Chương 97: Book 2 Chapter 11: Win

Half an hour later, Mo Jian had already folded nine times and only barely clawed out two miserable wins, earning a pitiful twenty mid-grade spirit stones. He was on the verge of tearing his hair out in frustration. Duan Cheng wasn't even bothering to hide his blatant cheating. The man was doing it openly and shamelessly. Granted, Mo Jian wasn't exactly innocent himself, but that was beside the point entirely. There were rules to these things.

An unspoken code between gamblers, a kind of professional dignity that separated civilized men from animals. You cheated, yes. Everyone cheated. But you did it with discretion. You had the basic decency to at least pretend you weren't. It was the principle of the matter, and Duan Cheng was trampling it without a second thought. They sat facing each other, playing a two-player version of madiao.

The moment the game started, Duan Cheng had reached into his robes and calmly set his natal artifact – the Thousand Faced Die, as he'd introduced – on the table between them. It was a die, forged from pure gold, catching the qi light in warm, shifting gleams, its surface alive with motion. The spots on it never stayed still.

Numbers rearranged themselves in a constant, silent dance, cycling and recycling as though driven by some restless inner current, as though the die itself was thinking, planning, and then tilting the world around it in small and invisible ways. And then- Duan Cheng just started using it, right in front of him. Mo Jian had been stunned speechless for a full breath at the shamelessness. This was his first time seeing such a… ridiculously specific natal artifact.

He didn't fully understand what it did, but he strongly suspected its abilities revolved around luck, or perhaps even the manipulation of probability. Otherwise, how could his draws be this cursed? Every single card he picked up was trash, while Duan Cheng lazily pieced together flawless hands like he was picking fruit off a tree.

The only thing keeping Mo Jian in the game at all was the Netherworld Scorpion resting on the edge of the table, quiet and invisible to any eye but his own, and secretly feeding him every detail of Duan Cheng's hand. If not for its presence, he would have already lost everything he'd earned the previous day. Each round carried a minimum wager of ten spirit stones, and even when he glimpsed a chance at victory, he rarely had the cards, or the confidence, to raise the stakes.

"Fold," he said again through gritted teeth. His pitiful set of Rounds was no match for Duan Cheng's flawless spread of Myriads. If he had actually played that hand, he would have been slaughtered without mercy, and be ten mid-grade spirit stones poorer for it. Duan Cheng nodded as if it were only natural. After twelve rounds, it practically was. Mo Jian refused to believe the man had any inkling of how he was cheating.

The Netherworld Scorpion was far too obscure and too far-fetched a thing for anyone to even consider. But that Mo Jian was cheating? That much was obvious. After all, even with his abysmally bad cards, he hadn't lost a single spirit stone the whole time. His patience was another matter, and possibly so was his sanity. Which was exactly the problem. Mo Jian's eyes narrowed slightly. He was starting to suspect this was Duan Cheng's real objective all along.

Either the man was probing for his method, or he was deliberately pushing him toward a breaking point. Either way, Duan Cheng stood to gain. Mo Jian refused to lose. He straightened, resolve hardening, even as his newly drawn hand revealed itself to be just as miserable as the last: two Rounds, one Myriad, and a scattering of Tens. He had not seen a single Honor card ever since the game began, unless one counted "seeing" as peeking at Duan Cheng's cards.

That man, on the other hand, seemed to draw Honors as if they were eager to leap into his grasp like honored guests, well-fed and comfortable. Once, Mo Jian had even watched him discard one – yes, discard it – in favor of a Myriad. It nearly made him cough up blood. Here was Mo Jian, scrambling for his life with a hand full of rubbish, and his opponent was so thoroughly bored by his own good fortune that he was throwing away his best tiles in favor of worse ones. The sheer, breathtaking audacity of it.

As they began dealing the next hand, Duan Cheng suddenly spoke.

"I'm impressed, Fellow Daoist. After so many rounds, I think I understand what you're doing." His voice was thoughtful, almost conversational. His gaze remained steady.

"You can see my cards." He let the statement hang for a brief moment, but not long enough for denial or protest. Mo Jian wasn't even sure he would have bothered. Not when Duan Cheng himself was cheating so openly.

"What I don't understand," Duan Cheng continued, lightly tapping the table, "is how. These cards are crafted from the hide of spirit beasts, reinforced against spiritual sense. Any overt use of qi would be obvious, and easily detected. So… how are you doing it?" Mo Jian didn't answer right away. He was aware, peripherally, of the others: off to the side near the counter, far enough to grant a semblance of privacy, yet close enough to watch everything, sat Bai Ning and Su Lianhua.

Both had their eyes fixed on the table. Su Lianhua's expression had grown progressively more hollow as the game wore on, her hope quietly curdling into something closer to despair, while Bai Ning's, in contrast, showed a rising curiosity, her attention sharpening at the table in a way that looked idle to anyone who didn't know her. A short distance behind them stood Duan Cai and the other man who served Duan Cheng.

Duan Cai kept his head lowered, still staring at his feet, not daring to look up after being silenced earlier. The other man, the one whose name Mo Jian hadn't bothered to learn, watched the table with narrow, calculating eyes. He considered his options. He could feign outrage. He could deny everything with righteous indignation and turn the accusation neatly back around. It was even a decent play, under different circumstances. But the thought passed just as quickly as it came. What was the point? They both knew.

If he truly intended to play that game, he would have protested the instant Duan Cheng brought out that absurd natal artifact. That moment had established a kind of silent compact: we are both cheating, and we both know it, and we are proceeding anyway. He shrugged instead, a loose and unhurried motion.

"Why would I tell you that? You can't see through it. That's your failing, not mine." Duan Cheng received this without visible reaction, though the faintest tension gathered at the corner of his mouth, the first genuine sign of irritation Mo Jian had seen from him.

"As you say, Fellow Daoist," he replied, and his voice remained perfectly even.

"In matters of cultivation, I freely admit you are my superior." His fingers paused over the tiles.

"However… this is the capital. Here, among cultivators of the same realm, it is everything other than cultivation that truly matters." Mo Jian felt a flash of genuine irritation move through him, not because the statement was wrong, but because it had the ring of a prepared argument, something Duan Cheng had said before, believed deeply, and perhaps used to justify the shape of his uncaring ambitions. He clicked his tongue.

"Is that so? Then how is it working out for you right now? I don't see you winning either." He paused, let that breathe, and then made a small, conceding noise.

"Still… fair enough. It's not just cultivation that matters." His gaze sharpened.

"So how about we settle this on luck?" Duan Cheng, midway through drawing a tile, stilled. One brow rose, interest flickering across his face.

"I'm tired of wasting time," Mo Jian said bluntly.

"Let's make this the final round. We wager everything, the entire five hundred mid-grade spirit stones." He leaned forward slightly.

"We'll draw and discard as usual, but with no limits. Either of us can call the round at any time if we think we have a winning hand. The other can fold, or play. We keep going until one of us wins." A faint smile tugged at his lips.

"What do you say?" Duan Cheng's gaze drifted, just briefly, to the golden die resting at his elbow. Its surface continued its ceaseless shimmer, spots migrating across its face in slow, hypnotic patterns. Amusement touched the edges of his expression.

"A game of luck," he murmured, as though tasting the words.

"You do know how to make tempt me, Fellow Daoist." He looked back up.

"Very well. I agree. Shall I deal?" Mo Jian raised a hand.

"Wait one moment. I need to make a small preparation." Without further explanation, he summoned the Heaven Enshrouding Ding. It emerged from his body like a mote of light, no larger than a spark, and then rapidly expanded into the size of an ordinary cauldron, hovering above the table. Its dark blue-black surface shimmered, before dissolving into translucent radiance. The light swelled outward, growing larger and larger, until it enveloped both men and the entire table. Its three legs sank into the floor.

Its lid rose nearly to the ceiling. In an instant, a massive, bell-shaped barrier of pure blue qi enclosed them, translucent as fine glass and absolute as iron, sealing the space within. Mo Jian smiled pleasantly at Duan Cheng's brief look of surprise.

"Just a precaution," he said lightly.

"Surely you don't mind." If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Duan Cheng met his gaze, frowning faintly. Then, his eyes flicked back to his natal artifact. The thought moving through his head was obvious. Mo Jian was trying to suppress the Thousand-Faced Die. However, Duan Cheng had not climbed to his current position by being cautious to the point of cowardice.

He would have confidence, no, certainty, in his strength, in his cultivation, and in the artifact he had refined. They were in the same stage of the same realm. The difference could not possibly be so vast that his natal artifact would be suppressed like a mere toy. Or so he would think, Mo Jian presumed. Duan Cheng's expression smoothed out. Without another word, he resumed dealing. He drew a card for himself, adding it neatly to his hand, then gestured for Mo Jian to take his turn.

Mo Jian grinned, all swagger, and jabbed a thumb over his shoulder.

"Oh, I won't be drawing." His eyes gleamed.

"She will." Bai Ning, who had been sitting quietly near the counter, blinked in surprise. Then she rose smoothly to her feet, offering Su Lianhua a reassuring smile before walking over. The barrier formed by the Heaven Enshrouding Ding let her pass without so much as a ripple. She came to a stop beside Mo Jian, her sleeve brushing lightly against his shoulder as she leaned down and reached for a tile. Her qi brushed against his, clear and threaded with a faint note of complaint. What are you doing, Master?

And what's with the grandstanding? Mo Jian, in his boundless patience and vast magnanimity, chose not to dignify the second half of that with a response. Grandstanding? Ridiculous; this was simply the aura of a man about to win. As for the first part of her question… He trusted Bai Ning's luck. He had good reason to.

Admittedly, most of the time that luck revealed itself through disaster; she had a profound and seemingly inexhaustible gift for stumbling headfirst into the exact worst situation the universe had available, with an expression of mild surprise, as though she was somehow always genuinely caught off guard. But every so often, with the specific and breathtaking rarity of a stopped clock being exactly right, her luck inverted. It turned spectacular.

It led her to things that should not have been findable, like the memory jade of that Murim swordmaster she had picked up. That alone spoke volumes. She was the heroine, or at least, she would have been, in another possible future. It only made sense that fortune favored her. Mo Jian had learned to trust his own luck as well, but clearly, it had abandoned him over the past half hour. So now, he was borrowing hers. He sent his thoughts back through his qi, simple and direct. Your luck is good.

Use it, ungrateful disciple. The faint sensation that came back was somewhere between an eye-roll and a sigh. Miantiao, on the other hand, sensing the faint trace of sass directed at his mistress, let out a soft, liquid hiss and glared at Mo Jian. The little dragon's hostility toward him hadn't diminished in the slightest. If anything, it seemed to feed on itself, growing sharper with each passing moment. Yet it never crossed the line; it knew better than to actually attack him.

Instead, it resorted to subtler methods. Most often, that meant acting piteously, whining and drooping as if grievously wronged, until Bai Ning inevitably took its side. She would coo over it, shoot Mo Jian a reproachful glare for bullying the "poor dear," and, more often than not, reward it with a generous pile of treats. Miantiao had refined this strategy to perfection. Even now, its narrow eyes gleamed with a forward-looking anticipation at the thought of the snacks it was going to extort in the near future.

Bai Ning's fingers hovered over the tiles without touching them. She tilted her head slightly, the picture of a disciple thoughtfully surveying her options, and let the pause extend just long enough to make Mo Jian feel it. She was dragging it out to make him pay for the 'ungrateful' part of his comment. Then, without hesitation, she picked one. Mo Jian didn't even look at it before adding it to his hand. It was either a move of absolute confidence or absolute foolishness.

Duan Cheng's gaze flickered between the two of them, thoughtful. Bai Ning straightened, hands folding neatly behind her back, the picture of an obedient disciple. But the faint curl at the corner of her lips betrayed her. After all, she could see his card with ease. And the tile she had chosen was one of the two special Honor tiles that didn't follow the normal progression. It was an exemption tile. Drawing it meant an automatic win… unless the opponent held the other. A grin spread slowly across Mo Jian's face.

Oh, this was good. This was very good. Across the table, Duan Cheng's eyes sharpened, as he noticed the expression. Of course he did; Mo Jian had made no effort to hide it.

"Looks like your disciple has some skill," Duan Cheng said lightly, though there was a new weight beneath his tone. Mo Jian scoffed.

"Naturally." Without another word, he discarded a tile, in a seemingly careless move. Bai Ning looked highly amused. Duan Cheng drew again. For the first time since the game began, he didn't move immediately, fingers lingering on the tile, before he slowly added it to his hand. A beat passed. Then another.

"…Call," Mo Jian said suddenly. The word dropped like a stone into still water. Outside the barrier, Si Lianhua lurched to her feet, hope and fear warring on her face. Even Duan Cai, who hadn't looked up once, flinched slightly. Duan Cheng's gaze snapped up, locking onto Mo Jian.

"You're confident," he said quietly. Mo Jian leaned back, one hand propping up his chin, the other resting lazily on the table.

"Fold," he said, voice light.

"Or play." Duan Cheng's eyes drifted down to the Thousand-Faced Die resting at his side. Its spots continued to shift and rearrange themselves, lively as ever, without the slightest hint of disruption. Even under the suppression of the Heaven Enshrouding Ding, it showed no sign of faltering.

Mo Jian could almost read Duan Cheng's thoughts, even though nothing showed up on his face: Unless the man before me is secretly a Nascent Soul expert capable of suppressing it without a trace – and if that were the case, he wouldn't be here playing games, he would have dealt with Wei Shentong directly – the advantage is still mine. Duan Cheng exhaled slowly, obviously considering both the situation… and his hand. Then, with a decisive motion, he fanned his tiles onto the table.

As in life, gambling demanded risk for the sweetest rewards. A complete set of Honors, one through nine. Mo Jian set down his own cards without comment: four rounds, three tens, two myriads, and sitting between them, gleaming like a diamond in mud, a single golden Honor. The character for special was inked on its face, almost glowing faintly in the dim light of the room. Duan Cheng stared at it for a long, unreadable moment.

Then he exhaled, not quite a sigh, not quite defeat, but something adjacent to both, and pushed his cards to the side with two fingers, neatly, the same motion a man uses to close a book he has finished with.

"Well played," he said evenly. The tightness beneath the calm was audible only to someone listening for it.

"It's my loss." The Thousand-Faced Die beside him continued its silent dance, spots shifting and shimmering across its surface like moths dancing around a flame. Mo Jian allowed himself a smirk. Next to him, Bai Ning's lips quirked into a self-satisfied smile, and she gave him a small, unhurried wink, the kind that said you're welcome without the inconvenience of words.

Miantiao gave a soft, liquid hiss and flicked its tail, the sound carrying all the self-congratulatory energy of a creature already mentally selecting which snacks it intended to collect as compensation. Outside the barrier, Su Lianhua's legs simply stopped holding her. She sank to her knees on the wooden floor, a long, shuddering breath leaving her body all at once, her hands pressed to her mouth. Even Duan Cai looked up, his pale face a mix of awe and shock. Duan Cheng gave a brief nod to his subordinate.

"Bring out the boy." The ink-stained man departed immediately, moving deeper into the hall, toward the trapdoor hidden behind the counter that led further underground. Duan Cheng turned his sharp gaze back to Mo Jian, the tension in his shoulders easing slightly, though his eyes remained piercing.

"You've won this round," he admitted.

"However… dealing with Senior Wei is no easy task. He has overseen this district for over three centuries." Mo Jian pushed his cards aside and rose from his seat. The Heaven Enshrouding Ding responded to his intent immediately, the barrier dissolving in a slow, outward shimmer, the great cauldron contracting back to a mote of light before returning to him without sound.

"No doubt," he said lightly.

"But it's not my first time facing a Nascent Soul elder either." Duan Cheng nodded.

"Be that as it may," he said.

"You'll need to present yourself tomorrow morning, sharp at dawn, at his doorstep, and plead your case in person. Senior Wei occupies the Heilongtan Spirit Water Pool, near the Kanchi mine." He made no effort to soften the next part.

"I will inform him of tonight's events immediately." Mo Jian took no offense. Of course Duan Cheng would report this upward; it was what they had both understood from the beginning. For all his monstrous actions, Duan Cheng remained eminently reasonable and composed, even in this moment, and a tiny spark of admiration flickered in Mo Jian's chest. Not enough, though; he had no patience for a man who sold people into slavery. Before they could continue, footsteps returned from the direction of the trapdoor.

The subordinate reappeared, leading a boy by the scruff of his neck with an efficient, impersonal grip. Su Chen was only fourteen, all lean angles and bony knees and carrying a particular wide-eyed wariness: that of a child who has been afraid for long enough that fear has started to feel like ordinary life. His hair was brown and slightly disheveled, his clothes creased. His gaze moved rapidly around the hall, cataloguing everything, the table, the cards, the faces, until it found his mother.

"Ma?" The word came out cracked, halfway between disbelief and a fear that had nothing to do with himself. Su Lianhua crossed the room to him in three steps and pulled him into her arms before he'd finished speaking. She held him like she was afraid he would vanish, close and slightly desperate, pressing her face against the top of his head.

"It's over," she whispered, her voice unsteady but certain.

"You're safe. It's done." Su Chen, fourteen years old and apparently made of the same stubborn material as his mother, immediately tried to pull back enough to look at her face.

"No, what are you doing here?" His voice cracked with something that wasn't quite panic and wasn't quite anger but contained elements of both.

"Your medicine, you haven't taken your medicine, have you? And what do you mean it's alright? What did you do?" Mo Jian watched from the side, still and quiet, feeling the sharp edges of the scene settle into something he wasn't entirely sure how to stand in. He was not a man given to excessive sentimentality, but something about the boy's first instinct – not am I safe but what did you sacrifice for this – lodged itself somewhere deep and stayed there.

Bai Ning crouched beside them both without hesitation, her manner easy and warm and steady, helping Su Lianhua find the words while Su Chen's questions tumbled out and his composure cracked further and further into something younger and more ragged than the controlled wariness he'd walked in wearing. Mo Jian remained where he was, at the edge of the scene, hands in his sleeves, doing what he was best at in moments like this: staying out of it and letting it be what it was.

Outside, through the thick walls of the hall, the afternoon had deepened further. The slant of light coming through the high windows had turned to the long amber of late day, and the shadows it cast had grown fingers, reaching across the floor in slow, patient stripes of gray and fading gold. The streets beyond were settling into their evening rhythms, smoke and noise and the distant sound of commerce beginning its wind-down toward dusk. Tomorrow, at dawn, the real fight would arrive.

Mo Jian exhaled quietly through his nose and said nothing. Some preparations were better made in silence.