"Don't believe it?
"Alright, then let me explain."
Lu Xinyi said unhurriedly, "Obviously, you three are all 'conservative types,' the kind who, when buying bank financial products, must have principal and interest guaranteed and accept no risks whatsoever.
"I could tell from the very beginning that you resist gambling and risks, which is why you chose this plan.
"And this point can also be seen from your chip counts.
"I casually asked earlier whether your chips were around 18,000, and you acknowledged it.
"This shows that when exchanging chips, you chose the lowest tier of 20,000, and only gambled the minimum two rounds before cutting your losses and withdrawing.
"Since you're all extremely risk-averse people, you absolutely wouldn't dare to bet everything and go all-in against me now.
"We're not even on the same level psychologically or in terms of chip quantity."
Earlier she had subconsciously assumed that everyone's initial chips should be around 18,000, unless someone was lucky and got good cards to win, but that would be at most just over 20,000.
Lu Xinyi smiled, "Of course, my initial chips were more than you imagined.
"Moreover, those three will continue to lose their chips to me.
"The gap in our chip quantities will only grow larger. If you know anything about gambling, you should know that players with more chips hold an absolute advantage."
As she spoke, Su Xiucen had already folded due to timeout.
Jiang He gritted her teeth and chose to call 1000.
Qin Yao, to help Jiang He, also chose to call 1000.
The Community 3 player to Qin Yao's right chose to raise, the next player folded, and Lu Xinyi raised again.
"I understand now..."
When it was Jiang He's turn again, she looked at the timer on the table, and her whole person seemed to collapse.
Obviously, the Community 3 players had already discussed it: 2 people would fold consistently, and 2 people would raise.
Why not have all 4 people raise together?
Because if all 4 raised together, someone might quickly exhaust all their chips and exit early.
So Lu Xinyi's strategy was to have only 2 out of 4 people raise, and these 2 weren't fixed, but would only raise when they felt their cards were relatively strong.
The remaining 2 would fold, preserving their chips as much as possible.
With 2 people raising, they could both retain their side's strongest hands and keep raising without revealing cards, creating maximum psychological pressure on Jiang He and her team.
If Jiang He and Qin Yao continued to call, then Lu Xinyi and another Community 3 player would continue raising until everyone's chips were exhausted.
Without strong enough cards, Jiang He and Qin Yao couldn't possibly go all-in like this, which was far beyond their psychological limits.
If they were gambling veterans who dared to take extremely high risks and had strong acting skills, they might find a way to break the deadlock.
But unfortunately, Jiang He, Qin Yao, and Su Xiucen weren't such people. They were all risk-averse players.
Lu Xinyi had seen this from the beginning, which is why she chose this strategy to manipulate them.
"Forget it, we fold."
Jiang He and Qin Yao ultimately chose to fold, each losing 2000 chips.
The game continued.
Qin Yao lowered her voice, "Sister Jiang He, this isn't working for us, is it? So far, we haven't even had cards revealed once. If cards were revealed, we might not necessarily lose, right?"
Jiang He sighed softly, "But without strong enough cards, going all-in to see the cards, are you sure you can handle that risk?"
Qin Yao was momentarily speechless. Obviously, she couldn't do it.
Jiang He lowered her voice, "Now there's only one last method.
"There are still a few rounds left. If we can get strong cards, then we'll go all-in and try to win back the chips we lost before.
"I don't believe luck will never be on our side."
Qin Yao thought about it, "Then... what counts as strong cards?"
Jiang He considered for a moment, "To win for sure... I think at least a straight or better.
"After all, although it looks like two people are calling on their side, they're actually choosing the two strongest hands from four people. If our cards are just a pair, it probably wouldn't be safe enough."
Qin Yao nodded, "Understood."
Jiang He leaned closer to Su Xiucen and said the same thing.
Lu Xinyi certainly saw the whispering on this side, but she didn't seem to care, just continued methodically dealing, raising, and collecting chips.
Soon, eight rounds passed, and the chips in front of Lu Xinyi had almost piled into a small mountain.
Cards were dealt again, and Jiang He opened her hand without any hope.
Then her eyes instantly lit up, and her breathing became rapid.
3 of clubs, 7 of clubs, Q of clubs.
A Q-high flush!
Although Jiang He didn't play cards much and didn't know the exact probabilities, she knew this was definitely a very strong hand.
The probability that the other six people at the table had better hands was very, very low.
"Stay calm, stay calm, can't show it...
"Can't raise too many chips at once either, that would be too obvious. Call first, wait for them to slowly raise..."
Jiang He lowered her eyes, showing a dejected appearance.
When it was her turn, Jiang He hesitated repeatedly, took a 1000 chip from her stack, and placed it in the betting area.
"I'll call this round."
However, the next second, everyone folded.
Lu Xinyi smiled and threw her cards on the table, "Looks like your luck was good this round. Take these chips, they're what you deserve."
Jiang He's expression instantly froze.
The mechanical arm swept the chips in front of her, but looking at these few 1000 chips, although Jiang He had won, she felt worse than if she had lost.
Like the last string had snapped, Jiang He completely collapsed.
Originally, although she had been losing, she still had a glimmer of hope, thinking that if she could get strong cards and go all-in against the opponents, she could win back everything she had lost before.
Although she didn't have many chips left, winning an all-in would only net a few thousand, but that would have been enough.
But now she realized that she and Lu Xinyi were completely different levels of opponents.
Her psychology had been completely manipulated, and her clumsy acting couldn't fool anyone.
The final round began dealing, but Jiang He, Qin Yao, and Su Xiucen were already dejected, completely helpless, only hoping the game would end quickly.
Each looked at their hand cards, but no miracle occurred again.
All ordinary mixed cards.
"Fold."
"Fold."
"Fold."
Lu Xinyi's face showed a smile as she once again won all the chips alone.
"Then thank you three for your hospitality. I hope there will be opportunities to visit Community 17 in the future."
Jiang He left the gambling table in a daze, looking at her remaining chips: 14,000.
Her luck wasn't bad. The round where she got the flush won her 6,000 chips from everyone's base bets. If she hadn't won that round, she would only have 8,000 left now.
Qin Yao and Su Xiucen's situations were even worse.
Su Xiucen folded the entire time, but fortunately only lost base bets, leaving her with 8,000.
And Qin Yao, who had raised once following Jiang He, only had 7,000 left.
It could be said they were completely defeated.
The three of them together lost 26,000 chips, which converted to visa time was about 18 days.
Jiang He returned to the rest area in a daze and sat down on the sofa.
On the big screen, the game countdown continued ticking.
1:02:59... 1:02:58...
Because everyone folded quickly in this multiplayer game, it actually only took about ten minutes, leaving over an hour of total game time remaining.
But during this time, the three of them could do nothing but wait.
However, just then, the compartment in the chip exchange area that had been locked suddenly opened.
"Hm?"
Qin Yao looked over with some surprise.
Lin Sizhi walked out of the compartment, his left hand in his suit pocket, calmly surveying his surroundings with a composed expression.