The washroom was silent. Crimson wine continued to flow quietly from the crook of Aphrodite’s arm, suffusing the air around it with the cloyingly sweet fragrance of liquor.
The reflection of the golden dome was cast on the rich wine, evocative of the legendary nightlong drinking parties of Olympus.
Puppetry!
Zong Jiu’s eyes flickered. He repeated, uncertain. “No traces will be left behind on the person being manipulated by puppet strings?”
The dark-haired man slowly nodded. “That’s right. No traces whatsoever. The manipulation can only be discerned by finding dissimilarities in their past and present selves.”
It was unquestionable. If the ability of No. 1, the Devil, was really as Zhuge An described, then this ability was more than deserving of being called an invincible skill.
Setting aside that the five puppet strings were able to unequivocally transform people into puppets, the people being manipulated would have no sense of it themselves, completely losing their perception.
Naturally, the most unnerving thing about this was that it would leave no trace. It would be of little use to know what his ability was, for bystanders couldn’t even discern who the Devil was manipulating, or who was a puppet under the Devil’s hands. The thought of this was bone-chilling.
No wonder he had so many fanatic followers. Sure enough, this ability was most undoubtedly deserving of the No. 1 title.
Zong Jiu slowly exhaled. “The stronger the ability, the stronger the constraints.”
If there were no constraints to such a horrifying bug-like ability, No. 1 would be entirely able to directly manipulate all trainees or NPCs, and wouldn’t even have to enter this competition. From this, a simple deduction could be made that despite how terrifying puppetry sounded, there were many constraints, and most should be quite restrictive.
“Not bad.”
Zhuge An nodded appreciatively. “But the problem is—no one knows what the conditions for the Devil to activate his ability are, let alone how to circumvent them.
He didn’t have to elaborate. Both of them understood what this meant.
Because… those who knew were either dead or had been turned into puppets. Their fates were obvious.
Zong Jiu fell silent again.
Based on what Zhuge An alluded to, he really couldn’t figure out why the Devil would participate in the Thriller Trainee. Could it really be only for the universal wish ticket awarded to the trainee who debuted as the c-position?
Although the logic seemed sound, Zong Jiu’s intuition told him that there had to be a deeper scheme behind the scenes.
“Let’s talk about something else.”
After having talked about No. 1’s ability, the white-haired young man changed the topic. “How are you this clear of the Devil’s ability, o’ honourable sir?”
“Since the Devil leaves no traces of his manipulation, then don’t I similarly have reason to suspect you of unclean motives?”
Against this question, the dark-haired man’s face visibly turned colder, and a whiff of disdain entered his gaze on Zong Jiu.
“It astounds me that you’d actually raise such a half-witted question.”
If Zhuge An was really being manipulated, then there was no chance of him giving Zong Jiu a helping hand in the first instance, much less calmly stand here now and tell him what exactly the ability that No. 1 possessed was.
Would there be anyone senseless enough to announce his hidden trump to the whole world?
Zong Jiu, of course, certainly understood this. He just wanted to ruffle Zhuge An’s feathers a little, as if he had nothing better to do.
This man was an enigma. Even the attitude he showed towards him gave Zong Jiu a subtle awareness of something being off.
Now, the information between them was uneven. Zhuge An obviously knew a lot about him, and the source was highly likely to be the ‘prophecy’ that he had mentioned. Whereas Zong Jiu knew nothing about him, only that he had a lone and lofty nature, top-tier intelligence, and near ungodly wisdom.
Zong Jiu didn’t like the feeling of things being beyond his control.
Furthermore, the other party was an extremely dangerous and crafty character, one that couldn’t be guarded against.
“Pa lr eaafgis eccfmfrrjgs obg sbe ab erf remt jc lcofglbg wfatbv bo qgbylcu wf.”
Ktf vjgx-tjlgfv wjc rjlv mbivis. “Ktfgf jgf rbwf atlcur atja sbe klii cjaegjiis ifjgc ktfc atf alwf lr glqf.”
“P xffq la ogbw sbe cbk wfgfis yfmjerf atf alwf tjr sfa ab mbwf.”
Ibcu Ale, “…”
He wanted to say this previously. The arcane way that this person spoke was like a pretentious swindler playing god.
“Your attitude really makes me suspicious of you, No. 3.”
The white-haired young man folded his arms, giving a mirthless smile. “You insist that No. 1 and I are fated enemies in the prophecy, but in reality, you keep aggravating the conflict between us in front of me… The way I see it, the true festivities lie between you and No. 1.”
Zong Jiu said this without any doubt in his voice, because it was clear as day that Zhuge An and the Devil couldn’t possibly be on good terms with each other. Otherwise, the other wouldn’t manifest before him again and again, dishing out such precious information like freebies.
“No.”
Zhuge An flatly denied it, his words concise.
“Only you.”
Zong Jiu arched an eyebrow. “Is that so? What a tropey line.”
Zhuge An didn’t respond to his jibe. His face frosty, he looked deeply at the white-haired young man.
“I don’t like to make promises. But regardless… you can rest assured; I will never turn against you. Our interests will eventually align.”
Zong Jiu shrugged, staying mum on whether or not he believed those words.
“I didn’t come to give you chips.”
Zhuge An uncrossed his arms, straightening up from the golden wall he had leaned against.
All trainees were dressed in a hospital gown back in the mental asylum, blurring their personal flair to some extent. Now that they were back at the trainee dormitories, everyone wore the everyday clothes that they were used to, making it easier for Zong Jiu to profile people.
The man’s raven dark hair was as dark as ink. His features were as sharp as a sword, the cool expression on his face undeniably handsome.
His taoist robe was pure black, dark patterns of flowing clouds were embroidered on the cuffs, and a dragon-themed ancient jade was fastened to his waist. The hems and cuffs raised gently at his every step as if free from worldly matters, as cold and aloof as the moon.
This style of dress was actually quite common; after all, there were trainees wearing all sorts of outlandish clothes around. There were those who would wear feather headdresses and paint their faces in vibrant colours, as well as those who began to crossdress after entering the infinite loop, letting themselves go wild.
Earlier, when Zong Jiu was playing cards at the A-rank gambling table, he heard someone say that Zhuge An was a miserly cock. As a result of his skill of counting cards, every time the middlemost gambling table opened a game, if he didn’t give up his ante from the outset due to an unlucky opening hand with poor odds, he would go on a wanton rampage. He would use all thirty-six stratagems of cunning and deception—the empty fort strategy (reverse psych), ‘make a sound in the east, strike in the west’ tactic, sow discord in the enemy camp—each slicker than the former. Practically no one could extricate themselves from his intricate series of traps; anyone who so much as breathed had to be skinned dry by him.
Who would have thought that such a venerated pilgrim lookalike would turn out to be a miserly cock in reality?
Having been prepped by this, Zong Jiu wasn’t surprised by what Zhuge An said.
He didn’t speak, patiently waiting for the other to continue speaking.
Sure enough, after making it clear that he wouldn’t be sponsoring chips, Zhuge An gave him another clue.
“The system didn’t say that chips could only be exchanged with special props, lives, or rare items. If you had carefully read the rules displayed on the noticeboard at the reception counter, you should know… there are even non-material items that can be exchanged for chips with the system.”
The dark-haired man gave him a meaningful look. “The S-rank prop you obtained in the previous instance should be able to come into use here.”
It didn’t surprise Zong Jiu that Zhuge An would know that he had obtained the S-rank prop.
After all, this No. 3 guy standing before him was an anomaly who finished collecting all the clues to pass a near unsolvable instance by the second day. Half the credit for the high evaluation that Zong Jiu achieved in the previous instance came from him, yet not only had the system not deducted points for it, but it even ended up propelling him to an S-rank rating. Following this train of logic, the reason he managed to obtain the S-rank prop in the previous instance naturally went without saying.
Moreover, Zhuge An had already dug up all the information in the previous instance. All else aside, the reading room had probably been rummaged through by this top contender. Although he chose to leave the instance and let Zong Jiu pick up the twigs behind him, the possibility of him knowing what the S-rank prop was was quite high. After all, special props came from horror instances and, before being collected by trainees, were items derived from the horror instances. Some instances even revolved around such props, and it was no wonder for information surrounding it to be left behind.
In the end, it was still the asymmetrical information between them that irked Zong Jiu.
He knew nothing about Zhuge An, yet Zhuge An seemed to have already seen through his past, and even his future.
How could he let down his guard?
On the clear premise that there was no trust between them, what was this guy playing at, asking him to rest assured and trust him?
Watching the black corner of his robes disappear around the corner of the washroom, Zong Jiu shook his head, keeping the poker card that he had palmed. He walked into a cubicle and readily took out the tarot deck from the system backpack.
Even if Zhuge An didn’t say it, Zong Jiu could have thought of his brand new and shiny prop.
As an S-rank prop, wasn’t the purpose of the twenty-two Major Arcana cards to provide clues when there were none?
He spread out the tarot cards. One by one, they began to levitate, automatically stacking together in the air, waiting on the white-haired young man’s next command.
Watching the cards floating in the air, Zong Jiu ceaselessly replayed the Mental Asylum NPC doctor’s every move in his mind.
And in the broadcasting studio, Zong Jiu had noticed No. 1.
Perhaps because he had studied mentalism, he had a keen intuition of when someone was looking at him. At the very moment that the sticky and malicious gaze fell on him, a shiver of electricity curled up from the base of his spine. It was heinously cold, a replica of what he had felt at the middlemost gambling table.
In that split second, Zong Jiu even thought that Dr. Chu from the Mental Asylum had chased him out of the instance to pick a bone with him.
This sensation was difficult to put into words.
Dr. Chu gave him extremely bad vibes. Although he looked like an extreme pervert on the surface, on the few occasions that their gazes met, Zong Jiu felt as though he could peer into the abyss through the pupils veiled behind the gold-rimmed glasses.
There was definitely more to the doctor than met the eye. But ultimately, he was just an NPC, so Zong Jiu hadn’t kept him in mind after getting his revenge and leaving the instance.
But now… Thanks to Zhuge An’s timely assistance, those intermittent, fragmented flashes of inspirations integrated to form an inconceivable picture.
“Then, let me see, whether or not you’re the same person.”
Meditate, wash the cards, cut the deck, set them together.
The young man’s slender fingers gently brushed the surface of the cards, finally landing on one.
He lightly pulled the tarot card from the suspended deck.
At the same time, the system indicated that he had two draws remaining, and the cooldown time was twelve hours.
The cooldown time was just right; neither too long, nor too short.
Zong Jiu slowly flipped over the card he drew.
Depicted on the card, was a reversed pentagram resting on the forehead of a huge devil; it stepped on the chains tied to the necks of two humans, its mouth cracked open menacingly.
The fifteenth trump of the Major Arcana, the Devil.
As expected.
Zong Jiu raised his eyebrows, completely unsurprised.
Good lord, no wonder he always felt an intangible wave of oppressiveness and maliciousness rolling off of the other. It turned out that he had, bestowing a hammer to the head, knocked the other out of the instance, establishing an irreconcilable animosity.
All other trainees had begun from the same start line, whereas No. 1 openly manipulated an NPC to cheat; what a crafty sleazeball.
“System, I’d like to exchange chips.”
[The exchange channel has been opened for you. Silently citing the item for exchange will be sufficient to make a transaction for the corresponding number of chips.]
Zong Jiu cast his gaze downwards.
Zhuge An would not give him useless information. Since he mentioned that non-material items could be exchanged for chips with the system, then this must be a valuable clue. Additionally, he had earlier led the topic to No. 1; Zong Jiu believed that the shenanigans had to lie there.
He tentatively fed the information that a trainee had roleplayed as an NPC back to the system. The next second, an icy voice resounded in his head.
[Successfully redeemed, +50,000 chips.]
[Information has been exchanged. Note: the trainee cannot divulge this information by any means, or he will be punished.]
Zong Jiu, “…?”
Why did the system give him more chips when he fed back information about No. 1?
Also, when thinking deeper into it, the implicit meaning behind the second system prompt was very odd. It was clearly giving him hush money.
A bold idea popped up in Zong Jiu’s mind.
He redirected his gaze to the suspended tarot cards and began the remaining two divinations.
Meditate, wash, cut, set.
Meditate, wash, cut, set.
Without a doubt, the two tarot reads gave the same card.
The white-haired man clasped the Devil card in his hand, laughing so hard that he couldn’t straighten his back.
Perhaps No. 1 would never ever have dreamt that the puppetry he was so proud of, which was even stamped and certified by No. 3 Zhuge An as being undetectable, would be thoroughly exposed via a method as slapstick as tarot divination in front of a lowly C-rank.
Zong Jiu felt that he didn’t have to worry about what Zhuge An said in the slightest. As long as he had this S-rank prop, he could ferret out the Devil’s sockpuppets within seconds.
When stuck, just turn to fortune-telling; the old wife’s tale turned out to be true!
He pocketed the most important information he received from the three divinations, and exchanged once more with the system for a final sum of almost 190,000 chips hot out the oven, strutting back to the gambling table.
This time, Zong Jiu didn’t avoid the Devil’s gaze, conversely taking the initiative to smile meaningfully at him.
From the most prominent seat of the gambling table, No. 1’s right eyelid suddenly twitched.
The washroom was silent. Crimson wine continued to flow quietly from the crook of Aphrodite’s arm, suffusing the air around it with the cloyingly sweet fragrance of liquor.
The reflection of the golden dome was cast on the rich wine, evocative of the legendary nightlong drinking parties of Olympus.
Puppetry!
Zong Jiu’s eyes flickered. He repeated, uncertain. “No traces will be left behind on the person being manipulated by puppet strings?”
The dark-haired man slowly nodded. “That’s right. No traces whatsoever. The manipulation can only be discerned by finding dissimilarities in their past and present selves.”
It was unquestionable. If the ability of No. 1, the Devil, was really as Zhuge An described, then this ability was more than deserving of being called an invincible skill.
Setting aside that the five puppet strings were able to unequivocally transform people into puppets, the people being manipulated would have no sense of it themselves, completely losing their perception.
Naturally, the most unnerving thing about this was that it would leave no trace. It would be of little use to know what his ability was, for bystanders couldn’t even discern who the Devil was manipulating, or who was a puppet under the Devil’s hands. The thought of this was bone-chilling.
No wonder he had so many fanatic followers. Sure enough, this ability was most undoubtedly deserving of the No. 1 title.
Zong Jiu slowly exhaled. “The stronger the ability, the stronger the constraints.”
If there were no constraints to such a horrifying bug-like ability, No. 1 would be entirely able to directly manipulate all trainees or NPCs, and wouldn’t even have to enter this competition. From this, a simple deduction could be made that despite how terrifying puppetry sounded, there were many constraints, and most should be quite restrictive.
“Not bad.”
Zhuge An nodded appreciatively. “But the problem is—no one knows what the conditions for the Devil to activate his ability are, let alone how to circumvent them.
He didn’t have to elaborate. Both of them understood what this meant.
Because… those who knew were either dead or had been turned into puppets. Their fates were obvious.
Zong Jiu fell silent again.
Based on what Zhuge An alluded to, he really couldn’t figure out why the Devil would participate in the Thriller Trainee. Could it really be only for the universal wish ticket awarded to the trainee who debuted as the c-position?
Although the logic seemed sound, Zong Jiu’s intuition told him that there had to be a deeper scheme behind the scenes.
“Let’s talk about something else.”
After having talked about No. 1’s ability, the white-haired young man changed the topic. “How are you this clear of the Devil’s ability, o’ honourable sir?”
“Since the Devil leaves no traces of his manipulation, then don’t I similarly have reason to suspect you of unclean motives?”
Against this question, the dark-haired man’s face visibly turned colder, and a whiff of disdain entered his gaze on Zong Jiu.
“It astounds me that you’d actually raise such a half-witted question.”
If Zhuge An was really being manipulated, then there was no chance of him giving Zong Jiu a helping hand in the first instance, much less calmly stand here now and tell him what exactly the ability that No. 1 possessed was.
Would there be anyone senseless enough to announce his hidden trump to the whole world?
Zong Jiu, of course, certainly understood this. He just wanted to ruffle Zhuge An’s feathers a little, as if he had nothing better to do.
This man was an enigma. Even the attitude he showed towards him gave Zong Jiu a subtle awareness of something being off.
Now, the information between them was uneven. Zhuge An obviously knew a lot about him, and the source was highly likely to be the ‘prophecy’ that he had mentioned. Whereas Zong Jiu knew nothing about him, only that he had a lone and lofty nature, top-tier intelligence, and near ungodly wisdom.
Zong Jiu didn’t like the feeling of things being beyond his control.
Furthermore, the other party was an extremely dangerous and crafty character, one that couldn’t be guarded against.
“Pa lr eaafgis eccfmfrrjgs obg sbe ab erf remt jc lcofglbg wfatbv bo qgbylcu wf.”
Ktf vjgx-tjlgfv wjc rjlv mbivis. “Ktfgf jgf rbwf atlcur atja sbe klii cjaegjiis ifjgc ktfc atf alwf lr glqf.”
“P xffq la ogbw sbe cbk wfgfis yfmjerf atf alwf tjr sfa ab mbwf.”
Ibcu Ale, “…”
He wanted to say this previously. The arcane way that this person spoke was like a pretentious swindler playing god.
“Your attitude really makes me suspicious of you, No. 3.”
The white-haired young man folded his arms, giving a mirthless smile. “You insist that No. 1 and I are fated enemies in the prophecy, but in reality, you keep aggravating the conflict between us in front of me… The way I see it, the true festivities lie between you and No. 1.”
Zong Jiu said this without any doubt in his voice, because it was clear as day that Zhuge An and the Devil couldn’t possibly be on good terms with each other. Otherwise, the other wouldn’t manifest before him again and again, dishing out such precious information like freebies.
“No.”
Zhuge An flatly denied it, his words concise.
“Only you.”
Zong Jiu arched an eyebrow. “Is that so? What a tropey line.”
Zhuge An didn’t respond to his jibe. His face frosty, he looked deeply at the white-haired young man.
“I don’t like to make promises. But regardless… you can rest assured; I will never turn against you. Our interests will eventually align.”
Zong Jiu shrugged, staying mum on whether or not he believed those words.
“I didn’t come to give you chips.”
Zhuge An uncrossed his arms, straightening up from the golden wall he had leaned against.
All trainees were dressed in a hospital gown back in the mental asylum, blurring their personal flair to some extent. Now that they were back at the trainee dormitories, everyone wore the everyday clothes that they were used to, making it easier for Zong Jiu to profile people.
The man’s raven dark hair was as dark as ink. His features were as sharp as a sword, the cool expression on his face undeniably handsome.
His taoist robe was pure black, dark patterns of flowing clouds were embroidered on the cuffs, and a dragon-themed ancient jade was fastened to his waist. The hems and cuffs raised gently at his every step as if free from worldly matters, as cold and aloof as the moon.
This style of dress was actually quite common; after all, there were trainees wearing all sorts of outlandish clothes around. There were those who would wear feather headdresses and paint their faces in vibrant colours, as well as those who began to crossdress after entering the infinite loop, letting themselves go wild.
Earlier, when Zong Jiu was playing cards at the A-rank gambling table, he heard someone say that Zhuge An was a miserly cock. As a result of his skill of counting cards, every time the middlemost gambling table opened a game, if he didn’t give up his ante from the outset due to an unlucky opening hand with poor odds, he would go on a wanton rampage. He would use all thirty-six stratagems of cunning and deception—the empty fort strategy (reverse psych), ‘make a sound in the east, strike in the west’ tactic, sow discord in the enemy camp—each slicker than the former. Practically no one could extricate themselves from his intricate series of traps; anyone who so much as breathed had to be skinned dry by him.
Who would have thought that such a venerated pilgrim lookalike would turn out to be a miserly cock in reality?
Having been prepped by this, Zong Jiu wasn’t surprised by what Zhuge An said.
He didn’t speak, patiently waiting for the other to continue speaking.
Sure enough, after making it clear that he wouldn’t be sponsoring chips, Zhuge An gave him another clue.
“The system didn’t say that chips could only be exchanged with special props, lives, or rare items. If you had carefully read the rules displayed on the noticeboard at the reception counter, you should know… there are even non-material items that can be exchanged for chips with the system.”
The dark-haired man gave him a meaningful look. “The S-rank prop you obtained in the previous instance should be able to come into use here.”
It didn’t surprise Zong Jiu that Zhuge An would know that he had obtained the S-rank prop.
After all, this No. 3 guy standing before him was an anomaly who finished collecting all the clues to pass a near unsolvable instance by the second day. Half the credit for the high evaluation that Zong Jiu achieved in the previous instance came from him, yet not only had the system not deducted points for it, but it even ended up propelling him to an S-rank rating. Following this train of logic, the reason he managed to obtain the S-rank prop in the previous instance naturally went without saying.
Moreover, Zhuge An had already dug up all the information in the previous instance. All else aside, the reading room had probably been rummaged through by this top contender. Although he chose to leave the instance and let Zong Jiu pick up the twigs behind him, the possibility of him knowing what the S-rank prop was was quite high. After all, special props came from horror instances and, before being collected by trainees, were items derived from the horror instances. Some instances even revolved around such props, and it was no wonder for information surrounding it to be left behind.
In the end, it was still the asymmetrical information between them that irked Zong Jiu.
He knew nothing about Zhuge An, yet Zhuge An seemed to have already seen through his past, and even his future.
How could he let down his guard?
On the clear premise that there was no trust between them, what was this guy playing at, asking him to rest assured and trust him?
Watching the black corner of his robes disappear around the corner of the washroom, Zong Jiu shook his head, keeping the poker card that he had palmed. He walked into a cubicle and readily took out the tarot deck from the system backpack.
Even if Zhuge An didn’t say it, Zong Jiu could have thought of his brand new and shiny prop.
As an S-rank prop, wasn’t the purpose of the twenty-two Major Arcana cards to provide clues when there were none?
He spread out the tarot cards. One by one, they began to levitate, automatically stacking together in the air, waiting on the white-haired young man’s next command.
Watching the cards floating in the air, Zong Jiu ceaselessly replayed the Mental Asylum NPC doctor’s every move in his mind.
And in the broadcasting studio, Zong Jiu had noticed No. 1.
Perhaps because he had studied mentalism, he had a keen intuition of when someone was looking at him. At the very moment that the sticky and malicious gaze fell on him, a shiver of electricity curled up from the base of his spine. It was heinously cold, a replica of what he had felt at the middlemost gambling table.
In that split second, Zong Jiu even thought that Dr. Chu from the Mental Asylum had chased him out of the instance to pick a bone with him.
This sensation was difficult to put into words.
Dr. Chu gave him extremely bad vibes. Although he looked like an extreme pervert on the surface, on the few occasions that their gazes met, Zong Jiu felt as though he could peer into the abyss through the pupils veiled behind the gold-rimmed glasses.
There was definitely more to the doctor than met the eye. But ultimately, he was just an NPC, so Zong Jiu hadn’t kept him in mind after getting his revenge and leaving the instance.
But now… Thanks to Zhuge An’s timely assistance, those intermittent, fragmented flashes of inspirations integrated to form an inconceivable picture.
“Then, let me see, whether or not you’re the same person.”
Meditate, wash the cards, cut the deck, set them together.
The young man’s slender fingers gently brushed the surface of the cards, finally landing on one.
He lightly pulled the tarot card from the suspended deck.
At the same time, the system indicated that he had two draws remaining, and the cooldown time was twelve hours.
The cooldown time was just right; neither too long, nor too short.
Zong Jiu slowly flipped over the card he drew.
Depicted on the card, was a reversed pentagram resting on the forehead of a huge devil; it stepped on the chains tied to the necks of two humans, its mouth cracked open menacingly.
The fifteenth trump of the Major Arcana, the Devil.
As expected.
Zong Jiu raised his eyebrows, completely unsurprised.
Good lord, no wonder he always felt an intangible wave of oppressiveness and maliciousness rolling off of the other. It turned out that he had, bestowing a hammer to the head, knocked the other out of the instance, establishing an irreconcilable animosity.
All other trainees had begun from the same start line, whereas No. 1 openly manipulated an NPC to cheat; what a crafty sleazeball.
“System, I’d like to exchange chips.”
[The exchange channel has been opened for you. Silently citing the item for exchange will be sufficient to make a transaction for the corresponding number of chips.]
Zong Jiu cast his gaze downwards.
Zhuge An would not give him useless information. Since he mentioned that non-material items could be exchanged for chips with the system, then this must be a valuable clue. Additionally, he had earlier led the topic to No. 1; Zong Jiu believed that the shenanigans had to lie there.
He tentatively fed the information that a trainee had roleplayed as an NPC back to the system. The next second, an icy voice resounded in his head.
[Successfully redeemed, +50,000 chips.]
[Information has been exchanged. Note: the trainee cannot divulge this information by any means, or he will be punished.]
Zong Jiu, “…?”
Why did the system give him more chips when he fed back information about No. 1?
Also, when thinking deeper into it, the implicit meaning behind the second system prompt was very odd. It was clearly giving him hush money.
A bold idea popped up in Zong Jiu’s mind.
He redirected his gaze to the suspended tarot cards and began the remaining two divinations.
Meditate, wash, cut, set.
Meditate, wash, cut, set.
Without a doubt, the two tarot reads gave the same card.
The white-haired man clasped the Devil card in his hand, laughing so hard that he couldn’t straighten his back.
Perhaps No. 1 would never ever have dreamt that the puppetry he was so proud of, which was even stamped and certified by No. 3 Zhuge An as being undetectable, would be thoroughly exposed via a method as slapstick as tarot divination in front of a lowly C-rank.
Zong Jiu felt that he didn’t have to worry about what Zhuge An said in the slightest. As long as he had this S-rank prop, he could ferret out the Devil’s sockpuppets within seconds.
When stuck, just turn to fortune-telling; the old wife’s tale turned out to be true!
He pocketed the most important information he received from the three divinations, and exchanged once more with the system for a final sum of almost 190,000 chips hot out the oven, strutting back to the gambling table.
This time, Zong Jiu didn’t avoid the Devil’s gaze, conversely taking the initiative to smile meaningfully at him.
From the most prominent seat of the gambling table, No. 1’s right eyelid suddenly twitched.
