Chapter 40: Where's the cute slave? He's in the cauldron of the Undertaker's kitchen!

Chapter List

Original Translations: Crafted with Care, No Unauthorized Reposting Allowed.

The white wall is over three metres high, separating the two teams of players on either side.

Tang Mo looks up and sees Pinocchio lounging on the wall, humming his out-of-tune 'Merry Christmas' song. Tang Mo listens intently for a moment. Not to Pinocchio's unpleasant song, but to the voice from across the room.

Strangely enough, the wall did not completely close off the space on either side, but he could no longer hear the slightest sound from the opposite party.

The white walls fall, no sound can be heard, no one can be seen.

Once she was sure that she could not really be heard on the other side, Tang Mo turned her head to look at her three companions. The high school girl reached out tentatively, touched the edge of the lattice and exclaimed, "It's gone, I can get out of the lattice."

All four tried it out.

The four compartments were connected in a line, and each person was originally confined to his or her own compartment, unable to take a step outside. But when the white wall fell, the three invisible walls in the middle of the four squares disappeared. Tang Mo was still unable to move out of the grid area, but he could move freely around the four squares.

The four men stand in the middle of the grid and look at each other.

The young man started, "So, this way, we're teammates next, too. Let's get to know each other first. My name is Zhao Wenbin, and I was a junior high school teacher before I came online."

The other two had obviously had experience in introducing themselves as well. The high school girl didn't quite reveal her identity, "You guys can just call me Lou."

The middle-aged man also said, "People used to call me Brother Keung."

Tang Mo's turn: "My surname is Mo."

The young man nodded as he looked to his side of the four-card deck, "As you can hear, this game of ours, first of all, certainly doesn't go by that so-called first-out-of-slaves rule." Not a single person objected to his statement, even Tang Mo listened calmly as he continued, "This is a very classic prisoner's dilemma type of game theory game. You may not have heard of the theory, but that's fine, it's the same as the card game we're playing. Even The black tower says that the correct rules for the Underlander Kingdom are Slave, Knight, Minister and King. But do you think we can play slaves?"

The high school girl didn't even think, "There's no way they'll play slaves. If we play slaves, they'll definitely play other cards to overpower us and eliminate us."

The middle-aged man also said, "It would be foolish to play a slave, and it should never be played. If we run out of slave cards, we can't deal with their king cards underneath. We're almost certain to lose."

Tang Mo listened quietly on the sidelines without making a comment.

Zhao Wenbin gave him a look that seemed to suggest he was an inconsequential commoner and continued to the other two teammates, "So what we need to determine now is, excluding the slave tiles, what are we going to play this game?"

All three men were lost in thought.

Tang Mo turned his head, his gaze fixed on the Queen's card. He looked steadily at the crowned woman with long curly hair on the card, his brow gradually tightening. At this point, Zhao Wenbin said, "Since no one has any comments, I'll go ahead and say it. I think we should play the minister's card this round."

The middle-aged man asked, "Why?"

"It's simple. First of all, we don't play slave cards because we are afraid of being restrained to death by the opposite side in the first game. Slave cards can be restrained by minister cards and knight cards, and there is a one in two chance that the opposite team can nullify our slave cards. No team will play slaves in the first round as long as they are not stupid." Zhao Wenbin analyses, "Secondly, the most unlikely cards to be played on either side are the king and queen cards."

This is well understood, said the high school girl, "Yes. Kings and slaves are so important that it's almost a one-two punch. It's better to put them on the back burner. If you get knocked out in the first round with the king's trump, it's too hard to play the rest of the game."

At these words, the middle-aged man thought, "Then let's play the ministerial card!"

Zhao Wenbin nodded: "Yes, we should play the minister card. Nine times out of ten, our opponents think the same as we do, and they won't take any chances in the first game. If we pick the Minister, we can't lose. At best, we can play the Minister with them and have both cards nullified. This leaves both players with three cards, and the chances of playing a pair of slaves have increased from a quarter to a third."

Both the female high school student and the middle-aged man agree with Zhao Wenbin's words.

Tang Mo looks at the queen card while listening to Zhao Wenbin.

Zhao Wenbin's words are not without merit. This is a typical prisoner's dilemma type of game. Under normal circumstances, no one would play a slave and a king in the first game. Both cards are too important and if you lose one of them in the first game, you lose the initiative in the rest of the game and become passive.

The most important of the four cards is not the king card, but the slave card.

Once a slave card is lost, the opposing team simply plays the King's card forever, then the Minister's card and the Knight's card in order of priority from top to bottom. In this way, the first team to lose all its cards is considered to have lost and Tang Mo's side has no chance of winning.

So the first game is definitely not going to be a slave game.

But it is not always necessary to play the ministerial card.

"That ...... Mr Mo, do you agree that we should play the ministerial card first next?"

Tang Mo turned his head to Zhao Wenbin: "I'm more inclined to play the queen card."

Zhao Wenbin looked at him in surprise, and the high school girl and the middle-aged man were also very dismayed.

Zhao Wenbin thought for a moment and shook his head, "No, that's too dangerous. In case the opposite side then does play a slave card, then although they can't see our deck, they see that our cards are restrained by their slave cards, and they know that we have lost our queen card."

Tang Mo said lightly, "Just leaning more towards the queen card, if you all want to play the minister card, I have no objection."

"Good, then it's settled."

In this game, most teams will choose to play their ministers together at the beginning. In all likelihood, the opposite team will also play a minister's card. This is the safest way for both teams to get through the opening game smoothly. It is important to know what the other team is thinking in order to be able to judge how they are thinking mentally and what cards they will play next time.

One reason why Tang Mo wants to play his queen is that in his judgement, there is an 80% chance that his opponent will not play a slave card. There is only a 20% chance that his side's trump card will be nullified by the restraint. This is worth a gamble, as whoever is short a card first is at a disadvantage.

Another reason is because of this queen's card.

The black tower Rule 8: The Queen's card triggers the "go home and kneel" effect, asking the other player a question.

Zhao Wenbin said: "We have the queen's card, so we can ask a question to the opposite side at any time. Have you thought about what question we are asking? The question cannot be related to the content of the cards and the opposite side can only answer yes or no."

The high school girl immediately said, "Do you remember, The black tower said that if the opposite side lied when answering the question, it would count as a victory for us. So ...... can we ask a question they don't know, so that there's a 50/50 chance they'll type it wrong, and that's a lie, right?"

Middle-aged man: "Makes sense, it could indeed be won that way."

The black tower will not give you such an obvious loophole. 99% of the time, you will only waste one chance to ask a question, and The black tower will consider it invalid. Do you really want to waste it?"

Tang Mo was quite good-looking, and the high school girl had been stealing glances at him while he was standing at a distance. But when he gave her such a cold jab, she gave him a displeased glare and looked away, never looking at him again.

Zhao Wenbin also says: "Let's think about a more important issue. But there's no need to rush, it's not too late to wait to observe the opposite side and understand the psychology of their character before making a choice."

It was at this point that a loud child's voice rang out across the white world -

"Ding-dong! The first game of Pinocchio's Honest Card Game is about to begin and the cards are now being shuffled."

The whole white world emitted a violent clanging sound and the earth began to tremble. The four silver and iron cards rumbled up and hovered half a metre above the ground before the four cards suddenly switched positions rapidly. The four cards switched places with each other at such a fast speed that Tang Mo's dynamic vision could catch up with the speed of the switching at first, but soon he could no longer see the contents of the cards.

Ten seconds later.

Bang!

The four cards stop in the four squares and a silver light shoots out from the centre of the cards and connects to the eyebrows of the four Tang Mo people. The object to which each card is connected is the person who was standing in the grid, but the position of the cards themselves has changed.

Zhao Wenbin's deck was originally a Knight, but now it is a Slave.

The high school girls were originally slaves, but now they have become ministers.

The middle-aged man is a knight and Tang Mo is a queen.

After the cards have been shuffled, The black tower sends out a prompt -

"Ding Dong! After three minutes, all players are invited to stand in the grid of cards that were decided to be presented. The cards in that grid are considered to be the cards presented for the next game."

Zhao Wenbin and the middle-aged man started to walk towards the ministerial compartment. When the high school girl saw that she had changed from a slave to a minister, she stood hesitantly in her place, hesitating to move. Zhao Wenbin turned to her, "What's wrong? Let's stand together in the minister's box."

The high school girl clenched her fingers, "...... I'm a minister."

The middle-aged man heard what she meant and asked back in an impulsive tone, "Then I was a minister just now, and I didn't say that I wouldn't be happy to play my card. It's only the first game, what are you afraid of? The opposite player is probably also a minister, and both of your cards will be invalidated, which won't trigger the dueling arena."

The high school girl was still a bit hesitant when Zhao Wenbin said, "Don't be afraid, it's almost impossible for the opposite side to play a kingdom ace to restrain you. Like us, they don't want to take such a big risk in the first round."

As if persuaded by Zhao Wenbin, the high school girl looked at the kind smile on Zhao Wenbin's face and finally made up her mind to take a step into the minister's compartment.

Tang Mo looks at them, hands in his pockets, and walks unthinkingly to the other side of the compartment.

The three men looked at him in surprise.

Zhao Wenbin: "Mr Mo, what do you mean by that?"

"Nothing, just a test. If the four of us choose differently, The black tower will decide what cards we play. If it decides there's a problem with the cards, I'll stand to you guys again." Tang Mo stood in the queen's box, looking calm.

Both the high school girl and the middle-aged man were a little upset with him, but looking at Tang Mo with a calm expression, they didn't say anything.

The three minutes were soon up and the child's voice prompted -

"Ding Dong! Deck selected."

The huge card slowly fell down in front of the three Zhao Wenbin men, back side up, and pressed into the ground. The moment the card fell to the ground, the silvery light attached to the four men's eyebrows faded away.

"Following the principle of minority rule? ......" Tang Mo said to himself.

Pinocchio, who has already decided on his card and is lying on the white wall humming, jumps up from the wall and stands on top of it. He looks at Tang Mo's side and then turns his head to look at the other side. Pinocchio gave a sinister laugh as he patted the wall: "My good man, it looks like these honest boys have made their choice, so you can rest for a while."

The white wall makes a roaring sound and rises slowly upwards.

Tang Mo got a good look across the room, and the moment he did, his eyes narrowed to the man in black standing directly across from him.

When he saw Tang Mo, his lips curled slightly and he smiled back at him.

Neither of them said anything, they just looked at each other in silence.

Tang Mo, however, had a strong feeling of unease welling up in his heart, and he gripped the match tattoo on his wrist, staring dead at the tall, erect man in black.

The high school girl whispered in awe, "Why are they standing like us."

Yes, of the four people opposite, three were standing in the same compartment and only the man in black was standing alone in one compartment, directly opposite Tang Mo.

Did the man in black, like Tang Mo, want to try out The black tower to determine the rules of card selection?

Pinocchio jumped off the wall and clapped his hands happily. The crisp clapping of his hands echoes through the white world, and with his voice, the two fallen silver and iron cards cling to the ground and move a little towards the blank area right in the middle of the two teams. Soon the cards were pressed close together, still with their fronts to the ground and their contents invisible.

In the blink of an eye, Pinocchio is running to the card on Tang Mo's side of the table. He leans down and touches the card with his hand: "Gee, it's a very good card."

Tang Mo did not react at all to his words.

The black tower rules state that Pinocchio doesn't know what the two teams are playing, so this Pinocchio is pure bullshit.

Pinocchio ran to the opposite deck again and touched it with his hand. His face was serious: "Well, it's a very good deck too."

For the first official hand, none of the two teams had any time for jokes, except for Pinocchio. They stared at each other, Tang Mo scanned the three players standing together across the table, and as he turned his eyes, he noticed that the man in black was actually still looking at himself.

Tang Mo mentally sensed a hint of something wrong, he had even thought of that possibility, but he subconsciously avoided the answer.

How is it possible to ...... get out of the country ace with four people on the other side?

Those three were actually unanimous in their desire to ace the country?

This is not possible.

Pinocchio, seeing that all eight players were ignoring him, grimaced aggressively and sat down on his butt on the opposite deck.

"Then let's get to the cards. You unfunny humans must not have heard of our most famous Pinocchio Honest Card Song in the Kingdom of the Underlanders!"

"biu--"

Pinocchio quickly changed his tune: "Okay, okay, it's not a famous song at all, but it's good ...... Yes, yes, yes, it's not good at all! Damn you stop making it longer for me, I'm going to start singing!"

"There was a king who went hunting, and the queen looked in the mirror every day."

"Minister runs after king, knight wants to see princess ......"

Pinocchio beats the beat with both hands and feet, closes his eyes and sinks into his off-key, unpleasant song. "Where is the lovely slave? Oh, he's in the cauldron of the Underlander's kitchen!"

"Ding-dong! Game one, player out."

A dazzling white light flashed up from the two cards and, as if something had burned his bottom, Pinocchio immediately stood up from the cards and stepped aside, grinning and humming that difficult song he had composed himself, looking at the two glowing cards.

The white light became increasingly blinding, filling the entire white space. The light shone so brightly that everyone could not see straight through it and closed their eyes. Tang Mo tried hard to open his eyes to see what was happening, but the intensity of the light made him squint uncontrollably. Then he heard a crisp cracking sound.

Almost instantly, his body trembled as he understood what the sound was.

"Ka-ching-"

The light disappeared abruptly and as everyone watched, a crack appeared on the silver and iron deck on Tang Mo's side of the card. These cracks started from the centre and spread rapidly outwards, eventually covering the entire deck like a spider's web. Finally ......

"Ka-ching-"

The cards turned into white light and disappeared into thin air.

Pinocchio, not at all surprised, covered his mouth and said in a deliberately surprised tone, "Damn you, you dishonest kids, what the hell has come out of the deck!" His mouth was full of angry words, but his face was all smiles and his eyes looked expectantly at the eight players on either side of him.

Tang Mo's four eyes were all focused on the spot where the cards had disappeared.

The high school girl's eyes widened in disbelief as she muttered "No way" and stumbled backwards. At that moment, a silver light shot out from where the card had disappeared and connected straight to the high school girl's brow. Tang Mo hurried to look at the other card that had not broken.

A silvery light was seen shooting out from the centre of this card, flying to the right and connecting with the brow of the man in black.

Tang Mo's heart stuttered and he stared at the man with a deadly stare.

The man in black stepped calmly into the blank area, the silver light on his brow disappearing as he walked in. He looked up at the pale high school girl across from him, before finally turning his head back to Tang Mo. He smiled slightly, "So, the dueling arena effect is triggered."

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The author has something to say.

Tangtang: You really want to kneel on your knees, don't you!!!

Mr. Fu: # Mr. Fu heart bitter but Mr. Fu not say # # why my daughter-in-law and I are on opposite sides # # 818 that author is not a spy from FFF □ □ #

Published at: 03/19/2022 21:04