But what was the reason?

Clearly, wooden panels could be used directly to make the box, which would be more convenient for surface engraving and gilding. Yet someone had painstakingly hollowed out every side of this box. To be precise now, this wasn’t really a box, but rather a closed structure assembled from six panel-shaped boxes.

Moreover, according to the rules, this wooden box wouldn’t participate in the game at all, yet it had been kept on the table all along. Could it have some other purpose?

Before Qi Xia could figure it out, Earth-Monkey had already stood up and reached out to snatch the wooden box back. He then carefully wiped it and examined the edges and corners. Only after confirming there was no damage did he place it back on the table.

“If you want to touch my things in the future, please give me a heads up.” Earth-Monkey said with some displeasure. “Even if you want to commit suicide, I’ll give you a knife immediately. Why bother with the box? It’s so troublesome.”

Qi Xia stared at the other party and slowly revealed a sinister smile.

His blood-red face, wicked smile, and slightly trembling right hand made him look as strange as a demon, causing Earth-Monkey to involuntarily lean back.

“Now I’ve finally woken up a bit…” Qi Xia said. “You just told us that ‘Frost’s Descent’ is the ‘twenty-third of the ninth month,’ right?”

“…Yes.” Earth-Monkey acknowledged.

After hearing this, Qi Xia also nodded. Zheng Yingxiong’s question had pointed out the most critical aspect. Now he seemed to know how to proceed with this “size comparison.”

Part of the fog had dispersed, and the hidden knowledge suddenly emerged.

The Twenty-Four Solar Terms used neither the solar calendar nor the lunar calendar, but rather the lunisolar calendar.

So whether looking at it from the solar or lunar calendar, the dates would change every year. If one wanted to deduce all the card face numbers accordingly, currently only two methods could be thought of.

First, knowing a specific year for certain.

Second, knowing the precise date of one particular day for certain.

For instance, the “Qixi Festival” in his hand was definitely the seventh of the seventh month, “Lantern Festival” was the fifteenth of the first month, “Double Ninth Festival” was the ninth of the ninth month, and “New Year’s Eve” was the thirtieth of the twelfth month.

So if they were to compare sizes, Earth-Monkey couldn’t possibly use the controversial “solar calendar,” otherwise the answers given wouldn’t be convincing to everyone, and conducting this gambling match would become even more difficult.

In summary, if this “size comparison” truly used dates as the key point, it would necessarily use the relatively fixed “lunar calendar.”

Now the problem lay with the dates of each “solar term.”

Fortunately, Earth-Monkey had provided the most critical point—the date of “Frost’s Descent” was the twenty-third of the ninth month.

With this, there was no need to know precisely which year it was. Even if this year was fictional, one only needed to work backward from the information Earth-Monkey provided.

Because all the information would become completely clear and visible. With each solar term separated by fifteen days, all twenty-four solar terms of this year would be fully known. At this moment, each card on the table transformed in Qi Xia’s eyes into sets of numbers.

He looked at the “seventh of the seventh month” in his hand, then at the “fifteenth of the seventh month” on the table, and finally at the “twenty-first of the fifth month” in Earth-Monkey’s hand.

As long as Earth-Monkey announced the card face of the person with the largest hand after this round ended, all the rules of this game would become crystal clear.

Qi Xia reached up to wipe the blood on his right face, then raised his head and said: “Earth-Monkey, can we continue?”

Earth-Monkey noticed that the man’s eyes before him were completely different from when he first entered the venue, but he didn’t know exactly where the problem lay.

“Spring rains startle the spring, clear valley days; summer fullness, grain beard, summer heat connects. Autumn处, dew autumn, cold frost descends; winter snow, snow winter, small and great cold.” With his awakened mind, Qi Xia decisively found the sealed knowledge in his brain. “Upper half of the year meets the sixth and twenty-first, lower half of the year meets the eighth and twenty-third. ‘End of Heat’ and ‘Frost’s Descent’ differ by sixty days, so the date of ‘End of Heat’ is the twenty-third of the seventh month.”

All dates in the first half of the year were the sixth and twenty-first, and all dates in the second half of the year were the eighth and twenty-third. Adding the solar calendar months, these were the dates that would be used in this game.

Qi Xia finally understood what Earth-Monkey meant by what he said before starting the gambling.

He said that among all the people he had encountered over the years, those with gambling skills lacked knowledge, and those with knowledge lacked courage, so no one had been able to gamble with him.

This deck of cards indeed required too many things. Gambling skills alone were far from enough.

After all, each card only had two Chinese characters, yet these characters had to be compared in size. Without sufficient knowledge, this step alone would completely stump someone.

Additionally… the one thing Qi Xia still couldn’t figure out was the name “Lunar Phases.”

If he remembered correctly, lunar phases were also called synodic months, representing the cycle of the moon’s waxing and waning. What exactly was the connection with this game?

If one had to explain it, the sun was “yang” and the moon was “yin.” When ancient people compiled the “lunar calendar,” they referenced the waxing and waning of the moon’s phases.

“So it really is the ‘lunar calendar’…”

From the moon being completely bright to disappearing completely, the ancients viewed this as a “reverse” process, so they took the original form of the character for “reverse” (逆), added “moon” (月), viewing it as “reverse moon”—this was “shuo” (朔).

When the moon was at its brightest and could be seen when looking up, the ancients called it “moon full”—this was “wang” (望). The “Shi Ming – Shi Tian” explains: “Wang, the name for when the moon is full.”

Therefore, “Lunar Phases” referred to the time required within thirty days from one “shuo” to the next “shuo,” or from one “wang” to the next “wang.”

Because it depended on the waxing and waning of the moon’s phases, these thirty days were called one “month.”

And the calendar compiled through the waxing and waning of the moon’s phases belonged to yin, so it was called the “lunar calendar.”

“In other words, this game has already revealed the method of size comparison to us from the very name…”

Qi Xia slowly narrowed his eyes, feeling that he could now temporarily control his chaotic brain.

He looked at the cards on the table. This deck had only about thirty cards total, with two characters on each card—at most about sixty characters.

But if one really needed to study it thoroughly, it would be far more complex than the Western-imported playing cards and tarot cards. Once this game wasn’t called “Lunar Phases” but changed to “Solar Calendar,” the gameplay would be completely different.

Qi Xia sighed that Earth-Monkey was truly worthy of being the representative who controlled “intelligence.” Moreover, the short and chubby Earth-Monkey before him probably wasn’t showing his full strength. If he could be brought under his command, he would surely be of great use. But the smarter someone was, the harder they were to control.

Focusing his gaze on the game at hand, Qi Xia knew that as long as Earth-Monkey announced the person with the largest hand when the cards were revealed at the end, he would also deduce the rules of this round.

The plan was going much more smoothly than imagined. This time it was thanks to Zheng Yingxiong’s help.

After everyone had bet their “secrets,” Earth-Monkey asked once more: “Does anyone else need to bet?”

Not knowing the rules, everyone naturally had no confidence in gambling on sizes and shook their heads one after another.

But Earth-Monkey slowly raised the corners of his mouth and looked at Qi Xia.

“What?” Qi Xia asked.

“I want to raise.” Earth-Monkey said.