"This damn owner is so greedy. It takes 50 coins just to trigger the pity system."
Shen Yuan held the cat plushie, bad-mouthing the owner to Li Zhi.
"Good thing I stopped you, or you would've wasted 50 coins just to get one."
Li Zhi pouted. 'This punk really got his moment to shine.'
Honestly, that scene had given Li Zhi quite a shock.
'It was like he was using freaking cheats.'
'His words were law!'
'Could this kid really have the bearing of a Great Emperor?'
Shen Yuan's success came down to two things: experience and observation.
Generally, claw machines have a pity system.
Most claw machine arcades set the pity trigger at around 50 Game Coins.
It varies from one arcade to the next.
It really depends on how greedy the owner is.
The second factor was observation.
Shen Yuan hadn't been wandering around the arcade aimlessly.
He'd seen bratty kids fail seven times in a row and go crying to their mothers, and he'd also seen people win on the first try—people like him.
All in all, Shen Yuan was quite certain the owner had set the pity count at 50 Game Coins.
Someone had just won a plushie from this particular machine. And since Shen Yuan had been hogging it before Guo Weifeng started, not a single coin had been inserted since the last win.
With a single sentence, he'd made the high school kid furiously pump 44 Game Coins into the machine for him!
Getting a plushie in two tries—how was that any different from getting it for free?
While Shen Yuan was grinning from ear to ear, things weren't looking so great for Guo Weifeng.
What does it feel like to get flexed on?
Like eating shit.
What does it feel like to be the backdrop for someone else's epic flex?
Bottoms up, fellas!
Guo Weifeng desperately wanted to keep competing against Shen Yuan, but he'd lost his nerve.
Looking at the Game Coins in his hand, Guo Weifeng knew he could never again feel the joy of winning a plushie.
That scene had just become the inner demon of his claw machine career.
Now, whenever he tried to play a claw machine, he would be haunted by Shen Yuan's nonchalant declaration: "I am the Claw Machine King of Jiyang."
How could one whose Dao Heart was wavering ever hope to win a plushie again?
'Damn it, that was so cool!'
'It was just a freaking claw machine, so why did it seem so incredibly cool?'
Guo Weifeng imagined himself in that last scene.
'Damn, that would have been unbelievably awesome!'
'A thrill that would shoot from the soles of my feet to the crown of my head, a pure, unadulterated rush.'
'Too bad I was just part of the scenery.'
While Guo Weifeng wallowed in misery, Shen Yuan was on cloud nine.
Perhaps his declaration of being the "Claw Machine King of Jiyang" had actually worked some magic, because Shen Yuan's luck for the rest of the night was incredible.
About a hundred Game Coins netted him more than twenty plushies.
That was an average of one win for every six Game Coins.
They even had to get a new cart.
Li Zhi happily pushed the cart, her one and only prize—an ugly-cute chick—sitting proudly atop the huge pile.
The cat plushie Shen Yuan had won, however, was in his cart.
In Shen Yuan's words, this was called "summoning a deity."
Shen Yuan prayed to the gods, but the only one who answered was himself—the Claw Machine King of Jiyang!
For 100 yuan, Shen Yuan had basically won one of every type of plushie in the arcade.
He didn't get the ugly-cute chick, though. It was just too ugly.
"Here, last chance. Let's see if you can get one."
Shen Yuan placed the last four Game Coins into Li Zhi's hand.
Li Zhi took the Game Coins and stood before the cat plushie machine.
She inserted a coin.
BEEP... BEEP... BEEP...
CLANK!
The cat plushie dropped into the prize chute, and Li Zhi happily retrieved it.
"Yay! Look, look! I got it on the first try! No need to wait at all!"
Li Zhi brandished the plushie, showing it off to Shen Yuan.
Shen Yuan scoffed. "Hmph, that's just luck. I rely on pure skill!"
"Nyah nyah, luck is part of skill too!"
Behind the two of them, Guo Weifeng saw the cat plushie in Li Zhi's hand, and his Dao Heart shattered all over again.
...
In the end, at Li Zhi's behest, the two of them traded fifty small plushies for one of the arcade's grand prizes.
The owner was surprisingly enthusiastic.
Shen Yuan and Li Zhi had spent little and won a lot, but wasn't that the perfect advertisement for his business?
'How much could the plushies possibly cost me?'
'This just proves that the prizes in my arcade are easy to win, right?'
'What a damned capitalist.'
Just as they stepped out of the arcade and were about to decide where to go next, they heard Tong Churou's voice from behind.
"Shen Yuan!"
Shen Yuan and Li Zhi turned in unison to see Tong Churou hurrying toward them.
Tong Churou stopped before Shen Yuan, her eyes on the plushies in their arms. "Shen Yuan, you're amazing at claw machines."
"Yep. And you suck."
Shen Yuan launched his attack without the slightest bit of courtesy.
The smile on Tong Churou's face froze at the sudden assault.
'What happened to the saying about not hitting a smiling face?'
'Why does this guy attack with zero startup frames?'
But Tong Churou was an ascended Demon Cultivator, after all. She quickly composed herself.
"I am," she admitted. "So, could you teach me?"
"Nope. You don't have the talent for it."
The corner of Tong Churou's mouth twitched.
Shen Yuan stared at Tong Churou, his face impassive.
'When dealing with people like her, you have to slap them down.'
'Only a good, hard slap will satisfy the anger in my heart.'
'Trying to use my own knowledge to get one over on me? Am I supposed to make a fool of myself?'
The very thought made Shen Yuan furious.
'This is my Joker moment.'
'For once, I let myself feel something, and you made me lose so completely.'
'FUCK!' (Slams drink on the ground).
"If there's nothing else, I'm leaving," Shen Yuan said.
With that, he turned and walked away.
"Wait! I do have something to talk about."
The moment the words left Tong Churou's mouth, Shen Yuan broke into a full sprint.
'Wait for you? My ass! I'm not listening even if you have something important to say.'
Li Zhi, clutching the giant plushie, couldn't help but laugh at Shen Yuan's retreating figure.
Tong Churou's gaze followed the sound of laughter to Li Zhi.
Tong Churou had always been confident in her looks and figure.
But upon seeing Li Zhi, that confidence wavered for the first time.
In terms of looks, Tong Churou had the face of a vixen, the kind of beauty you'd expect from a succubus.
Li Zhi, on the other hand, possessed a classical Chinese beauty—dignified, grand, and elegant at a glance.
To the older generation, Li Zhi's appearance would have been far more appealing.
In fact, when she wasn't speaking, Li Zhi even looked a bit cold and aloof.
Though their styles differed, Li Zhi clearly had the upper hand.
In terms of figure, Li Zhi was taller, and her legs were visibly longer.
With her own standout features completely eclipsed, what was left to compare?
A competition of who was sluttier?
On that front, Li Zhi chose to concede.
"Hello, fellow student. We've met before." The succubus decided to go on the offensive.
"Excuse me, but what was your score on the final exams?"
Tong Churou froze. 'Who asks for someone's grades the moment they meet?'
Still, she gave her score.
"611."
Upon hearing this, Li Zhi's face immediately twisted into an expression of disgust.
"Subhuman. Stay away from me."
With that, Li Zhi strode off on her long legs, heading quickly in the direction Shen Yuan had gone.
Leaving Tong Churou standing there, utterly thunderstruck.
'Wait, what does she mean, 'subhuman'?!'
'Is a 611 score considered subhuman?'
'I made the cutoff for a Tier 1 university, okay?!'
'Fuck.'
'What is wrong with these people? They're all psychos!'