novelraw Chapter 145: Forced Victory? Do you know what your biggest problem is?
Chapter 145: Forced Victory? Do you know what your biggest problem is?
Lu Ce said it with a smile, but no matter how he said it, it always gave off a mocking vibe.
Xie Antong’s expression slowly calmed down. She knew her strategy had failed. There was no point in continuing.
Once she relaxed her body, the forced control she’d exerted on her physiological state had essentially become abnormal self-inflicted damage. For a moment, a strange flush spread across her face.
Suppressing her fatigue and frustration, she asked as calmly as possible:
“I want to know, how did you figure it out?”
Lu Ce immediately chuckled:
“Don’t be so down. Even though you didn’t fool me, it was still a draw, wasn’t it? Getting a draw against me is already an impressive achievement.”
“You even played first five times. Hahahahaha, that’s a big accomplishment.”
“No matter how the tiebreaker plays out, you can still say you tied with the strongest player. Yeah, that’s a great bragging right.”
Xie Antong only asked one question, but the “Sin” across from her seemed to get carried away, talking even more than before, in a much more talkative tone.Xie Antong: ......
Even though “Sin” said all that, she didn’t quite feel the same inside.
Because in the rules of this game, all the difficulty was focused on how to guess your own cards and avoid letting the opponent guess theirs.
The rest—the card types—were just icing on the cake. If it came down to full open-hand, it actually didn’t matter.
With fully revealed cards and alternating turns, the player who played first could always force a draw.
Just arrange your open cards, and as long as both sides were thinking clearly, it would inevitably end in a draw.
That’s why Xie Antong put in so much effort, keeping her eyes wide open to brainwash herself into swapping the order of the opponent’s two cards in her mind.
Although challenging the strongest player wasn’t originally her intention, since the game gave her this fate, she chose to give it her all.
Unfortunately, the strongest is still the strongest—she lost.
Even if it was a draw, it still counted as a loss.
The most critical issue was: while she was reading the opponent’s facial expressions and blood pressure, she clearly realized—“Sin” wasn’t hiding anything at all!
In other words... he was totally relaxed, truly treating it like a game.
(In reality, Lu Ce currently doesn’t have that kind of ability.)
Xie Antong took a deep breath and was about to say something when Lu Ce interrupted her, proactively answering the question she had asked earlier.
“As for how I figured it out…” Lu Ce shrugged, “I didn’t completely figure it out.”
“This finger of mine—you thought I was trying to mess with your emotions, didn’t you? Actually, no. It’s a reader.”
As he spoke, Lu Ce lifted the finger he’d been tapping on the table this whole time.
Xie Antong looked at that finger and suddenly felt like she couldn’t breathe. To avoid being affected, she had tried to block out any awareness of that finger as much as possible in her mind.
But looking at it now, it seemed like that had only made it easier for the other party to read her, because she’d completely ignored it!
“It’s like a sampler, syncing with your emotions. But when I asked about Scissors in the first round, I picked up on some slight fluctuations.”
“But then when I threw out Scissors and didn’t play Paper like you’d planned, I saw your subconscious emotional reaction.”
“After that, it became pretty obvious.”
Xie Antong let out a long sigh. When it came to “Sin’s” various abilities and mental tricks, her guesses hadn’t been enough.
“Alright, no wonder you’re Sin. I guess I still don’t know you well enough.”
“No, actually... you know too much about me.” Lu Ce suddenly said something completely out of nowhere.
Behind his mask, he looked at the girl across from him with amusement. To him, this game really didn’t matter.
Because the key to everything wasn’t in this game at all!
Still, the ability Xie Antong had shown really did exceed his expectations. Even though the win or loss didn’t matter, being tricked would still be a little embarrassing.
He placed his hand on the cards below, gently touching the one that Xie Antong had mentally swapped into being Scissors—but was actually Rock.
“This card is Rock, right?”
“If I play it now, then with you going first next round, your two cards would match up perfectly to counter mine. You’d win...”
As he spoke, the Lust Mask’s grin deepened, and he leaned in just a bit with a deliberately annoying expression:
“Do you really want me to play this card?”
That smirk was absolutely oozing with nasty amusement!
Even Xie Antong was a little speechless watching him.
Did this guy dump all the Lust Mask’s side effects into twisted humor?
Guess the extreme of Lust... might always be a little messed up.
She had already accepted her “loss.” Before her state faded completely, she still tried to adjust her mood.
A draw is a draw. Facing the strongest player was always going to be tough...
【If both of you have confirmed the outcome, please consider speeding up the game.】
Just then, the Slime spoke up from the side, turning to Xie Antong:
【Since you played first in this game, if there’s a tiebreaker, the instance will be set in your favor.】
“You’re still here? You got nothing better to do?”
Lu Ce glanced at the creature that suddenly popped out and looked at it with deep dissatisfaction.
Slime: ......
“Play your card,” Xie Antong said. Since the opponent had already seen through her, there was nothing more to say. It was bound to be a draw.
As for the tiebreaker advantage... she didn’t have high hopes.
But just as she looked up, her gaze met the Lust Mask’s unusually smug smile.
In that instant, she suddenly felt something was off—like this game wasn’t actually over yet.
“I want to ask you a question,” Lu Ce smiled.
“Why so serious?”
“Just play. No need to take it so seriously.”
Saying that, Lu Ce picked up that card in front of him and tossed it out.
“Since you want this card so badly, I’ll give it to you.”
【Uh... Are you sure about that?】
The Slime froze for a second, wondering if its brain had malfunctioned.
“Tch... can you shut up for once when I’m trying to look cool?” Lu Ce glared at it.
Slime: ......
The card was revealed.
——Rock!
It really was the Rock card.
Xie Antong’s mind went blank.
The Slime had nothing to say.
Even the audience was completely dumbfounded.
Everything happened so fast that most people didn’t even have time to react.
But Lu Ce didn’t feel anything was wrong. On the contrary, he leaned back in his chair with the air of someone in control.
“Do you know what your biggest problem is? The most important thing I said while throwing you off?”
【Uh, boss, maybe take a look at your card? The way you’re sitting kinda looks like you lost...】
The Slime’s brain froze for a second, then offered what seemed like a kind-hearted reminder.
Lu Ce couldn’t take it anymore. He whipped out Hell Roar and blasted the Slime on the spot.
“When someone’s showing off, don’t you dare kill the vibe!!”