I’m not always willing to dirty my hands

The white-haired young man walked straight to the central gambling pool.

[This whitey's so fierce, he's already gunning for the 10,000 gambling table.]

[Doesn't he only have 11,500 chips in his hands? A single loss at this table and he can say GG.]

[Whew, he has balls. I'm rooting for this kid!]

The bullet chat was fired up. The trainees crowded around the central gambling pool also looked over.

The minimum bet to enter a game at an A-rank gambling table was 10,000 chips.

To put it into perspective, a life was worth 5,000 chips; a B-rank prop was no more than 5,000 chips. Anyone who wanted to play a game here needed a capital of at least two props or two lives. Just as the bullet chat said, losing at this table was equivalent to death.

Players able to gamble at the middlemost pool were uniformly above A-rank. There were other players from the top three ranks scattered around too, but they were simply spectating from afar and none of them actually went forward.

As such, the white-haired young man walking out from the crowd of people once again became the focus of attention.

Because of where he was walking towards; because of the green C-rank badge displayed on his chest; because of his unforgettable appearance.

"Interesting. Is he here to gamble at the A-rank tables?"

An A-rank trainee watched this scene coldly.

"Speaking of which, I just heard that this C-rank directly exchanged his life at the reception counter and even garnered the instructor's appreciation, who gave him another five thousand chips for free."

"Exchanged his life? This newcomer has some guts."

Another A-rank laughed. "If I didn't guess wrong, he should be the most outstanding newcomer from this batch."

"D'uh, how can the system give out an S-rank rating so easily? Even we didn't…"

An A-rank who had silently listened to their conversation suddenly got up from the sofa.

"I'm going to give him a greeting."

The alabaster man with sandy brown hair and blue eyes walked to the gambling table. All of the other trainees in his way cleared a path for him.

When he left, the other two A-ranks on the sofa looked at each other.

"Why is Anthony so active today? Isn't he always by His Lordship's side?"

The A-rank shrugged. "His Lordship seemed to have shown interest in this C-rank previously. Before returning to the dormitories, he specially ordered people to check him out. As the most loyal dog of His Lordship, it would be stranger if Anthony didn't go up."

That A-rank grunted and didn't continue the conversation, readying himself to watch a good show from the sidelines.

Many others had the same idea as him.

Zong Jiu briskly stepped into the gambling pool in the central area.

The decorations in the central gambling pool oozed extravagance. Due to the high initial threshold, there were very few tables scattered around, each a far distance from the next. Luxurious sofas, fruit and snack towers, and champagne lounges were artistically placed around the central area, vastly different from the haphazard arrangement of tables in the E-rank area.

It was the famed no-limit gambling table.

At the middlemost gambling table, the amount of chips needed to open a hand was up to the starting player at the table. The highest amount wasn't capped. It was a game of getting rich, or losing everything down to the socks.

The situation at the middlemost gambling table could be seen from any area in Las Vegas, so very few trainees dared to disturb.

Zong Jiu's gaze lingered briefly on the middlemost table.

The seven men gathered at the table were, without exception, S-rank trainees at the cream of the crop.

Their current game was played with an initial threshold of 50,000 chips and the gameplay was astonishingly heated.

When Zong Jiu looked over, a dark-haired man with his cards pressed to the table looked up, as if sensing something.

The man's long, upturned eyes narrowed as their gazes met, and he nodded at Zong Jiu imperceptibly.

Zong Jiu, "…"

He kept feeling that Zhuge An's thin smile didn't reach his eyes, but he felt a vague chill from receiving his favour.

Recalling how he had flung the dirty laundry to him in the Mental Asylum, this probably wasn't anything good.

The white-haired young man also returned a polite smile, his eyes flitting past the golden-haired Holy Son seated next to him, and finally falling back towards the A-rank gambling table.

What he didn't notice was that another man with ash grey hair lifted his eyes at this time, his dark red eyes sweeping over thoughtfully.

After being shut out of casinos for so long, even though his hands were in better than peak condition, it was inevitable that Zong Jiu was a little rusty. Fortunately, that last game relaxed his muscles and his fingers had never stopped for a moment, so he managed to regain the feel for it.

He was very clear of his objective this time.

No matter what, whether it was gambling with his life or carefully sounding out the scene, then going straight to the central gambling pool… these seemingly brash actions were grounded by absolute confidence in his ability.

Once he won a hand at the 10,000-chip gambling table, Zong Jiu intended to make a beeline for the no-limit gambling table to play big. In the best-case scenario, everyone would have their guards let down, and he would win a bountiful windfall.

Standing by the gambling pool, a tuxedoed attendant affirmed. "A-rank gambling tables require at least 10,000 chips to join."

Zong Jiu waved the platinum gold card in his hand, and the attendant ushered him to a gambling table.

Unlike the ordinary dealers dressed in black vests and white shirts at the low-ranked gambling tables, the dealers at the higher-ranked gambling tables were dressed more formally in crimson skirts, topped off by neatly-folded neckties. Only the stiff smile remained unchanged.

Despite being discreet about it, the trainees in the central area were all furtively watching the white-haired young man's entrance.

Before Zong Jiu could take a seat, there were already five other players at the gambling table.

One by one, they leaned back in their chairs, their faces visibly tinged with arrogance as they looked at him askance, a C-rank who had taken a seat amongst a crowd of A-ranks.

One of the unnaturally fair men banged the table. "Why are you letting a C-rank in? Our table has just raised the threshold to 20,000 chips."

"If I didn't guess wrong—"

The hint of dark red in Anthony's green eyes drifted over, looking as if he didn't mean to draw any hostility.

"With only ten thousand chips in hand, he doesn't qualify to sit at our table, does he?"

The attendant following behind the white-haired young man hurriedly whispered, "My apologies. This table is playing Texas Hold'em. Just now, the starting player raised the initial threshold to 20,000. Would you like to open a game at another table, or provisionally exchange chips with me?"

The central gambling pool was equivalent to the VIP area of Las Vegas. Each player would be assigned an exclusive attendant when entering to ensure that each player could instantly exchange money when lacking chips, saving them time from going to the reception counter to exchange and allowing them to quickly start the game.

Hoh, this guy was trying to squeeze him out.

Gazing around at the people who had crowded around to watch the show, Zong Jiu raised an eyebrow.

If need be, it wasn't as if he couldn't mortgage his S-rank prop for chips. In any case, as long as he had more chips in his hands than what was given to him before the casino closed, the prop wouldn't be taken away.

He turned over and spoke to the attendant in a low voice.

[Looks like these A-rank hotshots are determined to give this newcomer a hard time.]

[That's quite normal; just think about it. There were less than ten trainees who got a single S-rank rating amidst all the A-ranks yesterday, yet one of the E-rank trainees suddenly got an S-rank from the system. It's normal for them to clip his wings.]

[Normal? They've gone overboard. Making him lose here is taking his life.]

[Get used to it. It's the way things have always been in the infinite loop. It used to be difficult to meet in instances, but now that they've entered a survival show, they're all competitors. If a rival is rising to the top, it's the most normal thing to kill him in the cradle.]

[Yeah, we're contenders, not charity do-gooders. This is a competition where everyone is your enemy. Upstairs, I can tell that you're quite new to the infinite loop. Your life is in the hands of the system; do you still expect people to be fair to you? Did capitalists discuss with you whether or not it's fair before they oppressed you?]

In the infinite loop, the strong ate the weak. It was brutal to the weak, but they were fanatics for the strong. If a person didn't show sufficient strength, no one would ever take them seriously.

The people at the gambling table watched on coldly.

Everyone was here waiting to see the joke. No one would go back to open a table with an initial threshold of 10,000 chips. This C-rank would either have to find a way to get 20,000 chips, or get the hell out of here.

Perhaps feeling that this amount of animosity wasn't enough, another onlooking B-rank suddenly spoke up.

"Not enough chips?"

His dirty eyes slowly swept across the white-haired young man's face. "If you're willing to let everyone play with you, I'm sure someone would be willing to chip in."

The people around the table howled with laughter.

"How's that? Not bad, right? 10,000 chips is equivalent to two lives, after all."

"It's better than not bad; even the most expensive star actress cannot enjoy such rates."

Although this waxy-faced B-rank had spoken up at a gesture from Anthony, the eyes with which he studied the young man grew increasingly leery.

Just then, the attendant turned back and respectfully pulled out a chair at the gambling table for Zong Jiu.

The white-haired young man tossed the platinum gold card; the card drew a beautiful arc in the air and landed in front of the dealer. The electronic frame on it showed that there were 30,000 credits in the card.

30,000!

The spectating crowd was dumbstruck, disbelief on their faces.

His balance before was clearly just over 10,000. How could he take less than a few minutes to suddenly reach 30,000?!

The B-rank that ran his mouth earlier was even more disbelieving. He watched that white-haired young man whisper to the attendant behind him.

He didn't know what their conversation was about. Regardless, after the conversation, the young man's lips curved, and he moved his elbow subtly.

In the next moment, an object almost uncatchable by the naked eye cut through the space towards him like an arrow piercing through frigid air at lightning speed.

"Ah—"

The B-rank screamed, kneeling straight to the ground as he covered the aorta on his neck.

The blood spurting from between his fingers was so thick that he couldn't staunch it.

Behind him, the blood-stained weapon lay quietly on the carpet.

The clown on the joker card grinned widely. The bright red of its lips and the blood on the edge of the card blended together in a grotesque beauty, and the smile on a man controlling puppet strings in a boundlessly dark space widened.

Everyone was shocked by this scene.

It was a common consensus that, even if the system had not said it, there would be serious repercussions for blatant assault in Las Vegas.

The attendant standing behind Zong Jiu said at the same time, "According to the rules, no intentional injury is allowed in Las Vegas. 10,000 chips have been deducted from the trainee as a penalty."

The 30,000 on the card dropped by 10,000 to give the balance of 20,000, which was the value frozen by the dealer as the entry fee for the game.

"I hope that every owner can collar their rabid dogs."

The young man icily said, "Ten thousand chips to buy a dog's life is really quite expensive."

"And I'm not always willing to dirty my hands."