The Elixir is for You, The Poison is for Me

#350 - White Shell Gambling

Almost an hour had passed since Lu Jing entered the room. The Gambling Ghost, who had been diligently trying to regulate his breathing and recover his inner strength, suddenly spoke, "A rare opportunity! How about we make a bet?"

The others knew that his gambling addiction had likely flared up again. However, before anyone could ridicule him, the Gambling Ghost continued.

"Don't spout nonsense. Gambling is inherently human nature. Don't tell me none of you are thinking about it right now? Aren't you curious when he'll come out? Since everyone's curious, why not just bet on it?"

"How do we bet?" After a moment, someone finally asked, "Bet on whether he'll stay in the room longer than Master Bamboo Staff?"

The Gambling Ghost shook his head. "Betting like that isn't bad, but it's not exciting enough. There are only two sides to bet on, and if you win, you have to split the money. After all that effort, even if you win, you might not get much."

"Then how can we bet to make it exciting?"

"Simple. We each say a time, and whoever's time is closest is the ultimate winner. Winner takes all."

This betting method was indeed exciting, but the risk of losing was a bit too high.

However, the reason the Gambling Ghost could become one of the three Plague Gods of Mirror Lake Valley was his accurate grasp of gambler psychology. People caught by him found it hard to refuse in the end.

Moreover, this guy had excellent gambling ethics. He never cheated, and there were wins and losses. Although he won a little more than he lost, he won purely on gambling skills, leaving people speechless.

Seeing the others hesitate, the Gambling Ghost immediately added, "This time, let's not play too big. It's about participation. Let's make the stake… two White Shells each."

White Shells were a type of shell that was crystal clear like snow, without a trace of impurity.

They were a specialty of Mirror Lake Valley, only occasionally found by the lake, and only fourteen could be found each year. Even now, the paper figures in Mirror Lake Valley didn't know what these small white stones were good for besides being pretty.

However, because their production was stable enough and the quantity was small, they gradually became a special currency within the valley.

However, the appearance of White Shells wasn't to replace gold and silver. They weren't used to buy and sell ordinary daily necessities, but rather… unique skills.

The paper figures in Mirror Lake Valley came from all walks of life, some righteous, some evil, and the reasons for seclusion were varied. But those who could be recruited into Mirror Lake Valley by the successive Vice Directors of the Ministry of Celestial Observation were all bound to possess unique skills.

When these people were still alive, they mostly treasured their abilities and wouldn't easily impart them to others. But when their lifespan was about to end, their original thoughts might also change.

Either they couldn't bear to see their unique skills lost, or they wanted to leave a trace of their existence in this world before they died… In short, they began to look for successors.

However, there were always very few young people like the Green-Clad Girl in Mirror Lake Valley. Even if there were, they might not be interested in other people's unique skills. After all, even if one mastered some unique skill in Mirror Lake Valley, there didn't seem to be many places to use it.

Some people were lucky and found a successor among the disciples of the academy, but some couldn't find a suitable candidate even until they were about to breathe their last. So they could only write down their unique skills and give them to the current Little Marquis.

The Little Marquises were also somewhat troubled about how to deal with these unique skills. After all, the owners of these unique skills hoped that their skills could be passed on when they died. But as more and more unique skills accumulated, it was simply unrealistic to find successors one by one.

But it seemed a bit too wasteful to just pile them all at the bottom of a box. So a Little Marquis who had been in the money-lending business simply smacked his head and came up with a White Shell exchange for unique skills.

→

He encouraged everyone to use the White Shells in their hands to exchange for unique skills at his place.

However, his trading method was quite unique. To prevent some unpopular unique skills from being ignored, he numbered all the unique skills and then threw the wooden plaques with the numbers written on them into a large wooden box.

People who wanted to exchange for unique skills would bring ten White Shells to him, then reach into the wooden box and grab a wooden plaque. Whatever they grabbed was what they got.

Because this process sounded quite interesting, it gradually became a popular entertainment activity in Mirror Lake Valley. However, what the Little Marquis didn't expect was that everyone went to grab unique skills, not necessarily to practice themselves.

Many just wanted to see their luck. They were overjoyed if they grabbed a powerful unique skill, and shook their heads and sighed if it was weaker. Besides that, they would also compare with each other.

But in any case, the unique skills finally began to circulate, and everyone also began to collect White Shells, which no one usually cared about.

So these White Shells now had value, and were once炒得 很 热 (speculated to be very hot), making them hard to find in Mirror Lake Valley for a long time.

But after all, this thing was different from gold and silver. Everyone had a big deviation in their valuation of it.

The Gambling Ghost was using this point to choose it as a stake.

Basically everyone present could take out two White Shells. Naturally, those who didn't care about unique skills were willing to use it to join in the fun, while those who cared a lot about these two White Shells would also grit their teeth and participate.

Because White Shells had their special characteristics, ten were needed to exchange for unique skills. Simply holding two in hand was useless, so it was better to bet on it and exchange for more White Shells.

So in the end, fourteen of the seventeen people present joined this bet.

Most people bet within an hour, because Master Bamboo Staff before took about that long. Although he modestly said that he was just a useless person, his martial arts realm was still top-notch.

Lu Jing was indeed a master on the Heavenly Pivot Ranking, but after all, he was still young. It was already not easy to become top-notch at such an age, but it seemed that he had just entered top-notch not long ago. When it came to true inner strength, it was estimated that he was not as good as Master Bamboo Staff.

Now that an hour was almost up, he should be able to come out at any time.

However, some people felt that Lu Jing should stay in the room longer than Master Bamboo Staff. Their reason was very simple, because Master Bamboo Staff had suffered internal injuries, and seeing that there was only a quarter of an hour left until an hour, purely from a probability point of view, Lu Jing's chances of lasting an hour were still very high.

But no matter which wave these two waves of people were, the time they bet on basically fluctuated around an hour, and some people had even become precise to a few breaths in order to distinguish themselves from others.

The Gambling Ghost was the last to bet, but he bet on an hour and a half.

Everyone was in an uproar when they heard this, and they all felt that he must be crazy.

Because an hour and a half meant that the Gambling Ghost believed that Lu Jing's inner strength was not only stronger than Master Bamboo Staff, but also 50% stronger, which was too outrageous.

However, the Gambling Ghost didn't explain, but just shouted, "No more bets, accept your fate!"

As a result, before his voice fell, another voice rang out, "Include this old man in the bet."

And the speaker was actually Master Bamboo Staff, who hadn't spoken much before.