“Not looking at your cards and betting directly?” Earth-Monkey frowned slightly.

“Does the casino boss not dare to gamble?” Qi Xia said. “Right now I have ‘eight-eight,’ the ‘community card’ is ‘one-one.’ Do you think I can beat you?”

Earth-Monkey didn’t answer. He just glanced at Qi Xia’s hand covering the cards, then said, “Aren’t you afraid of losing?”

“Why would you think I’m the one who’ll lose?” Qi Xia asked in return.

Earth-Monkey shook his head helplessly after hearing this and withdrew his gaze. “I have a premonition that you’re more likely to lose.”

As he said this, Zheng Yingxiong kept his hand on Tiantian’s arm, his expression looking somewhat grim.

Tiantian was also infected by his tense atmosphere. She swallowed slightly, then turned and called out, “Qi Xia… be careful.”

Hearing this, Qi Xia looked at Tiantian’s extremely serious expression, then lowered his head to look at Zheng Yingxiong’s twitching nose, slowly narrowing his eyes.

Although Tiantian hadn’t said anything, her expression along with Zheng Yingxiong’s pointed Qi Xia toward an extremely absurd answer—one that left Qi Xia momentarily stunned for three seconds.

Qi Xia paused in his thoughts, touched the cards on the table, then slowly moved them below the table.

“Oh?” Seeing Qi Xia’s action, Earth-Monkey found it quite interesting. The wrinkles on his face relaxed slightly as he asked with a light laugh, “What’s wrong?”

Qi Xia didn’t know exactly what the reason was, but he felt that Earth-Monkey’s current state was very strange—his state was as if he had activated something, and even his mental state had changed.

“Nothing,” Qi Xia answered. “Will you bet?”

“Sure.” Earth-Monkey nodded, still using his hand to cover his own cards. “Qi Xia, without looking at my cards, I’ll raise by one Dao.”

Seeing Earth-Monkey so confident, Qi Xia felt inexplicably uneasy in his heart. He felt that this game seemed to have returned to how it was at the beginning.

This thought had just floated through his mind when Qi Xia felt a wave of fog invading his brain. This lingering sensation that couldn’t be dispelled continued to churn in his mind.

He hurriedly pinched his right pinky finger, but his brain seemed to have become somewhat numb to this pain sensation and didn’t immediately dispel the fog.

Qi Xia clenched his teeth and slowly lowered his head, then forcefully gripped his pinky finger and twisted it hard.

A strange sound quietly rang out in the room, like broken bones being shattered once again.

Qi Xia groaned and buried his head deeply, his whole body beginning to tremble. The people around him were all startled when they saw his condition.

“Liar boy…” Qiao Jiajin quickly bent down to check his condition.

Qi Xia bit down hard on his teeth, quietly waiting for the fog in his brain to dissipate, but he always felt that the fog was descending more and more frequently and becoming increasingly difficult to dispel.

“I’m fine…”

Everyone cast worried looks toward Qi Xia. He looked rather bad right now. The feeling he’d been giving people all day had been off, as if he were sick or injured.

After waiting for quite a while, Qi Xia slowly raised his head, feeling that his brain had cleared up somewhat.

At this moment, his brain told him that there was only one way to test Earth-Monkey’s “degree of confidence.”

“Earth-Monkey, I’ll continue raising the stakes and open a side bet with you,” Qi Xia said, covered in cold sweat. “I’ll individually bet two Dao on the two in your hand.”

Qiao Jiajin noticed that Qi Xia’s face was deathly pale and couldn’t help but frown.

“A side bet…?”

“That’s right. This bet between you and me doesn’t involve anyone else,” Qi Xia nodded. “Just you and me. Do you dare?”

Earth-Monkey stared into Qi Xia’s eyes for a few seconds, then asked, “One at the start, one in the first round, one in the second round, and now you’re adding two more. If I remember correctly, these five are all your chips, right?”

“Yes,” Qi Xia answered weakly. “I’m betting all my chips individually with you. You can choose to refuse.”

“I have no reason to refuse.” Earth-Monkey once again took out two Dao and placed them on the table, his expression still indifferent.

Although he hadn’t looked at his “hole cards” and hadn’t figured out exactly what change had occurred in the rules, Qi Xia felt that he should have lost.

A gambling game often doesn’t require knowing the rules or seeing the hole cards—just from Earth-Monkey’s single expression, Qi Xia had already seen the outcome.

Seeing the two of them choose a side bet, everyone could only follow Earth-Monkey’s one Dao bet in this round before beginning to check their own hands.

This round could no longer continue with raises because everyone’s chips were almost exhausted, and Qi Xia had already put out everything he had.

Qi Xia lowered his head and gently flipped over the card hidden below the table. It was “Heavy Snow.”

“November 8th…?” Qi Xia slowly frowned.

Wait a moment…

“Luck” seemed to have come.

His previous hand was “White Dew,” “August 8th.”

The “community card” was “Spring Festival,” “First day of the first month.”

Converting to numbers, his first card was two “eights,” and the center of the table had two “ones.”

And at this moment, he had actually drawn another “one-one-eight.”

What incredible fortune was this?

The cards in his hand now were actually four “ones” and three “eights.”

The seemingly unrelated “eight-eight” and “one-one” had been reversed by this belated “Heavy Snow.”

If the previous rules were correct, could there be any bigger hand on the table now?

This was no longer as simple as a “full house” with “three plus two”—this was “four plus three.”

Not a single one of the seven numbers was wasted; they had all combined into the hand.

Qi Xia hadn’t expected that his blind bet would actually yield such a strong hand.

He raised his head to look at Earth-Monkey’s expression and found that Earth-Monkey was still controlling his demeanor very well, not revealing the slightest flaw.

From his eyes and movements, one could sense that his heart was exceptionally calm. Whether he truly had victory in hand or was disguising it skillfully enough, in any case, after checking his own hand, he simply covered it lightly with his hand again, raised his head, and locked eyes with Qi Xia.

Qi Xia no longer paid attention to Earth-Monkey but instead turned to look at his teammates.

Most of their expressions weren’t too good. Only Chen Junnan and Xiao Cheng were carefully looking at their own hands at this moment, as if they were calculating their hands.

However, their mental calculation abilities were slightly inferior to Qi Xia’s. After taking about ten-plus seconds, Xiao Cheng nodded with satisfaction and put away his hand again.

Next was Chen Junnan. After looking at his hand, he slowly let out a “hiss,” then covered his cards with both hands and brought his face close to them.

“Oh my heavens…” Chen Junnan seemed to have thought of something and hurriedly straightened up to start searching his pockets, but after searching for a long time, they were all empty.

“Junnan boy, what are you looking for?” asked Qiao Jiajin beside him.

“Damn it, looking for my property deed!” Chen Junnan shouted. “How the hell did I not bring my property deed when I went out today?!”