Nightmare Apostle

Chapter 451: Chapter 387: The Lady Boss

The course of events unfolded exactly as Cheng Cha predicted, with her betting low, specifically on the number three. When the dice cup was lifted, the result was indeed low, but the number was two. The middle-aged man with the goatee shrieked, "Draw!"

The Cloth tiger she had bet was taken away. Soon after, a plump young man who looked like a worker here hurried over and respectfully handed over a note. Cheng Cha took the note, which was crudely drawn like a child’s sketch, depicting a wooden spinning top.

Within the exchange system of the gambling house, one Cloth tiger could be exchanged for two wooden spinning tops. Following the rule of losing half on a draw, the note was accurately recorded.

Once Cheng Cha confirmed the details were correct, she left the gambling house with the note and headed for the money house. On the way, she encountered the Resentful Infant disguised as a townsman who was easily dismissed by everyone. freeweɓnovel.cѳm

Upon reaching the money house, the main doors were open with people continuously entering and leaving, and the ’closed’ sign had been removed. However, Sui Chengguo furrowed his brows in frustration upon seeing the sign in front of the door, "One pellet drum exchanges for 10 copper coins, one copper coin exchanges for 10 gold ingots, one gold ingot exchanges for 100 silver ingots."

Cheng Cha, however, was not surprised and explained to everyone, "The money house is different from the gambling house; its exchange rates are not fixed, and the supposed value of gold and silver here is far less than that of toys."

The steward in the money house, a dark-skinned fat man, grinned showing his black and yellow decayed teeth and looked at Cheng Cha and the others with a fawning gaze, "Honorable guests, what can I do for you?"

"Exchange money," Cheng Cha said bluntly, slapping the note on the table, "Turn it all into gold ingots."

The steward picked up the note and almost stuck it to his face. After a moment, he took a counting frame and started fiddling with it, looking the part. Yang Xiao scanned it briefly and realized this man didn’t even know how to use the abacus, he was merely clattering it randomly.

"One wooden spinning top exchanges for five pellet drums, five pellet drums exchange for 50 copper coins, 50 copper coins exchange for 500 gold ingots," the Fat Steward muttered to himself before turning and calling out, "Bring up 500 gold ingots!"

Moments later, two workers carried up a wooden chest. The chest wasn’t big, and when the lid was opened, it was crammed full with small gold ingots, each about the size of those seen with street performers. Sui Chengguo casually picked one up to weigh it and found it substantial, about three taels—equivalent to three taels of gold per ingot.

Once the exchange was complete, Cheng Cha and her group swaggered through the town carrying a chest full of gold, not even bothering to secure the lid. Yet the townspeople ignored the gold, showing no covetousness like they did for the Cloth tiger.

Finally, they reached their last stop, the cloth store. It too opened its doors to welcome customers, and like the money house, the sign in front had changed: "Fair trade, no deception, modest margins, one garment per gold ingot."

Yang Xiao previously wondered why Cheng Cha chose to exchange for only gold and not silver. Now it seemed clear, and it appeared the rules of the cloth store also allowed only one exchange at a time.

Cheng Cha had explained that no matter how the rules changed, the town’s goods were always fixed. The cloth store had only 494 garments, which had always been insufficient and still was—a loophole.

Now they had 500 gold ingots, with garments priced at one ingot each, they could potentially buy out the entire stock of garments, replicating the method Cheng Cha’s group previously used to escape their predicament.

"Madam, I want 500 garments!" Cheng Cha confidently declared as she entered, determined to escape the deep nightmare of this town. Now, everything was finally coming to an end.

A seductively built woman was inside the cloth store, her back to them as she hung clothes. However, when the woman turned around, the smile on Cheng Cha’s face immediately froze, and soon after, a sense of unprecedented fear overwhelmed her.

The woman appeared quite ordinary, with a beauty mark on her lip and nothing unusual. But Cheng Cha’s reaction was as if she had seen a ghost.

Tong Han sharply pinched Cheng Cha’s thigh from behind to snap her out of it. Even so, her voice was noticeably weaker, "I...I want 500 garments, right now, the gold is here."

The woman, evidently the owner, swayed as she stepped out from behind the counter, inspecting each ingot in the crate. She organized every 99 ingots into a pile, quickly forming five small mountains of gold. As she looked at the remaining five ingots, she seemed perplexed.

Her eyes whirred wildly as she thought of something to say, "Kind guests, you are few in number, how could you possibly wear so many garments? How about this, I’ll give you 494 instead. It’s not that our store is out of stock; I just don’t want you to waste your money."

Her statement instantly gave away the bottom line, and Yang Xiao understood—the shop owner had a slightly higher intelligence than the average Resentful Infant, but only to an extent.

More precisely, the characters of the street performer, the gambling house owner, the money house steward, and now the cloth store owner, all possessed intellect far surpassing that of an average Resentful Infant.

"No, we want 500 garments, not one less," Cheng Cha regained her composure, her tone resolved.

"Yes, not one less!" Mi Shu also shouted along. This had been planned early in the morning. Everyone was to help boost the momentum, fan the flames, and make the owner of the cloth store and the steward of the money house clash.

Just when everyone thought the task was accomplished, they saw the owner of the cloth store with a pained expression, nod her head, "If that’s the case, then alright, bring out all the goods from our store!"

Soon, several clerks ran out from the back, each carrying a large bundle of clothes. Yang Xiao and the others checked the items themselves. Jackets and trousers were each counted as one item, even small robes were counted as one, but even with everything counted, the numbers still fell short. In the end, there were only 494 items, and only then did the people finally breathe a sigh of relief.

"Owner, this still isn’t enough," Tong Han said, throwing down the clothes in his hand as he stood up to question her.

"Yeah, it’s still six pieces short?" Mi Shu also joined in the commotion.

"Why don’t you call the steward from the money house to ask what exactly is going on?" Yang Xiao, fearing the situation wasn’t chaotic enough, added fuel to the fire from the side.

To everyone’s surprise, the owner suddenly smiled, her eyes crinkling in a look that spelled cunning triumph. Yang Xiao’s heart skipped a beat, as he realized something was amiss. It was the first time he had seen such an expression on the face of someone from the town.

"Not enough? How is that possible? I’ll give you the last six pieces of clothing right now." The owner’s smile widened as she undid her belt in front of everyone and took off her outer wool shawl, tossing it into the pile of clothes, her voice sweet, "Here’s the first one."

This scene baffled everyone present. They had never anticipated such a turn of events, and Cheng Cha had not warned them.

But judging by Cheng Cha’s expression, he hadn’t expected this either.

The wool shawl was the first item, followed by a jacket, then a thin undergarment, trousers, and finally, she even removed her pink bellyband and the white fabric underneath. At that moment, the woman was nearly naked, yet still smiling: "Adding these six pieces makes a total of 500, we’re square now."

Yang Xiao could no longer hear what the woman was saying afterward. His gaze was fixed on a spot slightly to the side of her waist, not distracted by idle thoughts, but because he had seen a rose, a black rose tattoo blooming on the woman’s waist.

He understood then why Cheng Cha had been stunned upon seeing the woman. There was a high chance that she was the comrade from his last mission.

After settling the debts, they were thrown out of the cloth store. From Cheng Cha, everyone learned the details of what had happened. Yang Xiao’s guess was right—the woman was indeed Cheng Cha’s comrade from the last mission, and a core member at that. The strategy to empty the cloth shop had been her idea, but something had gone wrong during the execution, and she had died inside the cloth store.

"That means this town can continuously repair its flaws, and we can no longer leave here using the previous methods," Yang Xiao analyzed, a rather obvious fact.

"What do we do next?" Mi Shu, recalling her previous terrifying encounter with a Resentful Infant where she had to bite off a snake’s head, felt a chill run through her.

As they walked, everyone thought hard, trying to delay their arrival at Old Shan Batou’s house as much as possible. During the journey, various suggestions were proposed but Cheng Cha dismissed each one. Every strategy the squadron had thought of was also considered previously and had failed.

Until Sui Chengguo spoke up, "Perhaps we can change our approach; it’s not necessary to always start with the connections of the three stores, we can try to find a flaw in just one of them."

"Go on," Cheng Cha turned to look at him.

After hesitating, Sui Chengguo composed his thoughts, "Consider this, our previous approach was always to get Cloth tiger, as it’s the most valuable item in town, which we could exchange for more money and then use that money to buy more clothes. But that’s a misconception. My suggestion is to go for the pellet drum, which is the least valuable. There’s nothing cheaper than it in the gambling house, so what would happen if we gambled and ended up with a tie?"

"By the rule of losing half in a tie, they would return to us the equivalent of half a pellet drum, but the only things cheaper than a pellet drum in town are one of the Gold, Silver, and Copper Coins, and the gambling house rules forbid them from being used."

"This is a loophole!" Mi Shu’s eyes lit up at these words, giving her a glimmer of hope. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com

"True, but this method is unstable. After all, as long as we want, the chances of getting a Cloth tiger are always 100%, but the chances of getting a pellet drum are only 50%. This requires some luck," Sui Chengguo admitted candidly.

In other words, if their luck was poor, they might not get a pellet drum several times in a row—an objective fact. Most critically, they couldn’t be sure how many more times they could endure these cycles.

"If there’s no other way, then we might as well take a gamble," Cheng Cha stepped forward and pushed the slightly ajar door open as the mission continued.