Chapter 362: Chips Are Not the Key, Exchange Is the Key

Legend has it that the descendants of Noah once built a towering structure in an attempt to touch the radiance of the divine, only to invite catastrophic disaster upon themselves.

After that bold speculation flashed through her mind, Lu Yibei looked again at the white spiral staircase that could be seen from almost anywhere on the upper three floors of the Entertainment City. Suddenly, it seemed to her to carry a faint resemblance to the Tower of Babel.

The guests who came here ascended the stairs with high hopes, seeking methods to fulfill their desires. Little did they know that their wishes had already been secretly priced by the Big Boss.

When they left the Dream Come True Journey, misfortune would inevitably descend upon them. This matched the records in the archives of The Midnight Watchers Society.

Lu Yibei had initially thought that those who left here seemingly satisfied, only to later commit suicide, had done so because they had gone mad. But now, it seemed more likely that they had been eroded by the malice of the world, leading to their ultimate demise.

If these chips could be destroyed, would that solve the problem?

Wait, that might not work!

Although she didn’t know why Lanruo Inn Customs Shop and Cinnabar Pharmacy had adopted these chips as their primary currency, both establishments were backed by Eldritch Destroyers. They couldn’t possibly be unaware of the nature of these chips. Given this, their continued use of the chips must have deeper implications.

If she rashly destroyed the chips, it might provoke their wrath. She couldn’t even handle one boss, let alone two. This venture could very well end here.

As Lu Yibei pondered, Liu Seer, now dressed in clean clothes, emerged from the bathhouse and stopped beside her, cupping his hands in a polite gesture.

“Girl, the next train is leaving in an hour. I should be on my way. Take care of yourself in this godforsaken place. We’ll meet again someday…”

“Wait!” Lu Yibei interrupted Liu Seer’s farewell, suddenly recalling something important. “Don’t leave just yet! I have something crucial to ask you!”

If Liu Seer left now, she wasn’t sure if he’d ever return to Mudan Street. If he didn’t, who knew when they’d meet again?

There was a question she absolutely had to ask. She feared that if she didn’t, she might never get the chance.

Liu Seer scrutinized Lu Yibei, noting her reluctant and expectant expression. With a troubled look, he said, “Girl, you’re not trying to make me stay, are you?”

“You know what kind of place this is. I wouldn’t dare linger here!”

“If there’s anything else I can do for you, I can only offer to read your fortune.”

“No, no!” Lu Yibei waved her hands, hesitating for a moment before leaning closer to Liu Seer and whispering, “Does your… uh… resilience to beatings… can it be taught?”

To have discovered the Big Boss’s secret, been ambushed by black-clad guards, tortured, and still managed to escape alive-this wasn’t something just anyone could pull off.

If she could learn this life-saving skill, max out her defense, wouldn’t she be invincible?! Lu Yibei thought excitedly.

Liu Seer: “???”

This girl must have lost her mind.

What resilience to beatings? Where would I even get such a skill?

Unless… should I send her to the overpass to tell fortunes and get beaten up?

Lu Yibei trailed after Liu Seer from the Dream Come True Entertainment City all the way to the train station. She tried everything-threats, bribes, traps, even acting cute and pitiful-but failed to extract anything useful from him.

As the Giant Train roared out of the station, she left the platform, dejected.

Outside the train station, a tram had just departed, leaving the tram stop leading to the Dream Come True Entertainment City completely deserted.

Standing by the signpost, Lu Yibei gazed at the distant, resplendent skyscraper. She shrugged and began walking.

The distance from the train station to the Entertainment City wasn’t too far. She decided to walk back, using the time to sort through the chaotic thoughts swirling in her mind.

It was evening, yet not a trace of sunlight could be seen in the city. Layers of dark clouds piled up in the sky, and a fine drizzle seemed never-ending. A cold wind carrying dampness swept through the city, causing strange-colored mold to grow on the gray walls of buildings, making them look like they’d been vandalized with graffiti.

In many places, dirty water pooled on the streets, and trash was strewn about. Ragged homeless people hid in corners, watching something intently.

Merchants set up stalls on the filthy ground, selling food while mosquitoes and flies buzzed around, seemingly eager to claim their share.

One moment, a street performer might be strumming a guitar by the roadside; the next, they could pull a gun from beneath the instrument and start robbing passersby.

And on the streets of this city, the most ubiquitous sight was the countless, unregulated gambling games.

The city’s streets were relatively wide, but there was clearly no sense of order. Violent crimes and scams were rampant. For safety, Lu Yibei released a wave of psychic energy early on, avoiding the fate of being struck from behind.

Of course, if some foolhardy individual did try to ambush her, they’d likely face the upgraded Alchemical Bomb she had ready in her palm…

As she walked through the city, Lu Yibei kept thinking.

She felt there might be some error in her earlier assumptions.

Was it too far-fetched to think that the malice of the world could be condensed into a physical form and extracted?

According to Black Peony, the malice of the world was an intangible, elusive concept. If the Big Boss could truly capture and extract it, he wouldn’t need to hide here. Even in the outside world, he could transfer misfortune to others in this way.

The fact that he remained here suggested he couldn’t directly extract the world’s malice and forcibly transfer it to others.

Could it be that the chips weren’t the key issue? Lu Yibei wondered.

Based on The Midnight Watchers Society’s archives, those who left the Dream Come True Entertainment City encountered misfortune only after their wishes were granted. By then, they likely no longer had any chips.

On the other hand, many guests left the Dream Come True Journey without spending all their chips, yet they didn’t experience misfortune during the time they were away.

Could it be…

As Lu Yibei pondered, feeling as though she was on the verge of grasping the key to the mystery, a sudden voice interrupted her thoughts.

“Hey, you! Gamble with me!”

The voice, tinged with a hint of youthfulness, came from not far ahead. Following the sound, she saw a petite, delicate girl standing in the middle of the road, blocking her path.

The girl’s small face was smudged with dirt, but her delicate features were still evident. She wore a tattered cloak of indiscernible color, and from beneath it, a pair of mottled, furry calf hooves peeked out. The hooves tapped nervously against the ground, producing a soft “tap-tap” sound.

Her psychic energy fluctuation was too weak, even weaker than a Class D haunting, so much so that Lu Yibei hadn’t even noticed her entering the range of her psychic sense.

Lu Yibei tilted her head as she looked at the girl, unable to resist complaining inwardly.

Is this supposed to be a female Bull-headed man, or perhaps a cow-girl?

The girl noticed that Lu Yibei was really looking over at her, a flicker of panic flashed in her eyes, and a blush appeared beneath her sallow cheeks as she hurriedly used the card in her hand to cover her face.

She had only wanted to try her luck, thinking Lu Yibei didn’t look like someone from the street, but she hadn’t expected a real response, and now her heart was in a fluster.

“Uh… Big sister, do-do you want to have a gambling game with me?”

Lu Yibei glanced at the paper card in the girl’s hand, frowning slightly.

On it, scribbled in crooked handwriting, were the words: [Flower Card Guessing, Small Bets, Big Wins! 1 chip per round.]

Lu Yibei looked at the girl with interest and said, “Flower card guessing? How do you play this?”

She hadn’t tried the street gambling games here yet, and it seemed like it might be fun.

Maybe she would even discover something new in the process, Lu Yibei thought to herself.

Facing the haunting before her with a terrifying psychic energy fluctuation, the girl swallowed hard and stammered out her explanation.

“It’s… I have a set of flower cards here with images of flowers, birds, insects, fish, and the four seasons. I’ll deal three cards, and you guess. If you bet on the right season, you get double; peony, triple; and if you guess the peacock, it’s, uh…”

“Oh, right, five times!”

Lu Yibei: “……”

Little sister, you don’t seem to be very familiar with your own business, do you?

And you’re bold enough to set up a street gambling game? There must be some kind of trick here, right?

Who cares, let’s win a few rounds first. I won’t go easy on her just because she looks cute!

With that in mind, Lu Yibei raised an eyebrow at the girl. “Let’s start, then!”

As she spoke, she took a handful of chips from her jacket pocket-the leftovers from playing the slot machine earlier.

Though there were only two or three hundred chips, it was more than enough for this girl’s gambling game.

The girl nervously approached Lu Yibei, fished out a set of yellowed cards from her tattered cloak, spread the paper card on the ground, squatted nearby, and clumsily shuffled the cards a few times before dealing three cards.

Seeing this, Lu Yibei squatted down, picked out a chip, placed it on the card, and reached out to flip one of the cards.

On the card was a vividly displayed peacock in full plume.

Staring at the card, the girl seemed dazed, frozen in place until Lu Yibei spoke up to remind her.

“Looks like I won, right? Shouldn’t you be giving me five chips?”

“……” The girl’s face was extremely unsightly as she dug out five chips from her cloak and handed them over, her small hands clutching the chips unwillingly. Lu Yibei had to put in quite some effort to “snatch” them away.

“Let’s keep going!”

With that, Lu Yibei immediately placed the five-value chip on the card.

The girl bit her pale lips, forced herself to finish shuffling, and dealt three more cards in front of Lu Yibei.

The next moment, Lu Yibei picked out a card of the Spring season.

It was simply too easy to win chips from this girl. Aside from using some simple shuffling tricks, Lu Yibei didn’t even need to use any special abilities. All she had to do was predict just a little, and she’d know which of the three cards was the winning card.

Yet, the girl didn’t notice anything odd. Instead, she seemed even more riled up. After paying out the chips, she shuffled and dealt again, eyes reddening as she said to Lu Yibei, “Again!”

“No, I don’t want to continue.” Lu Yibei said, picking up the chips from the ground, weighing them in her hand, then stashing them away as she turned to leave.

She hadn’t found anything different in these street gambling games compared to the Entertainment City. Continuing this was meaningless.

As Lu Yibei walked away, the girl called out tearfully, “Wait! Big sister, please, just one more round?!”

However, her call only brought mocking jeers from the other street gambling stall owners watching nearby.

“Orange, I think you’d better stop calling out. That person is obviously far better than you. Even if your half-dead old man came, he’d still lose!”

“Exactly, exactly. Look at who you’re dealing with. If you keep pestering, you might lose your life.”

“If you ask me, you’d be better off trying your luck in the Entertainment City. There, you have a better chance of achieving your wish.”

……

Wish?

Lu Yibei, who hadn’t gone far, paused at that word, thought for a few seconds, then turned back to the girl.

Seeing Lu Yibei return, the girl hurriedly said, “Big sister, have you changed your mind? Do you-do you want to gamble again?”

“Mm.” Lu Yibei nodded. “But before we start, I have to ask you something. Why did you set up this stall? What’s your wish?”

“I…” The girl opened her mouth, lowered her head, and muttered softly, “To help my dad get better, so my little brother can eat his fill… and… to get a new dress.”

“Then why don’t you try your luck in the Entertainment City?” Lu Yibei pressed. “You could achieve those things there too, right?”

Besides, the odds are better going up against gambling machines than running a street gambling game here, Lu Yibei thought to herself.

“No, no!” The girl’s eyes widened as she shook her hands frantically. “My dad got sick after exchanging something in there, and he said if he’d known, he would have just spent the chips outside.”

“If I go in, I might get into trouble too.”

Got sick after exchanging… should have spent the chips outside…

Lu Yibei mulled over these words, and it was as if a flash of lightning struck her mind-she suddenly understood.

So that’s how it is!

These chips were probably just a kind of medium.

The chips aren’t the key-the exchange is the key!

Thinking this, Lu Yibei took out two ten-value chips and placed them in front of the girl, then turned to look toward Dream Come True Entertainment City. “Come on, let’s start, shall we?”

“This…” The girl stared at the twenty chips in front of her, her face turning pale.

Twenty chips in total-if she lost them, even selling herself wouldn’t be enough to pay it back.

But…

At this point, there was no other way.

Trembling, the girl finished shuffling, and dealt three cards in front of Lu Yibei.

Expressionless, Lu Yibei looked at the girl, her fingertip pausing for a moment on the card she’d predicted to be the peacock, before sliding it to the side and flipping over a card marked with a cricket…