The two stared at each other, their powerful psychological warfare creating such tension that the remaining people could only stand frozen in place, swallowing nervously.

“I… don’t believe it.” Earth Monkey said. “You only know one date—’the twenty-third day of the ninth month’. I could understand if you could guess all the solar terms, but saying you can figure out six different rules for comparing sizes is simply too absurd.”

“Oh…?”

Qi Xia found Earth Monkey’s statement rather interesting, as it seemed to touch upon a question he had never imagined before.

“Earth Monkey, in your impression, am I incapable of doing such a thing?” Qi Xia asked.

“I can’t say you’re completely incapable of it.” Earth Monkey answered. “It’s just that this has already exceeded what a normal person could accomplish. Just now, in barely a minute’s time, are you saying that within that minute you not only thought of six different methods for comparing sizes, but even guessed what card I’m holding, and then substituted my card into all six scenarios to compare them once each?”

“That’s basically it.” Qi Xia said. “But one thing needs to be corrected… I thought of more than six methods. It’s just that those other rules for comparing sizes were unreasonable, so I discarded them.”

“I don’t believe it.” Earth Monkey reiterated his position. “So you’re saying you now have a five-in-six chance of beating me?”

“Yes.” Qi Xia nodded. “If you don’t want to raise, we can reveal our cards right now.”

Earth Monkey thought for several seconds before finally picking up his “hole card”.

“Then let’s reveal them.”

He turned his hand to show his card, which read “Dragon Boat Festival”.

The moment Qi Xia saw this “Dragon Boat Festival” card, his brow furrowed slightly.

Now Earth Monkey’s hand consisted of “Summer Solstice”, “Dragon Boat Festival”, and the community card “Ghost Festival” in the center of the table.

“Your turn.”

Qiao Jiajin spread out his two cards on the table—”Great Heat” and “Start of Autumn”.

His hand was “Great Heat”, “Start of Autumn”, and the “Ghost Festival” in the center of the table.

“What about you?” Earth Monkey looked at Qi Xia. “You should know that Flower-Arm Man’s hand can’t stir up any waves, so this round ultimately comes down to a contest between just the two of us. His presence is merely to make the prize pool look more substantial.”

“True. I must say, if you have ‘Dragon Boat Festival’, it does exceed my expectations a bit.” Qi Xia reached out to reveal his cards. “But thinking it over carefully, although your hand might be quite strong, there’s a very high probability it’s not stronger than mine.”

Qi Xia placed both his “Double Seventh Festival” and “End of Heat” cards before Earth Monkey, causing Earth Monkey’s expression to darken instantly.

Among these thirty-plus cards, there was only one that could give Qi Xia victory, yet he had drawn precisely that one.

“End of Heat”.

“Your expression is quite telling.” Qi Xia said. “Mine is bigger, right?”

Earth Monkey pressed his lips together without speaking, stunned for a moment before silently pushing all four “Dao” in front of him toward Qi Xia.

“That unwilling, are you?” Qi Xia accepted the “Dao” from Earth Monkey. “You should be grateful that you didn’t bet even higher stakes this round, or I definitely would have wagered my life.”

Earth Monkey remained silent for a long while before finally saying: “You won this round, but what about the rest? Are you planning to bet your life every single round, you madman?”

“You know, Earth Monkey.” Qi Xia replied. “Although seven people are participating in this gambling game, the six of us all need to obtain ‘Dao’ from you. To win sixty ‘Dao’ from you over eight rounds—no matter how you think about it, that’s an extremely difficult task. So it’s highly likely that I’ll put my life on the table midway through.”

“Are you using your ‘life’ to threaten me?”

“Yes, this is a threat, and I absolutely mean what I say.” Qi Xia picked up the two cards in front of him and casually tossed them back to Earth Monkey. “I also said that if at any point your raise exceeds all our chips combined, I will immediately stake my own life.”

Hearing this, Earth Monkey’s expression changed slightly. The veins hidden deep within the wrinkles of his forehead also twitched faintly.

“Earth Monkey…” Qi Xia continued. “You can exploit ‘loopholes in the rules’ by not telling us the winning method of this game, but we can do the same.”

“You…”

“Looks like you already knew.” Qi Xia said. “Your game is ‘two Dao to enter, ten Dao to exit’, so ‘betting lives’ in this ‘Lunar Month’ game is not within your game rules. Even if we truly lose our lives, we’ll ultimately still be safe.”

“If that’s the case… why did you say it out loud?” Earth Monkey asked while collecting the cards on the table. “You clearly could have caught me off guard.”

After hearing this, the corner of Qi Xia’s mouth lifted: “Because I need to ensure you can steadily lose sixty ‘Dao’ to us. So listen carefully… Whether your stakes exceed ours, or if you want to ‘forfeit’ midway through any round, as long as I feel anything is unreasonable, I’ll decisively bet my life. Even if I lose, it doesn’t matter—the six of us will take turns betting our lives against you. Unless your hand can always beat everyone’s, we’ll definitely find a way to make you die.”

Hearing Qi Xia’s words, Earth Monkey felt a gradual chill running down his back.

The person before him was vastly different from what he remembered. Not only was his intelligence level far beyond before, even his ruthlessness was incomparable to the past… What exactly had happened?

“If you can do it… be my guest.”

At this moment, everyone handed their cards back to Earth Monkey, who began shuffling the deck again.

Qi Xia also used this time to deduce the rules of this game based on all the information Earth Monkey had provided.

When Qiao Jiajin revealed his hand, Earth Monkey showed no expression, meaning the situation matched his expectations.

Qiao Jiajin’s “Great Heat” and “Start of Autumn” plus “Ghost Festival” were smaller than Earth Monkey’s “Summer Solstice”, “Dragon Boat Festival”, and “Ghost Festival”.

And Earth Monkey’s three cards were smaller than his own “Double Seventh Festival”, “End of Heat”, and “Ghost Festival”.

In terms of months, Qiao Jiajin’s “Great Heat”, “Start of Autumn”, and “Ghost Festival” were respectively “sixth month”, “seventh month”, and “seventh month”.

The months of Earth Monkey’s three cards were “fifth month”, “fifth month”, and “seventh month”.

As for his own cards, they were all “seventh month”.

The first method of comparison would be adding up the months on the cards, with the highest total winning. But this clearly wasn’t quite reasonable.

After all, Earth Monkey’s attitude before revealing cards had said it all. When he only had “fifth month” and “seventh month”, he believed he could beat him.

But at that time, the cards Qi Xia had displayed were already “seventh month” and “seventh month”. By this rule, Earth Monkey’s chances of winning weren’t high.

“In other words, the ‘month’ isn’t the most critical condition…”