Chapter 43

Chapter 43: Looks and Shapes Might Be Similar, But The Soul is Different

Translator: GravityTales  Editor: GravityTales

Although it was the first time Tang Xiu shook dice, but his memorizing and learning pace ability was marvelous.

Tang Xiu had just carefully observed and emulated Jia Ruidao’s movements in shaking the dice cup, so he would imitate Jia Ruidao’s techniques.

At the beginning, Tang Xiu’s imitation movement from Jia Ruidao’s movements and techniques were still sluggish and slow. But he gradually became more skilled, as if his movements and techniques almost became a genuine replica of Jia Ruidao’s movements.

“Y-You…” Jia Ruidao at first didn’t pay attention to Tang Xiu’s movements and techniques in shaking the dices since it was different from his. But when he figured out that Tang Xiu’s movements and techniques were becoming more and more familiar, he couldn’t help but shout.

Jia Ruidao had been spending more than 30 years analyzing and perfecting his own set of unique skills. Only then was he able to gradually master this technique. But Tang Xiu only needed to observe his unique skills and was able to emulate it up to 70%, which made Jia Ruidao even suspect whether the three decades he spent pondering on this technique was really in vain or not.

Although Jia Ruidao also received a few apprentices and also taught them his unique skills, but he was very sure that even his apprentices would be unable to learn his unique skill so thoroughly. Let alone those several good-for-nothing young masters.

However, watching a stranger suddenly demonstrate his own unique skills in front him, an indescribable feeling filled Jia Ruidao’s heart. Not even words could truly convey his feelings.

“This kid is only an outsider, and obviously just recently in contact with the society. But he has such a strong perception. If I were to accept him as an apprentice, wouldn’t it mean that I’ll have a successor to carry on my legacy?” Suddenly, a thought emerged inside Jia Ruidao’s mind and started to fully fill his mind.

At this very moment, Jia Ruidao’s attitude toward Tang Xiu changed as he saw that Tang Xiu was becoming more pleasing to his eyes.

Even though Tang Xiu only wore plain and simple clothes, but it was clean and orderly. His black hair particularly gave off a spirited feeling, with a pair of bright and lively eyes. His high nose, thin lips, tall and straight stature gave off a kind of graceful and compelling feeling.

When the others heard Jia Ruidao’s shout, they were bewildered.

The others didn’t know that each gambler always had their own particular unique skills. In the eyes of people, all the dice shaking movements were similar. They didn’t truly memorize Jia Ruidao’s movements previously. Therefore, they didn’t know that Tang Xiu’s movements and techniques in shaking the dice were shockingly similar with Jia Ruidao’s.

A few minutes later, Tang Xiu’s buckled the dice cup in his hands on the table as beads of sweat permeated from his forehead. At the same time, a tired expression was also revealed on his face, mixed with a bit of nervousness and anxiety.

Although Tang Xiu had tried his best and also had digested and absorbed almost 90% of Jia Ruidao’s unique skill. But a lot of things could only be accumulated with time and experience, rather than looking and imitating could learn from.

The dice shaking movements Tang Xiu had done was completely the full copy of Jia Ruidao’s techniques. But he didn’t have the means to learn the ear distinguishing technique to figure out the dice number in the dice cup.

The reason as to why Tang Xiu shook the dice longer than Jia Ruidao, on one hand, was of course to probe the feeling of the dice shaking sensation, so he could be more skilled in executing the technique. While on the other hand, it was because he attempted to listen to the dice rolling sounds in the dice cup, as he tried to confirm the dice number through those subtle changes and sounds.

“Open it! You must open it! Once the cup dice has buckled down on the table, the result has already been decided. Even if you don’t open, you cannot change the dice number.” Upon seeing that Tang Xiu was pressing the dice cup and seemed unwilling to open it, Zhang Yongjin blurted out with an anxious expression.

Tang Xiu ignored Zhang Yongjin. He wiped the sweat that flowed down on the corner of his eyes, and then slowly opened the dice cup.

Anxiety and nervousness covered Tang Xiu’s face when he was uncovering the dice cup. Even his right hand that held the dice cup was slightly trembling.

“Hahaha, 1 point. Only 1 point. You could really kill me with a laugh. With this holy sh*t luck, I might go out to buy lottery tickets.” Zhang Yongjin couldn’t help but laugh when Tang Xiu had completely opened his dice cup.

When Xue Renfei and Hu Wanjun heard this, they couldn’t help but also let out ridicules and mock him, as Zhang Deqin and Jia Ruidao subconsciously felt relieved.

Previously, Zhang Deqin and Jia Ruidao were also worried that Tang Xiu was a kind of hidden private gambling master, so the gambling house this time could be capsized to the pit.

But the anxiety in their hearts instantly disappeared the moment Tang Xiu opened the dice cup. Their heart was as if had been eased a lot.

“Did I lose?” When Tang Xiu saw that little red point, a touch of frustration flashed in his eyes.

“Brother Tang, it’s alright. Don’t be discouraged. We still have 2 other opportunities.” Although Long Zhengyu was also discouraged deep inside, but he could see that Tang Xiu had really tried. There was neither a blaming or accusing tone in his words as he consoled Tang Xiu from the side with a soft voice.

“Eldest Brother, don’t be discouraged, the one who will win in the end is you.” Long Zhenglin also added with a face full of confidence.

Upon seeing that Long Zhengyu and Long Zhenglin were still trusting Tang Xiu at this time, a puzzled expression flashed in Zhang Deqin’s eyes as she couldn’t help but scrutinize Tang Xiu’s face.

But the Zhang Yongjin trio, as always, couldn’t help but continue to mock and ridicule him.

“Little brother, can we continue?” Jia Ruidao looked at Tang Xiu for a moment as he then smiled and asked.

“Grandmaster Jia, please!” When Tang Xiu heard the change in remark and tone from Jia Ruidao, he was surprised first and then immediately changed his addressing towards Jia Ruidao.

This time, Jia Ruidao’s dice shaking movements were very slow as he simply reduced a lot of fancy and unneeded movements. The dice in the dice cup suddenly produced sounds.

When Tang Xiu heard it, his eyes lightened up as he subconsciously looked at Jia Ruidao and found that Jia Ruidao vaguely winked at him, and saw a look full of appreciation from his eyes. Tang Xu immediately understood Jia Ruidao’s intention as he expressed his goodwill to him.

Although he didn’t know as to why Jia Ruidao would have such a change in attitude, but Tang Xiu knew that this was definitely a good thing for him. So he began to carefully listen to the sounds produced by the dice in the dice cup.

The second gambling session was much more difficult than the first one.

In the first gambling, the dice put was only 1. But for the second session, the number of dices put into the dice cup was increased to 3.

Distinguishing the sounds produced by 1 dice was easy, but the difficulty was raised by 3 times more to distinguish the sounds produced by 3 dices.

Had it been other people, they were unlikely to be able to listen and discern the dice number through the rolling dice’s sounds. It was even more unlikely to be able to see through the dice cup control technique to identify the dice’s numbers. They could only shake the dice cup for a few times before buckling it down on the table and then submit to the will of heaven for their luck.

However, Jia Ruidao was not an average person. He was a professional gambler. His professional conduct and ethics didn’t allow for him to be perfunctory and scuffle. Thus, he was very serious in listening and distinguishing the rolling dices and its collision sounds. While he simultaneously also controlled the dice numbers with his vibrating skill technique.

But Jia Ruidao didn’t immediately put down the dice cup this time, and instead had been observing the changes on Tang Xiu’s face.

When Jia Ruidao found that Tang Xiu’s face looked tranquil and soothed, a relaxed expression was also revealed on his face as he put the dice cup down.

Jia Ruidao lifted up the dice cup as the 3 dices’ final points were shown. It was impressively 5, 5, 6, with a total of 16 dice points.

Upon seeing that Jia Ruidao didn’t score 18 points, a touch of worry and anxiety flashed on Zhang Deqin’s expression, as the Zhang Yongjin trio also looked anxious.

But when they recalled that Tang Xiu was only just a green gambler, they immediately relaxed.

Although Grandmaster Jia didn’t get full points, but it was not that far off. Tang Xiu could only rely on his luck to determine the numbers, while the probability to get full points was simply too low. Zhang Deqin and the others didn’t believe that Tang Xiu would get full points by relying on luck.

Just like in the proverb that said, “Stepping backward for a step before advancing forward for 10,000 steps”, could also mean that even if Grandmaster Jia lost to Tang Xiu, both sides would only be tied, and there was still a third game to decide the outcome of the gambling house. But still, Tang Xiu couldn’t depend on his luck to win against Grandmaster Jia twice, could he?

After he nodded towards Jia Ruidao, Tang Xiu also picked up the dice cup with dices, and then began his second game.

Through the first session of adaptation and training, Tang Xiu’s dice shaking movement clearly had become more skilled and a lot faster. So he was now focusing on listening and distinguishing the sounds produced by the dices’ changes inside the dice cup.

Everyone was struck dumb with surprise for a moment when Tang Xiu put the dice cup down. It was because that Tang Xiu only shook it for only a minute.

“Hey brat, you couldn’t be giving up, right?” Recalling as to how Jia Ruidao took a full 5 minutes to shake his dice cup and roll the dice, and Tang Xiu only took a minute, Zhang Yongjin naturally didn’t think that Tang Xiu’s gambling skill was more powerful than Jia Ruidao. But he thought that Tang Xiu already didn’t want to continue putting an act and stopped.

“Grandmaster Jia’s strength already made him intimidated. If he doesn’t give up, he will be on the point of death, heh.”

“Brat, you finally have self-knowledge eh. Your gambling skill is much inferior to a master. Even if you shake your dice cup longer, it’s useless. You might as well rely on your luck.”

“It’s better to finish the game this quick, so we don’t have to waste more time.”

When Xue Renfei, Hu Wanjun, and Zhang Yongjin trio saw Tang Xiu’s action, they were frozen for a moment, before they then subconsciously taunted him.

In the next moment, everyone’s eyes turned round as Zhang Deqin, Zhang Yongjin’s faces were flushed red while Xue Renfei, Hu Wanjun, and Jia Ruidao’s eyes were full of a disbelieving expressions.

Because when Tang Xiu had opened the dice cup in a flash, the dices’ numbers had already been shown in front of everyone.

5, 6, 6, for a total of 17 points. It was a point higher than Jia Ruidao with 16 points before.

“We won! Did we actually win?” Although Long Zhengyu comforted Tang Xiu before, in fact, he already didn’t hope too much for Tang Xiu. But he comforted himself because of the long-established etiquette and self-controlling manner he had long been cultivated, as he chose to comfort him and not blame and accuse him.

“Eldest Brother, I knew you could do it. Big Brother, do you believe me now?” Long Zhenglin’s sentence’s first half was aimed at Tang Xiu, as the other half was pointed at Long Zhengyu. At this time, Long Zhenglin was dancing with a joyful expression, just like a child.

After having confirmed repeatedly, as well as making sure that his eyes didn’t fail him when seeing the dice numbers in front of Tang Xiu, Long Zhengyu finally awakened from his huge shock as he clenched his fist and then grabbed his younger brother with excited tears in his eyes.

It was because the Walled Hill Village project was too important for Long Zhengyu. He had to firmly step on this first step since it directly related to Long Zhengyu’s entire life plan. Therefore, he had been racking his brains for this project for almost 3 years to make it happen.

Had the project suddenly get cut off, Long Zhengyu really didn’t know whether he could face the failure or not. This was why he literally begged for help everywhere, and also the reason he finally chose to believe his younger brother’s words and invited an outsider to help with this problem.

“Your luck is truly good. But I don’t believe you can win the next time.” After the silence for a long time, Zhang Yongjin spoke with a sour expression.

But this time, Zhang Yongjin’s tone was obviously different from his previous emboldened speech. Also, nobody echoed him again, since the others were also still immersed in their astonishment and had yet to awaken from the shock Tang Xiu had given them with the 17 dice points.

*[advantage]: by having their erection in contact with her

*[ cent bills]: China has cents in bills called jiao

*[Guoshu]: Guo here means country and shu means technique

*[ 190 centimeters]: Over 6ft tall

*[Lake Cui]: Cui Hu, also means Green Lake

*[hundred dyuan bills]: 100yuan is their biggest bill

*[Daoist Fierce Tiger]: The author of this novel

*[Noodles]: made of wheat

*[Rice Noodles]: made of rice

*[Zhang Tian Tian]: Tian means sweet

*[Bajiquan]: Also known as Eight Extremities Fist, but Bajiquan sounds nicer to me

*[Long Taos]: side characters in Chinese operas who perform acrobatics and fight scenes

*[12.47 to 13.07]: don’t ask me about the tree sap