After hearing this, Earth-Monkey gripped the cards in his hand tightly and asked in a low voice: “What kind of idiom is that supposed to be?”

“Sharp, so sharp!” Qiao Jiajin ignored Earth-Monkey and nodded frantically. “‘King,’ is it? Then I’ll follow with ‘Bastard son’!”

“What a great idiom!” Chen Junnan grinned widely. “‘Son’… I’ll follow with… ‘Rat and Ugly Monkey’! Oh my goodness, ‘Ugly Monkey’ is fucking brilliant.”

“Monkey?” Qiao Jiajin thought for a moment. “I’ll follow with ‘Monkey is truly ugly’…”

“Enough!!” Earth-Monkey stretched out his hand and slammed it heavily on the table.

Fortunately, the table was sturdy enough. Everyone only felt the ground shake along with it.

“Oh ho…?” Seeing this, Chen Junnan leaned back and swung his legs up onto the table.

“Are you two done yet? Can you be quiet?” Earth-Monkey said with a displeased expression.

“The hell…” Chen Junnan also cursed impatiently. “Brother Monkey, is this your damn library or something? Do I need to stay completely silent while participating in a gambling game?”

“Then let me ask you this.” Earth-Monkey sneered. “In a game where strategy and calculation are needed at every turn, you’re using the most despicable tactics. If you win this way, will you be satisfied?”

“Satisfied.” Chen Junnan replied. “What about you?”

“You fucking—!” Earth-Monkey slammed the table and stood up directly.

Qiao Jiajin and Chen Junnan simultaneously stood up as well, their imposing manner not inferior to Earth-Monkey’s at all.

Qiao Jiajin viciously pointed his finger at Earth-Monkey and said: “What?! Fat monkey! You wanna fight?”

Qi Xia didn’t speak, only sat quietly in his seat watching coldly. Chen Junnan’s work was going very smoothly. He only needed to continuously disturb Earth-Monkey’s thoughts, preventing him from being able to think clearly, and this game would be difficult for him to win.

Perhaps even Earth-Monkey himself didn’t realize that on this day, gathered in this small gambling den, there were three people who were famously difficult to provoke in the “Land of End.”

“You really do seem like regular gambling den patrons.” Earth-Monkey composed himself slightly and sneered. “When I was in the real world, I dealt with people like you every day. It really is somewhat nostalgic now.”

“Isn’t that nice then?” Chen Junnan raised his head. “I’m helping Brother Monkey reminisce about the old days, and I’m not even planning to charge you for it.”

“Too bad the me now is quite different from the me back then.” Earth-Monkey shook his head, appearing to have calmed down. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette, pursing his lips to hold it in his mouth. “Do you know what the biggest difference is between the ‘Land of End’ and the outside world?”

“The outside doesn’t have talking monkeys.” Chen Junnan replied.

Earth-Monkey didn’t bother with him, only quietly lit his cigarette, then said: “Things I didn’t dare do on the outside, no one cares about here.”

“Oh? You mean ‘killing people’?” Chen Junnan asked.

“Yes.” Earth-Monkey nodded. “But you got one thing right—I really can’t kill you. However, I could just as well walk over right now and rip out your tongue, leaving you only able to spit blood incoherently for the rest of your time here.”

“Well, that’s quite unfortunate then.” Chen Junnan said without backing down. “Let me also make something clear to you—if you rip out my tongue, not only will I spit blood incoherently, I’ll also curse incoherently, and then I’ll sing ‘Good Luck Comes’ thirty times mumbling in your ear, taking the opportunity to spray blood all over your face. Every damn time you deal a card, I’ll spray blood once. When I run out of blood, I’ll crawl on the ground and write the character ‘miserable’ on your ankle. What do you fucking think of that?”

Earth-Monkey hadn’t expected that the man before him had been hiding his true abilities. When it came to quarreling alone, Earth-Monkey believed he had absolutely no chance of winning against him. His train of thought was even getting somewhat blocked.

Moreover, if these words came from someone else’s mouth, Earth-Monkey might dismiss them with disdain, but coming from Chen Junnan’s mouth, Earth-Monkey felt the credibility was very high. He seemed like he could truly follow through on his words.

“That’s enough, Chen Junnan.” Qi Xia spoke up. “Sit down for now.”

After hearing this, Chen Junnan sat down in his chair without another word. Qiao Jiajin also slowly sat down after glaring at Earth-Monkey.

Earth-Monkey glanced at Qi Xia and frowned, seemingly not expecting that these two apparently lawless people would be so obedient.

“You better watch yourself.” Earth-Monkey said, looking at Chen Junnan.

Chen Junnan leaned back, swung his legs in a circle in the air, and finally slammed them heavily on the table. Then he cupped his hand to his ear, turned his head sideways with a cheeky expression and said: “Can’t hear you clearly, what did you say??”

Earth-Monkey stopped paying attention to Chen Junnan. After sitting down, he looked at his hand—”New Year’s Eve.”

Among all the cards, only “New Year’s Eve” could simultaneously obtain “one, two, three” in the first round.

So Earth-Monkey’s best winning strategy was to form a “straight.”

When Qi Xia was staring at Earth-Monkey, he suddenly felt something was off.

This was a visual anomaly.

He felt that within his field of vision, something had undergone a very subtle change visually.

Two seconds later, Qi Xia turned his head to look at the wooden box in the center of the table.

This wooden box had always been placed here, but Qi Xia keenly felt that it seemed different somehow.

Its position hadn’t changed, its shape hadn’t changed, yet Qi Xia just felt something was strange about it.

Could it be…

Qi Xia turned his head to look at Qiao Jiajin and said: “Fist, look at that wooden box.”

After hearing this, Qiao Jiajin glanced at the wooden box, then asked: “What about the box?”

“Do you feel like its color has changed?” Qi Xia asked.

Qiao Jiajin beside him and Chen Junnan not far away, upon hearing this, simultaneously turned their heads and looked carefully at the wooden box.

The patterns on the wooden box were lifelike, its body still a deep brown color overall, without any substantial changes.

“Is there…?” Qiao Jiajin asked. “Liar boy… are you seeing it as white?”

After hearing this, Qi Xia shook his head and reached up to wipe the blood from his eyes, feeling he might be overthinking things.

It was possible that blood had dripped into his eyes, or it was possible that when his brain had been dizzy earlier it had affected his vision. In any case, Qi Xia felt the box’s color had changed slightly.

At least it was somewhat different from when he first saw it.

It seemed… to have become lighter?

But when staring carefully at the wooden box, he would feel that its color seemed to have always been this way.

Qi Xia shook his head, feeling that the dispersed fog seemed to be slowly gathering again, but now he had a clear solution.

He placed both hands below the table surface, then used his left hand to grip his already broken right pinky finger, and then gritted his teeth and squeezed hard.

The fog instantly dispersed.

This broken finger was now like a button to disperse the fog. As long as he could survive this game, Qi Xia could sacrifice nine more fingers just like it.