Ch31 - Paper Gold

Qu Jinsha’s smile was still kind but the abacus in his heart was already moving. Jiang Fang’s positioning and technique when folding the cards was extremely precise. He was afraid that the large majority of the well-designed magnetic code cards had been reduced to ordinary playing cards. It would be too deliberate and undignified if he proposed to change to a new deck of cards now. According to the rules of the casino, if the newly opened cards weren’t damaged then they could only be replaced after three rounds of use.

He watched the almost completely invalid playing cards being sent into the machine and the sound of the machine shuffling them was heard. Qu Jinsha had heard this sound thousands of times. His heart calmed down listening to it. Originally, he intended to give Jiang Fang a sense of sweetness in the first game. Now it seemed there was no need. Young people were inevitably impetuous. It was good for them to suffer a loss. 

Jiang Fang seemed ignorant of what he was about to face. “Is there a dealer?”

Qu Jinsha didn’t dare underestimate this person but the expression on his face was still casual. “You know about a dealer?”

“You just mentioned it in the rules of Texas hold’em.”

“There can be one. We’ll take turns.” 

“One round each?”

“One round.”

“What are the dealer’s odds?”

“Three times the win or loss.”

“Who will be the first dealer?”

“Should I go first?”

“…Yes.”

After several exchanges, the youthfulness and shyness had faded away from Jiang Fang’s smile. He sat comfortable and calm with one hand on his knee, his pianist-like slender fingers following the symphony flowing in the casino and slowly tapping on his knee. 

“You come first.”

Qu Jinsha smiled in his heart. Qu Jinsha had already seen that this young man had some skills. He knew some casino tricks and understood basic gambling terms. This made him ambitious and he wanted to make a fortune. He might want to pretend to be a pig to eat a tiger but he was too anxious. He couldn’t bear it for a while and was impatient to show off his ability. He was just like a peacock, unwilling to hide his beautiful tail at all.

After re-organizing the slightly messy situation, Qu Jinsha’s desire to raise Jiang Fang increased even more. What was the fun of taming a dog? Wasn’t it interesting to tie up a proud and self-confident puppy who considered himself a wolf and gradually wear away at his dignity and ideals?

Nan Zhou also noticed that Jiang Fang’s temperament had changed in a manner that was hard to describe. Previously, his aggressiveness was very weak. He was always modest, polite and smiling. This gave him a very approachable feeling. Now Jiang Fang sat there alone and was like frozen fire. He looked warm but his insides were proud and cold. The only thing he had in common was that he was always smiling. 

Nan Zhou took a few steps forward and touched Jiang Fang’s arm. Jiang Fang, who had vaguely recovered his past state, turned his head while his heart stirred. He met Nan Zhou’s gaze and the subconsciously tightened muscles of his arms suddenly relaxed. Jiang Fang asked with a smile, “What’s the matter?”

Nan Zhou lowered his head and asked at a modest volume, “What is a dealer?”

This question could be called extremely stupid in a casino. Boos rang out from all sides.

Jiang Fang wasn’t impatient at all and explained it to him in detail. “On the gambling table, the dealer is usually the winner of the previous round while other people are called players. The banker and players take turns to bet. He will be it once, then me and back to him.” 

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

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Jiang Fang wondered, “Do you have any other questions?”

“No, I just want to stand here.”

Jiang Fang looked up at him inquisitively.

“…I want to accompany you.” 

The noisy crowd surrounding him, the warm red velvet carpet, the brilliance of the crystal lights and the opponent ready to start opposite him. Jiang Fang, who was surrounded everywhere, smiled and asked, “Do I look so lonely that I need someone to accompany me?”

“I don’t know.”

Nan Zhou lowered his eyes. “…I just came to stand here.”

Jiang Fang’s heart thumped slightly as this straight ball from Nan Zhou knocked on his heart. He stared at Nan Zhou while a square hole was opened in the center of the card table and a pile of cards was sent out face down, completely shuffled. 

The bunny girl dealer came with a pack of chips. The 10 point chip was yellow, 50 points was blue and 100 points was red.

Li Yinhang saw this and was startled. Wasn’t he only going to bet 100 points? However, Jiang Fang at the gaming table had no objections. The bunny girl took out a copper cane-shaped card hook. She used the hook to thoroughly spread out the shuffled cards.

Qu Jinsha’s eyes quickly skimmed over the cards. He didn’t see a card with a special pattern. The magnetic codes didn’t work. Of course, he had expected this and it wasn’t surprising. He was deliberately checking for whether Jiang Fang took the opportunity to mark the cards when he was holding them.

Qu Jinsha used his excellent eyesight but found that Jiang Fang’s hands and feet were quite clean. This discovery disappointed him a bit. According to the rules of the casino, if a ‘player’ was caught cheating then he or she would have to pay back 10 times the amount they bet. 

Qu Jinsha liked this word game. The guests were the ‘players’ and he was the ‘owner’. How could it be considered cheating if the owner was cheating? He just needed to wait for three rounds to switch to a new set of cards. At that time, Jiang Fang wouldn’t be allowed to touch the new cards again.

Jiang Fang quickly selected a card. Qu Jinsha’s mentality was stable. He casually took a card at the end, moved it in front of him and checked it. It was a 7 of Clubs, a number that wasn’t small or large. There were no surprises.

Qu Jinsha smiled and asked, “Are you going to increase it?”

In front of Jiang Fang was a solitary yellow chip with a face value of 10 points. His expression was still the same after checking the cards and no clues could be seen. He replied, “No.” 

Qu Jinsha’s smile grew wider. The card drawn by the other person must not be very big. It was as Qu Jinsha expected. Jiang Fang turned over the card. It was a 9 of Spades. It was choosing two cards out of 52. It was such an uninteresting, pure gambling luck game.

In the first game, Jiang Fang won in a painless manner. The onlookers let out enthusiastic cheers and gloated at the misfortune. “Oh— the boss lost!”

Boss Qu wasn’t angry or annoyed. He just smiled slightly and put the card back in place. Jiang Fang might’ve won this game but it was an extremely weak victory.

“Too bad.” Qu Jinsha watched his three 10 points chips enter Jiang Fang’s area with the copper hook and put on an expression of regret. “If Xiao Jiang had been a bit more confident just now and raised, your bet would have tripled.” 

Li Yinhang had been immersed in the joy of victory. Now she heard this and the joy was greatly reduced. Yes, the value of 9 was actually quite large. If he had been a bit more confident just now and raised…

Nan Zhou’s voice interrupted her regret. “Why didn’t Boss Qu raise just now? Isn’t it because you weren’t confident enough?”

Qu Jinsha wasn’t annoyed and gently punched back. “Haha, people of my age can’t fight anymore and like to seek stability. I didn’t expect a young person to be so cautious. There isn’t much fighting spirit.”

Jiang Fang completely ignored Qu Jinsha’s soft knife. He put the 9 of Spades in his hand into the deck and once again held the entire deck of cards in his hands. The magnetic code had already been mostly destroyed so Qu Jinsha wasn’t bothered by him. Qu Jinsha just gave a reminder, “Xiao Jiang, the second round is about to start.” 

Jiang Fang’s eyes swept over the cards and he said without lifting his head, “I will take a look.”

Qu Jinsha snorted in his heart. Was this person trying to remember the cards? After a while, Qu Jinsha laughed. “Don’t look at it. The moment it enters the shuffler, it will be shuffled again.”

“I’m not going to mess it up.” During his words, Jiang Fang spread out the fan-shaped deck of cards in front of his face. He covered the lower half of his face while his eyes weren’t smiling. He whispered, “Boss Qu, playing cards have regular patterns. No matter what it looks like, you will see what you should see.”

Qu Jinsha laughed. He didn’t expect this beautiful young man to be so pretentious. It seemed that he was going to do something. 

Then Jiang Fang quickly closed the cards, revealing the bottom half of his face again that contained a sincere smile. This turned the somewhat serious language into a trivial joke.

The 52 cards were fed into the machine again. After a lot of shuffling, the table opened up again and a deck of cards came out. This time, it was Jiang Fang’s turn to be the dealer. If he wanted to plan something, he would’ve seized the opportunity when touching the cards just now.

Qu Jinsha’s narrow but sharp eyes quickly swept over the back of the codes spread out on the card table, trying to find traces of Jiang Fang’s work. Who would’ve thought that he would have an unexpected gain during the search. Magnetic code! On the 13th card from the left, there was a slight color change unique to the magnetic code being recognized!

The difference was as small as the 70th and 80th levels in a color identifying game. How small was it? It was so small that if this cheat card was put in front of everyone and they were told this was a problematic card, it would be difficult for ordinary people to identify the source of the cheating. 

That previous fold from Jiang Fang really failed to destroy all the magnetic codes! The first time, the slightly damaged magnetic code wasn’t recognized by the machine. The second time, the magnetic code successfully passed the magnetic screen.

Qu Jinsha’s face didn’t change despite his happiness. He considered it carefully before taking out the card that represented victory. The goddess of luck was on his side! Qu Jinsha was calm at this thought and wasn’t in a hurry to check his card. He asked Jiang Fang sitting opposite him, “Little dealer, have you chosen?”

Jiang Fang checked the selected card in front of him. Then he immediately turned to the side, took a red chip with a face value of 100 points and put it in the chips grid along with the 40 chips from the previous game.

Qu Jinsha sneered in his heart. After winning a game by luck and being stimulated by him, this Jiang Fang felt really confident. Qu Jinsha added the same chip as him and asked, “Are you going to add more?” 

“Ahh…” Jiang Fang learned from Nan Zhou’s tone and took another red chip. He held it between his thumb and index finger in the posture of holding a go stone. Then he put the chip in the grid. “Add this.”

Qu Jinsha wasn’t afraid. He added the same chip and gave a kind reminder, “Jiang Fang, don’t add anymore. If you lose, you will have to pay three times the amount since you are the dealer.”

Jiang Fang heard this and raised a hand to his ear. His palm faced Qu Jinsha and his fingers shook lightly. There was a red chip between his pinky and ring finger! He dropped the red chip into the grid and repeated, “Add this.”

Qu Jinsha’s heart suddenly tensed when he saw this. The magnetic code would only help the table identify the largest ones among the 52 cards. Did this person draw a 2 as well? Did he win with the suit? Was it the biggest 2 of Spades? 

Qu Jinsha was about to quietly open his card to check and confirm when he saw Jiang Fang turning over his card. It was a 9 of Hearts.

Qu Jinsha, “……”

He almost choked up. After a brief consternation, it took him a great deal of effort to contain his desire to laugh. This was it? It was the same 9 as last time! How could Qu Jinsha expect that his casual provocation would be so useful?

He saw a certain victory and his strong desire to play rose again. Didn’t Jiang Fang like to pretend to be a pig to eat a tiger? Why didn’t Qu Jinsha pretend himself and let him experience the taste of being sucked to the bones. 

Qu Jinsha forcibly suppressed the corners of his mouth and added the chips to the grid. He pretended to be the same generous and honest elder as he said, “Your hand is really good. Then… I’ll look at mine.”

He opened the winning card in front of him. Qu Jinsha didn’t look at the card. He stared at Jiang Fang’s face, wanting to see first-hand the stunned defeat, unwilling anger and morbid fanaticism for a comeback after the fiasco.

—However, there was nothing. The expression he expected didn’t come. The curve of Jiang Fang’s mouth didn’t change in any way. He was like a precision-trained instrument. Everything was stable and just right.

In the midst of the surrounding cheers, a chill suddenly ran down Qu Jinsha’s spine. It was wrong! He lowered his head sharply and his throat twitched. The psychological feeling of falling from the sky almost made him let out a muffled hiccup. The thing that entered his eyes was the smallest card in the deck. 

It was a 3 of Clubs. How come? How could it become like this?!

In Qu Jinsha’s dilated pupils, Jiang Fang raised a hand to hold his cheek. Jiang Fang didn’t say that while wandering around the casino previously, he discovered the secret behind the playing cards used uniformly by the casino. He didn’t say that he took a 3 of Clubs from the discarded cards that had been scanned and used. After being a dealer for four years, Jiang Fang had the habit of keeping a casino playing card as a souvenir.

Then once he was invited to gamble by Qu Jinsha, Jiang Fang developed a plan in mind. In the game where this 3 of Clubs was taken from, it was one of the most needed and largest cards in that game. However, in the rules of big and small, the 3 of Clubs was always the smallest one. So…

“Let’s play a simple game.” 

“Boss Qu is so lucky. I want to gamble with Boss Qu.”

“Just… how about big and small?”

The moment he held all the cards the second time and determined the position of 3 of Clubs, Jiang Fang’s wrist slightly tilted and the card that had the magnetic code on the back easily slid into the deck. The moment he turned it over, he made the exchange.

Sure enough, Boss Qu only cared about whether he made a mark or not and ignored the trap made by his cheating hands. 

Jiang Fang smiled while holding his cheek, his light colored eyes filled with humility and a cold light. He said, “Boss Qu, playing cards have regular patterns.”

“No matter what it looks like, you will see what you should see.” Then Jiang Fang’s fingers brushed over the three bright red chips the bunny girl’s copper hook cane brought to him and asked with a smile, “Isn’t that right?”