The moment the words fell, Xu Qihan flashed out from the onlookers and walked towards me.
Although not as overbearing as I had imagined, Xu Qihan's full aura still made me feel an invisible pressure.
Not only me, but even Cheng Minglang and Han Jinlun, standing behind me, looked as if they were facing a formidable enemy.
After slowly walking over and sitting opposite me, Xu Qihan said in a deep voice, "Chen Xiang, from the very beginning when Xiao Hua said he wanted to draw cards first, you had already calculated his next move, right?"
Seeing that I did not deny it, Xu Qihan continued, "So you took the opportunity to play a trick of going with the flow, turning his plan against him."
"You deliberately acted as if you were unaware, so that Xiao Hua would think you hadn't seen through his plan yet."
"You knew very well that no matter who got the right to draw cards first, once they drew the Ace of Spades, the subsequent card path would be impossible to control."
"Only by retreating to advance, and forcing the person with the later draw to pick the Ace of Spades with the Ace of Hearts first, could the path of the remaining three cards be stabilized."
"This way, for the second card, no matter who goes first or second, they must unify their path and draw the card that breaks the opponent's straight flush."
"And the higher the face value of the breaking card, the better."
"With the first two cards set as Ace and King, the real decisive showdown is only in the last three cards!"
"And among the hands that can match Ace and King, three of a kind of Kings is the highest!"
"Seeing Xiao Hua use a diversion to deceive you, you immediately retaliated in kind, using a diversion to deceive Xiao Hua as well!"
"Even if Xiao Hua didn't draw that Two of Hearts, as long as you followed his high card draw, you just needed to find other cards with the same face value but different suits."
"Finally, when judging the winner, with identical face values, you could directly win by the advantage of the Ace of Spades!"
"As the saying goes: A glimpse of the leopard reveals its spots!"
"After seeing through Xiao Hua's intention to win with three Aces, you had already thought of a solution!"
"How about it? My deduction is correct, isn't it?"
Although I was reluctant to admit it, Xu Qihan, who was on the Thousand Gate Star Ranking, indeed possessed extraordinary skill.
A glimpse of the leopard reveals its spots, this saying also applies to her.
With her personally taking part in this round, I fear the outcome is truly uncertain...
With this thought, I didn't waste any more words with Xu Qihan, but directly looked at her and asked, "Let's be direct, what are we betting on this round?"
Upon hearing this, Xu Qihan said no more and clapped her hands with a cold expression.
Within half a minute, a subordinate brought the dice and dice cup on a tray.
With the gambling tools on the table, Xu Qihan explained, "Since you said earlier that the guest can choose, I will naturally choose my strong suit to gamble with you."
"We will compete in shaking dice, and it will also be a single round to decide the winner! However..."
"Don't say I'm taking advantage of you. For the sake of absolute fairness, justice, and openness, we won't play with the conventional ten dice limit."
"We'll double the stakes, twenty dice per person!"
"Whoever rolls a higher total score wins!"
"What do you say? Any problems?"
Frankly speaking, if Xu Qihan were not an adversary, she could be a good opponent, and we could spar privately from time to time.
At the very least, with her doubling the number of dice, others might not have the courage to even suggest it.
Practice is the sole criterion for testing truth.
Uncle Tuo once said that for a cheat to continuously improve, the simplest, most direct, and most effective method is...
Like a martial arts fanatic, challenge various martial arts experts, accumulate experience in actual combat, and improve one's own strength.
...
This crucial dice-shaking gamble had no rules or constraints, purely a contest of strength.
As long as I could roll a higher score than Xu Qihan, Shen Mengqing and Xu Peiyu would be saved.
Conversely, I would be kept here with them, losing my most precious freedom.
Even: life!
After both sides were ready.
"Begin!"
With the command, Xu Qihan and I almost simultaneously grabbed the dice cups in front of us and scooped towards the dice beside us.
The difference was that I used the "Whale Swallows the Sea" starting move, scooping all twenty dice into the dice cup.
Anyway, my limit was nine dice. How many points could be rolled with more dice added depended not on skill, but on luck.
So for me, adding one or a few dice at a time was no different from adding them all at once.
Xu Qihan, on the other hand, used a very rare dice-shaking technique called "Falling Leaves Scattered."
Falling Leaves Scattered is a rather obscure expert move in dice-shaking techniques.
The so-called Falling Leaves Scattered refers to how falling leaves from trees do not fall in large clumps, but in small groups of three to five.
Using "Falling Leaves Scattered" to shake dice means that the number of dice scooped into the cup at the start is definitely less than the opponent's.
And later, one must compensate for this natural disadvantage with speed.
But it wasn't entirely without benefits.
The advantage of using "Falling Leaves Scattered" to shake dice is that with this intermittent scooping of dice into the cup, during the 1 to 2 second intervals in between, one can roughly determine the points of the dice that entered the cup first.
In other words, its margin of error is guaranteed to a certain extent.
Of course, as I said before.
The size of dice beyond ten is not controllable by human hands.
Therefore, Xu Qihan was pitting half her skill against half her luck.
As for how much skill and luck I brought to bear, I've already explained.
My limit was nine dice.
So, the element of luck I relied on was slightly more than Xu Qihan's...
...
With a scoop of Falling Leaves Scattered into the cup, Xu Qihan instantly swept five dice in.
After about three seconds, she scooped another five dice into the dice cup.
After ten dice were put into the cup in batches, Xu Qihan did not continue scooping dice at her original pace, but paused for another three to four seconds.
Only then did she continue adding dice to the cup.
However, this time, it was no longer five dice.
It was four.
With a high margin of error, it's certainly necessary to have a certain degree of assurance in the points of the dice that entered earlier.
So after ten dice were in the cup, when using Falling Leaves Scattered to scoop dice and add them to the cup, the number should decrease layer by layer.
The sequence of 4, 3, 2, 1 makes exactly 10 dice.
By the time Xu Qihan's cup was full, I had already been shaking for a while.
Fine beads of sweat covered my forehead, and my expression was extremely tense.
The outcome of this final dice-shaking gamble would directly determine and affect the fate of three people.
All I could do was fight with my back against the wall and give it my all, so as not to leave any regrets.