“Everyone must be guessing by now what this prize is. Let me first introduce to you, this is a work painted by a local painter in our city of Tong twenty years ago. I bought it at a glance at that time and have been treasuring it ever since. It is the greatest treasure of my heart, and I am bringing it out today to share the occasion so that you can all have some fun. This special prize will be awarded at the end of the God of Gamblers competition and anyone who can beat the God of Gamblers can take this painting. If no one can take the painting by the end of our voyage, it will be won by the God of Gamblers.”
“Boss He, something you value so much must be worth a lot!”
“That’s right, how much did you buy this painting for at the time? Let me have a figure in my mind too.”
Boss He smiled and held out a finger.
“Ten million?”
“You said it didn’t cost much then, was it a million?”
“And no, a hundred thousand?”
Boss He said, “It didn’t cost a dime.”
The crowd was in an uproar, not a penny spent, didn’t that mean it wasn’t worth anything? And since he was going to help this guy speculate on his value, wouldn’t it be a bad thing to say it so directly?
He said, “Everyone must think I’m doing this for someone else, right? The woman painter is no longer alive.
I didn’t spend a penny on this painting at the time, but it was very important to me because it saved my life.
The tone says it’s a special award, rather than my selfishness, and I hope that in this way people will still remember the beautiful work of this beautiful woman.
Please enjoy, the work of the late painter, Kee Yanran, Thinkless Mountain.”
As the white cloth was removed from the large frame, my mind buzzed and went blank for an instant, my phone slipping from my hand and falling onto the table.
It was an oil painting at least two metres high, the picture was very plain and elegant, depicting the wild cherry blossoms of the Wushan Mountain, I didn’t know anything about art but my eyes were drawn to the painting and I couldn’t shift my gaze for a long time.
It was painted by my mother.
I don’t know if I was shocked, but there was silence, and the crowd looked at the painting in silence, with a look of wonder in their eyes.
I was seven years old when my parents died in a car accident and I have very few memories of them and those memories are getting shallower as I get older.
All I remember is that my mother was very gentle and my father was a great jokester. I didn’t really know how rich my family was growing up, I only knew that my parents were in business and I always thought my family was just an ordinary family.
After the car accident, my aunt destroyed all the photos of my mother, so that my memory of her is now very vague and I can only remember a rough outline. My aunt rarely told me about my parents, and whenever she did, it was always with gnashing of teeth and curses; in her mouth, my parents were the most vicious and selfish people in the world.
I really didn’t expect that my mother could paint. Looking at the painting, for a moment it was as if time and space had been folded, as if I could imagine my mother sitting in front of a canvas painting when she was young, which made my eyes sore and unbearable, and I gritted my teeth to hold back my tears.
Just as the whole venue was silent, the abrupt sound of the door opening rang out.
I subconsciously looked back along with the crowd, only to see Jiang Ming walking into the hall draped in a trench coat.
“Brother He, I’ll take this painting.”
“Elder brother Jiang, I knew you would come, hahahahaha. But this painting can’t be reserved for you, if you want it, come and support my God of Gambling tournament.”
Boss He laughed loudly and ran up to hug Jiang Ming, who had one arm hanging unnaturally and could not move it, the one that Baldy had beaten and ruined, so he could only use one arm to hug Boss He.
“You old slick. I wondered how you could spare the Thoughtless Mountain as a prize, you just want to trick us all over to give you a hand in this God of Gambling convention.” Jiang Ming joked.
“That’s not true, the first person I thought of was you, old brother Jiang.”
Jiang Ming said half-jokingly and half-seriously, “You know I don’t know how to gamble, so why don’t you just take my word for it and I’ll give you 10 million.”
The crowd instantly erupted, like boiling water. 10 million, that’s even higher than the first prize tonight!
Especially when Boss He had already admitted that he hadn’t spent a penny on the painting, Jiang Ming had even come up with 10 million.
The crowd whispered, guessing that these two were not acting, one singing and the other drinking, speculating together to raise the price of the painting.
But Mr. He said, “Jiang, it’s not that I’m not willing to behave myself. I got this painting for nothing that day, and I promised Yanran at that time that I could only give it away but not sell it. If you can win today’s King of Gamblers, I will give you this painting for nothing, otherwise, I can’t give it to you even if it’s a hundred million.”
Jiang Ming was irritated, but nevertheless asked, “Is that what Yanran meant? Well then, old brother, it seems I can’t do it without playing a few games today.”
I was a bit confused, it looked like this boss He knew Chen Ruhai very well, and he knew Jiang Ming very well too, but he must be very good at all sorts of things to run a casino like this, I just didn’t think that he and my mother even knew each other.
He said that several people would come to tonight’s game for the painting, so there would be others besides Jiang Ming, and they wouldn’t all be my mother’s suitors, would they?
Sh*t, my dad was really something back then, to be able to kill it out of so many people.
The boat soon sailed out of the high seas and the whole casino started to revel at the congratulations of the lotus officer.
I searched around a few times and didn’t see Jiang Ming again. I guess people like him wouldn’t play on this floor below, the chips played on this floor were too small.
The rules of the King of Gamblers tournament were not complicated, whoever could win 2 million before midnight was eligible for the grand final, and only those who made it to the grand final would be eligible to compete for the special prize.
Originally no one cared about the special prize, they all went for the first prize, but now everyone was going crazy, they all went for the special prize, because those who won the special prize could sell it to Jiang Ming at a high price, just because of Jiang Ming’s energy, even if he sold him 20 million, he would give it to him.
I really don’t get it, does Jiang Ming like my mother that much? But he’s a pervert, he’ll do things that no one in his right mind would expect.
When I think of the things he did, I feel so relieved that my father took my mother away from me!
I wandered around the ground floor, not really interested in these gambling matches.
A lot of people think that gambling is about luck, but it’s really about skill and brain power. The two together make a gambling king. No one ever wins by luck all the time.
Most people are like Lin Kang, who thinks he is lucky in gambling and that his losses are temporary and once he wins, he will win it all back and become a winner in life.
In fact, they don’t know that even the few times they win, it’s all a game made by the dealer.
