The croupier hurried to the back end of the gambling house.
He opened the door, panting, and said to the man lounging on the sofa and playing with his phone, "Supervisor, something terrible has happened, terrible..."
Upon hearing the commotion, Li Heshan put away his phone, his expression dissatisfied as he glanced sidelong with annoyance, "What's all this panic about? What happened?"
After catching his breath, the croupier hastily explained, "In the dice area, at table eighteen, a skilled gambler appeared. It's unclear whether he's here to smash the place up or make a sweep of money, but in just over ten minutes, he's gone from one hundred yuan to ten million yuan."
Li Heshan's gaze sharpened upon hearing the croupier's words, and he sat upright from his lazy sprawl on the sofa, the frivolous expression that seemed to care about nothing turning serious.
He spoke again, asking more earnestly, "From ten minutes, he went from one hundred yuan to ten million yuan? Are you certain you're not mistaken?"
"I'm not mistaken, I've seen with my own eyes how he's hauling in money," said the croupier, almost in tears.
Li Heshan's complexion changed rapidly upon hearing this.
After a moment, he said, "Go back, I'll check the surveillance room."
"Yes," replied the croupier with an answer, hastily leaving the room.
Li Heshan then stood up, left his office, and headed towards the adjacent surveillance room.
Inside the surveillance room, a group of monitor staff stared at their respective screens, occasionally murmuring into their headsets, coordinating covert manipulations with the croupiers in their area.
Those who saw Li Heshan enter who didn't need to coordinate with the croupiers immediately greeted him.
Those who were too busy gave Li Heshan an apologetic look and nodded in acknowledgment.
"Carry on with your work," he said.
Li Heshan waved to them, signaling that they need not be tense and to focus on their work.
After that, he walked over to the monitor station covering the dice area.
In front of these operators, screens displayed the entire dice area and the dice points inside the cups on each gambling table.
Whenever gamblers hit numbers with high odds, they would coordinate with the croupier of that table, pressing a button in front of them, and immediately, the still-covered dice cup would shake again, tossing the dice to change the outcome.
But now, they all watched one screen with grave concern, as if facing a great enemy.
The screen showed the scene at table nineteen.
At table nineteen, a crowd of gamblers had gathered, nearly every player from the dice games had run over there, leaving the other tables almost deserted. ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵~𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖~𝙣𝙚𝙩
The reason for this situation was none other than the youngster in a vest, shorts, and flip-flops, who appeared to be seventeen or eighteen, having moved from table eighteen to this one.
This person was Mu Jinyu.
Mu Jinyu, of course, wouldn't just stand at the original table waiting for the fleeing croupier to return.
Who knew if he would come back at all?
Thus, after waiting for a minute, he shifted his stance to the neighboring table, number nineteen.
And the croupier responsible for table nineteen, upon Mu Jinyu's arrival, immediately turned deathly pale, sweat pouring down his face, shaking the dice cup in his hand for nearly a minute now, yet he hadn't dared to place it on the gambling table.
"Dealer Number Nineteen, you can stop now; we'll try to coordinate with you to manipulate the dice rolls in a minute."
The surveillance personnel, seeing the discontent growing among the gamblers gathered at Table Nineteen, hurriedly grabbed the headset and whispered instructions.
Previously, Mu Jinyu's betting had been insignificant, involving merely several hundred yuan, several thousand yuan, several tens of thousands yuan... naturally, it didn't attract their attention.
After all, bets of several tens of thousands yuan or over a hundred thousand yuan were trivial; their casino was large and couldn't possibly resort to tampering just because they were losing a few hundred thousand. If the gamblers couldn't see any potential for profit, why would they come back?
They preferred to let them win over a hundred thousand first, then lose it all later. After losing, they'd still leave them dreaming of getting rich overnight.
But as Mu Jinyu hit big, going from one million yuan to ten million yuan, and the other gamblers who followed suit also won big, they started to take notice of him.
Initially, they wanted to remind Dealer Number Eighteen that they would be coordinating with him in the next game to cheat.
But who would have guessed that the croupier would be so frightened he fled, telling them he was going to find a manager, and urging them not to act rashly, as a player of such caliber would definitely notice any foul play.
Now, seeing that Dealer Number Nineteen was barely holding on and the surrounding gamblers were growing discontented, they couldn't just tell the dealer to continue dealing; it seemed they had no choice but to try tampering themselves.
Thus, when Li Heshan arrived, the ones on high alert didn't even notice him.
As Li Heshan approached, he inquired.
The surveillance staff jumped at the sound of Li Heshan's voice, startled that he'd taken an interest. While one kept watch, the others began to explain the situation to him.
They reported that after Mu Jinyu increased his bet to ten million yuan, the dealer at Table Nineteen didn't dare to start the game willy-nilly anymore. They couldn't delay any longer, and just now, they had notified the dealer to continue while they prepared to tamper with the game.
"Are we going to cheat this round?"
With their pillar of strength present, the few surveillance staff members relaxed and passed the question on to Li Heshan.
Li Heshan said expressionlessly.
Their casino had been operating in River City for many years, and what storms hadn't he weathered? They had dealt with gambling experts coming to stir up trouble before—either by sending highly skilled gamblers to drive them out or by paying them off to back down.
Therefore, although Li Heshan had been initially surprised, he soon calmed down.
Now, he was curious to see if Mu Jinyu was skilled enough to make him willingly offer money to get him to leave.
Of course, if Mu Jinyu were too greedy, demanding too much money, even if he managed to walk away with the cash, he would end up eliminated by the Snow-hidden Commerce Chamber behind their casino!
With these thoughts, Li Heshan maintained his focus on the screen, where Mu Jinyu, after the croupier placed the dice cup down, was seen pushing his chips onto a number on the table.
The gamblers who had been watching Mu Jinyu's every move immediately rushed forward to place their bets alongside him.
Those who couldn't bet on that exact number had no choice but to settle for betting on big or small, odd or even...
The surveillance staffer responsible for Table Nineteen, seeing the number inside the dice cup on the screen, identical to the one Mu Jinyu had bet on, broke out in cold sweat.
"This guy really has sharp ears for the dice!"
Recalling Li Heshan's words, he gritted his teeth, signaled the dealer to wait a moment before lifting the dice cup, then pressed a mechanism. Suddenly, the dice inside the cup quietly shifted.
In an instant, the numbers changed dramatically.