Chapter 194: JACKPOT

If the Platinum Palace above ground was a den of hypocritical “gentlemen,” then this underground level was the true villain that had torn off its fig leaf entirely.

“Open it! Open it! Open it! Open it! Let me win this one! Young Master Zhao’s paying the bill again—!”
“N-no… impossible… give it back to me! That’s my money! My daughter needs that money to save her life!!!”

The moment the heavy soundproof door closed, deafening roars, the losers’ despairing wails, and the dealers’ cold, mechanical calls blended together.
They churned in the air like filthy turbulence.

Above each gambling table, blinding spotlights hung overhead.
They were like countless tiny stages, illuminating trembling hands and contorted faces in merciless detail.

“Gurgle…” Lin Yu felt her throat tighten.

Everywhere her eyes reached—money.
Or rather, things that represented desire.

Those hot-bodied bunny girls moved through the packed crowd like pale schools of fish.

So this is… a money pit?

“What? Never seen a place like this before?”
Just as Lin Yu was stunned by the overwhelming decadence, a magnetic voice sounded by her ear.

Luo Shaotian slightly turned his head.
Although his eyes were hidden behind sunglasses, the faint upward curl of his lips perfectly portrayed the amused detachment of a Hong Kong tycoon who had seen it all.

Lin Yu clenched her molars and joked weakly,
“N-no… not really… I mean, scenes like this… can’t compare to what big bosses usually see, right~”

“Heh…”
Luo Shaotian chuckled softly and lowered his voice so only the two of them could hear.
“Back when we were cracking down on vice,
I hadn’t really seen anything this big, this brazen either… this is actually my first time.”

As he spoke, his fingers lightly tapped twice at Lin Yu’s waist—a coded signal.
“Pull yourself together. Play along with me.”

At that moment, an extremely ill-timed cheer suddenly erupted, stabbing straight into Luo Shaotian’s eardrums.

“Waaah—! This place is awesome!”
“So many machines I’ve never seen before!”
“Is that a big wheel? And that one! That one looks like Japanese pachinko!”
“So cool, bro! I wanna play too—!!!”

Luo Shaotian’s eyebrow twitched violently.

“Senior Li Qing, we’re here to investigate this place…”
“Ah, don’t rush! Money’s meant to be spent! Didn’t Fatty give you a whole ten million dollars in mission funds? Take a million and have some fun!”

“Have some fun?”
“Yeah! If you don’t lose money, how are they supposed to believe you’re a real fat sheep and let their guard down?
Think about it—someone who comes to a money pit but doesn’t gamble, just wanders around collecting information… doesn’t that scream ‘undercover’?”

That noisy voice kept rambling in her earpiece.

Luo Shaotian felt his temples throb.
He sighed helplessly.

Then Chen Bing’s steady voice came through the earpiece as well:
“But this time, she’s not wrong.
If you want to blend into the environment, the fastest way is to become part of it.
In a casino, only gamblers aren’t suspicious.”

“Let loose and play. The more you lose, the more solid your Hong Kong businessman persona becomes.
Remember—this is just mission funding. Not your money.”

…That actually made some sense.

Luo Shaotian sighed inwardly.

Xiao Zhu, who had been waiting nearby, lifted her chin.
“Go on, exchange some chips first.”

“Got it! Boss Luo, please wait a moment!”
Xiao Zhu beamed, smiling ear to ear.

Not long after—

Clink clink clatter—

A pleasant collision of sounds rang out.

Xiao Zhu returned holding an exquisite black tray.
On it was piled a mountain of multicolored chips, with several gold-rimmed crystal chips of the highest denomination on top, shimmering with dazzling, mysterious light.

“This is one million U.S. dollars.”

Converted into an ordinary person’s life,
this could be decades—or even a lifetime—of hard work.
But here, they were nothing more than pieces of plastic.

“Boss Luo, everything’s here.”
Xiao Zhu respectfully presented the tray, her eyes full of anticipation.
“Where would you like to warm up first?”

Luo Shaotian casually grabbed a handful of chips and dumped them into Lin Yu’s hands with a clatter.

“Baby, what do you want to play?”
There was a hint of swagger in his voice.
“I brought you out today just to have fun. Pick whatever you like.
Say the word—if we lose, it’s on me; if we win, it’s yours.”

“H-huh? M-me?”
Lin Yu cradled the heavy pile of chips, her palms already sweating.

She looked at the dizzying array of tables around her—baccarat, roulette, Texas Hold’em…
Each one looked like a man-eating beast, making her head spin.

“I… I don’t know…”
She shrank her neck, putting on a timid expression.
“I’ve only seen these things in movies… I don’t understand the rules at all…”

“Not knowing the rules is what makes it fun.”
Luo Shaotian rubbed her head, utterly unreasonable in his swagger.
“Rules are for poor people. Here, you play however you want.”

“Pachinko! Pachinko! You have to play pachinko!!!”
That shrill voice in the earpiece exploded again.

Luo Shaotian felt his temples pulse violently.
He sighed and followed the direction of the voice.

In the corner of the casino, there really was a row of machines glowing with neon lights.

“T-that one…?”
Lin Yu followed his finger.

“Fine. We’ll listen to you.”
Since the boss had spoken, Xiao Zhu naturally didn’t dare object.

She immediately put on a professional smile and swayed her hips as she led the way.
“Oh my~ Boss Luo really has a youthful heart.”

The three of them stopped in front of the flashiest machine.

Xiao Zhu stood beside it and began explaining with practiced ease:
“This is the newest model we just imported from Japan—‘Deep-Sea Mermaid Princess.’
Don’t be fooled by the simple gameplay. There are lots of tricks inside.”

She pointed at the lightly dressed 2D mermaid on the screen, her eyes suggestive.
“Once you trigger the special jackpot mode, this mermaid princess will perform some very… generously sponsored programs for you~”

“S-sponsored?”
Lin Yu’s face flushed, and she couldn’t help complaining inwardly.

What kind of garbage game is this?!
What kind of normal person plays this?!

But…
Since it’s imported from Japan…
doesn’t that mean there’ll be that kind of—

Cough cough!
No, no, no!
I’m here undercover!
Can’t think crooked thoughts!

At Xiao Zhu’s snap of her fingers,
a waiter in a vest immediately pushed over a small cart.

Clatter—

The chips were deftly collected, replaced with a heavy basket full of silver steel balls.

Looking at the basket brimming with cold, gleaming metal spheres, Lin Yu’s heart started racing.

“S-so I just… turn this handle?”
She sat down awkwardly in front of the machine, fingers carefully resting on the lever, palms damp with sweat.

“That’s right, little sister~”
Xiao Zhu coached enthusiastically.
“Relax, don’t be nervous. Too much force won’t do, too little won’t either.
You need just the right amount—like… when you’re doing it with your man~”

This woman is ridiculously lewd!
Lin Yu cursed silently.

She tentatively turned the handle.

Thunk—clang clang clang!

The first steel ball carried her hope—
but before it could climb halfway up, it lost momentum and fell with a clang into the so-called “dead sea” discard slot.

“…Didn’t hit.”
Lin Yu frowned.

“This thing’s all about feel,” Xiao Zhu said smoothly.
“Too hard doesn’t work, too soft doesn’t work—you’ve got to find that sweet spot.”

Lin Yu took a breath and tried again.

The second ball flew out.
The third.
They bounced off pegs, ricocheting away at the last second—each time making her heart lurch and a regretful sigh slip from her lips.
Whenever a ball successfully passed through the maze of pins, she couldn’t help cheering quietly inside.

Fourth. Fifth…

This feeling… was strange.

Clatter! Clatter! Clatter!

She knew she was burning money.
She knew every second meant massive sums vanishing.

Yet the crisp sounds of balls dropping were like an invisible poison.

“Still not in?! Is this stupid machine rigged against me?!”
Suddenly, a steel ball miraculously broke through all obstacles and dropped squarely into the central START slot!

Lin Yu felt her blood pressure spike.

“It’s in! It’s in!!!”

It looked so simple—just shoot the ball in—yet it felt like there was some invisible barrier.

BOOM—!!!

The machine instantly went berserk!

The gentle background music turned frantic and explosive.
The screen flashed wildly, red warning lights spinning.

“JACKPOT! JACKPOT!”

Her adrenaline surged. She instinctively reached for more balls, wanting to go all in—

And then—

To blood-pumping electronic sound effects, the mermaid princess on the screen spread her cloaca and started spraying eggs like crazy.

Click.

A waterfall of steel balls poured down, crashing into the metal tray with a scalp-numbing roar!

“I—I won?!”
Lin Yu’s eyes went wide.

“It’s over already?!”
Then a wave of ecstasy hit.

“I won! I hit the jackpot! So many balls! This is all money! Hahahahaha!”

Without thinking, she grabbed a fistful of valuable chips and slapped them down arrogantly, shouting to the nearby waiter:
“I’m rich! I’m really rich this time—!”

She clumsily hugged the overflowing steel balls like they were her lifeline.

“Again! Fill it up for me! Full! Fill it!!!”

She whipped around and urgently asked Xiao Zhu,
“Manager—Sister Xiao Zhu! With this many balls, how many chips can I exchange? Is it enough to buy a house?!”

“Certainly, miss.”
“Oh my, how enviable~”

The waiter efficiently took her exchanged chips and replaced them with another brand-new basket of steel balls.

Xiao Zhu’s ingratiating smile stiffened for a split second.
She glanced at the pile and did a quick calculation.

“This jackpot’s payout is indeed quite generous. At the current rate… hmm, it should exchange for about one hundred thousand yuan worth of chips.”

“O-one… hundred thousand?!”
Lin Yu’s smile froze.

“H-how much?!”
“There are so many balls! They’re overflowing! You—you didn’t miscalculate, did you?! Isn’t something missing?!”

“Only a hundred thousand? With this many balls going in, shouldn’t it be easy money?!”

“Oh dear, that’s not how the math works. If one ball could earn you that much, wouldn’t everyone be rich already?”

“Tch—”
Lin Yu felt annoyed, but then thought—one hundred thousand is still money!

However, when she instinctively reached for the basket that had held her principal, her fingers touched nothing but cold plastic.

“…Basket?”
She froze, slowly lowering her head.

The basket that had once been filled with high-value chips…
was now empty.
Completely empty.

“How… how is this possible?”
Lin Yu’s pupils shrank, a chill running up her spine.

“I—I clearly had such a thick stack of chips! How could they disappear so fast?!”

Only then did the feverish excitement recede like a tide.

How long had she been playing?
Ten minutes? Twenty?

In that short time, she had unknowingly fed millions of chips into the machine.

“So this… is gambling?”
So-called “winning big” was nothing more than giving you back a tiny fraction of what you’d already lost—just enough to make you think you could win.

At that moment, a hand with red-painted nails gently landed on her shoulder.

Xiao Zhu’s heavily made-up face leaned in with a reassuring smile.
“Gambling is like that, little sister. Losing and winning—that’s just paying tuition. Newbies all go through this.”

“And look at you—triggering a jackpot so quickly! That means you’re chosen by the goddess of fortune.”
“This little loss is nothing. If you just keep going a bit more, you might flip everything back—maybe even win big~”

Lin Yu fell silent.

She was angry, but…
she had to admit—she was tempted.

Just one more round…
Maybe she really could win it back.
She felt like she’d already mastered the feel.

Just a few more times…

She was about to reach out again—

Smack.

A hand intercepted hers midair.

“Eh?”
Lin Yu snapped back to her senses and looked up in confusion.

Behind the sunglasses, the man’s expression was calm, unreadable.

“All right, baby.”
Luo Shaotian’s voice was low and magnetic.
“This kiddie game—just play it for fun.”

He gently squeezed her hand, cooling her restless heart a little.

Then he turned to Xiao Zhu, his tone growing cooler.
“Manager Xiao Zhu, thank you for the warm hospitality.
But for now… I’d like to spend some time alone with my little kitten.”

“Alone… together?”
Xiao Zhu froze, then immediately put on a knowing smile.

“Oh~ I understand, I understand!”
She bowed slightly in a perfectly graceful exit posture.
“In that case, I won’t disturb you two.
If you have any special… needs, just press the call button. Manager Xiao Zhu will be there right away~”

She even blew Luo Shaotian a kiss before swaying away, her voluptuous figure disappearing into the crowd.

Only then did Lin Yu let out a long breath.

“Phew… that woman finally left.”
She leaned weakly against Luo Shaotian, no longer caring about appearances.
“That perfume almost made me throw up… and that mouth—just a walking loudspeaker for sales pitches! I almost believed her nonsense!”

“Heh. Money’s a small matter. Even losing a few million wouldn’t matter,” Luo Shaotian said lightly.

“Really? Then how about you try—”
She stopped herself, face reddening.
…She had gotten a bit carried away.

“All right,” Luo Shaotian interrupted gently.
“While you were having fun just now, I discovered something.”

“A secret?”
“Yeah.”

His gaze pierced through the bustling crowd and landed on an unremarkable black door deep in the casino.

“This place isn’t just for gambling money.”
“It can also gamble with lives.”

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