Chapter 335: Lost Horse

“Wait…”

Seeing Lan Shiwen turn to leave without a word, Xia Yubing hurried after him, still having questions to ask.

She was tall with long legs, taking two steps as one, she yanked open the door and rushed out—but in the blink of an eye, Lan Shiwen had stepped through the doorway and vanished.

Xia Yubing leaned against the doorframe, gazing outside; the corridor was empty except for a maid carrying a tray, walking toward her, the sweet, fragrant aroma drifting into her nostrils.

“Freshly baked custard tarts—how many would you like?” the maid smiled as she reached the door.

Xia Yubing plucked one tart from the tray and asked, “Did you see anyone else leave through this door? Just now?”

The maid shook her head: “No one. Only you came out through this door.”

“I see…” Xia Yubing bit into the tart; its warm, sweet flavor filled her mouth. Clearly, Lan Shiwen had vanished the instant he opened the door—left in such a hurry.

She’d wanted to ask him about the shadow she’d seen in the liquor cabinet earlier, but Lan Shiwen seemed to guess what she was going to ask and slipped away before she could speak.

…Did he guess? Or did he already know?

She couldn’t figure it out. She stopped trying.

Xia Yubing felt she wasn’t very smart—but it didn’t matter. Ning Zhe was smart enough.

She took the entire tray of tarts from the maid, closed the door, and returned to the room to write down her experience in her notebook. Fosler’s corpse still leaned against the sofa; the plump, pale “Tai Sui” worm remained curled inside his skull, motionless.

—

Beneath cold white light, a copper coin dropped into a wine glass, shattering the golden liquid, which trickled down the rim.

Bei Dang and Mei Lin both stared in shock, eyes wide, fixed on Ning Zhe’s glass—inside it lay only one copper coin.

From prior experience, tossing the first coin required only caution and steady hands; failure was nearly impossible. Gold wine, being an ethanol solution, had surface tension too resilient to break easily.

But when it was Ning Zhe’s turn, he simply pinched a coin and tossed it carelessly, utterly unconcerned by the crisp clang of metal against glass or the splashing wine—he deliberately lost the bet, becoming the loser.

“I lost.” Ning Zhe raised his hand in surrender, pulled a copper coin from his pocket, and held it between his fingers as he stared coldly at the gambler: “Come on. Take my stake.”

What’s going on…? Mei Lin bit her lip, her gaze filled with confusion—why would he deliberately lose? What was his motive? What did he want?

Mei Lin’s doubts didn’t linger long, for what happened next took her completely by surprise.

Ning Zhe held between his fingers an ancient copper coin, square-hole and round, inscribed with “All Goes Well” on the obverse and “Peace and Joy” on the reverse—not a gambling token issued by the gambler, but his own personal “life coin,” each coin worth one human life.

Yet the gambler showed no reaction to the coin in Ning Zhe’s fingers.

It made no move to take it, its bony legs unmoving on the sofa, not even rising to collect the stake.

“Because the stake for this round isn’t one human life,” Ning Zhe released his grip, letting the coin roll into his palm, then clenched it tightly. His eyes remained calm, as if he’d known all along—yet Mei Lin and Bei Dang were shaken to their cores. “The stake for this round… isn’t one human life?” Mei Lin’s spirit trembled.

“Impossible!” Bei Dang leapt to his feet, eyes locked on the man seated across from him.

Each ghost has its own nature: Tai Yi is formless, the Plague God is immortal, Wu Tong demands exorbitant prices, Tai Yi is supreme alone… and the gambler’s nature is called “Greed and Seizure.”

The gambler is insatiably greedy, forcing others to gamble until it steals all stakes, leaving only itself as the sole winner.

Its endless greed is bound by rules of “fairness,” requiring each player to wager something of equal value within their means.

To prevent insolvency, satisfy the gambler’s insatiable hunger, and uphold “fairness,” the stake for each round is set at the maximum payment capacity of the player with the lowest total assets.

For a mortal, the most valuable stake possible is their own life.

When mortals participate, the stake value cannot exceed one human life—that is, one copper coin. Anything higher exceeds mortal capacity, and the gambler will not permit unpaid stakes.

The gambler accepts only small wins, medium wins, and big wins—it never accepts losses.

Bei Dang and Mei Lin’s gazes fell on one person—the man who had accidentally entered the game.

“The gambler’s casino exists in a separate space outside the real world, to prevent outside interference and uphold fairness… This space resembles Fanisha Castle between the two worlds, and also resembles the temporal fracture caused by Tu Yu’s sealing power—in short, it is not reality.”

“But for some unknown reason, within this opera house, the boundary between reality and unreality has blurred. People inside shuttle frequently between the two worlds—sometimes standing on solid ground, sometimes in illusion—and often flicker repeatedly in short spans. Even I was momentarily disoriented…”

Ning Zhe’s gaze also settled on the man.

He had appeared in the room with almost no warning; his expression of shock and confusion showed no trace of performance. From every angle, he was clearly a mortal who had unknowingly crossed between the two worlds and stumbled into the gambler’s game.

Mei Lin wanted to believe that… but the coin in Ning Zhe’s fingers proved otherwise.

“When mortals participate, the stake value cannot exceed a mortal’s maximum payment capacity—that is, one life coin.”

Ning Zhe slowly slipped a copper coin into his pocket, glancing sideways at the gambler beside him—it was reaching for his stake.

Ning Zhe exhaled a faintly scented breath, his gaze toward the man turning ambiguous: “But now, the gambler no longer cares about my single copper coin as a stake.”

This meant the so-called “mortal” possessed at least one item worth more than a human life—his maximum payment capacity had surpassed “one copper coin.”

Could such a mortal still be called a mortal?

(End of Chapter)