Foolish Game of the Chapter 1426: ...Getting to Know

The dream was beautiful. Reality was not.

Over the next few days, little Jia not only lost every cent he'd buried at the base of the wall — he even racked up a modest debt.

But the adults at the table didn't think he was good for it. They seed to know all about his little "business."

Still, every con had its day of reckoning. The previous batch of mountain-climbing bosses had returned. They were staying in the village, and one man in sunglasses wandered into the village chief's gambling den by accident. He stood off to the side and watched for a while.

The villagers didn't mind outsiders. They called for him to join in — eager to fleece a lamb.

But the man gave a contemptuous smile. He wasn't the least bit interested. He seed to be here only to rekindle a familiar feeling.

As chance would have it, little Jia was there today. The man noticed him and, seeing the cunning on the boy's face, grasped the village-entrance racket at once. He didn't press the matter, though. He simply smiled, studying the deftness of little Jia's hands as they shuffled paper chip-proxies. He even took off his sunglasses, a glint of interest in his eyes.

This was a veteran gambler. And very likely a card sharp.

Cheng Shi was nothing if not perceptive. A single glance told him the man's true nature — and more than that, he could already guess where this story was heading.

'Little Jia is about to be taken away.'

This wasn't idle conjecture. When Old Jia had co to adopt him all those years ago, the light that had glinted in his eyes had been identical to the look in this man's now.

Sure enough, one phrase — "ten bets, zero losses" — was all it took for the man to spirit away the boy who dread of nothing more than conquering every gambling table. He led him out of the village where the child had no family.

That hoarse-voiced young man wasn't his brother. No real brother would drag a kid into a gambling den.

The bus retraced its route. The road was just as bumpy. The bosses on board didn't seem the least bit surprised that sunglasses had brought a child back. They appeared well accustod to it.

At this, Cheng Shi's brow darkened. He knew little Jia had walked straight into a trap.

This man was far from ordinary.

"What's your na?" Sunglasses asked cheerfully.

Little Jia, bouncing on the bus, watched his hotown scenery receding without a shred of nostalgia — only excitent: "My surna's Jia. I don't have a first na. Everyone calls

Little Jia."

"Surna Jia?"

Little Jia swung around and nodded vigorously: "Yeah! This is Jia Village. Most people here are surnad Jia. Why?"

The man looked satisfied: "Good surna. Very good surna. Because what we do is fake."

"!!??"

Hearing this, Cheng Shi went rigid. He turned in disbelief to the boy beside him — Little Jia — no, Little Jia... For a mont, his mind was utterly blank.

He had never imagined that the father who taught him to be honest had been deceiving him for over a decade.

A scene flashed before his mind's eye — his very first eting with Old Jia, the man fidgeting awkwardly:

"Oh, oh, I see, I see. My surna is Cheng..."

"My na's Cheng Jia. The na stuck, so they call

Old Jia — you know, 'jia' as in 'second to none'..."

'Liar.'

'It's all lies!'

'Your surna is Jia. Why did you tell

it was Cheng?'

...

Cheng Shi's guess was dead on. The man was trouble. He wasn't just a common card sharp — he was the behind-the-scenes boss of an entire cheater syndicate.

This boss's business was simple: adopt gifted children from far-flung places, train them into card sharps, and send them to bleed casinos dry.

It was fast money. Naturally, it was fast death too.

Cheaters caught by casinos never ca back in one piece. Missing arms and broken legs were par for the course. And once a casino blacklisted you, stripping you of entry, what awaited wasn't just disability — it was abandonnt.

The boss didn't keep useless people.

The mont a cheater failed, he lost everything. His assets were confiscated; he was dumped on so roadside to fend for himself. They wouldn't even treat his wounds.

The stakes were enormous for both boss and cheater. And so the "training" before deploynt was brutal.

Saying the children were beaten black and blue was no exaggeration.

Only now did Cheng Shi understand where Old Jia's lifelong ailnts had co from.

From the day he was "adopted," not a single day passed without beatings and curses. Yet after adopting Cheng Shi, Old Jia never once raised a hand or his voice.

Except for that one day — when Cheng Shi had scamd a bottle of cola using a bottle cap.

Cheng Shi wanted nothing more than to snap his fingers and obliterate every lackey who had ever hurt Old Jia. But he knew that if he interfered inside this mory, Old Jia's mories would no longer be complete and pure.

Fortunately, Old Jia was no pushover, either. So battles didn't need his son's help.

Through the relentless beatings, Little Jia's card skills grew sharper and sharper — eventually surpassing even the boss to beco the organization's unrivaled ace. At the table, no one could catch him cheating.

This was no longer simple card sharping. Cheng Shi could see plainly: the man had achieved mastery in the art of deception. And by now, Little Jia was no longer young.

Old Jia, card skills in hand, bided his ti. After his na had spread, the first thing he did was gamble his boss into bankruptcy.

He mimicked the boss's own thods and tossed the man onto the roadside like a stray dog. The boss may have kept all his limbs — but at his age, he probably wouldn't survive that bone-chilling downpour.

"Those who cheat, get cheated in return.

That's the lesson you taught . Now I believe it."

With that, Old Jia turned and walked away. He knew the sa fate would catch up with him, sooner or later. But he'd grown up in this world. Beyond gambling and lying, his life had no other aning.

And so, Old Jia's card skills brought him wealth far beyond any ordinary person's — and along with it, the covetous eyes of countless others.

Everyone who knew him wanted a slice of his fortune. None of them expected that the first person to share it would be a hostess standing at a casino's front door.

The injuries from his youth tortured Old Jia day and night. One evening after a winning session, a stab of agony made him stumble. The new hostess at the door — in her heels — trotted over and caught him, twisting her own ankle in the process. She could barely stand.

For a mont, neither was sure who was supporting whom. They ended up clutching each other, neither toppling over.

By then, Old Jia had seen enough of the world to stop trusting anyone. The look he gave her was pure suspicion. But the hostess didn't care. Her kindness was genuine.

Once she saw he was fine, she limped back to her post, returned to her position, and carried on working — not a single word spoken the entire ti, smiling through the pain, consummate and professional.

Old Jia watched her for a while. Then he left in silence.

The next day, the hostess received an anonymous thank-you paynt. She had never seen that many zeros on a check in her entire life.

She was overjoyed — and terrified. She knew who it was from. But from that day forward, she never ran into him again.

She used the fortune to settle the headache of her family affairs, quit her job, and began searching the city for her "savior." In yet another rainstorm, she found Old Jia collapsed in agony in an alley.

She wasn't a strong woman. But that day, she carried Old Jia on her back through the rain for several kiloters. The hospital doctors said Old Jia had been lucky to survive. Any later and he'd have been gone.

The woman was imnsely relieved. Old Jia, however, wasn't grateful. He still believed she was there for the money.

But a few days later, every major casino in the city knew that the infamous Old Jia now had a sharp, capable assistant at his side.

Her surna was Sun. Nobody knew her real na. Cheng Shi did.

Because the Aunt Sun of this era looked virtually no different from the first ti he'd t her. The only distinction was that she hadn't been wealthy yet.

Having witnessed Old Jia's half-life, Cheng Shi now knew exactly where her money had co from.

'Turns out, I was the rich kid all along...'

Cheng Shi had always sensed that Old Jia's past was complicated. He just never imagined it would be this colorful — let alone that the bed full of cash at Aunt Sun's place had all been won at casinos.

'So were the loans for college actually loans?'

'Turns out Old Jia repaid Aunt Sun's favor a long, long ti ago.'

Up to this point, the mory had been more or less normal. But what happened next began to give Cheng Shi — imrsed as he was in nostalgia — a creeping sense that sothing was off.

Because as he followed Old Jia's footsteps through the mory, he started encountering familiar faces — or rather, the pasts of familiar faces.

Why were they appearing here?

Was it coincidence... or Fate?

...