Free Web NovelAt the exchange counter in Dream Come True Entertainment City, Lu Yibei once again witnessed Jiang Li's absurd desire to win.
She had merely said casually, "Let's see who dies first," and for this, Jiang Li actually exchanged a full fifty more years of her lifespan.
A hundred and fifty years?
By then, she would be one hundred and sixty-nine years old. Why live so long?
Did she want to be an elder that badly?
Lu Yibei suspected that if it weren't for the excessive chips required to add more, this woman would probably exchange another five hundred years from the heavens—oh no, from the Entertainment City.
As for why the chips required to exchange for more than fifty years of lifespan suddenly increased, although Lu Yibei didn't ask the Rabbit Girl for the reason, she analyzed it based on some information she had previously obtained from Ju Meng and roughly guessed the cause.
According to Smelly Girl, even the small group at the top of the urban legend pyramid have a limit to their existence, and it's likely the same for Psychic.
A lifespan of a hundred and something years is roughly the limit for Psychic. Exceeding that is no longer about extending life but pursuing longevity, and the chips required for exchange are naturally incomparable.
So, if the number of chips for exchanging lifespan were plotted as a function curve, would it roughly be a "V" shape?
Tsk, both fleeting moments and eternity are precious, is it only the mundane, unremarkable daily life that's worth nothing?
Probably...
Thinking this, Lu Yibei shrugged noncommittally, turned to look at Jiang Li, and seeing her seemingly a little down, couldn't help but feel confused.
"What's wrong? Regretting it? Don't want to live that long? Friend, you don't need to worry about such a small matter. They just let you live long, it's not like they gave you an invincibility cheat so you can't die."
"After all, you never know which comes first, tomorrow or an accident, right?"
Facing Lu Yibei's usual trash talk, Jiang Li rolled her eyes and remained silent.
She had originally intended to retrieve the part of her memory she had lost to the Big Boss through the exchange counter, but unfortunately, memory did not appear in the exchange list.
Although the knowledge and common sense she had accumulated over the years did not disappear with the loss of memory, she often couldn't remember the source of this knowledge and common sense now.
This empty feeling in her head was not pleasant.
While thinking, Jiang Li's gaze swept over the increasingly bulging pocket in front of Lu Yibei and she slightly furrowed her brow. At this moment, in her pocket, besides the absurdly large raw emerald, there were also several reddish-orange round corals and a few glittering golden fish scales.
She couldn't name the golden fish scales, but she knew the corals were called Dragon Eye Coral, a high-grade Alchemy material rich in fire-attribute Spiritual Energy, occasionally found near underwater volcanoes.
"Why are you exchanging for Alchemy materials? When did you learn this skill?"
"Uh..." Lu Yibei was startled for a moment, pursed her lips, and feigned ignorance, "Don't you know me? How would I know Alchemy! I'm just buying low and selling high."
"When I was outside before, I saw someone buying this stuff at a high price. I compared it, and the buying price was quite a bit higher than the chip exchange rate. I planned to buy some to take back and make a profit." freeωebnovēl.c૦m
Helping people carry goods? That does sound like something Lu Yibei would do... After hearing her explanation, Jiang Li muttered inwardly, composed herself, and continued walking forward.
Lu Yibei walked half a step behind Jiang Li, secretly observing her back. Seeing that she didn't seem suspicious, she quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
She didn't dare let Jiang Li know that she was a little Alchemy genius, much less that she was collecting materials to complete the core of the urban legend body.
It wasn't that she didn't trust Jiang Li, but mainly because she always wanted people to "turn over a new leaf." When they were resting yesterday, she even enthusiastically recommended the urban legend Remake Research Institute at the Si Ye Hui Headquarters to Lu Yibei!
Being so strict, how will she ever get married in the future!
Remake Research Institute...
That kind of terrible place, it sounds like they're going to throw me into a pressure cooker to be reforged. I'm afraid it's a place you can enter but never leave. Kill me, and I still won't go!
Sorry, A Li, even if the outside world is full of Jackie Chans carrying furniture, I can't stop now! Lu Yibei thought.
----
When Lu Yibei and Jiang Li returned to the front of VIP Lounge Room 002, A Hua and a gold-clad Rabbit Girl had already been waiting for them for a long time.
Seeing the two return, A Hua immediately came forward and said to Jiang Li with a face full of joy, "Miss, that Rabbit Girl was looking for you just now, asking when your gambling game will open again. Now there are many more guests who have signed up to participate."
Although A Hua didn't know what her Miss and Lu Yibei were planning, she felt very happy seeing them continuously win large amounts of chips.
"Is that so?" Jiang Li glanced at the Rabbit Girl waiting at the entrance of the lounge, nodded in greeting, and walked forward.
Lu Yibei stood in place, observing the Rabbit Girl who was talking with Jiang Li, and slightly furrowed her brow.
Many more guests have signed up?
Is it because I spent a lot of chips, which increased the number of chips in the Entertainment City's hands, causing those chips to flow back into the guests' hands?
Lu Yibei vaguely felt that something wasn't right, but she couldn't pinpoint it for a moment.
A moment later, Jiang Li finished her negotiation with the Rabbit Girl and returned to Lu Yibei's side, asking softly, "The Entertainment City sent someone to ask when we will reopen the game. What do you think?"
"What else can we do? If someone is delivering money to our doorstep, we'll just take it!" Lu Yibei shrugged and said, "I guess those Rabbit Girls are also eager to get their commission, right?"
As she spoke, she lowered her voice, "Besides, you still remember that plan I told you about, right? We just spent a wave of chips, and we're still far from implementing the plan!"
"Mm." Jiang Li nodded, "Then I'll tell her we'll reopen in two hours."
"Why wait two hours?" Lu Yibei didn't understand.
"Because I think you need to rest for a while." Jiang Li replied in a tone as if a superior was giving orders to a subordinate, "You didn't close your eyes at all while I was sleeping, did you?"
"..."
Lu Yibei opened her mouth to argue, but seeing Jiang Li's unquestionable gaze, she shrank her neck back and mumbled, "Alright, whatever you say. Anyway, I can't do this alone."
What's more, I still want to see if my guess is correct! Lu Yibei added in her heart.
----
The gambling game didn't start immediately, and Lu Yibei didn't obediently listen to Jiang Li and find a place to sleep in.
Although she really wanted to do that, she felt that to test whether the frequency of hallucinations was related to the number of chips she possessed, it would be more appropriate to do it in a crowded place.
So, finding an excuse to look for Liu Banxian, Lu Yibei left Jiang Li's line of sight.
When she returned to the hall, she found that the hall, which had become much quieter because many guests had lost all their chips to her, had gained quite a few guests at some point.
They surrounded the gambling tables, everyone scrambling to place bets, crowded, noisy, and extremely excited, inevitably reminding one of the elderly people snatching up cabbages during a supermarket sale.
Each one was like a retired soldier in a supermarket, completely lacking the feebleness seen on a bus.
Lu Yibei, chewing on a spicy strip, looked around for a while, found the gambling table with the most people betting on the odd or even outcome of the dice, and tried to squeeze in, but the final result was that she was unexpectedly blocked outside the crowd.
Her small and thin body, without using Spiritual Energy, indeed couldn't squeeze past those Psychic and urban legend who looked like they ate cannonballs for breakfast.
Helpless, she asked a Rabbit Girl to bring her a chair, and chewing on a spicy strip, she quietly sat on the side observing the situation.
During this time, a Rabbit Girl kindly brought her drinks and snacks. Guests like her, holding a large number of chips, would receive special treatment anywhere in the Entertainment City.
Thus, in the chaotic hall of the Entertainment City, there was an incongruous young girl.
Guests at the roulette table were excitedly slapping the table edge, their eyes red from winning chips, while she was complaining to the Rabbit Girl that the macarons were too sweet.
Guests at the Texas Hold'em table lost everything and left dejectedly, while she was telling the Rabbit Girl to remember half sugar for the next cup of milk tea.
Many guests who recognized Lu Yibei thought she wanted to play a few rounds and paid close attention to her actions, wanting to follow this "big shot" to place bets and make a fortune. However, she just kept stuffing snacks into her mouth, like a merciless snack-annihilating machine.
People entered and left at the gambling tables, guests came and went in waves. She, however, remained, scratching her foot, gazing at the ceiling, a milk tea in her left hand and a spicy strip in her right, enjoying the peaceful flow of time.
The only time she got up and left was just to go upstairs and call A Hua to join her in eating and drinking whatever they wanted.
Two hours passed in the blink of an eye. When Lu Yibei stood up from the chair, she immediately attracted many gazes.
Is it finally happening?
Is she going to place a bet?
However, she merely scratched the back of her head, turned around expressionlessly, and walked upstairs with A Hua.
As she turned the corner of the stairs, Lu Yibei glanced out of the corner of her eye at the guests who were trying to follow her bets, pursed her lips, and then carefully recalled what she had observed in the casino just now, her gaze fixed, lost in thought.
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As expected, there was a problem, a very big problem! Lu Yibei thought.
According to her observation over the past two hours, there were no apparent problems in the upper three floors' hall. The guests at each gambling table were winning and losing equally, just like the scenes that played out in this Entertainment City every moment.
But...
These Psychic and urban legend were not random passersby grabbed from the street. Each of them had their own characteristics in appearance and Spiritual Energy fluctuations!
Leaving the hall and walking onto the corridor of the private rooms, Lu Yibei turned to look at A Hua and asked in a low voice, "A Hua, did you distinguish clearly just now? Which of the guests' Spiritual Energy fluctuations in the hall appeared in the previous gambling games, and which did not?"
Previously, when Lu Yibei and Jiang Li were playing against the guests, A Hua had been waiting outside the private room door, so she had seen almost all the guests who had participated in the gambling games.
With the keen insight into Spiritual Energy fluctuations brought by her Spirit Mark, as long as she encountered the same Spiritual Energy fluctuation again, she was at least eighty to ninety percent certain that she would not mistake it.
"Hmm..." A Hua briefly recalled, looked at Lu Yibei, and said seriously, "I recognized quite a few. Many of those who won significantly were guests who appeared in our gambling games, while those who were almost always losing had very unfamiliar Spiritual Energy fluctuations!"
"It really is like this!" Lu Yibei said in a deep voice, clenching her small fists.
"What's wrong? Is there a problem?" A Hua pushed up her glasses, crossed her arms over her chest, and looked at Lu Yibei sideways, saying, "Speaking of which, you haven't told me the purpose of having me do this!"
"If you don't tell me, I'll go and report to my Miss and say that you didn't listen to her and rest properly!"
"..."
Go ahead and report, do you think I'm afraid of her?
Yes, I am!
Lu Yibei opened her mouth, stared straight into A Hua's eyes, and said solemnly, "A Hua, you go find your Miss first. I have something very important to do right now. I'll tell you the reason when I get back later."
After speaking, she hurried away, not giving A Hua a chance to refuse at all.
"Hey hey! Where are you going? You..." A Hua called out a few times, and seeing that Lu Yibei didn't respond, she stamped her foot and went towards the direction of the lounge with a look of resentment.
Behind the stone pillar at the corner not far away, a pair of clear eyes watched A Hua walk away, then breathed a sigh of relief, and immediately looked down at the hall, which seemed to be operating as usual, her expression gradually becoming serious.
"..."
As expected, those new guys are deliberately losing chips! Lu Yibei thought fiercely.
Just now, while intensely using her eyes and randomly selecting a lucky audience member to use her precognitive ability, she was waiting for the hallucination to ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) appear. After about an hour, she had basically confirmed that the frequency of the hallucination was related to the number of chips held.
However, during this process, she noticed a new abnormality.
With her memory, which allowed her to memorize the Taihe Gentleman Sword Illustration after reading it once, she was almost familiar with the faces of all the Psychic and urban legend who had participated in the gambling games she organized.
She found that the most active guests in the hall, those who were the most boisterous and lost the most chips, were all unfamiliar faces, and there were quite a few of them, accounting for at least thirty percent of the total number of guests.
Legend has it that a long time ago, when the Norwegians in Northern Europe were catching sardines, to prevent the sardines from dying on the way back, they would put a few large catfish in the fish tank. The catfish would swim around, stirring up friction, which would make the naturally quiet sardines move, greatly increasing their survival rate.
And these extra thirty percent of unfamiliar faces were the "big catfish"!
They lost a large number of chips, then left briefly, and quickly returned with newly exchanged chips, continuing to lose chips, repeating this cycle.
Thus, the other gamblers who were originally depressed by Lu Yibei's gambling games, stimulated by the constant desire to win money, were like adrenaline-fueled, their emotions exceptionally high.
But...
Where did these guys suddenly come from?
And how did they have so many chips to lose?
Thinking carefully, in this Entertainment City, the only one who could produce so many chips at once was probably that Big Boss, right?
Lu Yibei turned her head to look at the dark vortex leading to the Wu Hui Land, frowning.
Could it be that...
The Big Boss finally couldn't resist making a move?
Damn it, I really thought he was absolutely fair and just, as Jiang Li said!
Thinking of this, she quickly ran to the arbitration room and soon got the answer she wanted from the Rabbit Girl in the arbitration room.
As expected, the number of guests who signed up for their gambling games had increased again, almost returning to its peak!
"Damn it!"
Standing near the floor-to-ceiling window outside the arbitration room, Lu Yibei punched the nearby pillar hard.
There was something wrong with those chips.
After I spend the chips, the Big Boss secretly sends people to lose the chips to other guests, and then have them lose to me. This way, my chips won't decrease too much.
This Big Boss is clearly trying to mess with me!
Lu Yibei thought, squinting her eyes slightly at the monitoring urban legend that were wandering not far away, shaped like Eyeballs, and raised her middle finger.
You mess with me, then I can only mess with you!
Let's see about that!
When it comes to being a sly fox, I've never been afraid of anyone. If you've got guts, don't make a move, let's all play dirty!
"Bang bang--bang bang--!"
Just as Lu Yibei was secretly being ruthless, a muffled sound interrupted her thoughts. Following the sound, she saw a figure with tattered clothes and a bloody body lying on the glass window outside. Its face was covered by its long, disheveled hair, and it was constantly waving at her, seemingly a little flustered.
"Holy crap! May I ask, what kind of monster are you?!"
Lu Yibei was startled and quickly jumped back a step, subconsciously rubbing out a fireball the size of a washbasin in her hands.
Seeing this, the figure became even more flustered, quickly exhaled a cloud of white mist on the glass, and quickly wrote a line of text.
【Liu Banxian: Save me quickly!!!】
Lu Yibei's eye twitched, "..."
What the heck? What's going on? Are you playing performance art here?
----
Fifteen minutes later.
At the entrance of the upper three floors' bathhouse, an old man was crying like a pear blossom in the rain.
"Wuwuwu, they're not human!"
"They ambushed me, an old man over a hundred years old! And they tortured me, it's too much, they have no professional ethics at all in running a casino!"
Lu Yibei looked at Liu Banxian, who was like a delicate flower that had been severely ravaged several times, and silently handed him a spicy stick.
"Liu Banxian, stop crying for now. How did you end up like this? You..."
Lu Yibei looked at the wounds on Liu Banxian's body, which were like those inflicted by an executioner with poor knife skills who had subjected him to a thousand cuts, with each cut not penetrating the flesh, and stopped herself from speaking.
This old guy, he didn't even die like this, he's really quite resilient!
"Alas, it's a long story. I finally managed to escape from that ghostly place. I'll tell you slowly if I have a chance later. Let's talk about the main business first. After I finish, I have to catch the next train..."
Liu Banxian said, looking around, a hint of fear in his eyes, and couldn't help but shrink his neck.
"Tsk tsk, I don't want to stay here for a moment. I advise you to leave quickly too, and don't take a single chip!"
Did Liu Banxian also sense something? Is that why he ended up like this? Lu Yibei frowned and said seriously, "I know those chips are problematic."
"You know?" Liu Banxian was startled for a moment, then hesitated for a second, leaned into Lu Yibei's ear, and whispered in a voice only the two of them could hear, "Then do you know that these chips are the flesh and blood of that Big Boss? Let me tell you, the night before yesterday, I slept in a pile of chips, and then I dreamed..."
Lu Yibei listened quietly as Liu Banxian recounted his dream. When Liu Banxian spoke of the giant's flesh and blood turning into gold coins under the thunder, scattering onto the earth, causing people to fall into madness, while the giant smiled strangely and its body gradually regrew fresh flesh and blood, her pupils contracted violently.
She suddenly had a bold guess.
Those chips might be world malice that had been stripped from the Big Boss, the Extinction-Bringer of Old Days, and condensed into a physical form...
