"This is just a gambling table, right? You all are just too easily startled," Bert casually walked up to the gambling table, standing where the croupier would normally be positioned. The drone’s lights lit up the table at that mont, revealing betting patterns like Big, Small, Number, and Leopard on the dusty surface. Colorful chips lay scattered around, only a dice cup was neatly placed where it belonged.
Bert, being a materialistic strear, naturally didn’t bring any ghost-hunting tools. He stood there empty-handed in front of the table, reaching out to pick up the dice cup and then grabbed the three dice beneath it amidst the noisy live comnts.
"Look, where’s the ghost? It’s just three dice! Speaking of which, before I moved to the city, I used to be a croupier at a small local gambling hall. Haven’t touched these in years, brings back a bit of nostalgia!"
As he spoke, Bert tossed the three dice into the air, slapped the table, caught the dice as the cup bounced up, and began to perform fancy shakes with the dice cup—his movents far more flamboyant than those of any fancy bartender.
"Ladies and gentlen, how about betting on the size with the strear?"
"Crap, the strear still has the mood to play this; can’t you see those hands in the shadow across from you?"
"Crap, why is that gambling ghost standing opposite the strear?"
"This guy wouldn’t really think about gambling with the strear, would he?"
"Slam!" Just when the live comnts were buzzing with discussion, Bert forcefully clamped the dice cup down onto the table. As three light thuds sounded, the corners of his mouth slightly curled up, he spoke in a very familiar tone,
"Bets are final!"
Silence ensued...
Although there was no sound, the audience, still in hologram mode focusing on the dim unlit parts, faintly saw an arm extend a finger and point at the "small" on the table.
"Crap, the ghost placed a bet!"
"Holy shit, it really placed a bet! Strear be careful, the ghost bet small!"
"This gambling ghost really started gambling! If it is really small, isn’t the strear dood?"
"Is it so interesting talking all cryptically? Just say you bet small, right?" Bert muttered quietly, heard by everyone and without a trace of nervousness, then he slapped the dice cup and lifted it—
"3, 5, 6, fourteen points, big!"
"Slam!"
Before the live comnts could even sigh in relief, a sudden dull thud ca from the corner. Bert imdiately directed the drone to shine light there but only saw a chip rolling on the ground.
"Really, it’s all your cryptic mumbling; I almost thought there really was a ghost!" Bert, looking annoyed, walked over and picked up the dark chip, muttering randomly:
"It just dropped from the table out of nowhere, didn’t even see any wind. Could it be a mouse?"
"I seriously suspect this is the ghost losing to the strear."
"But what use is that? It can’t really be trading for a life, right?"
"Maybe it’s a voucher for letting the strear off?"
"Speaking of which, the ghost hand didn’t show itself today, is it afraid of the gambling ghost?"
"They say in ancient tis, those who couldn’t pay gambling debts would get their hands chopped off, do you think that ghost hand was also a gambling ghost?"
...
Watching the exchanges in the live comnts, Feng Xue suddenly ca up with an idea even more interesting than her original script and imdiately ditched it. She then flipped the chip high up, watching the distinctive shimr of black and gold under the light, and said in a bored tone:
"This isn’t interesting at all, forget it, I might as well go look for that corpse..."
He said, as he suddenly opened a livestream clip that showed the video of Ausikus’s death.
Following the video, Feng Xue arrived at a gambling table and indeed saw a corpse that had turned into a mummy.
"There’s really a corpse, and not just one? But looking at it, it doesn’t seem like it just died. I’m starting to think this is a conspiracy?"
Bert squatted down, ca up to the corpse, and took out a pair of white plastic gloves from his pocket, apparently planning to begin the autopsy.
As soon as they saw his movents, reminders imdiately popped up in the barrage:
[Strear be careful, after he died, a lot of fearless people ca to perform an autopsy, and those extra corpses were the ones who didn’t get away.]
[Yeah, yeah, I saw those live streams where they courted death too, all were attacked by ghosts during the autopsy.]
[There were also those who planned to catch ghosts but ended up getting attacked by them.]
...
"So I’ve been saying there are no ghosts in this world! It’s 2077 already, and there could still be criminals who murder people and disguise it as hauntings, all because of you guys spreading these ghost stories! I’m doing the autopsy now, I’m standing right here, do you see any ghosts? Where’s the ghost? Why isn’t it attacking ?" Bert stood with his hands on his hips and looked around with a smug face, much like Wei Yan famously shouting "Who dares kill ?" with great temperant.
[Stop shouting, the ghost lost the gamble and is giving you face, don’t be ungrateful!]
[Seriously, if I were a ghost, I wouldn’t be able to stand it.]
[You’re setting up flags like this, you know it’s going to lead to trouble, right?]
The barrage was filled with denunciations, but Bert remained unmoved. He put on the plastic gloves, squatted down, and began to unbutton the corpse’s clothes for a basic examination. Just as the audience watched, a dice monster with twenty-one eyes drifted out from a corner within his blind spot, its tentacles almost touching the strear, when suddenly a hand grabbed it.
[Ghost hand! Ghost hand bro has appeared!]
[Strear, your life was given by Ghost Hand bro!]
[What’s this about ghosts not invading? It’s Ghost Hand bro carrying the weight alone!]
The barrage suddenly buzzed loudly, but to the viewers’ surprise, this ti, Ghost Hand didn’t, as before, beat up the approaching monster. Instead, it dragged the dice to the gambling table in front of the corpse.
The two ghosts seed to have so kind of communication at the table that viewers couldn’t perceive. Then, the shadow of the previous gambling ghost appeared next to the dice, and a pale ghostly shadow also slowly erged from the white ghost hand wrist part, finally forming an indistinct, translucent ghostly figure that couldn’t be recorded by the cara but was clearly visible to the spectators.
The two ghosts stood opposite each other at the table, as if they were talking, or perhaps saying nothing at all, but just as the eerie silence lingered, a few sinister-looking chips appeared in front of the gambling ghost while, in front of Ghost Hand, there was only a chip identical to the one Bert had picked up before.
Suddenly, the white ghost hand disappeared, leaving only a translucent shadow standing at the table.
This wait lasted a full ten minutes more. While Bert had already started an on-site dissection of Ausikus’s body, the audience thought Ghost Hand had fled. Suddenly, the white ghost hand returned to the wrist of the translucent ghostly figure. Along with it ca a baffled-looking translucent ghost—
[F*ck, isn’t that the female ghost Ghost Hand bro beat up last ti?]
[Good fellow, there’s a sequel, huh?]
[Did Ghost Hand bro call for backup? Wait, why is this ghost starting to shuffle cards? Where did these cards even co from?]
"This looks dead for several years now, right? The blood is all dried up, the skin’s dehydrated too... I see..."
Bert squatted on the ground, continuously delivering his autopsy report, but by then, no one was paying attention to him. Even those reminding him to look up for ghosts were gone, because everyone’s focus had completely shifted to the two confronting ghostly figures at the center, the female ghost shuffling cards...
[What’s this?]
[Long-haired female ghost, dealing cards online?]
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