘Betray’ us?” the Blonde Woman asked through gritted teeth.

“I guessed.” Silver-Masked Woman gave her a calm, faintly mischievous smile. “When you’re out in the world, you can’t afford to let your guard down around people.”

The Blonde Woman fell silent for a while.

The two of them stood together in quiet solitude. After a long pause, the Blonde Woman broke the silence, her voice trembling with grief.

“Why does it have to be like this? We had a perfect way to win. Why does everyone still have to think about ‘Betraying’ someone? Maybe no one will win in the end… We were on a cruise, enjoying ourselves. We could’ve claimed the prize money without lifting a finger. It was supposed to be a ‘Lucky Game’! Why can’t anyone be satisfied? Do we really have to ruin the luck we were born with—our own and everyone else’s—before we’re happy?”

Maybe she was right.

This really was a “Lucky Game.” No one had to risk anything or work for their reward. Everyone could’ve enjoyed life on the cruise ship and walked away with a generous prize.

But that only worked if every player was willing to play a positive-sum game.

Their distrust of one another, and their desire to grab a bigger share of the prize, had ruined the good fortune the game had offered them.

For once, Silver-Masked Woman looked at the Blonde Woman with pity.

No—she was looking at a naive, innocent heart that had been trampled.

She’d said all she could. When you were out in the world, you couldn’t afford to let your guard down around people.

She patted the Blonde Woman on the shoulder, then walked away in silence.

Elsewhere, Chi Wei ran into Hearts Girl, who didn’t seem to be doing well.

Hearts Girl met her head-on and said, sullenly, “You beat me.”

Chi Wei thought it over, then dug in her pocket.

She held out a handful of sunflower seeds. “Want some? They’re caramel-flavored.”

Hearts Girl gave her a strange look. “…?”

She stared at the seeds but didn’t take any.

“Suit yourself.” Chi Wei pulled her hand back. “It’s fine. We’re all on the same ship. We should be pulling together. I was hoping you’d choose ‘Cooperate’ in the end.”

Hearts Girl scoffed. “Hmph.”

“There’s still another round. We still won’t ‘Betray’ you next time, so let’s work together. If we split the prize money, your team still has a chance to win.”

“You schemed against me. Why should I cooperate with you?” Hearts Girl asked.

“The worst thing on a ship is a divided crew.” Silver-Masked Woman’s cool voice drifted closer from down the corridor.

She came into view and walked toward them.

Chi Wei glanced at her and held out the seeds. “They’re caramel-flavored. Want some—”

“Get lost,” Silver-Masked Woman cut in, refusing without a shred of courtesy.

Did she have to be so much nicer to Hearts Girl than to me? What was with the double standard?

Chi Wei hadn’t put poison in the seeds.

Silver-Masked Woman’s voice sounded beside her again.

“When a storm comes, everyone wants to take the helm. The ship loses its course, and all that’s left is to capsize.”

Chi Wei ignored her and silently replied, Sure, sure. Exactly. You’re absolutely right.

Silver-Masked Woman turned to Hearts Girl. “You can still consider choosing ‘Cooperate’ in the final round.”

“You two sound like a pair of scheming capitalists.”

They’d already won, and now they were showing her pity. Was that all this was, or did they still want to use her—to squeeze out the last bit of value she had?

Chi Wei couldn’t let that stand.

“I just want everyone to win. You’ve known that from the start, haven’t you? We’ve come this far. Isn’t that enough? Do we really need to keep deceiving one another?”

Silver-Masked Woman said, “You already know what happens when you disobey. Now you’re being given the chance to cooperate. Think carefully about what you should do.”

Chi Wei and Silver-Masked Woman were like two people holding opposite ends of a fishing line, both tugging against the fish caught on it.

The game’s victory conditions depended on everyone. They had to guard against Hearts Girl betraying them, but they also had to worry that she’d give up altogether after failing so badly.

Either way, final victory would slip farther and farther away.

Controlling a person was like fishing: you had to know when to ease up and when to pull.

The players still needed another ten million yuan in prize money to win.

Setting aside the urge to make everyone die together, by the final round the three teams had no other choice but to cooperate.

The people who’d joined this “Lucky Game” had come for money. They still wanted something out of life; none of them had that kind of destructive impulse.

Hearts Girl didn’t want to die, either. But she’d lost all trust in the other two teams.

She absolutely refused to let anyone else hold her in the palm of their hand.

She didn’t know Deathweed, Resurrection Plant, or the others well enough. What if they still had another trick up their sleeves, waiting for later? Just like last round, she’d end up helpless, a fish on a chopping board.

After finishing three cigarettes with blueberry-flavored crushball tips, Hearts Girl finally came to a decision.

The next day, when Round Three began, she would announce her choice to everyone on Team One and Team Three.

“Thanks to you, our backs are against the wall. This time, we won’t take anyone’s word for it. You need the total prize money to reach the target? Then you do it yourselves. Resurrection Plant, you want us all to win, don’t you? I’m the one who might die here. I’m just protecting myself. You can’t blame me for that.” She tilted her head at Chi Wei and gave a self-mocking smile.

Then she turned to Silver-Masked Woman. “Don’t worry. This time, I definitely won’t ‘Betray’ you.”

“But I won’t ‘Cooperate,’ either.”

“Our team has talked it over. Every time we enter the Lottery Room, we’ll either ‘Predict’ one of your teams or skip every option.”

That way, no one would know which team Team Two had “Predicted” when they entered the room—or whether they’d skipped the options entirely and still held on to their right to choose.

Hearts Girl had learned the trick from Chi Wei and was now using it herself.

“If you really want us all to win, the two of your teams can build up enough prize money without our help. If you don’t like this arrangement, that’s fine, too. You can ‘Betray’ us. If the prize money still falls short in the end, we can all die together. Heh.”

Team Two was already facing the worst possible outcome. There was nothing unreasonable about choosing to protect themselves.

If someone else betrayed them, they would die either way. Taking everyone down with them would almost count as a win.

Hearts Girl had thrown caution to the wind. Her words weren’t pleasant, but from her point of view, a shrewd and selfish person trying to protect her own interests couldn’t do much better.

As Chi Wei listened, her brow furrowed slightly.

Was trust between people really so rare?

After two rounds, they hadn’t built up any of it. They’d only managed to destroy what little they might’ve had.

Chi Wei silently sighed. If Hearts Girl truly refused to cooperate, then so be it.

Silver-Masked Woman said nothing. Her presence remained cool and distant.

On the corridor where the Lottery Room stood, one insignificant figure had never caught anyone’s attention: the woman in the green dress. At that moment, a vicious smile tugged at her lips.

Then, unnoticed by everyone, she quietly disappeared.

Like a ghost drifting through the night before vanishing into the dark.