owlsbooks Chapter 88
Chapter 88
Chapter 88: The Daughter of the Gambling God and the Man of Fortune
Bang! Bang!
The gunshots from downstairs rang out clearly in the silent dead of night.
"Heh..."
Tiffany swirled the red wine glass in her hand.
【Tiffany—7th Seat·Gambler】
"Someone actually dares to fire a gun in this hospital at this hour?"
"Truly a death-seeking fool."
She couldn't be bothered to listen further. That kind of idiot was destined not to last 3 minutes.
"Those Supervisors' eyes are practically blind in the dark—they can only track prey by sound."
"Making that much noise...it's an utterly moronic act of suicide."
Tiffany sank back into the bathtub, closed her eyes, and savored the gentle haze of music and wine.
Just then.
Ding-ling-ling!
A chime sounded from the wall nearby.
There was a private elevator there, connected directly to the floors above and below—also within the bounds of this Safe Zone.
Tiffany didn't even lift her eyelids. She simply reached out, picked up a Ghost Coin from the table without looking, and flicked it with her finger.
Whoosh!
The Ghost Coin struck the elevator's open button.
Swish.
The elevator doors slid open.
Out stepped a short-haired woman in a suit, a black eyepatch covering her left eye.
Piano Cassone
She strode quickly to Tiffany's bathtub and dropped to one knee without hesitation, her posture utterly submissive.
"Piano Cassone, Daughter of the Gambling God from the Frankish Nation, Arashin-kai probationary member."
"Presenting you with my most sincere greetings..."
Piano lowered her head and pressed her lips to the back of Tiffany's still-dripping foot.
"My dear Master...Lady Tiffany."
Tiffany gazed down at her, eyes carrying the look of someone watching a dog wag its tail and beg.
"What's your record?"
Piano placed her hand over her chest and answered respectfully.
"65 wins, 4 losses, my dear Master."
"You lost 4 games?"
A faint furrow crossed Tiffany's brow, her disdain on full display.
"I suppose that's barely passable."
"That title of yours—'Daughter of the Gambling God'...is nothing more than mediocre."
The fist Piano had resting on her knee clenched violently, her nails digging into her flesh.
But when she lifted her face, it was wreathed in a fawning smile.
"You're right, Master."
"I still have much room to improve."
"Yes, you certainly do."
Crash!
Tiffany suddenly raised her foot and kicked Piano clean off her knees!
Immediately after, she took the expensive glass of red wine in her hand and poured it directly over Piano's head!
"Compared to that so-called 'Silk-Stocking Desperado'...you are absolute trash!"
Tiffany scoffed coldly.
"If she weren't unwilling to join the Arashin-kai, do you think this probationary spot would have come to you? Do you think you're even worthy?"
"Be grateful for my charity, you waste."
The red wine trickled down Piano's cheeks, leaving her in a miserable state.
"Yes...yes..."
Piano gritted her teeth, kept her head bowed, let the wine drip, and replied in a trembling voice.
"You know that—so why aren't you leaving?"
Tiffany refilled her glass and waved her hand in disgust.
"Stop standing here offending my eyes!"
"If you lose more than 5 times before winning 100 games...don't bother coming to see me!"
"I have no use for trash like you!"
"Yes...Master. I will complete your requirements without fail."
Piano scrambled and crawled her way out of the room and into the elevator.
……
As the elevator doors slowly closed and cut off Tiffany's line of sight—
Bang!
Piano drove her fist into the elevator wall, and the fawning expression on her face vanished in an instant.
"That damned blonde bimbo!!"
"One day...I will make you pay for this!!"
"How dare she humiliate me like this!!"
She wiped the red wine from her face, the hatred in her eyes nearly gushing out.
"And that damned Silk-Stocking Desperado..."
"Don't think I can't recognize you just because you've got a stocking over your head!!"
"Living it up on gambling techniques you stole from me..."
"I'll make you spit back every last bit—with interest!!"
Piano raged in impotent fury.
She had once been a celebrated genius girl across the Frankish Nation—the biological daughter of the Gambling God himself.
But 10 years ago, in the recklessness of youth, she had been lured and set up by her own family while traveling through Huaxia, tricked into opening an underground casino.
She had even been framed and implicated in a contraband trafficking case.
Sentenced directly to 10 years in prison!
She had spent the most precious years of her youth behind bars, suffering every kind of humiliation.
She'd barely managed to endure until her sentence was served and she was released—only for that very same day to bring the mass transmigration of the entire world's population!
And now she had to be stepped on by a bunch of nobodies. Could her luck get any worse?!
"Forget it..."
Piano took a deep breath and straightened out her soaked clothing.
'I should just go finish this blonde bimbo's task first...'
'Without that, there's no getting out of this hospital!'
'As long as I can get my hands on that thing...I can turn this all around!'
Ding!
8th floor.
Piano stepped out of the elevator and walked straight to the Card Room on this level.
She kept her expression cold, pulled out a chair at an empty Mahjong table, and sat down.
Then she reached into her jacket, pulled out a pouch of Ghost Coins, and slammed it heavily onto the table.
Hum!
Black smoke rose in drifting plumes.
The slot machine at the center of the table materialized again, spinning wildly.
A few seconds later.
Ding!
The symbols locked into place on【Joker】.
"Heh."
Piano smiled.
This was exactly her strongest game—High-Low.
The rules were simple: 4 players drew cards in turn, 3 being the lowest and the Big Joker the highest.
3 rounds made 1 game, with the highest point total taking everything.
You could only leave once a game was over!
Otherwise, a fine of 2,000 Ghost Coins would be levied!
If you couldn't pay, you'd be dragged away and have your Gundam Parts harvested on the spot!
Whoosh!
Two gusts of yin wind swept past.
Two ghost silhouettes materialized on her left and right.
None other than our old familiar ghosts—the Bank Ghost and the Thief Ghost.
Only now, both of them looked utterly wretched.
Their already lifeless faces were written all over with misery.
Most noticeably, both their left wrists were bare and empty.
The records above their heads had also grown somewhat "uglier."
Bank Ghost【53/10】
Thief Ghost【79/9】
"Oh?"
Piano had gambled alongside them before. At the sight of the two ghosts' sorry states, she couldn't help but taunt them.
"Isn't this the 'Guard-Turned-Thief' duo?"
"What happened? Lost a hand each? Who chopped them off and served them as a side dish?"
The two ghosts' expressions darkened, and neither spoke.
In truth, these two ghosts were thick as thieves.
They frequently teamed up together, but at the gambling table they'd pretend not to know each other.
They'd even deliberately attack one another to throw off suspicion, while secretly coordinating underneath.
To avoid being found out, they'd also individually sandbag their win rates, preventing their identical records from scaring off the fat sheep.
Among them:
The Bank Ghost's ability was【Dispatch Management】.
It could, according to its own wishes, reshuffle the order during its phase.
The Thief Ghost's ability was【Swap Under Heaven】.
It could exchange cards however it pleased—either swapping with others or offloading its own bad cards onto someone else.
'A pair of real sneaky bastards.'
Piano laughed coldly in her heart:
'But today...you two can only keep being my punching bags.'
'Might as well use you to pad my record and give that awful woman something to see!'
The two ghosts were looking dejected at this point, trading glances with each other.
"What rotten luck lately—lost to that Silk-Stocking lunatic, barely recovered from our injuries, and now we run into this Daughter of the Gambling God."
"Still...we know this woman's tricks. It's not a guaranteed loss!"
"Besides...there's still one person who hasn't shown up yet..."
The gambling game had a hidden rule: the ratio of humans to ghosts had to be exactly 1 to 1.
Right now there were 2 ghosts and 1 human.
So that last empty chair was guaranteed to be filled by a human.
Just then.
Hum!!
A thick plume of black smoke rose from the chair across from Piano.
Every person and ghost turned to look.
The smoke cleared.
And revealed a face that made anyone who looked at it feel an overwhelming sense of effortless superiority.
It was an Eastern face flawless beyond all criticism.
Sword-sharp brows, starlit eyes, a high and proud nose bridge, with a contemptuous smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
The expression was absolutely punchable—yet his looks, which soared clean off the scale, perfectly compensated for that flaw.
It even made people feel...
Someone this handsome had every right to act that arrogant.’
"Snifffff..."
Piano was completely transfixed.
She felt a warmth surge through her nasal cavity, and two streams of nosebleed trickled down before she could stop them.
Her hands moved involuntarily downward as she pressed her knees together.
She had been thrown into prison at the height of her adolescence.
Ten full years without seeing a single decent-looking man.
No one could understand the repression and longing bottled up inside her!
Even this hospital had its share of male prisoners.
But how could any of those sorry specimens compare to the peerless specimen before her?
She was, after all, hopelessly appearance-obsessed.
‘A perfect specimen...an absolute perfect specimen...’
Piano's eyes grew hazy as she licked her lips.
At the same time, she noticed the record floating above this man's head.
【0/0】
‘Still a total rookie?’
The fire in Piano's eyes blazed even hotter.
'This game...'
'I'm going to clean this pretty boy out completely! Run him into a mountain of debt!'
'And then...buy him.'
'Fit him with a collar...keep him as my personal pet...and do whatever I please with him night after night!!'
The two ghosts were absolutely overjoyed as well.
A newcomer with a 0-win rate?
They got to bully a newbie again?!
This was absolutely wonderful!
However.
The very next moment.
Something that left them stunned happened.
BANG!!!
A massive crash.
This newcomer who looked like a pretty boy.
Simply reached down, grabbed a black bag, and slammed it dead center onto the gambling table!
The entire table shuddered violently from the impact!
"......"
The smiles on the faces of all 2 ghosts and 1 human vanished in an instant.
Because every single one of them felt it—a crushing pressure, the gaze of a superior looking down upon insects.
Jiang Nan pressed one hand onto the 500 Ghost Coin fortune he had put up his entire body as collateral to obtain.
He leaned forward, swept his eyes across every face at the table, and flicked a notepad slip onto the surface.
【I'm in a hurry. You might as well just concede now.】