Strength was something Daikura always revered and advocated, but he also worshipped money like his life. He kept his humble attitude while accompanying Tang Xiu, the Golden Buddha who had knocked on his door. After coming out of the car himself, he opened the car's door for Tang Xiu and watched the latter fix his lower collar with a smile on his handsome face. Then, he shouted to four security guards of Floating Yacht loudly, "Notify your Manager Takeda. Tell him he got a distinguished guest is here and tell him to come over to greet him!"
A distinguished guest?
The four security guards knew Daikura Sakuragi and immediately realized that Tang Xiu's identity was extraordinary. One of them reverently complied and hurriedly ran to the interior.
Daikura turned to look at Tang Xiu and smilingly said, "Please head inside, Mr. Tang."
Tang Xiu smiled lightly in response and walked to the interior in big strides. This place may be a casino, but the interior decoration was extremely luxurious. Through the magnificent hall, they turned into the wide corridor and went all the way to the end until they came before a door.
Daikura then smiled and said, "This is the great hall for the Floating Yacht casino, Mr. Tang. There's also another hall on the opposite side provided for leisure, recreation, and entertainment. You can expect to find numerous belles over there. In the Floating Yacht, the only custom is those who have money are Kings."
Those with money are Kings?
"What a great custom! Worth praising." Tang Xiu exclaimed in praise. "I don't have much else but tons of money, to begin with. Hahaha… it seems I'm going to be a King today, no? Anyway, isn't that good friend of mine, Nishi Masayoshi also here?"
"He's inside." Daikura Sakuragi smiled.
As the door to the hall was pushed open, a huge space appeared before Tang Xiu's eyes. It was at least comparable with a football field, filled with a variety of gambling machines where numerous gamblers were occupying table-boards or playing with the gambling machines in front of them.
But when Tang Xiu and the rest passed through the door, many of them focused their eyes on them at the same time since Tang Xiu brought too many bodyguards behind him. This powerful bigshot seemed to be going to wreck this place instead of gambling.
"Mr. Sakuragi."
A thin man with a mustache and a few of his men approached in a hurry. His shimmering eyes then glanced at Daikura Sakuragi and finally landed on Tang Xiu, greeting with a smile. "Thank you and welcome for the patronage. I'm sure you're the distinguished guest mentioned by Mr. Sakuragi, yes?"
Tang Xiu rolled his eyes and hummed coldly. "Hmph, don't be a manager here if you're not cultured enough. I can't understand any Japanese, mind you. Please do speak in English to exchange with me. That is if you can speak in it. Why the hell on Earth should I come to this place otherwise, huh?"
Shiro Takeda's face was frozen and he immediately turned to Daikura Sakuragi.
"Manager Takeda, Mr. Tang is from Singapore and just hired 100 bodyguards from my place. He's the most distinguished guest I've ever had," said Daikura hurriedly. "However, he doesn't speak Japanese, so please communicate with him in English."
Shiro Takeda let out a dry chuckle twice. Hearing it from Daikura, he was sure this person was definitely a wealthy patron. He'd never got angry towards such a deep-pocket bigwig even though he got slapped many times. Hence, he smilingly said, "Hello, Mr. Tang. I'm Shiro Takeda, the general manager of Floating Yacht. You can call me Manager Takeda."
Tang Xiu rolled his eyelids and grunted. "I came here to win my money today, why don't you just go away? By the way, where's that dear friend of mine Nishi Masayoshi, huh? Tell him to come out to see me."
"Holy cow…"
An exclamation came from the interior of the casino as a wretched-looking middle-aged man came out. He wasn't tall, but his arms were hugging two pretty girls. He pushed the two girls to the side as he dashed towards Tang Xiu, opened his arms wide and spoke happily at the same time, "Yo, Tang buddy, I'm not dreaming, am I? How the hell did you come to Japan and in Kyoto, of all places? God! Did God hear my prayer hoping that you'd come to my country? Did He give you a dream to make a trip here or something?"
"Hahaha…"
Tang Xiu also opened his arms wide and strode towards the middle-aged man. As both hugged each other, Tang Xiu loudly laughed and then said, "It's been a long while, Nishi! Well, I never thought your silver tongue is still great! Damn, I'm so happy now! That's right, though. I've been dreaming to have some games with you, so I hurriedly made a trip here to find you. This is the code of brotherhood and we both deserve to be called true friends, right?"
"True that. We're true friends." Nishi Masayoshi heavily nodded and said, "Well, it's a great fortune to have you as my friend. Anyway, let me be the host and guide you around. Although this place isn't much better than those big casinos in Las Vegas, it's enough for us to play around."
This man, Nishi Masayoshi, was Kuwako Yamamoto's trusted confidant. On the surface, he was playing the role of a total gambler, whereas he was actually an intel operative Kuwako had trained. He had been in the US and gambled many times in Las Vegas, so she directly pushed him outside to cooperate with Tang Xiu in the plays.
Tang Xiu cheerfully turned around and observed the surroundings. He nodded with satisfaction and said, "This is good. Well, great. Nishi, I just arrived in Japan, but your name precedes you, you know that? Though I didn't expect you to be in this casino. Alrighty, find a dealer and some people to get together. You know, this Young Master brought tons of money, enough for us to play for three days and three nights straight."
Nishi's eyes lit up and he willy said, "How much did you bring this time, buddy? Well, let's chat first, though. I've been pretty lucky recently and got tons of money. I don't feel like finding any dealers. I'm not going to have games with you if the money is less than eight figures, you know."
Without trying to conceal anything to those in the surroundings, Tang Xiu pridefully replied, "What did you say? Eight digits? This Young Master Tang's pocket money is already more than eight figures. You're definitely looking down on me. No worries about that. I came here to gamble with you. Let alone eight figures, I can still afford to take out ten figures!"
Ten digits? As in the range of a billion?
Everyone's eyes suddenly lit up, watching Tang Xiu as though looking at a gold mine. Even Daikura Sakuragi, who was the Master of the Inada Society, couldn't help but have his heartbeat hiked up a few times faster.
Face flushed red with excitement, Nishi Masayoshi excitedly exclaimed loudly, "That's great! You got so much money, enough for me to win it. Well, Tang buddy, let's talk about something first. Are we going to follow the old rules, or do you want to go straight for the battle royale? No worries, we got tons of rich people here in Japan; those who like to gamble at high stakes on the card table, I can get lots of them in two hours if you want to."
Tang Xiu smacked his tongue and immediately said grinningly, "Well, it's been hard for us to meet like this, so going straight to the games is rather boring. How about setting it to the old rules, then?"
"Fine with me. That's exactly my thought as well," replied Nishi Masayoshi aloud.
Daikura Sakuragi strode a few steps towards Tang Xiu and Nishi Masayoshi and then smilingly asked, "Mr. Tang, Mr. Masayoshi, may I ask what these old rules are and whether I'm qualified to accompany you?"
"Count me in, too!"
A bald-headed man with a body full of tattoos and a shimmering gold chain on his neck came approaching with several chips in his hand.
Nishi Masayoshi seemed to just have noticed Daikura Sakuragi at this moment and immediately said with a beaming face, "Well, well, isn't this Mr. Sakuragi? I'm honored that you can play with us. Bro Tang, lemme introduce you to him. This is…."
Tang Xiu raised his hand to interrupt him and said, "I already know him. I just hired 100 bodyguards from this guy!"
"Damn, you're really great, Bro." Nishi Masayoshi gasped in surprise. "A hundred bodyguards... your convoy is now much bigger than when we were in Las Vegas. Anyhow, then lemme introduce you this one then. He's Saburo Koizumi, the Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce and also an illustrious figure in the capital. You got my guarantee that be it Mr. Sakuragi or Mr. Koizumi, they are definitely qualified to accompany us to play with 9 digits of money in their pockets."
Tang Xiu picked up his brows and immediately said with a grin, "Well, that's great to hear. I just came to Japan, but this country has made me fallen in love with it immediately. Money is good and great stuff! Come, let's play some games then! We got too much money to burn, and it won't matter much if we gamble to win or lose!"
"Well, you haven't explained how are we going to play, though." Daikura Sakuragi interjected.
Noticing that Tang Xiu didn't seem to want to elaborate it, Nishi Masayoshi immediately took the role. "Well, the rules of games I play with Mr. Tang are rather simple. Each player must spend 100 US dollars to buy chips, then you can casually choose to play with the gambling machines or spend it on the cards table in the entire hall. Whoever can earn the most money in two hours with that 100 USD chips will have to pay the other a fixed amount of money. Back then… we set the number at 10 million USD."
Tang Xiu waved and said, "Nah, 10 million dollars is like bullshit now. It's too few a number to live in your country. Let's have it at 100 million dollars."
"This…"
Daikura Sakuragi and Saburo Koizumi's expressions changed and they hesitated. They could afford to take out 100 million dollars. It would fine if they won, but it would be a big blow to them if they lost as it would take them at least several years to earn it back.
Do I have to play by the rules, or should I cower and step back?
At that moment for a while, both men were hit with a bit of a dilemma.
Tang Xiu raised his brows and said with dissatisfaction, "What's up? Do you both think it's too much a number to play, can't afford it and can't play or what? Bah, it's all fine and dandy with me either way, though. I'm not familiar with you both, to begin with, so I won't jeer at you over it. At most, it will feel very shameful to you and you'll find a quilt to cover yourselves when you get home and won't have face to see anyone later."
That was a move to goad someone to act!
Both Daikura and Saburo knew that Tang Xiu was prodding them to get into action. At the same time, it also made them ride a tiger and find it hard to get off, so they could only nod with helplessness.
They were all famous figures in Kyoto, to begin with. How could they lose their faces in public? Should they just give up directly this time, it was very likely that by tomorrow, the news would have spread out to the whole of Kyoto that they cowered before the gambling even started. All in all, their reputation would take a big blow.