“Are you fucking crazy…?” Groundhog muttered, dumbfounded.
“I’ve never been normal,” Qi Xia replied. “Groundhog, are you calling?”
“Do you even know what ‘serving me forever until you perish’ means?” Groundhog snapped. “Who in their right mind would take that bet?!”
Qi Xia slowly raised a hand, wiping the blood trickling down his forehead. “Then I’ll give you another out. If you think the stakes are unfair, you can fold.”
Hearing this, Groundhog felt his mind spiral into chaos.
He slumped back into his chair, his bulky frame trembling slightly, his thoughts reduced to a single realization—
Qi Xia was terrifying. The man before him was nothing like the one he remembered.
When they’d met this time, he’d assumed Qi Xia had merely grown stronger. But now it was clear—this wasn’t growth. It was evolution.
Qi Xia’s offer of “another out” sent Groundhog’s mind into total disarray. Had the previous “out” also been part of his plan?
No… No, that wasn’t the real issue here. The real problem was—
This was textbook bluffing!
What kind of gambler outright tells their opponent, “If you think it’s unfair, just fold”?
In high-stakes games, outrageous bets were almost always meant to intimidate the other side into folding. And here was Qi Xia, straight-up advising him to surrender.
It was a masterclass in bluffing—so blatant it was almost insulting.
But would someone of Qi Xia’s caliber really make such an amateurish mistake?
Groundhog couldn’t begin to decipher his opponent’s mind. The story of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” had played out endlessly in this game, and now, at yet another crossroads, he had to decide—trust him or not?
“Every single time, I’ve guessed wrong,” Groundhog thought bitterly. “Even with the worst luck, I should’ve gotten it right at least once by now.”
With that, he slowly lifted his head, took a deep breath, and said in a low voice, “Qi Xia, I’ll give you one chance. Surrender now, and I’ll only take two lives. You can leave with the other four.”
The offer laid out a new path for Qi Xia. If this was all just a bluff, there was a good chance he’d accept—after all, if the bluff failed, all six of them would die here. But folding now would only cost two.
Yet, to Groundhog’s shock, Qi Xia shook his head without hesitation. “I’ll never surrender. If anyone’s folding, it’s you.”
“Damn it…”
The dilemma was back in Groundhog’s hands, leaving him dizzy with frustration.
He flipped over his hidden card—the words “Laba” scrawled boldly across it.
Both their hands were “busted.” So what the hell was Qi Xia—
Then, in a flash, it hit him.
Exactly what gave Qi Xia the audacity to challenge him with a busted hand?!
Had he really seen through Groundhog’s final card?
“But even if he did… I still can’t lose…”
After an agonizing internal struggle, Groundhog looked up and whispered, “I call.”
The words made Qi Xia’s eyes widen slightly. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” Groundhog nodded. “I don’t believe you can beat me. Once the cards are shown, you’ll serve me for eternity.”
Qi Xia slowly rose to his feet, but the moment he opened his mouth, his body swayed violently to the right—straight into Chen Jun’nan’s arms.
“Goddammit, Old Qi… You know damn well how bad off you are. Stop fucking standing up!”
Qi Xia gave a weak nod and sank back into his seat. “Groundhog, you really should fold.”
“Ha!” Groundhog’s voice hardened with renewed confidence. “I’m not folding. Let’s see how your ‘Zhongyuan’ card is supposed to beat me!”
“You even know that?” Qi Xia countered.
“Qi Xia, this is where you fall.”
Groundhog snatched up his hidden card and slammed it onto the table, revealing its face—
“Laba.”
“The Laba Festival…” Qi Xia chuckled bitterly. “I miss my hometown’s Laba porridge. Groundhog, after this round, could you treat my teammates to a meal?”
“Are you blind?” Groundhog snapped. “I have ‘Laba,’ you have ‘Zhongyuan’—we’re both busted!”
“Really…?”
Qi Xia slowly placed the card he’d been clutching onto the table, then flipped it over.
It wasn’t “Chongyang.” It wasn’t “Zhongyuan.”
It was something far more bizarre.
“Da Xue” — the 8th day of the 11th month.
At the sight of the card, Groundhog’s eyes bulged in disbelief before he finally managed to croak out:
“How… How did you swap the card?”
“I didn’t,” Qi Xia said. “This was always my card.”
He turned the “Da Xue” around, showing Groundhog the back—stained with a blood-red blossom, smeared repeatedly to leave a unique mark.
“This…” Groundhog’s dull yellow eyes remained wide, his face a mask of stunned horror.
This entire round felt like a nightmare, every moment steeped in incomprehensible madness.
“Even if you have ‘Da Xue,’ that’s ‘1-1-8′! You’re still busted!” Groundhog shouted. “Your other two cards add up to ’12,’ this one’s ’10’—that’s ’22’! Meanwhile, my total is ’21’! I said it at the start—if we’re both busted, you lose!”
Qi Xia shook his head impassively. “Groundhog, I really wish you’d just folded instead of resorting to this pathetic denial.”
“What—”
“I told you—I saw through both your hidden cards. You didn’t believe me.” Qi Xia sighed. “And just now, I warned you to fold. All we wanted was to survive. But you had to call with your ‘eternal servitude’ on the line. Why couldn’t you trust me for once?”
“You son of a—”
Groundhog shot to his feet, his entire body trembling violently. Only now did he finally accept the truth—Qi Xia had seen through everything from the start.
When he thought Qi Xia was still the same old Qi Xia, the man had woven lies. When he thought Qi Xia was a liar, the man had spoken nothing but truth.
His tactics were a perfect mirror of Groundhog’s own “Waxing and Waning Moon” rules—utterly impossible to predict.
Qi Xia pushed his “Chuxi” and “Da Xue” forward and said calmly:
“These two cards total ’16.’ For this round, I’m not using the ‘community cards.'”
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