On Shu Mountain, the remaining hermits from the north and south were leisurely dining. Elder Sun spoke, “Today is the mahjong tournament for entertainment, don’t you want to go watch?”
“I, Huang, have always detested gambling,” Master Huang declared with righteous words.
Elder Sun snorted with laughter.
He naturally knew why Master Huang said so, for this man was notorious for losing nine out of ten bets, always choosing big and getting small, betting east and seeing west come up, truly a guiding light for the gambling hall.
It would be strange if he wasn’t averse to it.
“But Jiang Yuebai is also competing, aren’t you a fan of that young lady?” Elder Sun added.
“A small bet for pleasure, a large bet harms the body, besides, how could a brain-teasing activity like mahjong be considered gambling?” Master Huang had already stood up, his plate of food mysteriously emptied.
Elder Sun couldn’t help but roll his eyes.
When the two elders arrived at the outskirts of the mahjong tournament venue, they found a particularly large crowd gathered at one end of the venue.
There weren’t many participants left in the competition, so naturally, these were all spectators, and they were all gathered to watch the same game.
With their keen eyesight, the two elders could see the situation of the game without getting close and stopped to watch from where they stood.
“Eh, I’ve won again, right?”
The most eye-catching at the table was a fair-skinned young girl with a ponytail, her face full of innocent joy as she laid down her freshly drawn hand.
A heavenly win.
“The twelfth heavenly win, my goodness! What’s the background of this young girl?”
“She’s a little demon from Silver Sword Peak, seems to be a transformed koi, hence her incredible luck.”
“Even a naturally nurtured koi shouldn’t be this outrageous, right? Does she have any other mystical qualities?”
“Anyway, she hasn’t used any magical powers or techniques, everything is by the rules.”
“Unbelievable…”
“Brother Xu is going to be eliminated in the knockout round!”
The onlookers whispered among themselves, expressing their amazement.
Sitting next to Liu Xiaoyu was the upright figure of Xu Ziyang, his face calm, but inside, even he felt a slight ripple.
This young girl… was too astonishing.
She couldn’t possibly continue to win sixteen rounds of heavenly wins and end the game like this, could she?
Xu Ziyang’s mental strength was also formidable, but that’s mahjong for you; no matter how many cards he remembered, he couldn’t change her luck.
Every time he sorted out his hand and foresaw the upcoming cards for each player, he immediately realized that Liu Xiaoyu was about to get a hand that would give her a heavenly win.
That feeling of powerlessness, sometimes it was better not to know.
But why?
He had intentionally tried to disrupt the order of the cards, but he could only manipulate a small part, never enough to stop Liu Xiaoyu’s terrifying heavenly wins. The game had become her solo show of pushing tiles.
The other three at the table were more like tile-sorting tools.
More and more spectators were drawn in to witness the birth of a miracle.
In contrast, at the table with Chu Liang and Jiang Yuebai, only a few die-hard fans of Jiang Yuebai were still watching, though they too seemed sleepy.
Because it was just too boring.
To ordinary eyes, they couldn’t see the divine battle between Chu Liang and Jiang Yuebai; they could only see that no one won for a long time, and then there was a minor win at the end of the game.
The game was extremely slow, each card required long contemplation… and the wins and losses were minimal, with no significant gap after five or six rounds.
Naturally, the spectators found it boring.
The two were calculating against each other due to their contest, inadvertently allowing their follower to win twice.
Listening to the exclamations from the neighboring table, Chu Liang suddenly smiled, “Sister Jiang, although we are evenly matched now, I will surely win in the end.”
“Hmph,” Jiang Yuebai raised her eyebrows slightly, “What makes you so sure?”
“Want to bet?” Chu Liang smiled, “If I win, Sister Jiang must let me ask a question, and you must answer truthfully.”
“Alright,” Jiang Yuebai smiled, “Then if I win, you also have to answer my question, and no lying.”
Xu Ziyang watched the sparks fly between their eyes and screamed internally, “Ahhh… their interaction is really subtly flirtatious! If I hadn’t seen Brother Chu buying dual cultivation techniques with my own eyes, I might never have noticed!”
The follower listened to their conversation, blinking in confusion, “Why is it that suddenly two people have been deprived of the right to win? Aren’t I the one with the most chips on the field right now…”
But soon he understood why.
In the final round, Xu Ziyang simply closed his eyes during the shuffling phase, giving up on card counting, as knowing the opponent’s heavenly win in advance was pointless.
However, Liu Xiaoyu didn’t immediately push her tiles after drawing them this time, but hesitated for a moment before slowly pushing out one tile.
“Hmm?” Xu Ziyang suddenly opened his eyes.
No heavenly win?
Too bad this was the last round, and the chips in front of Liu Xiaoyu were piled up like a mountain, even a big win couldn’t overturn the previous fifteen rounds.
But winning one round was better than a complete defeat.
So he perked up, observed the tiles in front of him, and carefully chose one to play.”Wait a moment…” Liu Xiaoyu suddenly called out, “The card he played, isn’t it exactly the one I’m missing…”
She pushed down the tiles on the table with some uncertainty.
Xu Ziyang’s heroic brows gradually furrowed, just as he was about to muster his spirits for a bold play to leave the scene with his dignity intact.
He triggered a win for someone else.
“……” The room fell silent.
Had it been someone else, they might have already spat out a mouthful of blood in frustration, but fortunately, Xu Ziyang was calm enough. He just slowly stood up, took a deep breath, and then turned to leave.
Countless gazes surrounded Liu Xiaoyu, making the young girl extremely nervous, but she couldn’t leave just yet, because before departing from Silver Sword Peak, Chu Liang had given her a task.
Before leaving Silver Sword Peak, Chu Liang told her that if she won as quickly as before, she should come behind Chu Liang’s table… to cheer him on.
…
“It’s simply cheating.”
That evening, at the drawing spot on Tongtian Peak, Jiang Yuebai thought of Liu Xiaoyu from earlier in the day and was still somewhat indignant.
She had been entangled with Chu Liang, and it was because of this young girl’s arrival that Chu Liang’s luck had suddenly soared. With the same calculations between the two, the one with better luck took a significant lead, naturally making it easier to win.
Chu Liang thus won a victory, defeating Jiang Yuebai and the other two unimportant players with a slight advantage, entering the finals of the mahjong competition.
Becoming one of the candidates for the title of Shu Mountain’s Mahjong God.
Xu Ziyang felt even more empathy, mentioning that lucky girl, he was at a loss for words. But after pondering for a moment, he added, “An ordinary koi spirit shouldn’t have such terrifying luck; she must have some divine aspect that has increased her fortune.”
Hearing this, Ling Ao next to him had a dark expression, with a hint of menace flashing in his eyes.
The three gathered, discussing, when the last one, Chu Liang, also arrived at the drawing spot. As expected, he brought Liu Xiaoyu with him.
“What’s the use of bringing her for the top four draw?” the elder in charge of the drawing cylinder laughed, “Is there a single weakling here?”
Chu Liang smiled and said, “Regardless, the tile Xiaoyu draws will surely be my best opponent.”
“Alright then, let’s have little sister Xiaoyu draw first,” Jiang Yuebai said with a smile.
“Thank you, Sister Jiang,” Liu Xiaoyu politely expressed her gratitude, then approached the drawing cylinder.
The elder in charge knew that the tile she drew represented Chu Liang, so he let her reach in and pull out a tile.
Liu Xiaoyu handed the tile to Chu Liang, who looked down and saw three big characters written on it: “Xu Ziyang.”