Chapter 2286: Gotham Music Festival (Part 34)

Now there were three types of people in the venue.

The first type, like Stark and Bruce, realized that this was actually a game of manipulating suit probability as soon as the rules were announced.

The second type didn't figure it out at the beginning, but discovered the mystery while playing. Although they had already made mistakes, there was still room for redemption.

The third type didn't understand what was going on until the end of the game, completely unaware of what the key to winning this game was, and ended up losing without knowing why.

The first and third types were relatively rare. People who could come to this ship rarely had great wisdom, because if they were truly smart enough, they wouldn't have ended up boarding the ship to gamble. But they weren't extremely stupid either; truly stupid people, because they lacked the guts, also found it hard to cause earth-shattering disasters.

Most people on the ship now had some small cleverness. They were the best among ordinary people and had achieved success because of the era background or standing on the wind, but in the end, they were all swallowed by something, leading to their current fate.

The vast majority of people gradually realized during the duel that a straight flush was the trump card of this game. To form a straight flush, one had to ensure that they held most of the cards of one suit, and the points could not be broken.

In the duel between Bruce and Roman, because Roman cleared all the small cards in his hand, the points of the small cards in Bruce's hand were very complete, from A to 8, and the golden points, which were the 2 to 6 that made Bruce win, had several cards for each point.

Bruce maximized the probability of his straight flush because Roman didn't react at the beginning and completely cooperated with Bruce's plan. Simply put, the gap in level between the two was too large, and the gambling process was almost a one-sided crushing.

But most people were not like this. They realized the key to playing almost at the same time as their opponents, so their competition was exceptionally fierce.

When Bruce and Roman finished, most people were still in tense negotiations. Since it wasn't stipulated that God and Believer couldn't formulate their own card-swapping rules, many people started using psychological tactics to get the cards they wanted.

The dizzying nausea, the respiratory pain brought by chest tightness and shortness of breath, and the chest cavity emptiness brought by arrhythmia made Schiller's vision more and more blurred.

Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump...

The ambient sound became more and more distant, the heartbeat vibrated the eardrum in the ear canal, and the blood pumped by the heart began to break through the barrier between body and soul, flowing toward Schiller's spirit, tearing open the cracks in the hypocritical real world, and showing the true appearance of this world before his eyes.

"Nostalgic past..." Schiller squinted and whispered.

When he opened his eyes again, people's heads turned into colorful jumping flames, repeatedly enlarging and shrinking in the hazy vision where ripples rippled, and the flames surged.

That was the fire of greed. Schiller saw many firewood at the bottom of the flames, which were their reason, love, and sense of security.

The fire burned more and more vigorously, and the things that provided energy for the fire began to show charred traces from the edges, swallowing the healthy parts of them bit by bit, and then their brains, their hearts, and their bodies.

The flying ash from the violent burning of the flames covered their eyes, the wind blew, and countless fragments and ashes came and went before their eyes, but they couldn't see anything.

Schiller walked through the flames in a trance, the wind brushed past his ears, the tail flames scorched his hem, and the ashes swirled before his eyes.

Until in a source of raging fire, Schiller found the only oasis, where there was a small flame, but it looked more like a campfire lit by a traveler.

The sweet spring sank, the green forest swayed, and the cool and moist breeze blowing on his face made him want to shed tears—Green Arrow Oliver Queen.

This was him. Schiller saw that if all places in this world burned, his spirit would be the last sanctuary for humans to sublimate themselves from the greedy desires of primitive instincts.

The deadly dizziness and nausea were dispelled by this cool breeze for a moment. Schiller picked up the inhaler with a trembling arm and took two deep puffs. The scorching heat that was everywhere in the room finally dissipated.

In the last second before the raging fire disappeared, Schiller looked at the woman opposite Oliver. He saw a cluster of flames different from others, more violent than anyone else, so much so that it wasn't just on the shoulders, but the whole body was burning.

That was a kind of red containing extreme anger. Schiller had seen this kind of flame on Batman, but that was a long time ago, before Batman could discover the black tide in his heart. The pitch-black edge revealed this kind of red, and what made this flame burn suddenly was an answer Schiller gave—revenge.

When he woke up, Schiller found that he was already standing around the duel between Oliver and the woman. Due to long trials and several verbal confrontations, their card swapping had only reached the fifth round.

Schiller didn't look at what cards they had, because it didn't matter. The first round of gambling wouldn't see blood. Most people only bet 1~2 chips. Who won or lost didn't necessarily determine the final victory.

The rules of the game were also designed very simply. Although there was a twist similar to a brain teaser, requiring people to shift their attention from the size of the points to the less-noticed suits, it was still not very complex.

So the first round of the game was clearly an opportunity for both sides with grudges to test and communicate with each other, so the game didn't have a time limit for each round. It could be seen that most people at the tables were having fierce verbal confrontations, besides discussing the extra card-swapping rules, they were also discussing new and old grudges.

The medicine made Schiller feel sluggish, and all sounds were gradually moving away. In the blur, he heard Oliver say.

"You want me to think that everything I'm doing now is meaningless, but you can't shake me, never."

"Then why did you come back here?" The woman's tone contained sarcasm, "Abandoning your so-called career, returning here like a coward and a deserter, and making such a stupid choice. Do you think you can defeat me here?"

"I'm not just defeating you here." Oliver stared at the woman and said, "I will defeat all of you everywhere."

"You know this can't be done, no one can do it." The woman's tone was full of contempt. She fiddled with the poker cards in her hand and said, "This is just a pointless struggle. I accepted the invitation to come here just to tell you this fact."

Schiller moved slowly, gradually moving from the side of the card table to the diagonal rear, and then passed through the gradually gathering crowd, walking toward the woman's back.

Only one step away, Schiller would stand directly behind the woman, and the woman, who was still picking poker cards, was unaware.

Schiller took a step, but before his foot landed, a cold light flashed across his field of vision. The moment the sense of crisis surged, Schiller turned his head to look at the source of the light.

A woman wearing a jellyfish mask, or rather a young girl, was holding a thin blade between her index and middle fingers, following the crowd toward the table where Oliver and the woman were.

Schiller took a big step, crossed the two people in the middle, and passed behind the last person. The crowd surged forward, and the figure in the red sash cut through the formation like a shark entering a school of fish at high speed.

Blocking the knife, raising his hand, bending his elbow, exerting force from his upper arm, tightening his forearm muscles, his arm was like an arrow off the string, and the sharp arrowhead flashing with cold light was frozen in place a second before it was shot.

Schiller saw a pair of wild, extremely bright eyes staring at him instantly. The fingers holding the girl's wrist loosened slightly, and with a *shhh* sound, the drawn hand brought the blade and cut Schiller's web of the thumb.

Schiller didn't make any sound, just instantly pinched the sash on the other side of his body with his injured hand, so that the blood didn't flow out at the first time, but seeped into the fibers of the clothes.

"Don't make a sound." In the sluggish sense of chaos, Schiller tried his best to keep his reason and said, "They will find out you have a weapon."

Then the panicked emotion finally surged into the girl's eyes. She stood in place and gritted her teeth, not knowing how the blade in her hand disappeared, squeezed out of the crowd, and walked toward Schiller.

"Don't talk, follow me." Schiller wrapped his uninjured arm around her, and the two walked toward the bathroom together. No one in the room expressed any objection to this. In fact, many people with a bye were not watching the game here, either returning to their rooms to rest or finding fun themselves. Their departure didn't attract attention.

The moment they left the crowd's sight, Schiller felt himself pushed away, but the other party's action was not strong, maybe just wanting to keep a distance from him, rather than wanting to attack him.

Schiller's head was dizzy, and he couldn't even feel the pain of the wound. His eyes were so unfocused that he could barely see anything. He sighed softly, he shouldn't have taken that extra puff just now.

Schiller leaned against the wall next to him, his hanging hand kept dripping blood. The accelerated breathing frequency made the girl opposite feel that something was wrong.

"What's wrong with you?" She tilted her head and took half a step forward, but was very vigilant and didn't approach immediately, still tightly clutching the weapon in her hand.

Schiller shook his head and said, "There is an infirmary, find a bandage. Who is your target?"

The girl didn't answer at the first time, but first looked at the wound on Schiller's hand. This wound was not shallow, almost cutting the entire web of the thumb, and a large amount of blood flowed out, staining the entire hand red.

She lowered her head and looked at the blade in her hand, sighed, and seemed a bit annoyed. She said, "You shouldn't have stopped me, I didn't mean to hurt you."

"But you already did, think of a way, miss."

The girl took a deep breath, and then she suddenly lowered her head and looked at her clothes. She was wearing a Spanish-style long dress with a skirt support, and at the same time, she had a thick ruff collar.

She immediately began to untie her collar, then tore off the bottom layer, folded it several times, and it became a bandage. She walked up and pulled Schiller's arm, starting to bandage his palm.

During the bandaging process, the girl looked up at Schiller's eyes, and then she was clearly frightened by those unfocused eyes.

"God, what's wrong with you? You look like you're about to faint."

"Actually, I am. Don't worry about me, tell me who you want to assassinate?"

"I don't want to assassinate anyone." She emphasized again, "I won't kill anyone casually, and hurting you was just an accident."

"Name..."

"You don't need to know."

"I mean, Oliver Queen, do you know this name?"

The other party immediately showed a surprised expression. She recalled the scene at that time, seemed to have remembered something, so she tentatively looked at Schiller and asked, "You also know Oliver?"

"I'm his friend."

Schiller took a deep breath and said intermittently, "You want to protect Oliver Queen, followed him onto the ship, you think he's going to lose, so you want to use other methods to interfere with the gambling game."

The girl looked at Schiller in shock and retracted her hand *whoosh*, fortunately, the bandaging was already completed.

"I can't read minds." Schiller said, "Your performance is too obvious. Forget it, listen, I'm also on the ship for Oliver, but you can't act rashly."

"But he's about to lose." The girl gritted her teeth and said, "He doesn't have that many chances left, he must win, I came here for this."

No matter how sluggish Schiller's thinking was, he could probably guess the girl's identity, but he didn't say it, but said, "Do you know who the woman you just wanted to attack is?"

"Who?"

"Amanda Waller, head of the FBI's Special Criminal Investigation Unit." ===== CHAPTER 2287 =====