Chapter 019: All In!

Chapter 019: All In!

A true gambling expert was not young, nor was he old. Most were middle-aged.

The elderly might carry decades of experience, but their stamina couldn’t hold. A table might run for hours—sometimes ten or more—and without sustained focus, they gave away tells too easily.

The young, meanwhile—

Youth meant limited time at the table, limited experience. Skill at cards leaned heavily on talent, sure, but experience mattered just as much, if not more, because talent alone only sharpened technique. It did nothing for the mind.

Real growth—learning to read an opponent, learning to master oneself—came only through years of play, against every kind of person imaginable.

Cheating was one tool among many in the game.

But the game itself was never only cheating.

A young prodigy with astonishing sleight of hand could still rarely take money off a true expert, because a master gambler could read faces, catch the smallest twitch, and infer what sat in an opponent’s hand from that alone.

Weak cards weren’t a problem—you simply folded and lost the ante. No one held bad cards every hand, and no one dared cheat every hand either. Cheating too often meant getting caught, and getting caught meant losing your hands.

Which was why the best players were almost always middle-aged men in their prime.

Wu Chen carried himself well. In his new clothes, he no longer looked like a college student—more like a wealthy young heir with money to spare.

Shen Guangjun didn’t recognize Li Ruobing, so he had no way to guess at Wu Chen’s real standing. He most likely believed, quite genuinely, that Li Ruotai had run out of talent to field. And on that count, he’d guessed correctly.

Li Ruotai truly had run out. His best man had already fallen.

But Wu Chen wasn’t one of Li Ruotai’s men. He was his brother-in-law.

Li Ruotai never fleeced his own people. When wealthy men close to the Li family came to gamble at his tables, he never sent experts to bleed them—he simply let luck run its course. The house always took its cut regardless, so it never lost.

Only billionaires with no real connection to the Li family became lambs for the slaughter.

Which was why Shen Guangjun truly didn’t know Li Ruobing. He knew Li Ruotai had a sister, of course, but had never laid eyes on her—and a place like this was hardly somewhere the Li family’s famously proud eldest granddaughter would ever set foot.

Li Ruotai kept flicking urgent glances at his sister.

Li Ruobing only frowned and shook her head.

She truly didn’t know.

Nor did it bother her that her brother now knew she had no idea whether Wu Chen could gamble—none of that had anything to do with dating.

Wu Chen taking the seat had caught them all off guard, and with Shen Guangjun already mocking them aloud, switching players again now would cost Li Ruotai every scrap of face he had left.

“Deal,” Wu Chen said, raising a hand.

The dealer, naturally, was one of Li Ruotai’s men, and an expert in his own right—though he never cheated. His job was to prevent guests from cheating, not to enable it.

The shuffling was done by machine. Guests could demand to inspect the cards at any point before the deal, and the dealer never touched the cards with bare hands—only a wooden paddle.

In truth, Li Ruotai kept things fairly honest. Or perhaps his conscience simply wasn’t black enough to go further.

He only ever sent in ringers against the lambs, skimming a bit more off the top.

Everything else about the casino ran strictly by the book—staff, dealers, equipment, all of it beyond reproach.

After all, his targets were only unfamiliar nouveau riche and business rivals of the Li family. A single hired expert was enough to take their money. No need for anything more elaborate.

“Can you actually do this?” Li Ruobing leaned in behind Wu Chen, murmuring close to his ear.

To anyone watching, it looked exactly like a beautiful companion hovering by her man’s side while he gambled—nothing unusual at all.

“Only a few million left. If I lose, it’s mine to cover,” Wu Chen murmured back, tilting his head toward her.

The shuffling machine clicked and whirred.

Then the dealer began to deal.

The wooden paddle slid a card across the felt.

It landed face-down, slightly askew. Wu Chen, with something like fastidious precision, straightened it first, aligning the long edge toward himself, before slowly lifting one corner to peek.

A second card followed.

He straightened that one too, glanced at it, then flipped it face-up.

The seven of spades.

They were playing stud. Two cards dealt first—the hole card face-down, the second shown face-up.

The ante was five hundred thousand.

His opponent’s upcard was the five of hearts. Wu Chen’s card outranked it, so he spoke first.

“Five hundred thousand.” He tossed his chips forward.

“Call.” The refined middle-aged man adjusted his glasses and smiled at Wu Chen.

His name was Yao Bin, one of the top gamblers in all of Macau. A true master never forgot the golden rule: never underestimate an opponent. In gambling, the psychological war mattered as much as the cards—underestimating someone was the same as handing them your money.

And yet Wu Chen was underestimating him completely.

More than nine hundred years ago, Wu Chen had already known Yao Bin was in Donghai. He knew exactly what Yao Bin was capable of. As for his own skill at the tables—without exaggeration, Wu Chen believed he could clean out every casino on earth.

To everyone else in the room, Wu Chen looked like a young man in his twenties, hardly seasoned enough to matter.

In truth, he was an old monster who had “lived” for a thousand years.

“Fold.” On the fourth card, Yao Bin folded.

Wu Chen’s visible cards now included a pair of eights.

Yao Bin wasn’t in any hurry to strip Wu Chen bare. Small wins and losses meant nothing to him—he wanted the big pot, so through these early hands he’d simply been watching. Watching Wu Chen’s habits. His tells. His mind.

Yao Bin liked young opponents. He was even willing to let one win a little at first, then bait him into overreaching before taking it all back. Wu Chen didn’t carry many chips, true—but the house had plenty to spare.

Li Ruotai had already dropped over two hundred million. He couldn’t simply call it quits now. The moment Wu Chen ran low, the casino would replenish him.

Over the next five hands, Wu Chen won three and lost two, folding outright on one of them. On balance, he came out well ahead, his chip stack climbing just past ten million.

“One-million ante?” Yao Bin suddenly proposed.

“Sure.” Wu Chen smiled and nodded.

Yao Bin would never suggest raising the ante against a seasoned player—they’d see through the ploy at once. It was a tactic reserved strictly for the young.

“Boss Shen, your friend’s luck seems to be running dry,” Li Ruotai said.

“Hahaha, maybe Young Master Li’s luck is finally about to turn,” Shen Guangjun laughed, seemingly unbothered.

He truly wasn’t bothered—he knew exactly what Yao Bin, his hired man, had in mind.

Before stepping into Crown Entertainment, Yao Bin had already walked Shen Guangjun through some of his methods.

Five more hands passed.

With Yao Bin deliberately easing off, Wu Chen kept winning more than he lost, his stack swelling to twenty-five million.

The eleventh hand.

Wu Chen straightened his hole card without looking, glanced instead at his second card, and flipped it face-up. The ace of hearts. Not the first time he’d done this—in earlier rounds too, he’d sometimes left his hole card unchecked, as though trusting blindly to fortune.

Yao Bin’s upcard was the king of spades.

“One million.” Wu Chen tossed his chips.

“Call.” Yao Bin matched him.

Deal.

Call.

Deal.

Call.

Deal.

Call.

The fifth card fell.

Wu Chen’s four upcards: ace of hearts, six of clubs, seven of clubs, three of spades.

Yao Bin’s four upcards: king of spades, ten of spades, six of hearts, four of diamonds.

Both hands were weak—the best either side could hope for was a pair.

Going strictly by the visible cards, Wu Chen held the edge. If it came down to high card alone, he had the ace. But Wu Chen still hadn’t looked at his hole card—everyone at the table had watched closely enough to know that much.

“All in!” Yao Bin shoved his small mountain of chips forward, smiling at Wu Chen.