Chapter 34 - 33.1 (1/2)
(Be warned: the author will be using poker terms and the meaning of the terms will be shown in the very bottom. Thank you for reading and enjoy!)
Xiu Jia put down her cup of tea and asked, ”What do you want to know?”
”I wanted to know the truth.”
The second princess with her sweet smile flicked her hand and a deck of cards appeared from it. She took out two cards from the deck, a queen of spades and a joker.
Using her qi energy, she manipulated the plates of food to gave her an empty place for the deck of cards. She put the two cards infront of the young man.
”You may sit first and enjoy the food.”
Then she continued.
”These two represents the truth. You only had to pick one to know which is which.”
”Alright,” with no delay, the young man wanted to choose already to get it over with as he had no time of playing with the second princess.
”Na-ah.”
Xiu Jia immediately withdrew the two cards and put it back to the deck while shuffling it, skillfully.
”What are you doing?”
”The queen of spade represents the Royal Family and the joker represents the Circus.”
Zero scrunched his face in confusion, what truth did it had to do with his identity?
But when he heard the word 'Circus', he was baffled as he heard this from the mouth of Xiu Ying and her personal maid.
Xiu Jia continued to rearrange and arrange the deck of cards through shuffling it. Her hands was very proficient on shuffling as it would blur from her smooth tricks.
”You're good at this,” Zero unconsciously praised her.
”It's because of my good teacher!” Xiu Jia smiled as she looked at the young man. Zero felt that her smile was at that moment, genuine. A smile that was rare for the second princess.
Instantly, it disappeared from her face as she masked it with her sweet smile.
The second princess put down the deck of cards and uttered, ”Let's play with probability.”
”Originally we had 52 cards in a deck of cards but I included the jokers so we had 54 cards in total.”
Xiu Jia passed her hand over the cards as it followed the movement of her hand, the cards easily spread out, making each one of it visible from the picker. All of the cards had the same pattern in its back, on the black background, a golden phoenix insignia with some kind of red rose twirling on the foot of the phoenix was designed on it.
'A very familiar symbol.'
Zero thought but he didn't pondered on it as the second princess caught his attention, once again.
”Isn't my cards lovely? I ordered it on Sereign continent from my fellow sister there.”
”By the way, this is how we play. How many chances could you pick a queen of spades in a random manner? And how many chances could you pick a joker in a random manner when the queen is already taken out?”
Time passed by slowly and with a brightened face, the young man answered.
”In picking a queen of spade in a random manner, we must first identify how many queens are there in a deck of cards. There are four queens with different symbols, the spades, the hearts, the clubs and the diamonds. We are only looking for the queen of spades and there is only one of it so out of the 54 cards we had a one chance of picking out a queen of spades.”
Xiu Jia just drank her tea as she gestured for Zero to continue.
”As for the joker, I had two chances of randomly picking a joker out of 53 cards as the queen of spades was already taken out.”
”I'm impressed that you figured this out. Well, it's just a simple probability game. The true game will start now.”
As if on cue, the pavilion that they were located at, suddenly trembled as the runic symbols were set on it, activated. It was a simulation trigger.
Both of them were immediately transported in a casino-like place. Zero with the second princess were seated infront of each side of a square table. The only present here were the two of them and a deck of cards infront.
”Where's the dealer?”
”You know this game very well, I'm surprised of you having an amnesia.”
”Oh well. Before we start, this is our bet. If you win I'll let you pick between those two cards I presented, earlier, and I'll tell you a truth about your chosen card and if I win…” the second princess trailed off as she looked at the young man up and down, inspecting him.
”Not bad, just exactly my taste. So give me yourself.”
”What do you mean?” The young man creased his forehead from this blunt show of malice by this princess.
”You'll be my man.”
”As if I'll let you.”
”Let's see about that.”
The deck of cards suddenly shuffled by itself and the second princess opened up, ”Because we're the only ones here, there's no big blind or small blind or any common poker terms. We will be playing by the rules of this simulation.”
A color wheel appeared by their right side and it started to spin around.
”The color wheel had five colors, the blue for 10 value of chips, green for 20 value, red for 50 value, black for 100 value and white for 500 value of chips. Our starting bet or ante for each round would depend on the color that the wheel arrow would point.”
”You know already the poker hand rankings right? The royal flush is the highest followed by the straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, pair and lastly, the high card.”
Zero subconsciously nodded as he unexpectedly knew each of the terms that Xiu Jia had stated.
”Well, let's start.”
Stacks of betting chips appeared each for them, there were five stacks with varied colors, white chips with blue stripes, black chips with white stripes, red chips with white stripes, green chips with white stripes and lastly, blue chips with white stripes.
And each of the stacks contained four pieces of the same kind of betting chips.