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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: TushChen
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“That’s right, Family Head.”
No matter how I looked at it, the gaze of the Tang Family Head was not friendly at all.
What’s going on?
Is this a way to intimidate me?
The look in his eyes seems too full of resentment for that.
“Feng Ying Hall Master.”
The middle-aged martial artist standing next to the Family Head quickly set up a table.
On it were dice, dominoes, and wooden cups that were familiar to me.
“First, let’s play a round.”
“You mean me and the Family Head?”
Suddenly gambling right after seeing my face?
And with the head of the Tang family at that?
While I was standing there, unable to grasp the situation after entering the Family Head’s chamber with a swelling heart full of anticipation for a generous reward, only to be suddenly hit with this gambling drift, a sound transmission reached my ears.
[Don’t let on, and listen carefully.]
“That’s right! Since I asked for the best gambler among the Sacheon outcasts to be summoned, shouldn’t we test your qualifications?”
I didn’t know what was going on, but there was no reason to refuse the gambling match when the Family Head, who was practically spitting fire from his eyes, asked me to.
So I sat down and listened to the sound transmission while agreeing.
[In the Tang family, they often gamble with the ownership of secret weapons or poisons at stake. But recently, Do-gyeong has been on an undefeated streak after learning gambling from somewhere. So the Family Head tried to stop Do-gyeong by gambling with him. You can tell the result by looking at the Family Head’s eyes now, right?]
Tang Do-gyeong became that good at gambling?
I knew that learning ability is maximized during enlightenment, but I was surprised that he had progressed to the point of sweeping even the Tang family members.
It’s true that I passed on gambling techniques to Tang Do-gyeong, but I only repeatedly showed him the movements without explaining any principles.
By the way, what the hell did that guy Tang Do-gyeong do?
Doesn’t he have any sense?
He even won the Family Head’s secret weapons at the gambling table?
“Then… I’ll shamelessly show you my skills.”
My mind wasn’t sorted out yet, but it was clear that this was a place where I needed to show my full ability.
In the first place, there was no way to hide my true skills when even Tang Do-gyeong had seen through me.
And the reason I was summoned to the Tang family seemed to be to invite someone who was even better at gambling than Tang Do-gyeong.
First, I played a few short rounds of [Double Dominoes] with the dominoes.
It’s a gambling game similar to modern blackjack, where you try to make 21 with two tiles.
Considering that there are combinations, it could be a mixed gambling game of blackjack and satta.
In this martial world without poker cards, there was nothing better than Double Dominoes to check basic gambling skills.
Although it was only a few rounds, the Family Head’s gambling skills that I could glimpse were more solid than I thought.
With this level of experience, no matter how excellent Tang Do-gyeong’s skills were, he shouldn’t have been completely cleaned out like this…
As I’ve said several times before, even the God of Gambling can’t win 10 out of 10 in gambling.
A 100% win rate is possible not because I’m good, but because the opponent has to be bad.
“Ahem. It seems we don’t have enough time for a long gambling session.”
He seemed like an impatient old man.
It meant that formal gambling was out of the question and that he wanted to see gambling techniques, so I immediately put down the dominoes.
It seemed that the gambling the Family Head wanted was a shell game after all, so I picked up the cups.
“4 cups. 2 dice. Do you agree?”
“Ahem, it seems like a bit of an unfavorable condition for you.”
Not a bit, but very unfavorable conditions.
With 2 dice, the movement paths become ridiculously complex.
Realistically, the difficulty level is more than 4 times higher.
“Haha, even so, I have some insight into gambling techniques, so this should be just right.”
The Family Head’s eyebrows twitched.
Gambling isn’t just about dexterity.
I only used dexterity with Tang Do-gyeong because I wanted to lose to him, but in fact, gambling techniques are designed to be able to adjust all the important elements for gambling.
Shaking the opponent’s concentration is just the basics of the basics.
I proceeded with the gambling while engaging in such simple psychological warfare.
And before long, all the fake money placed in front of the Family Head was piled up on my side.
“Hmm…”
Tang Guanglie, the head of the Tang family, looked at me with eyes that couldn’t understand me.
It made sense from the Family Head’s perspective.
Indeed, the Family Head’s eye techniques were the best among all the martial artists I had experienced.
He even followed the parts that I thought he couldn’t keep up with.
If it were an orthodox gambler, it would be quite difficult to gamble against a Tang family member.
After all, the Tang family’s eye techniques and hand techniques are specialized in capturing things that are done secretly in the blind spots of cognition in the darkness.
However, through gambling with the Family Head, I understood why Tang Do-gyeong had cleaned out all the gamblers of the Tang family, including the Family Head.
These guys were no different from the early Tang Do-gyeong!
They were filled to the bone with the belief that martial arts were omnipotent!
What’s the point of training eye techniques and hand techniques so much?
Even if your eyes can capture objects at 16k resolution and 300 frames, it doesn’t change the fact that you can’t see objects in your blind spot.
No matter how good your eye performance is, you can’t escape optical illusions.
Do magicians deceive people by moving their hands so fast that they can’t be seen?
Even if you widen your eyes, can you see it?
The more confident the Tang family members were in their eye techniques and hand techniques, the easier they fell for tricks.
If their eyesight was worse, they might have at least suspected that they had been fooled, but the Tang family members who had strong conviction in the ‘illusion’ that they had seen with their eyes had extreme compatibility with my gambling methods.
Since they are confident in their eye performance, if you deceive their eyes, that’s the end.
Even if Tang Do-gyeong used the gambling techniques I taught him, they would just be copies of what I use, so even if his proficiency and psychological techniques were lacking, it seemed he had cleaned them out just with compatibility.
“Is this still not enough?”
Should I deliver the final blow?
I demonstrated the cup flipping technique that I had used to take Tang Do-gyeong’s Blood Jade Plaque.
The only difference this time was that I used two cups with one hand.
Since I only needed to trick one person anyway, there was no need for multiple cups.
The Family Head pointed at a cup with a trembling hand.
The left cup.
Of course, in the Family Head’s eyes, it would have looked like it went into the left cup and was flipped over like that.
So he chose the left cup.
But the Family Head must know from his experience so far.
Since his eyes had been wrong all this time, they must be wrong this time too.
I gestured to the Family Head, urging him on, and the Family Head closed his eyes tightly and opened the cup.
“Hmm…!”
Of course, the cup was empty.
“I lost.”
The Family Head stood up abruptly as if he had made a decision and made a fist salute.
I also had no choice but to hurriedly stand up and return the fist salute.
In martial arts novels, the meaning of fist salutes is sometimes diluted because they do it for anything, but in fact, among the courtesies that can generally be shown, this fist salute has the highest meaning.
“Teacher, I apologize for testing you! But the matter was so grave that I had no choice but to confirm, please forgive me for that!”
A grave matter?
I unconsciously stared at the Family Head, and his old eyes were burning with intensity.
It seemed that something related to gambling had happened in the Tang family.
I thought at most Tang Do-gyeong had just won some secret weapons from him.
Yeah, even if the Family Head was cleaned out by Tang Do-gyeong, it’s a bit strange to call me for that.
If he lost, he lost, what is there for me to solve by being summoned?
Of course, it would be embarrassing for the Family Head to lose to Tang Do-gyeong in gambling.
However, calling it a grave matter just for that seemed like a stretch.
Even if Tang Do-gyeong had many secret weapons, it wasn’t really a big problem.
After all, isn’t Tang Do-gyeong also a Tang family member?
It’s not like I, an outsider, could win secret weapons from Tang Do-gyeong through gambling.
They gamble with secret weapons and poisons among Tang family members, but there’s no way they would do that with an outsider.
“Teacher, could you please help me?”
“Hoho, so what do I need to do?”
“It’s very simple!”
The Family Head said.
“Please teach me gambling!”
“…Pardon?”
For a moment, I thought I had misheard.
But seeing Tang Guanglie’s reddened face, it seemed I hadn’t misheard.
“Heh, hehe.. It’s a bit embarrassing for me to say.”
When I saw Tang Guanglie forcing a laugh, my senses sharpened.
I still didn’t fully understand the situation, but what are you going to do about this atmosphere now?
Seeing my elder showing an embarrassed face, my bootlicking instincts, no, my true nature as a member of society stirred.
The situation was a bit absurd, but in any case, wasn’t I with the head of the Tang family?
As the head of the Tang clan, he was someone that a lowly Sacheon outcast like Ho Cheon-an had to look up to.
As a descendant of a nation of courtesy in the East, how could I just watch my elder be embarrassed!
In a situation like this, it was time to show wit and resourcefulness to refresh the atmosphere.
“Hahaha, could it be that you bet your personal secret weapons against Tang Do-gyeong and lost them!”
“….”
“Hahahahaha!”
Lord Family Head, now’s the time you should laugh.
I laughed exaggeratedly to make the atmosphere amicable, but…
“…Ha…haha..”
Tang Guanglie didn’t laugh at all.
“No way… really?”
At my question, Tang Guanglie slightly averted his gaze.
I looked to the Feng Ying Hall Master for help, but he also averted his gaze.
“Oh…”
After the groan or exclamation that unintentionally came out of my mouth, only a terrible silence remained in the hall.
When Tang Guanglie couldn’t bring himself to open his mouth, the Feng Ying Hall Master stepped in.
“The Family Head just made a mistake. The Family Head got too excited because it had been so long since he gambled, and the match with Do-gyeong was also fierce…”
“Hohohoho. I see.”
It was a situation where a smirk naturally flowed out, but in fact, it was a familiar situation for me.
How many people had I seen who had lost everything while frequenting gambling houses?
I had seen countless people who paid a terrible price for momentarily losing their reason.
This is the evil charm of gambling.
Of course, that didn’t mean I could look at Tang Guanglie the same way as before.
“…It wasn’t intentional. It’s just that at the end, I tried to recoup my losses with a big bet, and well… A set of the Family Head’s secret weapons got mixed in among those secret weapon booklets.”
Perhaps sensing that my gaze had changed, Tang Guanglie rambled on with excuses.
Yeah, well, in the end, it was the trite defense of a loser who got carried away, gambled big when his reason was clouded, gambled even within the gamble, and gloriously perished.
“Tsk, I understand the situation.”
In fact, I, Ho Cheon-an, have a small point of pride.
It’s that I’ve been working to help others enjoy gambling in a healthy way.
First of all, I’m a specialist in saving gamblers who lose everything and are about to jump into a river.
I have to lose all the money I bring anyway, so I might as well lose to those who are desperate – it feels like I’m doing a good deed.
Most severe gambling addicts would revisit the gambling house and offer up their possessions even if I gave them disaster relief funds, but there were also those who regained their senses, grateful for the luck that found them at the end.
My activities didn’t stop there.
On days when there were no skilled gamblers to hustle, I would grab those who were about to fall into gambling clumsily and personally teach them.
I would tease them throughout the game with flashy gambling techniques, making them realize to the bone how dangerous gambling was, and then lose to them at the end.
The other person would gain the false realization that gambling isn’t just about technique, but also about how important luck is.
After showing them true gambling skills and experiencing even such a gambler losing money, most people would wake up from the illusion gambling gives them and face reality.
Through that process, some friends would lose confidence in gambling and return to society, while others would realize their place and continue gambling small amounts as a healthy hobby.
The sense of accomplishment from saving the head of a household with a bear-like wife and raccoon-like children!
My own little good deeds unfolding in the gambling house.
After a long time, I met a subject that made my blood boil.
“Healthy gambling!”
“…Hey, outcast?”
Tang Guanglie, a severe anger-holic who loses his reason at the gambling table and even bets the Family Head’s personal secret weapons!
What Tang Guanglie lacked was not just gambling skills!
It was his attitude towards gambling!
His mindset when gambling!
Lack of awareness of the dangers of gambling!
“The Family Head’s mind is rotten to the core! Healthy gambling is the way to achieve a healthy family! Prepare yourself! I will thoroughly reform you to the bone!”
The ‘Healthy Gambling Enforcement Unit’ Ho Cheon-an awakens.
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