Everyone sat around the table. The Earth-Monkey reached out to shuffle the deck, then raised his head to look at everyone indifferently.

Qi Xia rubbed his forehead and said, “Earth-Monkey, you really don’t plan to explain the rules of this deck?”

“What, with your level, you should be able to guess during the game, right?” The Earth-Monkey carefully set down the cards, then pulled out a cigarette from his suit pocket and lit it.

After hearing this, Chen Junnan also felt it was somewhat unreasonable. After holding back for a long time, he still spoke up, “Monkey Brother, you’re really not breaking the rules?”

“Oh?” The Earth-Monkey exhaled a smoke ring and asked blandly, “How am I breaking the rules?”

“The game you’ve set up is a ‘gambling house,’ yet you as the representative of this ‘gambling house’ won’t let people participating in gambling understand the rules?” Chen Junnan smiled. “You really have some nerve. When’s this shop going to go bankrupt?”

“Ha.” The Earth-Monkey took down the cigarette and held it between his fingers. “Losing all one’s ‘Dao’ clean because of unfamiliarity with a certain game’s rules is something that happens in this gambling house every day, so I’m truly not breaking the rules.”

After hearing this, Qi Xia snorted coldly. “But how boring is that?”

“Boring?”

“You’ve waited for so long, finally able to activate this ‘Lunar Month,’ yet you’re planning to win through information asymmetry?” Qi Xia reached up to touch his chin. “Is this all the tactics you can think of? What are you afraid of?”

Upon hearing these words, the Earth-Monkey’s gaze wavered slightly, as if repeatedly deliberating over Qi Xia’s words. After a few seconds, he sighed softly and said, “You’re right. To allow the game to proceed smoothly, I should still tell you some common sense matters.”

Qi Xia didn’t know what the Earth-Monkey was pondering. He could only cross his arms in front of his chest and wait for his explanation.

The Earth-Monkey placed the shuffled deck on the table surface. At a glance, everyone could see this deck wasn’t large. The total quantity should be less than a deck of playing cards, probably around thirty or forty cards.

He flipped up the top card from the pile and placed it on the table, revealing its face.

On it were only two standard script Chinese characters—

“Grain in Ear”

The Earth-Monkey looked at this card, then flipped up a second card from the pile and displayed it before everyone.

“Mid-Autumn.”

Seeing these two cards, everyone naturally understood what the card faces meant. “Grain in Ear” was one of the twenty-four solar terms, while “Mid-Autumn” was a traditional festival. This deck totaling thirty-some cards very likely included all the card faces of the twenty-four solar terms and traditional festivals. But to play a game with this deck, what kind of game would it be?

“When the game starts, one ‘community card’ will be drawn and placed in the center of the table, displayed for everyone to see,” the Earth-Monkey said. “Then each person will draw two more cards, one open and one hidden. The open card can be shown to everyone, while the hidden card can only be viewed by oneself.”

After hearing this, Qi Xia nodded. “And then?”

“Ha…” The Earth-Monkey revealed an eerie smile. “Then we need to use the two cards in our hands plus the ‘community card’ in the center of the table. Using three cards, we compare with everyone to see whose is biggest. The person with the biggest card face will win all the chips on the table.”

“Compare to see whose is biggest…?”

These three words made everyone reveal puzzled expressions.

These cards only had Chinese characters on them. What was the meaning of “comparing to see whose is biggest”? Could it be comparing dates?

But if they were really comparing dates, why would they need to use the “open card” and “hidden card” in hand plus the “community card” in the center of the table?

Wouldn’t it be more direct for each person to draw one card to compare whose is biggest?

“As for the victory conditions… you can rest assured,” the Earth-Monkey said. “My ‘gambling house’ has its bottom line after all. If your card face is bigger than my card face, I won’t refuse to acknowledge it. That is to say, there’s no situation of ‘false reporting.’ If you win but I act shamelessly, that would truly be breaking the rules.”

“Then… how do we determine victory or defeat?” Qi Xia asked again. “One round determines the outcome?”

“No… of course not.” The Earth-Monkey shook his head. “Having finally been able to take out my ‘Lunar Month,’ how could I determine the outcome in one round?”

He picked up the two cards on the table surface and shuffled them again, then said, “Eight rounds. A total of eight game rounds. After that, regardless of how the chips are, it will count as the game ending.”

After hearing this, Qi Xia nodded with furrowed brows.

Now they not only had to find a way to figure out the rules within eight rounds, but also had to win enough “Dao” within these eight rounds to ransom six people.

“How many ‘Dao’ can be won in one round?” Xiao Cheng asked from the side.

“Good question.” The Earth-Monkey said, “At the start, each person pays one ‘Dao,’ then each person is dealt one ‘open card.’ Everyone needs to display this ‘open card,’ and then the person with the largest date written on the card face will start by choosing whether to raise.”

“Raise?”

“That’s right.” The Earth-Monkey nodded. “This is a gambling house after all. Gambling houses have their own rules. After the first person raises, the remaining people will make three choices in clockwise order: either choose to ‘fold,’ or choose to ‘call,’ or continue to choose to ‘raise.’ As the name implies, folding means giving up the ‘Dao’ already bet on the table and choosing to cut losses in time. ‘Calling’ means putting out the same chips as the first person, while ‘raising’ means putting out more chips than the first person.”

After hearing this, several people nodded.

“And once someone raises in the middle, the remaining people who haven’t ‘folded’ must restart these three choices in clockwise order, until everyone has ‘folded’ or everyone has ‘called.'” After the Earth-Monkey finished speaking, he swept his gaze over everyone. “These are all basic gambling table rules. Am I speaking clearly enough?”

At this moment, several people all revealed hesitant expressions. Although what the Earth-Monkey said wasn’t hard to understand, they hadn’t penetrated the most crucial rule.

How could they compare whose card face was biggest?

After obtaining their card faces, how would they know whether their cards were worth “betting” on?

And for everyone, there was an even more troublesome problem before them.

Even if this game truly used the dates of the twenty-four solar terms and traditional festivals to compare whose was biggest, traditional festivals were easy enough to say, but who could accurately state the dates of the twenty-four solar terms?

Between “White Dew,” “Grain Rain,” and “Grain in Ear,” whose date was actually bigger?

They could only hope that what needed to be compared wasn’t dates, but the stroke count of the text on the card faces. Otherwise, the difficulty of this game would skyrocket to an inconceivable height.

“Regardless of whether you understand or not… this is all the game can tell you.”

After the Earth-Monkey finished speaking, he looked up again at the six people sitting before him. “Are all of you participating in this gambling match?”

Tiantian and Xiao Cheng simultaneously turned to look at Zheng Yingxiong, while Chen Junnan asked Qi Xia in a low voice, “Old Qi, do you know the accurate dates of the twenty-four solar terms?”

After hearing this, Qi Xia rubbed his forehead. Although he was somewhat dizzy now, he knew the problem wasn’t there at all.