Clack! The cups came down, and both were lifted at once.

Li Tianpeng: three, two, four.

Ye Tianxie: four, five, three.

Li Tianpeng laughed lightly. “Friend, your luck’s turned. If we’d been playing high, those twenty million would be back on your side of the table.”

“Hmph. Keep going. It’s only twenty million. Low again!” Ye Tianxie snorted and shoved the twenty million in front of him across to Li Tianpeng. But the man who had been so calm and so silent up to now had something in his voice that was easy to hear — an agitation. Several onlookers turned pitying looks on him. There it was: he’d started to lose his composure, couldn’t keep the act up any longer… Though facing Li Tianpeng on Li family ground, was there ever going to be another outcome?

Li Tianpeng’s mouth curled and he waved a hand. The dealer inclined his head slightly, and the two cups were rattling again. After a while, they came down hard.

“Open!” Ye Tianxie’s lips barely moved. The dealer glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, let a mocking little snort out through his nose, and lifted both hands at once.

Li Tianpeng: two, two, one.

Ye Tianxie: five, six, two.

“Hahahaha—” Li Tianpeng slapped the table with both palms, wild with it. “Friend, it seems you and the word low simply aren’t fated. How about we go back to high?”

“Hmph!” Ye Tianxie’s face had visibly darkened. The steadiness was gone, and the lazily sprawled body had gone tight. He ground his teeth, shot to his feet, shoved the entire remaining sixty million in front of him onto the table, and braced both hands on the edge. “I said five rounds decides it. Four are gone… This fifth round. Sixty million. Do you dare?”

“Heh heh, why wouldn’t I? Friend, do sit down. Getting worked up is bad for the health. We’re only playing for a paltry hundred million — hardly serious money, is it?” Li Tianpeng flicked at his fingernails, smiling with unconcern — a world away from Ye Tianxie’s visible slide toward losing control.

The moment Ye Tianxie said it, an excited, chaotic murmur ran through the crowd. Su Feifei tugged at his arm, whispering with a worried face, “Tianxie, are you really—” She didn’t finish; Ye Tianxie glared at her, and she dropped her head at once, capitulating. “All right, all right, play however you want. I… I don’t care.”

Ye Tianxie sat back down, his face still dark, and said slowly, “Still… low.”

The cups were shaken again — but the two men at the table now looked nothing alike. Where both young men had begun in perfect composure, Li Tianpeng still sat in his elegant gentleman’s posture, smiling, his breathing slow and even. Ye Tianxie could clearly no longer hold himself together. His eyes were locked on the dealer’s moving hands, his face rigid, his breathing quick, the tip of his nose beaded with sweat, and the hands braced on the table were faintly trembling.

Pitying glances swept over him. The poor fool still had no idea that his opponent owned this casino. How could he possibly win? Pushing everything out in a single attempt to claw it back was the cardinal sin of the gambling table, and his whole performance announced that his nerve had gone.

Clack!

The cups landed — and seemed to land on the hearts of everyone watching, sending them lurching in unison. Most of them already knew how this ended, and yet they still wanted to see whether this earth-shaking wager would close out the instant the cups came up, and if not, how it would close instead.

“Heh heh. Friend, are you ready? If you win, I will of course hand over the sixty million to the last coin, and every friend present can bear witness. And if I should unfortunately win… my apologies to you, truly. I do hope you can keep yourself composed.” Li Tianpeng said it smiling.

Ye Tianxie seemed not to hear a word of it. His eyes stayed fixed on the dealer’s hands, and under the gaze of the entire room a drop of cold sweat slid down from his forehead and struck the table. His mouth moved. “Open,” he said, low.

The dealer flicked a glance at him and lifted both hands.

Li Tianpeng: six, three, one.

Ye Tianxie: five, five, four.

A wave of jeering ran through the room. Li Tianpeng let his eyes sweep the crowd and laughed again, long and loud. “Hahahaha! Friend, my sincere apologies. It appears I’ve won once more.”

Li Tianpeng was laughing, and his expression remained composed enough — but inside he was very nearly bursting with joy. A hundred million. In the space of a few minutes, he had won a hundred million. A figure that vast — who had ever done it, who had ever had it? Beyond question, after today the story of how Young Master Li won a hundred million in the snap of his fingers would spread like fire. He’d have a boast in his social circle that no one could match, and he’d finally be able to stand tall in front of his father instead of enduring another lecture about idling his life away.

Ye Tianxie shot up out of his chair, one finger jabbing at the dealer, his face black. “You cheated!”

The dealer gave him a mild glance and said, expressionless, “Whatever do you mean, sir? With this many friends present, how could I possibly cheat?”

Su Feifei opened her mouth and closed it again, holding herself back, watching Ye Tianxie with a worried face… But the agitated Ye Tianxie in front of her was absolutely not the Ye Tianxie she knew. He looked, if anything, like a man performing.

What is he actually trying to do?

Li Tianpeng’s face darkened too. He said coldly, “Friend, a gambling table has winners and losers. If you can’t afford to lose, don’t play. Cheating? That accusation is beneath contempt. Since you claim someone cheated — what proof do you have that I cheated?”

The gamblers around them said nothing, discussing it among themselves without cutting in. Please — a man who could produce a hundred million on a whim was not a man they had any need to offend. Ye Tianxie’s expression shifted, dark and unsettled, and finally his eyes came to rest on the cup. He abruptly hauled it and the three dice across in front of himself. “You say there was no cheating… Very well. Then do you dare let me shake for myself?”

“Please, sir, do as you like. That was always your right; I merely performed the service according to your wishes.” The dealer’s voice was respectful, but the contempt in his face was not concealed at all.

“What’s this? Still gambling?” Li Tianpeng said, narrowing his eyes.

“One round. Three hundred million. Do you dare?” Ye Tianxie’s voice was cold.

The vast casino fell silent as though a switch had been thrown, countless eyes converging on Ye Tianxie all at once — and then the silence broke and the room boiled over like a pot.

“Christ, three hundred million!! Are my ears working?”

“He’s insane. Absolutely insane!”

“Whose son is he? I’ve never seen him before.”

“Hmph. Run into Young Master Li in here and you lose however you play. No fortune’s big enough to be squandered like that. This kid’s headed for disaster.”

Li Tianpeng blinked once — and then very nearly threw back his head and howled with laughter. He had seen fat sheep before, but he had never seen, never even heard of, a sheep this fat. The money walking voluntarily through his door was worth years of the entire casino’s net profit. He smiled. “If you dare, why wouldn’t I? Oh — three hundred million? Before we proceed, shouldn’t you show me you actually have the capital?”

Ye Tianxie fished a card out of his trouser pocket with two fingers and pressed it into the hand of the attendant beside him. “Go. Exchange me… three hundred million in chips!”

The attendant went, shaking in every limb. Li Tianpeng’s smile deepened. He instructed his own attendant to exchange another hundred million for him, then said pleasantly to Su Feifei, “Beautiful lady, I must admit your boyfriend is a reasonably wealthy man. But—” he shook his head with a look of great regret “—what a shame.”

“Hmph!” Su Feifei glared at him and couldn’t be bothered to respond.

The chips arrived, stacked in two towering piles. The dealer asked Li Tianpeng carefully, “Sir, will you shake this round yourself, or shall I?”

“You do it. I can’t be bothered.” He looked at Ye Tianxie through narrowed eyes and drawled, “Well? Still low this time?”

Sweat was running down Ye Tianxie’s head in streams, and a patch of his collar had gone damp with it. The hand pressed against the cup was faintly shaking. He was silent for a long, long moment, as though wrestling with an unbearably difficult choice — and at last he forced it out. “Still… low.”

“Good.” Li Tianpeng smiled his assent. “Let’s begin.”

“You shake first!” Ye Tianxie said, eyes cold on the dealer.

The dealer didn’t hesitate. He checked with Li Tianpeng by eye, gave Ye Tianxie a look full of contempt cut with pity, and flicked his wrist — the cup already dancing with its three dice inside. The rattling ran for perhaps five seconds before the cup came down hard. A flicker of something sly passed through the dealer’s eyes; when he looked up, he flashed Li Tianpeng an almost imperceptible smile, then turned to Ye Tianxie and signaled that he could begin.

Ye Tianxie set his hand on the cup and began shaking it — back and forth, side to side. But his method bore no comparison whatsoever to the dealer’s. His cup stayed flush against the tabletop the entire time, sliding around on it, never once leaving the surface. Watching this technique-free, three-year-old’s way of shaking dice, the connoisseurs among the gamblers laughed quietly to themselves.

The frequency of his shaking climbed, and climbed visibly — from a slow rocking, to a violent rattling, to a wild, frenzied slinging, faster and faster and faster… until at last all anyone could see was a blur of hand and cup.

And the dealer, who had been expressionless and utterly still, suddenly frowned.

(End of Chapter 130)