"BANG!!!"
A deafening gunshot echoed through the teahouse.
Xu Hao's head was pierced by a crossbow bolt, slamming heavily onto the gambling table.
Wang Tianjing claimed the final victory as the bloodstained table reset, and the three figures reappeared in the teahouse once more.
"Hahaha! Brother Xu, seems your ‘eight characters’ aren’t as unbreakable as you thought, eh?"
Wang Tianjing patted Xu Hao’s shoulder with lingering satisfaction.
"Tch. I’ve already figured out your tricks. From now on, I won’t even glance at you during a match!"
Xu Hao gritted his teeth in frustration.
Though he had completed his initial evolution from an honest man to a budding demonic cultivator—learning the art of deception—he was still leagues behind Wang Tianjing in this regard.
Especially when bluffing, he couldn’t help but falter under direct eye contact.
"Enough post-game analysis! Let’s start another round already!"
Chen Yiyun urged impatiently, her fingers twitching with restless energy.
Her addiction had fully taken hold. Dying from the second shot last round had left her deeply unsatisfied.
Wang Tianjing, however, wasn’t in a hurry. Instead, his gaze settled on Lu Ze.
"Brother Lu, care for a duel?"
At this, the other two suddenly remembered—they hadn’t entered this illusion for mere amusement.
They were here to compete for ownership of a hidden treasure!
Earlier, Lu Ze had merely asked them to familiarize themselves with the rules, yet somehow, they’d already played seven rounds.
"Oh right, Brother Lu’s still here!"
Xu Hao’s eyes gleamed with anticipation as he turned to Lu Ze.
"I think I’ve got the rules down now… Brother Lu, shall we make this official?"
"I agree! I’m sick of being sandwiched between you two anyway."
Chen Yiyun nodded vigorously.
"Oh?"
Lu Ze raised an eyebrow, a faint smile playing on his lips.
"Are you sure you don’t need more practice?"
"No need! Come on—I’ve always heard Brother Lu’s intellect surpasses ordinary men. I’ve been itching to test myself against you!"
Wang Tianjing’s eyes burned with fighting spirit.
"Hah! Even if you designed this illusion, that doesn’t guarantee victory, right? Let’s go, Brother Lu! Fight me with everything you’ve got!"
Xu Hao extended a hand toward Lu Ze, his heart swelling with admiration.
He’d completely forgotten his earlier disdain for this so-called "nepotism hire" mere hours ago.
"Brother Xu’s right! Brother Lu, let’s settle this in one round!"
Chen Yiyun chimed in.
Secretly, she was thinking back to her days playing Cultivator’s Descent, where she’d often fantasized about one day "putting the old devil Lu in his place."
Now, it seemed her dream was within reach.
As for Lu Ze being the illusion’s creator?
None of them cared.
To them, The Con Artist’s Teahouse was unlike other illusions.
After a few rounds to overcome the initial learning curve, the game boiled down to pure instinct.
Skill? Deduction? Strategy?
Nothing compared to guts and luck!
Even someone as sharp as Wang Tianjing had only won 2 out of 7 rounds.
Sure, his reads were frighteningly accurate at times—but the man had terrible luck!
Half the time, he’d get eliminated by the first or second shot.
No matter how skilled you were, bad luck meant an early exit.
Even Lu Ze wouldn’t be exempt from that.
By now, all three were convinced they’d mastered the game.
Even if Lu Ze joined, victory wasn’t guaranteed for him.
"Since you’re all so eager… I’ll gladly oblige."
Lu Ze narrowed his eyes, smiling as he took the last remaining seat.
Having observed their matches closely, he’d already deciphered their habits.
Technically, Wang Tianjing was the strongest among them.
Deception, observation, strategy, deduction—he used every tell in the book to discern real cards from bluffs.
He had all the makings of a true card shark.
But to Lu Ze, that was merely the baseline for sharing a table with him.
Ironically, the straightforward Xu Hao posed the bigger threat.
As the saying went, "The amateur’s reckless strikes often slay the master."
This guy played purely on instinct—sometimes stubbornly targeting his upper player repeatedly. Such opponents were the hardest to predict.
The game began.
Seats were randomized.
Lu Ze’s upper player was Xu Hao, his lower was Chen Yiyun, and across from him sat Wang Tianjing.
Noticing Xu Hao wasn’t his immediate lower player, Lu Ze allowed himself a faint, hidden smirk.
His odds had just improved.
"Ugh, why am I stuck between you two?!"
Chen Yiyun groaned, eyeing Lu Ze and Wang Tianjing with dismay.
This was like being stripped naked under a spotlight.
"Who cares? Let’s see whose fate holds stronger!"
Xu Hao roared with the fearless audacity of a newborn calf.
[This round’s target card: Heaven.]
A single Heaven card spun atop the table before merging into the deck.
Instantly, four hands of five cards were dealt.
Lu Ze glanced at his hand, then swiftly placed it face-down, his expression unreadable as still water.
As the illusion’s creator, he was the center of attention.
The move didn’t go unnoticed.
"Ho! Brother Lu’s got tricks up his sleeve already!"
Wang Tianjing remarked, subtly angling his face to study the others.
At the start of every round, he’d habitually analyze micro-expressions to form early deductions.
But Lu Ze’s flawless, instantaneous card placement unnerved him—an invisible pressure.
"Likewise."
Lu Ze smiled, his eyes crinkling as he scanned the trio in a split-second sweep.
Internally, however, he was annoyed.
Because…
His hand was five Human cards!
Not a single target card—pure bluffs!
Starting at such a brutal disadvantage made him wonder if the Heavenly Dao’s remnant spirit was mocking him: "Try being human for once."
Or had Senior Brother Zhou’s spirit possessed him?
"Two Heaven."
After a pause, Xu Hao played two Heaven cards.
Almost instantly, Lu Ze calmly picked up the first, second, and fourth face-down cards from the table and played them.
"Three Heaven."
He rubbed his nose, then grinned at Chen Yiyun, his lower player, mimicking Yu Ji’s tone:
"Care to guess~?"
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
. As long as he maintains the villain image and follows the plot to the grand finale, he can obtain generous rewards and return to the real world. So Gu Chen'an entered the role and began to act as a scumbag villain, but who would have expected that the female leads could hear his inner thoughts. Miss Su from the Su family was shocked: "I originally thought Gu Chen'an was a scumbag, but I didn't expect he turned out to be a gentleman! What? You said I have to call off the engagement? I definitely won't, I'll piss you off!" Bai Yuan Tian was dumbfounded: "Young Master Gu is usually unreasonable and a complete brat, but he actually calls me little sweetie in his heart? What, Young Master Gu even said he likes me?" As the female leads' images collapsed more and more, the plot also collapsed with it. Gu Chen'an looked at all this chaos. "Ladies, don't aggro me, if you keep this up the male lead really will stab me, I still need to survive to the grand finale!"
