The four of them watched for a while until Dan Feng was the first to break the silence, urging everyone to take their seats.
Zero petted the cat once, then sat down at the stone table with Jingliu, who was still holding it.
The Dragon Lord sighed. "My subordinates are incompetent. I'm afraid this meal will take a while before it's ready."
Except for that last time's mix-up, Dan Feng had never dropped the ball. What could've gone wrong this time?
Could it be that the Dragon Master had caused trouble again?
The other four, all too familiar with the Dragon Lord's ways, immediately grew serious.
Yingxing frowned and asked, "Did something happen?"
That normally expressionless face of Dan Feng's, the one that rarely changed, actually showed a flicker of emotion in front of his friends, coming to life a bit.
The Dragon Lord shook his head, his tone laced with frustration, like a teacher scolding a student who should've known better.
"I deliberately kept the budget within five digits and hired a private chef to come cook in person. But when they arrived, no one in the mansion heard the knocking. They were half an hour late by the time someone opened the door…"
Those who knew Dan Feng's usual lavish habits understood very well, the words "five digits" were no small deal for him.
Hiring a personal chef team to tailor dishes to his taste and come cook on-site…
Wow. That was practically frugality incarnate. So much so that even the Dragon Master would've been moved to tears.
As for the ingredients…
Well, those probably cost six or seven digits at least.
No one cared to dig into the exact number.
After all, for Dan Feng, this was already a major breakthrough.
As for no one hearing the door for thirty minutes, that wasn't anyone's fault.
The Lord of the Moon's private residence was simply too big.
The attendants were busy serving the Dragon Lord and handling other affairs. With limited staff, oversights were bound to happen.
After hearing Dan Feng's explanation, everyone first fell silent, then sighed in relief.
As long as it wasn't the Dragon Master's doing, that was fine.
To liven the mood, Baiheng stepped forward first.
The fox girl, like performing a magic trick, somehow pulled out a small palm-sized box from who-knows-where and called to everyone, "Well then… let's play cards! My friend just taught me a new game mode, come on, come on!"
Zero pushed the cat, who had tried to climb onto the table, back into Jingliu's arms and asked, "How do we play?"
Baiheng twitched her ears and began explaining the rules to the group.
After hearing her out, Zero understood. 'Oh, it was just Fight the Landlord.'
"I'll be the referee then. Who's playing? Considering we haven't eaten yet, let's skip the drinks for now."
The fox girl grinned and pulled out a pad of sticky notes.
"Whoever loses gets one of these stuck on their face. How about that?"
Jing Yuan looked over at Dan Feng and Yingxing, both looked quite interested.
He gave a dry laugh. "Hahaha, I'll pass. I'll just watch you guys play…"
Something didn't feel right to him, so he dropped out early.
Those two cared way too much about saving face, the match was guaranteed to be intense.
Especially Dan Feng.
His clothes alone averaged seven figures, and who knew how much he spent daily on scale maintenance…
The Dragon Lord would absolutely go all out to win.
Jing Yuan was here to relax, no way was he getting his brain tangled up in a card game.
Zero didn't notice Jing Yuan's unease and volunteered to join.
He was already familiar with Fight the Landlord, no big deal.
Jingliu, too busy petting the cat, opted out with her disciple.
Baiheng eagerly shuffled the deck, then dealt cards to Zero, Yingxing, and Dan Feng.
Zero drew the landlord's hand, looked at his biggest card, an A, and fell silent.
Baiheng held up the three remaining cards and asked, "Anyone want to bid?"
Zero didn't want to pin his hopes on those three cards and immediately refused.
The Dragon Lord snatched the landlord role without hesitation.
Before long, the round ended.
Dan Feng triumphantly played his final card, while Zero and Yingxing each earned themselves a sticky note on the face.
The two of them were so deep in the pain of defeat they couldn't even recover for a while.
Baiheng giggled as she peeled apart a sticky note and handed one to Jingliu, who was still holding the cat.
Jingliu raised a hand and gently stuck the note on Zero's face. Her soft fingertips brushed against his cheek, she recoiled instantly, like she'd been shocked, and focused instead on the cat in her lap.
The victorious Dan Feng noticed her little reaction out of the corner of his eye.
He glanced from Jingliu, who was staring at the cat like she could bore a hole through it, to Zero, who was still brooding over his loss, and sighed quietly.
Well, it made sense. Zero was barely twenty, it was normal for him to still be clueless about such things.
Zero tried to comfort himself. It was just one game, nothing to fuss over. He immediately decided to play again.
…And then proceeded to lose five games in a row.
Even Baiheng couldn't stand it anymore. She and Jingliu sat side by side, watching Zero, the poor loser now with five sticky notes on his face, trying to help him out.
The fox girl took one look at his cards and whistled.
Even with help from the sidelines, it was hopeless.
'What kind of hand was this? Not even a single 2!'
Yingxing, with three sticky notes of his own, sighed. "I finally understand. Whoever teams up with Zero is doomed."
Dan Feng, forced to wear two notes himself, his cold, dignified image in tatters, nodded grimly.
Zero, "…"
At first he tried to keep calm, but as the games went on, he began to doubt life itself.
Five rounds in a row, not once had he drawn a joker.
Every hand he got was trash. He'd never once managed to win the landlord spot.
And even when they added a helper to his side, he still lost.
Zero couldn't believe it.
Was his luck really that bad? Could it be that in his previous memories, all those losses were just because he had terrible luck?
'Impossible. No way. It had to be Fuli manipulating the game!'
Yingxing, sounding like a wise old uncle, said earnestly, "Zero, when you're old, never ever buy any of those health supplements. And don't go gambling either."
'Otherwise, you'd lose your whole pension in no time!'
Zero smiled stiffly. "Thanks… I guess."
Jingliu sighed, shoved the cat into Zero's arms, and said, "I'll play for him."
Zero blinked, instinctively petting the cat that had snuggled into him.
He turned his head to look at Jingliu, who was now focused and waiting for Baiheng to deal the cards, and chuckled softly.
"Then I'll leave it to the great Swordmaster."
Meanwhile, Dan Feng, whose cleanliness obsession had kicked in and who was on the verge of casting a cleansing spell on his face, saw Jingliu take Zero's place and called Jing Yuan over.
"Jing Yuan, you play."
The Dragon Lord got up to check with the attendants about the private chef's progress, leaving Jing Yuan to join Jingliu and Yingxing's match.
The three of them sat, fully focused, as Baiheng dealt. They played five more rounds in a row.
By the end, Jingliu had two sticky notes on her face and said nothing.
Was she sulking?
Zero couldn't tell. He worried that the easily embarrassed Jingliu might lose her temper, and seeing that interesting expression on her face, he barely managed to hold back a laugh.
He took the third sticky note that Baiheng handed him and gently placed it on Jingliu's cheek, saying softly,
"You're still better than me, you even won two rounds in a row."
Someone who'd lost five in a row had no right to laugh at someone who'd only lost three.
Yingxing whispered to Jing Yuan, "If you team up with Jing Yuan, you'll always win."
Jing Yuan snorted.
'Did they have any idea what he'd just gone through?!'
His head was about to explode. During those five rounds, he'd had to deal with Yingxing's stubborn obsession with winning while also secretly going easy on his master.
Five rounds of that, and he was about to lose all his hair.
Still, faced with Yingxing's praise, Jing Yuan couldn't help but smile proudly, straightening his back.
He'd earned it.
Path of Erudition, truly miraculous...
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