Chapter 360: Illusion

The gambling game orchestrated by Lu Yibei and Jiang Li was like a rampaging excavator, ruthlessly plowing through the “field of leeks” that was the Dream Come True Entertainment City, taking away a massive amount of chips.

By the third day of the gambling game, the chips in their hands had accumulated to a terrifying extent.

5.87 billion chips.

Typically, when a gambler’s chips reach a certain quantity, they choose to challenge the Big Boss or spend the chips at the exchange to fulfill dreams that don’t require challenging the Big Boss.

Throughout history, no gambler has ever held so many chips.

Faced with this situation, the gold-clad bunny girls managing various affairs in the Entertainment City and the dark lamps responsible for catching cheaters were under constant invisible pressure, almost on the verge of collapse.

The gamblers in the Entertainment City seemed to have gone mad, pouncing on the gambling game like wolves and tigers. At first, the bunny girls were concerned with the outcome of each game, but later, their only worry was the safety of the Entertainment City.

Because losing everything and causing a disturbance was all too common in this Entertainment City.

Usually, the bunny girls and the black-clad guards could handle disturbances well, but in these three days, there were just too many guests who lost all their chips.

The dark lamps were more concerned about whether Lu Yibei and Jiang Li were cheating, but despite racking their brains, they couldn’t find any evidence of cheating.

The only possible clue was their eye contact, but after frame-by-frame analysis of video footage by several cryptography-savvy dark lamps, they found they couldn’t decipher the information contained in their eye contact.

The final conclusion was that the eye contact was merely a medium; there was some high-level connection between Jiang Li and Lu Yibei that they couldn’t sever, forcing them to give up.

What worried the Entertainment City staff the most was that the chips circulating in the Entertainment City were nearly depleted…

The clear lake resembled a priceless sapphire, embedded in the pale and desolate dunes.

In the lake, apart from the Golden-Red Sturgeon and the Snow-White Koi, there were almost no other big fish. They intertwined like yin and yang fish, occupying nearly the entire central area of the lake, exuding an inexplicable harmony, yet this beauty concealed a deadly threat.

The few remaining big fish retreated to the edge of the lake with the fry-like fish schools, fearing any contact with them.

Only the grass carp, continuously emerging from the depths of the lake, kept charging towards the two colossal creatures, like moths to a flame, fearless and reckless.

Thus, their size kept expanding, as if they were about to break the confines of the lake and burst forth to a more distant place.

But, they were ultimately fish; if the lake water breached, they would soon perish on the barren dunes.

A pair of golden eyes, peering through a bizarre mask, watched the fish in the lake, murmuring, “Ah, what a marvelous scene!”

As he spoke, he spread his arms towards the sky, as if to embrace the heavens and earth. His psychic energy fluctuation climbed step by step, reaching its highest and most intense state, with his black robe casting a shadow over the lake like wings that could obscure the sky.

On the third day, at 11:17 a.m., there were twelve hours and thirty-seven minutes left until Jiang Li’s life was exhausted.

Now, almost every guest holding more than five million chips in the Entertainment City had participated in the gambling game organized by Lu Yibei. The remaining few were either rational or had seen through the trick, and wouldn’t participate in the gambling game again for a while.

Thus, after the 724th game, the gambling game entered a period of vacuum.

After waiting for a long time, just as the bunny girl in the room was about to invite the next “victim,” Lu Yibei stopped her.

“…”

Huh? What’s going on?

Did the villain suddenly have a change of heart?

Seeing the puzzled bunny girl about to say something, Lu Yibei gestured for silence and then pointed to Jiang Li, who had fallen into a deep sleep on the gambling table.

“Shh-! She’s asleep, could you pause the gambling game for now?” Lu Yibei whispered.

After speaking, she walked towards Jiang Li under the bunny girl’s ambiguous gaze.

The bunny girls had noticed the intimate interactions between Lu Yibei and Jiang Li over the past few days, imprinting them in their minds. In their idle moments, they concocted a series of gossip scenarios, discussing them during breaks, each one wriggling like little maggots.

Two beautiful girls, with a temporary master-servant relationship, engaging in such intriguing plots-who wouldn’t love it?

Even at the exchange, books like [Wang Buliuxing × Ah-Li: The Forbidden Daily Life of Master and Servant] appeared, available for exchange with ten to twenty chips if you knew the way.

Under mental pressure, both people and hauntings liked to find some amusement to relieve stress.

Just as the bunny girl was about to lock in this CP, Lu Yibei suddenly hugged Jiang Li’s waist, bent her knees slightly, lowered her center of gravity, and with a light exclamation of “Heave-ho, let’s go!” tossed Jiang Li over her shoulder.

The silver-white hair traced a graceful arc in the air, the tips brushing past the bunny girl’s nose, followed by a dull thud as Jiang Li’s forehead hit the gambling table, echoing in her fluffy ears.

Hearing the unusual sound, Lu Yibei glanced around, confirming there was nothing amiss, then looked back at the bunny girl, “I’ll take her to rest for a while, you…”

Noticing the bunny girl’s strange gaze, she paused, tilting her head to ask, “Is there a problem?”

The bunny girl hesitated several times before finally shaking her head expressionlessly. “If there’s no problem, I’ll leave this to you for now. I’m off,” Lu Yibei nodded, speaking as she swaggered out of the room, as if carrying nothing more than a bag of cement on her shoulder.

The bunny girl, “…”

Placing Jiang Li gently onto the large bed in VIP Rest Room 002, Lu Yibei tiptoed to tuck her in, carefully smoothing out the corners of the blanket.

After leaving the bedroom, Lu Yibei raised an eyebrow at Ah-Hua, who was waiting outside the door. “I’ll leave your miss to your care. I have some important business to handle.”

Recalling the red mark on Jiang Li’s forehead when Lu Yibei had carried her out of the private room, Ah-Hua shot Lu Yibei a fierce glare. “You don’t need to tell me. At least I won’t smash her head against the table.”

“Uh…” Lu Yibei was left speechless for a moment, shrugged, and hurried out of the rest room.

She exited the lounge and walked through the silent corridor.

The moment she stepped into the area of the upper three floors’ main hall, the clamor from the gambling tables filled her ears, and Lu Yibei felt a sudden wave of dizziness and pressure in her head.

Is it happening again? Those terrifying, bizarre illusions… Lu Yibei thought helplessly, a trace of melancholy flickering in her eyes.

This wasn’t the first time she’d experienced hallucinations.

Perhaps it was due to the recent overuse of her prediction ability, leaving her eyes extremely fatigued. Ever since the second day of the gambling game, hallucinations had started to appear before her eyes.

It was just like when her vision had first returned, after leaving the hospital.

At first, she saw the marble floor beneath her feet suddenly crack open, revealing an abyss of unfathomable depth beneath the ground.

Then, the seemingly eternal gold began to lose its luster, the dazzling gems crumbled to dust piece by piece.

Later, as she walked the hallways, the lights would suddenly extinguish without warning, and the oil paintings hanging on either side would dissolve into a swirling, chaotic darkness.

The seductive women with half-bare chests painted in the frames seemed to come alive, crawling onto the edge of the frames, reaching out, grasping, pulling, as if trying to drag people into another world.

A world where the living should never set foot.

Or, in the instant the lights flickered back on, all the bunny girls transformed into decaying, flesh-rotten ghouls, shuffling through the hall. The moment they encountered a guest, they would pounce, ravenous for flesh and blood, like a city besieged by zombies.

In short, since the second day, the frequency of Lu Yibei’s illusions had been steadily increasing, and each scene she saw became more and more horrifying.

And now, the situation seemed to have grown even more severe.

The noisy clamor of the hall converged within Lu Yibei’s mind, twisting and distorting, until every moment she could hear the hidden wails, screams, and roars beneath the surface of the sounds.

A burning sensation flickered intermittently in her eyes, as the gilded splendor of the hall rapidly faded away.

Then, sepia-toned illusions began playing out in every corner of the hall, like a series of film reels.

She saw a young boy standing atop a skyscraper’s rooftop, hands trembling as he typed out a farewell message in a gambling addiction support group, then, resolutely, took his final step into the void.

She saw a mother who had lost everything, forced to abandon her swaddled baby and step into a world of neon lights, selling herself and drinking herself into oblivion, only to awaken to a death notice for her child.

She saw hauntings baring their fangs, endlessly committing murders, hands soaked in blood, boarding the Giant Train with filthy, muddied primal spirits in tow.

…

Selfishness, greed, deceit, hypocrisy, affectation, cowardice, betrayal, indifference, decadence, stinginess, rage, vanity, paranoia, depression.

All sorts of negative emotions flooded her mind.

In that instant, it was as if the gates of hell had been torn open before her.

Through the crack, she glimpsed all the evil of the world’s gamblers.

In a daze, Lu Yibei felt something squirming in her pocket. Instinctively, she reached in and pulled out a lump of rotten flesh crawling with maggots.

Horrified, she released it, and a faint sound rang out by her ear.

“Ding-!”

The clear, pleasant chime, like a midnight bell, dispelled all the “magic”-the illusions before Lu Yibei’s eyes instantly vanished.

In the silence, she stared at the scale-shaped emerald lying quietly on the marble floor.

Gazing at the exquisite gem, she seemed to see the mountain of bones piled beneath this extravagantly luxurious Entertainment City.

After a long inner struggle between money and her own life, Lu Yibei swallowed hard, left the emerald where it was, and briskly walked toward the exchange counter in the Entertainment City.

It’s getting worse and worse!

Looks like once this job is done, I really need a good rest before moving on to the next step.

With one flaw patched, her psychic ability had grown stronger. Recently, she’d finally stopped seeing those ghostly illusions. If she kept pushing herself, she’d surely “relapse” again.

Lu Yibei thought, rubbing her dry, itchy eyes.

A moment later, as agreed, Lu Yibei arrived at the exchange counter on the upper three floors of the Entertainment City, where she saw the bunny girl in gold attire, standing as perfectly poised as a statue.

When Lu Yibei walked up, the bunny girl inclined her body slightly and smiled, “Good evening, miss. How may I assist you?”

“I’d like to exchange some items.”

“Certainly. Please wait a moment.” The bunny girl bent down and pulled out a tablet from under the counter, offering it to Lu Yibei with both hands.

Taking the tablet, Lu Yibei didn’t hesitate to open the special items section, where she found “Life Span.” Pointing at that column, she looked at the bunny girl and said, “Excuse me, I’d like to exchange for this.”

The bunny girl gave a knowing smile, her eyes ambiguous, and asked, “Are you still exchanging for Miss Ah-Li?” Indeed, she was part of the army secretly shipping the couple.

Is she planning to eat me? Sensing the bunny girl’s unusual gaze, Lu Yibei muttered inwardly, discreetly taking a step back and nodding, “Yes, I’m exchanging for her.”

“Alright then, hehe!” The bunny girl chuckled softly, casting Lu Yibei a “I understand” look, and quickly calculated the chips needed to exchange life span for Jiang Li.

“Hello, for exchanging ten years of life span for Miss Ah-Li, it requires 1.43 billion chips. Is that acceptable?”

It’s increased again? But now Jiang Li has less than half a day of life left, so according to their calculation method, this is reasonable. Lu Yibei thought to herself and nodded to the bunny girl.

“Exchange!”

“Alright, then I’ll…”

“Wait a minute!”

Just as the bunny girl was about to exchange life span for Jiang Li, Lu Yibei suddenly remembered something and interrupted, “I recall you said the longer the life span, the less valuable it is to exchange, right?”

“Not exactly less valuable, uh… it’s sort of like that.” The bunny girl replied, slightly bewildered.

“Then calculate for me, how many chips are needed to exchange for twenty years.”

The bunny girl rubbed the crystal ball for a while and responded, “It requires 1.64 billion.”

“Forty years then?”

“1.77 billion…”

Lu Yibei pondered for a moment and asked, “How about a hundred years?”

“Uh, 2.03 billion.”

“Alright! Give her a whole hundred years.” Lu Yibei decided.

“Are you sure? Wouldn’t it…” The bunny girl asked, her eyes flashing with a peculiar light.

Is this the domineering master of Miss Ah-Li? So envious! The bunny girl thought.

Does she think I’m foolish for spending so many chips to exchange life span for someone else? Lu Yibei scrutinized the bunny girl and frowned, “Stop the nonsense, don’t worry about it, I’m willing!”

“Alright, I’ll handle it for you…”

“Wait a minute!” Lu Yibei interrupted the bunny girl again.

Does she want to add more? The bunny girl looked at Lu Yibei in confusion, hesitating to speak.

“Do you have emeralds here?” Lu Yibei asked.

“Uh, yes.” The bunny girl replied, still bewildered.

Lu Yibei thought for a moment and said earnestly, “Exchange for the largest piece!”

Hmm, she still couldn’t forget the emerald scale she discarded due to fright earlier.

Bunny girl, “…” Why does she always exchange for some odd things every time she comes?

Having completed the exchange, Lu Yibei returned to the VIP lounge No. 002.

She stood on the corridor outside the VIP lounge, waiting for Jiang Li to wake up while observing the situation in the hall through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Three hours later, she made a startling discovery.

The frequency and severity of the illusions appearing before her eyes had decreased!

Based on the frequency when the gambling game ended in the morning, illusions would appear roughly every hour, but now three hours had passed, and only one illusion appeared, and its severity had significantly decreased.

Why is this happening?

Lu Yibei pondered, carefully sorting through the changes in the past three hours that might have altered the frequency of illusion appearances, her expression becoming serious.

Currently, the most noticeable changes are stopping the use of predictive abilities, giving her eyes a rest, spending a large number of chips, and acquiring a football-sized emerald stone.

Excluding the influence of the emerald, only the options of resting her eyes and spending chips remain.

If it’s the former, that’s fine; if it’s the latter…

Things would become complicated, and she might have to change her original plan. Lu Yibei thought.

Her original plan was to use methods that would affect more guests on the middle three floors and lower three floors to collect more chips.

Ultimately, she aimed to gather most of the chips circulating within Entertainment City, causing guests to be unable to exchange chips normally, thereby allowing her to effectively control the situation in Entertainment City and achieve the goal of shutting it down.

But if having too many chips brings severe side effects, this method might not work.

While Lu Yibei was contemplating, she suddenly heard the sound of a door opening behind her. Turning around, she saw Jiang Li walking out of the lounge.

“Oh, you’re awake? How are you adapting to your new body? Do you feel full of energy, youthful, infinitely limitless, as if you’ve suddenly returned from menopause to adolescence, eager to fall in love with a thunderous romance?”

Listening to Lu Yibei’s trash talk, Jiang Li scrutinized her for a while, frowning.

At this moment, Lu Yibei was still wearing the red and white tactical jacket, but her abdomen had a pocket transformed from a jacket, stuffed with a round emerald stone, resembling a wild Lucky Egg.

“It’s quite shocking.” Jiang Li nodded, then shifted the topic, “I heard from Ah-Hua that you went to exchange life span for me?”

“Yes, exchanged a hundred years!”

Jiang Li was momentarily stunned, “Why exchange so much?”

“Because it’s cost-effective!” Lu Yibei shrugged, “It’s like encountering a supermarket sale with 20% off for one item, 40% off for three items; if you don’t buy, it’s a waste.”

“I even want to go back and exchange another hundred or eighty years for you!”

And test whether the illusions I see are caused by having too many chips… Lu Yibei thought.

Why does she even want to save money on such matters? Jiang Li gave Lu Yibei a sidelong glance and said indifferently, “Living so long, with everyone around you dead, what’s the point?”

“Not everyone will die; there’s still me, right?” Lu Yibei patted her chest, “Hauntings should be able to live a long time, right? How about we see who dies first?”

“…” Jiang Li silently gazed at Lu Yibei for a long time, then nodded slightly, responding, “Hmm.”