Great! I'm surrounded by villains!
Chapter 214 - 134: Please Place Your Bets

Chapter 214: Chapter 134: Please Place Your Bets

Many times, Duan Mingyuan couldn’t help but feel that the planet he lived on resembled an ancient house past its prime, where one could uncover heaps of cockroaches simply by flipping over a wooden board.

And lately, it seemed he had become the caretaker of this old house, having just sent off a group of outsiders who wanted to blow up the house, he was now dealing with a pest problem.

Having finished his boxed meal, Zheng Liu wanted to stand in the cold wind and reflect like Duan Mingyuan, whose silhouette exuded the aura of a philosopher. But after racking his brains, he only came to one conclusion.

——He was nothing.

Consequently, he couldn’t muster any reflections.

Before his encounter with Duan Mingyuan today, he had naively thought of Siyang City as a place with simple manners, where everything they did was in defense of the city’s justice.

But now, someone was out to buy his head as a public official, while others just stood by and watched.

For the entire afternoon, he hadn’t received a call or a message from the bureau; it seemed the Chamber of Commerce had already settled things with them. It was as if Zheng Liu had never existed—after all, there were plenty of young officers, ready to fill any gap at any time.

The three of them had been waiting on an empty space near the greenbelt until late into the night when a white van pulled up to the curb.

After the van doors opened, the people inside gestured for them to come in.

Once they got on, they were blindfolded, a safety precaution, according to their hosts.

Zheng Liu disliked this feeling of being in an unfamiliar place faced with a group of strangers, his vision obscured, which left him feeling like they might turn on him at any second.

If it hadn’t been for Duan Mingyuan’s presence, he might have fought back the moment they brought out the blindfolds.

"Is it like this for everyone, or just us?"

Duan Mingyuan actually started up a conversation with the people in the van.

"Don’t get it wrong, it’s not just about you. It’s a process every new member has to go through. After all, neither the Chamber of Commerce nor yourselves want to attract unnecessary trouble... And take this, once you get inside, put it on. Most people in the Chamber of Commerce don’t want their true identities known."

The masks for the masquerade were handed to the three companions, and judging by the procedure, it didn’t seem like the Chamber of Commerce intended to silence them immediately.

"Has the Chamber of Commerce ever mentioned us to you?"

"I don’t know, and I’m not interested," the man said coldly. "My job is to pick up people and take them to the designated place. That’s it."

The people in the van weren’t inclined to conversation, much to Duan Mingyuan’s disappointment.

It quickly grew quiet inside the van, and all could be heard was the sound of the van moving. With vision blocked, the sense of time became hazy, and after an indeterminate period, the van came to a halt.

They were guided out of the van by the people inside.

Zheng Liu kept his wits about him and chatted intermittently with Xing to make sure they hadn’t been separated and led somewhere else.

When their blindfolds were finally removed, they were struck by the sight of a palace-like building, resplendent and magnificent, its decor reminiscent of the palaces at the Imperial Court to Duan Mingyuan.

It appeared to be a changing room, with only the three of them and a woman dressed in a bunny girl outfit, her figure lithe and graceful. She held an unknown scanning device in her hand, sweeping it over them.

However, when the scanner passed over Duan Mingyuan, the woman’s practiced smile faltered, and after fiddling with the device, it finally emitted a series of error beeps.

"Is there a problem?"

Duan Mingyuan inquired.

"Uh, I am terribly sorry, but we have never encountered this situation before. I need to communicate with the lobby manager, and until then, I’m afraid you won’t be able to use any of the services provided by the exchange."

Having said that, the bunny girl turned to Zheng Liu and Xing, handing them the device that had been printed out from the instrument.

The device was only the size of a brooch, its shape resembling a blooming lotus, with a small electronic screen displaying a countdown.

hours 03 minutes 17 seconds.

"What is this...?"

"This is the chips for our guests at the exchange."

The bunny girl kindly began to introduce the rules of the exchange to them, "The Chamber of Commerce believes that there are only two things in this world that are relatively fair to all life, one is Life Energy, and the other is time. Therefore, in the spirit of fair trading, when guests come to the exchange, all their possessions no longer matter. Here, only Life Energy and time are the real currency."

Zheng Liu and Xing fell silent at the same time.

The bunny girl wore a smile, yet she was telling a horrifying tale out of the blue.

"Does that mean we only have 7 hours and 3 minutes left to live?"

"To be precise, it’s 7 hours and 2 minutes now," the bunny girl said with a comforting smile. "There’s no need to be overly dismayed. In the exchange, anything is possible. I’ve seen many people who only had one hour of chips left make a miraculous turnaround. Seven hours is already plenty for you to do many things. In the exchange, there are two ways for guests to increase their chips: one is through trading channels verified fair by the Chamber of Commerce, the other is by betting in the casino of the exchange. Either way, the possibility of a comeback is always there."

Following the bunny girl’s reminder, the three of them put on masks.

However, due to a malfunction in the measuring device, Duan Mingyuan’s chips could not be displayed, which meant he was unable to trade or participate in any gambling at the underground exchange.

No sooner had the two left the dressing room than they were drawn by a heart-wrenching roar.

"No, this is wrong, absolutely wrong. There’s definitely something wrong with this casino, you must have rigged the odds, you must be cheating!"

The one shouting was a man only a few years older than Duan Mingyuan, trembling uncontrollably as he stood in front of a gaming table.

The bunny girl said that to the left of the changing room was the gambling area of the exchange, where many people like Zheng Liu and Xing gathered, hoping to make a desperate comeback in the games.

But this emotionally wired man seemed to have set an example for all those who sought to turn their fate against the odds.

Facing the air, he waved his hands frantically, saying, "Let me make one more bet, I’m sure to win this time. Don’t come closer. That’s right, I still have a wife and a daughter; they have many chips left. Just let me—"

The man’s roar stopped abruptly as the countdown on his brooch reached zero.

The sound ceased suddenly, his body lost support and fell forward stiffly.

The man was dead.

Life Energy was drained by something invisible, turning his body into an empty shell.

However, the gamblers gathered around the gaming table seemed indifferent to the man’s final cries; they were absorbed in the game, not glancing at him for a second even as he fell to the ground and could no longer make any sound.

Only the exchange’s security staff approached; they seemed all too accustomed to such scenes.

Two security officers bent down to hoist the man’s arms and dragged him into a storage room, then nonchalantly returned to their posts as if the dead man had never existed.