Chapter 644: True and False Rules

"Huang Jia Tong Hua Shun?" Qi Xia frowned. "What kind of hand is that?"

"Specifically, it's 'Tong Hua Shun', but the biggest hand of all the Tong Hua Shun includes 'Ai Si'," Qiao Jiajin explained. "From 'Shi' to 'Ai Si', that's five cards in a row, all of the same suit. This type of Tong Hua Shun is the largest among all of them, so it's called 'Huang Jia Tong Hua Shun'."

Qi Xia glanced at Di Hou, who was shuffling the cards across the table, and considered Qiao Jiajin's words.

Could there be a Tong Hua Shun in this game?

This game used traditional festivals and the 24 Jie Qi, and it happened to include the four seasons. This meant that if following the rules of Tong Hua Shun, the largest hand would require five sequential numbers, all from the same season.

At that moment, all the cards reappeared in Qi Xia's mind.

From "Li Chun" to "Gu Yu" formed one season.

From "Li Xia" to "Da Shu" formed another season.

From "Li Qiu" to "Shuang Jiang" formed another season.

From "Li Dong" to "Da Han" formed the final season.

This calculation was a bit complex and took some time. Qi Xia converted all the cards in his mind into numbers and then added the twelve "Jie Ri".

"Hold on... twelve Jie Ri?"

Qi Xia furrowed his brow slightly, feeling that the traditional Jie Ri he remembered were more than twelve. Why were some missing?

He listed out all the traditional Jie Ri he could think of.

Chun Jie, Yuan Xiao Jie.

She Ri Jie, Shang Si Jie, Han Shi Jie.

Qing Ming Jie, Duan Wu Jie, Qi Xi Jie, Zhong Yuan Jie.

Zhong Qiu Jie, Chong Yang Jie, Xia Yuan Jie.

And finally, La Ba and Chu Xi.

Not counting the traditional festivals of various ethnic minorities, the widely known ones alone totaled at least fourteen.

So why were there only twelve Jie Ri in this deck?

Had two festivals been excluded for some reason?

Qi Xia quickly focused on "Qing Ming Jie".

This festival was interesting; in this "Shuo Wang Yue", "Qing Ming Jie" was simply written as "Qing Ming", much like "Qi Xi Jie".

However, "Qing Ming" was not only a festival but also one of the 24 Jie Qi. Therefore, the card with "Qing Ming" on it was only one, removed from the category of traditional festivals and treated solely as a Jie Qi.

That added just one more festival, but among the remaining ones, which one was completely different from the others?

"Han Shi Jie..." Qi Xia slowly opened his eyes. In his memory, only Han Shi Jie was entirely different from the other festivals.

All other festivals had a specific date on the lunar calendar, but Han Shi Jie did not.

Its date was the 105th or 106th day after Dong Zhi, or one or two days before Qing Ming Jie each year.

This unique festival couldn't facilitate smooth gameplay in a game that relied on precise numbers for comparison, so it had to be omitted.

With that, the remaining festivals totaled twelve, plus all the Jie Qi, making thirty-six cards in total. Now that all the hands were clear, he could roughly deduce Di Hou's hidden cards based on the players' exposed cards and the community cards in the center of the table, increasing the chances of victory.

After listing all the Jie Qi and Jie Ri in his mind, Qi Xia transformed them into sets of numbers.

This calculation was quite extensive and took him a considerable amount of time.

Soon, his mind was filled with a mass of numbers, all divided into four rows by season: spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

But after tallying all the hands, the situation was still a bit odd.

Considering the "Huang Jia Tong Hua Shun" that Qiao Jiajin had mentioned at the beginning, while theoretically a season could be seen as a suit to form that season's Tong Hua Shun, Qi Xia realized, upon reviewing the dates of all four seasons, that there was a strange issue.

No season's dates could form a Tong Hua Shun.

Due to the "Feng Liu Er Shi Yi" in the first half of the year, there were many "Liu", "Er", and "Yi" in the dates, and in the second half, "Feng Ba Er San Yi" brought many "Ba", "Er", and "San".

The relatively monotonous numbers greatly reduced the possibilities for combinations.

Qi Xia found the situation intriguing. Although the ancients could never have anticipated that one day someone would use the dates of the 24 Jie Qi for gambling based on Texas Hold'em rules, it seemed they had deliberately avoided the possibility of a Tong Hua Shun.

Spring lacked "Wu", summer lacked "San", autumn lacked "Liu", and winter lacked "Si".

No matter what, it was impossible to have five numbers in sequence within the same season, even with the addition of traditional festivals.

This curious situation made Qi Xia feel a sense of wonder, as if he were connecting with the people who compiled the calendar a thousand years ago.

"Fist..." Qi Xia snapped back to reality and asked Qiao Jiajin, "Besides 'Huang Jia Tong Hua Shun', what are the rankings for the rest?"

Qiao Jiajin mimicked Qi Xia by stroking his chin, then quickly pulled his hand away in disgust and refocused. "Below Huang Jia Tong Hua Shun is the regular Tong Hua Shun."

Qi Xia nodded after hearing that, ruling out Tong Hua Shun.

"Below 'Tong Hua Shun' is 'Si Tiao'," Qiao Jiajin explained. "'Si Tiao' means four cards of the same number, like the way you won just now."

"Got it."

"And below 'Si Tiao' is 'Fu Luo Hao Si', also called 'Hu Lu'," Qiao Jiajin said, holding up three fingers on his left hand and two on his right. "In simple terms, it's three of one number plus a pair of another."

"Okay."

"Then below that is 'Tong Hua', which means five numbers from the same suit. Below 'Tong Hua' is 'Shun Zi', meaning you don't care about the suit, as long as the numbers form a sequence of five. After that, from largest to smallest, it's regular 'San Tiao', 'Liang Dui', and 'Yi Dui'."

After listening, Qi Xia quickly thought through the possibilities of various hands and soon frowned. "It seems the so-called 'De Zhou Pu Ke' rules don't fully apply to this game."

"Meh...?"

"Some combinations that are hard to get in poker can be easily achieved in 'Shuo Wang Yue', like 'Tong Hua'," Qi Xia explained. "For example, if you draw a 'Dong Zhi', then the numbers 'Yi Yi Er San' could all come from 'Dong Ji', making 'Tong Hua' very likely, so its ranking shouldn't be that high."

"In that case..." Qiao Jiajin narrowed his eyes, "there are indeed variants of Texas Hold'em that adjust the rankings based on the number of cards."

"So, what we need to do next is to form various hands and have Di Hou tell us their rankings."

(Family members! The real-person audio book of "Shi Ri Zhong Yan" has launched on "Fan Qie Chang Ting"! On the first day, it uploaded over sixty chapters, with more than twenty participants in the cast, featuring a super luxurious voice acting lineup. If you're interested, go support it! Additionally, Fan Qie has released a new event for this audio book launch: Follow @Shi Ri Zhong Yan official account on Weibo, post your favorite line from "Shi Ri Zhong Yan", and you could win an autographed physical book. They'll also randomly give away the exclusive "Ji Dao Wan Sui" Fan Qie title to 100 readers!)