Chapter 647: Psychological Attacks in Succession

Di Hou listened, then fiercely squeezed the cards in his hand, asking in a deep voice:

"What kind of idiom is that?"

"Sharp, oh sharp," Qiao Jia Jin said, ignoring Di Hou and nodding frantically. "'Wang,' is it? Then I'll follow with 'Wang Ba Gao Zi'!"

"This idiom is great!" Chen Jun Nan said with a grin. "'Zi'... I'll follow with... 'Zi Shu Chou Hou'! Oh my god, 'Chou Hou' is freaking perfect."

"Hou, right?" Qiao Jia Jin thought for a moment. "I'll follow with 'Hou Zi Zhen Chou'..."

"Enough!!" Di Hou slammed his hand down hard on the table.

Fortunately, the table was sturdy enough that everyone felt the ground shake slightly.

"Oh yeah...?" Chen Jun Nan leaned back upon seeing this and propped his legs up on the table.

"Are you two ever going to stop? Can you just be quiet?" Di Hou said with a displeased face.

"Damn it..." Chen Jun Nan cursed impatiently. "Di Hou Ge, is this a freaking library you're running? Do I have to stay completely quiet during a gambling game?"

"Then I really want to ask you," Di Hou sneered. "In a game that requires strategy and calculation at every turn, you're using the most despicable methods. If you win like this, are you okay with it?"

"Absolutely," Chen Jun Nan replied. "What about you?"

"You bastard!" Di Hou slapped the table and stood up abruptly.

Qiao Jia Jin and Chen Jun Nan both stood up in unison, their momentum not backing down from Di Hou at all.

Qiao Jia Jin pointed fiercely at Di Hou and said:

"How about it?! Fei Ma Mao! Want to throw down?"

The three of them glared at each other intensely, as if a fight could break out any second.

Qi Xia, however, remained silent, quietly sitting in his seat and watching coldly. Chen Jun Nan's work was going smoothly; he just needed to keep disrupting Di Hou's thoughts, making it hard for Di Hou to think clearly and win the game.

Perhaps even Di Hou himself didn't realize that on this day, gathered in this small gambling den, there were three people notorious in Zhong Yan Zhi Di for being troublemakers.

"You guys... really act like regular gambling den patrons," Di Hou said, calming himself with a cold laugh. "Back in the real world, I dealt with people like you every day, and now it's actually making me a bit nostalgic."

"Then that's great, isn't it?" Chen Jun Nan tilted his head. "I'll help you relive the old days, Monkey Bro, and I won't even charge you for it."

"Too bad the me now is different from the me back then." Di Hou shook his head, seeming to calm down. He pulled out another cigarette from his pocket, pursed his lips, and lit it. "Do you know what the biggest difference is between Zhong Yan Zhi Di and the outside world?"

"The outside world doesn't have talking monkeys," Chen Jun Nan replied.

Di Hou ignored him and quietly lit his cigarette, then said:

"Out there, I wouldn't dare do things that no one would stop me from doing here."

"Oh? You mean 'killing'?" Chen Jun Nan asked.

"Yes," Di Hou nodded. "But you're right about one thing—I can't kill you. Still, I could walk over right now and rip out your tongue, leaving you to just mumble and spit blood for the rest of your time."

"That's really unfortunate," Chen Jun Nan shot back without flinching. "Let me make this clear to you too. If you rip out my tongue, I'll not only mumble and spit blood, but I'll also mumble curses, then hum 'Hao Yun Lai' in your ear thirty times over, spraying blood all over your face in the process. Every time you play a card, I'll spray more blood until I've got none left, and then I'll lie on the ground and scrawl a 'Can' character on your ankle. How does that sound?"

Di Hou hadn't expected the man in front of him to have been holding back earlier. When it came to arguing, Di Hou thought he had no chance of winning, and even his train of thought was getting blocked.

Besides, if anyone else had said that, Di Hou might have dismissed it, but coming from Chen Jun Nan, it felt highly believable—as if he could actually follow through.

"That's enough, Chen Jun Nan," Qi Xia said. "Sit down."

Chen Jun Nan sat back in his chair without another word, and Qiao Jia Jin slowly sat down after glaring at Di Hou.

Di Hou glanced at Qi Xia, furrowed his brow, surprised that these two seemingly lawless guys were so obedient.

"You'd better watch yourself," Di Hou said, looking at Chen Jun Nan.

Chen Jun Nan leaned back, swung his legs in the air in a circle, and slammed them down on the table. Then he cupped his hand to his ear, turned his head, and said with a smug grin:

"Can't hear you, what did you say??"

Di Hou stopped paying attention to Chen Jun Nan. After sitting down, he looked at his hand: "Chu Xi."

Among all the cards, only "Chu Xi" could secure "Yi Er San" in the first round together.

So, Di Hou's best way to win was to form a "Shun Zi."

As Qi Xia stared at Di Hou, he suddenly felt something off.

It was a visual oddity.

He sensed that within his line of sight, something had undergone a very subtle change.

Two seconds later, Qi Xia turned his head toward the wooden box in the center of the table.

The box had been there all along, but Qi Xia keenly felt that it had changed.

Its position hadn't shifted, its shape was the same, yet something about it seemed strange.

Could it be...

Qi Xia turned to look at Qiao Jia Jin and said:

"Quan Tou, take a look at that wooden box."

Qiao Jia Jin glanced at the box and then asked:

"What's wrong with the box?"

"Do you think its color has changed?" Qi Xia asked.

Qiao Jia Jin and Chen Jun Nan, who was nearby, both turned their heads and examined the wooden box carefully.

The box's patterns were vivid, and its overall color was still deep brown, with no substantial changes.

"Has it...?" Qiao Jia Jin asked. "De Ren Zai... have you started seeing it as white?"

Qi Xia shook his head after hearing that and wiped the blood from his eyes, thinking he might have been overthinking it.

Maybe some blood had dripped into his eyes, or perhaps the earlier dizziness had affected his vision. In any case, Qi Xia felt that the box's color had changed slightly.

At least, it wasn't the same as when he first saw it.

It seemed... a bit lighter?

But when he stared at the wooden box closely, it felt like its color had always been that way.

Qi Xia shook his head, feeling the fog that had been dispersed starting to gather again, but now he had a clear way to deal with it.

He placed both hands under the table, then used his left hand to grip his already broken right pinky finger, and gritted his teeth to squeeze it hard.

The fog vanished instantly.

This broken finger was like a button to dispel the fog. As long as he survived this game, Qi Xia could afford to sacrifice nine more fingers just like it.