She rubbed her palms together, feigning extreme nervousness. She gritted her teeth and said, "That was only one round. Four more to go!"
In the following four rounds, to the surprise of everyone at the table, Wei Lian's good luck ran out.
He would invariably draw a black card on his second or third pick. No matter how the people beside him cheered, prayed, or knocked on the table for good luck, he still lost, one round after another. Unwilling to accept his bad luck, he placed another bet. In that second match, he managed to win two rounds, but ultimately still lost the game.
Wei Lian was a good sport, pushing the money pouch over to Milady. "I didn't expect this," he said. "Your luck is pretty good."
But she was far from finished.
"Ahem. Maybe your luck will turn around next time. I do know another game with red cards, though. Nine cards in total—seven red and two black. The rules are similar: whoever draws three red cards in a row wins..."
She collected the money but didn't remove the Shadow Appearance Mechanism from the table. Instead, she tapped on it. "Much easier, right? Want to give it a try? If you win the next game, you can take back the money *and* the mechanism. A chance to redeem yourself."
Wei Lian glanced at his girlfriend. Losing twice in a row was indeed a bit embarrassing. He mulled over the seven-to-two ratio for a moment, then spat out a single word: "Fine!"
"The rules are slightly different this time."
Milady offered her most disarming smile, taking out seven red and two black cards. She arranged the nine cards in a three-by-three grid and explained, "Since you have such a huge advantage, I can't have *no* conditions, right? The three red cards you draw must form a line for you to win. It can be horizontal, vertical, or diagonal. As long as you connect three, you win. The mechanism and the money are all yours."
Wei Lian was more cautious this time. "Still best three out of five, right?" he asked.
Milady nodded. "Correct."
To avoid suspicion, she didn't touch the cards on the table. When the game began, Wei Lian and his friends did all the shuffling, arranging, and flipping. She watched the nine cards on the table, laughing and sighing at all the appropriate moments. Yet, it was as if she were a distant spectator, coolly observing a game whose outcome was already certain.
'They were wrong. This wasn't a game of chance at all.'
'It used the most common type of playing cards, but it was actually a probability trap. It would have worked the same with any other props. Back when Yidan was tutoring her on calculating probabilities, he had simply grabbed an old deck of cards from a drawer for his demonstration.'
'In the draw-three-from-five game, the probability her cousin from the clan had mentioned was actually just the best-case scenario—and the most obvious logical fallacy. If you calculated all the possibilities, including drawing a black card, the true win-loss ratio was five to two. Five for Milady, two for Wei Lian.'
After several large bets in a row, the amounts were starting to sting the group of young people. After a few games, Terry was even more nervous and invested than her boyfriend. Her eyes were glued to the cards, and she would occasionally advise Wei Lian on which one to flip.
Terry might not have known much about Milady, but Milady had taken the time to learn about her, as well as the other young people of their generation within the clan.
To Terry, Wei Lian was the most important person in the world. His successes made her happier than her own.
Unfortunately, Terry was destined for disappointment today.
In the draw-three-from-nine game, the new "connect-three-reds" rule gave Milady an even greater advantage.
'Because in the draw-three-from-nine, there were only eight possible winning lines of red cards for Wei Lian: three horizontal, three vertical, and two diagonals.'
'If the two black cards landed in adjacent spots along an edge, it would leave four winning lines and four losing lines. If one black card was in a corner and the other was in the center, there would be only two winning lines and six losing lines. Any other placement of the black cards would leave three winning lines and five losing lines.'
'All told, there were 12 possible card arrangements that gave Wei Lian a fifty-fifty chance of winning. However, there were 22 arrangements that gave Milady a significant advantage.'
When Wei Lian lost the "draw-three-from-nine" game twice in a row, the scale of his losses made his face turn pale. Terry's brow was knitted so tightly it seemed it would never smooth out, and her eyes blazed with anger whenever she glanced at Milady.
"I've lost too much money," Wei Lian said, conceding defeat. "It seems my luck is out today. Card games aren't for me."
Milady deliberately and slowly counted the money that had, until recently, been his. She flicked a glance at Terry and felt the time was ripe.
"There's nothing special about me, I'm just lucky when it comes to gambling. Just think of it as paying for a lesson." She knew exactly what kind of winner was the most infuriating—the smug type, who relentlessly rubs their victory in the loser's face. "I've never been to a real casino, but I feel like I wouldn't lose even there. You, on the other hand, Wei Lian... you should never set foot in a casino. You'd lose the shirt off your back."
At first, thanks to her good upbringing, Terry managed to hold her tongue. But Milady's taunts came one after another, her expression practically screaming smug satisfaction, her words full of both disdain for and ignorance of real casinos. Terry finally couldn't take it anymore. She snorted, "You think just because you got lucky a few times, you could actually win money in a casino?"
Milady's heart skipped a beat.
She said calmly, "That's right."
"Fine," Terry said. "I'll take you to a casino. Let's see you win there. How about it?"