At this moment, a sentence Earth Monkey had said before revealing the cards echoed in Qi Xia’s ears.

He had said that among the thirty-plus cards, only one could give him victory.

And that card was “End of Heat”.

This indicated that “End of Heat” was special, or at least special in this round of the game.

But what exactly was unique about this “End of Heat” card that this characteristic couldn’t be found in any of the other thirty-plus cards?

“No… my thinking is still too limited…” Qi Xia looked at the scattered cards on the table. Earth Monkey was currently collecting them one by one.

There was one possibility—that other sufficiently lethal cards had already appeared on the table, so it wasn’t that “End of Heat” had anything particularly special about it, but rather that “End of Heat” was the only card that hadn’t appeared yet and could beat Earth Monkey.

He quickly recalled the cards Earth Monkey could see at the time.

First, he could see the community card “Ghost Festival” in the center of the table, followed by his own “Summer Solstice” and “Dragon Boat Festival”.

Then there were everyone’s face-up cards: Zheng Yingxiong’s “Frost Descent”, Tiantian’s “Heavy Snow”, Xiao Cheng’s “Pure Brightness”, Chen Junnan’s “Start of Spring”, Qiao Jiajin’s “Great Heat”, and his own “Double Seventh Festival”.

Qi Xia felt his mind was still somewhat muddled, as if he was missing some important clue.

He narrowed his eyes, visualizing all the cards in his mind, where the numerous card faces transformed into sets of numbers.

“Ah…” Qi Xia slowly opened his mouth. Indeed, there was a tiny clue he had nearly forgotten.

When Earth Monkey said those words, it was right when Qiao Jiajin revealed his “hole card”.

So was there a possibility… that Earth Monkey only thought of this when he saw Qiao Jiajin’s hole card “Start of Autumn”?

What did these two cards have in common? Why could both of them lead to his victory?

In just a few seconds, Qi Xia opened his eyes. The clues in his mind, like suddenly connected circuits, gradually became clear at this moment.

This year’s “Start of Autumn” should be “the eighth day of the seventh month”.

And “End of Heat” was “the twenty-third day of the seventh month”.

These two cards were the only remaining two “seventh month” cards besides his own “Double Seventh Festival” and the “Ghost Festival” in the center of the table.

Apart from these two cards, no other cards’ “solar terms” or “festivals” would come from the seventh month. So when Qiao Jiajin revealed “Start of Autumn”, Earth Monkey would obviously think only one similar card remained.

But Qi Xia had just deduced through reasoning that this game didn’t have much to do with “months”. After all, Earth Monkey dared to gamble against his seventh month card while holding a fifth month card, so where would the key point be?

“The key point isn’t ‘seventh month’, but the number ‘seven’…”

Qiao Jiajin, watching Qi Xia deep in thought from the side, waited patiently. Only when Qi Xia’s expression completely relaxed did he ask: “Liar, do you know the rules now?”

Qi Xia turned his head and after thinking for several seconds said: “Earth Monkey’s ‘four fives’ lost to my ‘four sevens’.”

“What…?” Qiao Jiajin was stunned. “Texas Hold’em? Four of a kind?”

“I don’t understand Texas Hold’em… What exactly are the rules?” Qi Xia asked.

“Explaining it is quite troublesome… Basically it’s…” Qiao Jiajin said halfway before suddenly freezing. “Hey! Liar! This rule really is a lot like Texas Hold’em!”

“Oh? Very similar?”

“I can only say the format is somewhat similar…” Qiao Jiajin scratched his head while recalling. “But players have more cards than we do, and there are also more community cards in the center of the table. If you say ‘four sevens’ can beat ‘four fives’, then this rule becomes even more like Texas Hold’em. This is one of the bigger hands in it, called ‘four of a kind’, meaning four identical numbers. But when two people both have four identical numbers, victory is determined by whose number is larger.”

“I see.” Qi Xia nodded. Having never participated in gambling games, he naturally wasn’t familiar with these poker rules.

“So do you think this game is simply Texas Hold’em?” Qiao Jiajin also showed a thoughtful expression. “Just using numbers to form various combinations to compare sizes with opponents. Generally speaking, it’s somewhat like mahjong rules—as long as you can form fixed combinations, you can win the game, such as ‘straights’, ‘four of a kind’, ‘three of a kind’, and so on.”

“It’s not that simple…” Qi Xia shook his head. “It’s just because I won this round that I can only deduce this rule, but there should be quite a difference from the Texas Hold’em you mentioned.”

After hearing this, Qiao Jiajin slowly leaned his head over and asked in a low voice: “Where’s the difference?”

“If we convert each of our cards into number cards, theoretically when we get each card, we receive several numbers.” Qi Xia said. “For example, ‘Great Cold’, from the lunar calendar perspective, is ‘the twenty-third day of the twelfth month’. Converting it to cards would be four cards, respectively ‘one’, ‘two’, ‘two’, ‘three’. Do you understand the problem now?”

“No.” Qiao Jiajin answered decisively.

“It’s that the number of cards in each person’s hand will vary greatly.” Qi Xia said. “For instance, ‘Dragon Boat Festival’ is ‘the fifth day of the fifth month’, converting to number cards is merely ‘five’ and ‘five’. Two people both drew a ‘Lunar Month’ card, but ‘Great Cold’ equals getting four cards at once, while ‘Dragon Boat Festival’ is only two. This variation will cause each person to have a different quantity of numbers they can use when we finally reveal cards. Some people have numerous numbers in their hands that can be combined into various hands to compare sizes with opponents, while others don’t.”

“I think I understand a bit…” Qiao Jiajin said while pondering. “Liar, so saying that the larger the month, the bigger the card—this statement is correct from certain perspectives.”

After hearing this, Qi Xia also nodded. Earlier, Earth Monkey questioned why Chen Junnan would bet with a “Start of Spring” card, precisely because “Start of Spring” only had two numbers, “one” and “six”. These two numbers couldn’t form a “pair”, and even the possibility of a “straight” was very slim.

“Fist… now I need to know…” Qi Xia turned his head to look at Qiao Jiajin. “In these Texas Hold’em rules, what’s the biggest hand combination?”

After thinking for a while, Qiao Jiajin said: “This seems to be exactly where I feel somewhat puzzled… and also the biggest difference between this deck and regular Texas Hold’em…”

“Oh? What is it?”

“It’s the ‘Royal Flush’.”