Chapter 37: The Class Game (Part 3)

Yun Xueqing: “Blue Castle?”

The dead Gentry man had also mentioned this place.

“Yes, Blue Castle,” a calculating glint flashed in the Livestock Yard owner’s eyes as he excitedly rubbed his hands. “You can earn several times more gold coins there.”

“Just working ordinary jobs for others, how many years and months would it take to earn two gold coins?” He whispered like Satan himself, tempting them. “But there, you don’t even need ten minutes to double your money.”

“You already have capital. Why not give it a try there?”

His scheme was blatant, but Yun Xueqing paused for a moment before asking, “Where is Blue Castle?”

To climb to the top, they needed far more than four gold coins. They could only rely on other means.

High risk meant high reward.

Blue Castle was probably such a high-risk place, but it was sure to bring high returns.

Seeing that Yun Xueqing had taken the bait, the Livestock Yard owner grinned slyly and pointed out the direction for him.

He took Yun Xueqing’s two gold coins and gave him one silver coin in return. “This is your capital. Consider it a loan from me. Now you two still owe me two gold coins and one silver coin.”

He was tricking his slave underlings into going to Blue Castle. If they won, he could recoup his investment with interest.

If they lost, even better—they’d be saddled with a lifetime of debt, doomed to work for him forever.

It was a simple open scheme, but one that was sure to ensnare people.

Yun Xueqing pushed the wheelchair, taking Fu Wuxuan in the direction the Livestock Yard owner had indicated.

Blue Castle was some distance away, and with Fu Wuxuan’s mobility issues, Yun Xueqing had a hard time moving. It took them a good while, during which many commoners came to provoke them, only to be driven off by Yun Xueqing.

They walked like that for an entire afternoon, passing through a bustling town and a stretch of forest, until they finally saw Blue Castle in the distance, shrouded in the mists of the mountains.

At the foot of the mountain was another bustling town, but the shops there no longer sold ordinary goods. Every store displayed the same thing: gambling tables.

This was Gambling Town, where every shop was a casino.

Yun Xueqing ignored the shops and headed straight to the mountain base to go up, only to be stopped by two figures.

These two wore tailcoats and goat masks on their heads. A low, thick voice emanated from beneath the masks: “Non-Nobles may not ascend the mountain.”

Blue Castle only entertained Nobles.

Yun Xueqing frowned and ventured a guess: “Does the King live in Blue Castle?”

Allowing only Nobles up the mountain into Blue Castle was far too strict a condition.

Someone extremely important must be inside, someone who could not be disturbed—perhaps the King.

It seemed reasonable that the King would reside in the castle.

But the goat-masked figures did not answer him. They only repeated: “Non-Nobles may not ascend the mountain.”

Their faces were hidden, and beneath the pitch-black masks, two holes showed at the eye areas, like voids that could suck a person in.

Yun Xueqing had no intention of forcing his way through. He took Fu Wuxuan back to the town. “If only Nobles can go up the mountain into Blue Castle, how did that Gentry man from yesterday get in?”

Fu Wuxuan chuckled lightly. “Maybe they didn’t enter the real Blue Castle.”

He pointed at the ground. “Maybe this town is also considered part of Blue Castle’s territory.”

Yun Xueqing: “A whole town without its own name? They just call it Blue Castle too?”

It sounded utterly absurd.

Fu Wuxuan curved his lips. “If the King really lives in that castle, then everywhere under the feet of the Son of Heaven is the imperial city. It’s not without reason.”

Yun Xueqing nodded thoughtfully. “He has the right to command everyone. Naming a whole town Blue Castle—no one would dare disobey his order.”

Fu Wuxuan nodded. “To get out, we need to stand at the pinnacle of this world and meet the legendary King. First, we must become Nobles.”

Yun Xueqing pondered. “Go to the casinos?”

The Livestock Yard owner had tricked them into coming to this town precisely to make them gamble—to lose everything, ideally.

But he had to admit, gambling was one of the fastest ways to make money. In a single night, one could go from rags to millions in luxury or end up bankrupt on the streets.

They only had one silver coin in hand. They had to seize the opportunity.

Fu Wuxuan curved his lips in a mocking smile. “Before we gamble, let’s first check how much gold we need to earn. There should be a public ranking board like that.”

Publicly displaying wealth rankings was undoubtedly dangerous—those with more would attract the envy of those below, even risking their lives.

But in this world, wealth couldn’t be robbed. Even killing someone wouldn’t let you take their possessions, so there was no such risk.

However, Noble status had slot limits. The lowest-ranked Nobles truly faced constant risk of assassination by high-position Gentry, so they hired many bodyguards for protection.

Yun Xueqing had an idea. “If we become a Noble’s bodyguards, could we get into Blue Castle?”

“Probably not. The Goatmen don’t seem the understanding type,” Fu Wuxuan said with a helpless laugh, shaking his head. “Even if we could, you might get hired as a bodyguard to protect those Nobles, but I…”

He gestured to the fish tail under his blanket.

Yun Xueqing’s expression remained flat. “You could apply to be the fish under a cook’s cutting board.”

Fu Wuxuan: “…”

Seeing the other’s speechless expression, Yun Xueqing curved his lips and proactively asked a passerby where the Noble ranking board was.

The Goatmen could identify whether they were Nobles. If it wasn’t some special ability, then the Nobles’ list must be publicly posted.

To flaunt their status, most people wore badges of their class, especially Gentry and Nobles—they took pride in it.

Yun Xueqing and Fu Wuxuan quickly noticed that almost everyone coming and going in this town was either wealthy Gentry or the extremely rare Nobles. Commoners were scarce, and slaves nonexistent.

Because of their slave status, these people treated them with extreme arrogance and disdain. Some even spat at them. Conversation was difficult, let alone getting directions to the Noble rankings.

In the bustling casino town, they finally, after much hardship judging by attire, found another slave and learned from him that the ranking board was at the town’s entrance—right at the main gate.

They returned to the town gate and saw a massive bulletin board plastered with people’s photos.

Due to slot limits, there weren’t many Nobles—just a thousand in total. The dense array of headshots covered the board.

Yun Xueqing saw that the No. 1 spot had a staggering 90 million gold coins!

He gripped their sole silver coin and fell into thought.

Fu Wuxuan smiled and wheeled himself to the bottom of the list. “The last-ranked Noble has just over 1 million gold coins—precisely 1.26 million. That’s an achievable goal.”

Even within the same class, the wealth gap was huge. Fu Wuxuan tapped his chin with a fingertip. “This last one is named Fu Mi. Surpass him, and we’re the new last place… A Fu surname, from the same clan even.”

A dark glint flashed in his deep blue eyes. “Knocking a clansman off the list is truly thrilling.”

Yun Xueqing didn’t understand his excitement. He just followed the list upward from the bottom. At No. 4 from the end, he paused slightly. “San Zhi?”

How could San Zhi be here?

Even on the Noble rankings?

He quickly looked at the photo and saw it wasn’t the person he imagined, but a beautiful woman with big wavy long hair and fiery red lips.

Yun Xueqing shook his head. “Wrong one.”

It made sense—how could San Zhi appear in the domain set by Zhongse?

But it wasn’t entirely impossible. Maybe after escaping the Man-Eating Ghost’s Weird Domain, he had been caught by the Spiritual Energy Special Control Bureau and sent to the Degeneration Abstinence Institute.

If it really was he, then considering the Shared Fate Curse binding one person and one Weird, the situation in this game would get even more complicated.

Fu Wuxuan smiled, his tone somewhat profound. “He could really be him. San Zhi is a Weird that rarely shows his face for the Strategy God Heavens cult, but legend says he knows disguise techniques—he appears different every time.”

He drawled, “Another possibility: San Zhi is a code name, played by multiple people under that skin.”

Seeing Yun Xueqing show a rare hint of worry, Fu Wuxuan subtly reassured him. “Whether it’s the San Zhi from that previous Weird Domain, we’ll know once we become Nobles.”

Yun Xueqing nodded, suppressing that bit of concern. “In that case, let’s head to the casinos.”

They entered several casinos and quickly understood why so few commoners came to this town, and virtually no slaves.

The stakes inside were simply too high—almost all games started at one gold coin!

The games varied: some half skill, half luck; others pure luck or pure intellect. But all started at one gold coin.

Fu Wuxuan sneered. “That Livestock Yard owner.”

Daring to trick them—he’d kill the man on the way back!

Yun Xueqing soothed him. “There must be silver coin games, or he wouldn’t have sent us here. Keep looking.”

They scoured most of Gambling Town before finally finding a casino with a silver coin game.

Fu Wuxuan tapped his chin, eyeing the game. “It’s Russian Roulette.”

The rules of Russian Roulette were simple: Load one or more bullets into the six chambers of a revolver, spin the cylinder randomly, then close it. Players took turns pointing the gun at their own head and pulling the trigger. Anyone shot was biologically eliminated; anyone who chickened out lost. The last one standing won. [1]

This low-end, pure-luck game was for desperate gamblers. On the surface, it was for one silver coin—but really, it was wagering your life.

Yun Xueqing frowned, about to leave, when the casino boss approached with a beaming smile. “Customer, here for Russian Roulette?”

The boss was very fat, also bald, with a smiling face like Maitreya Buddha—giving off an approachable vibe.

Other casino bosses never showed themselves, just watched gamblers revel or despair from behind the scenes. This was the first time they’d seen one personally soliciting customers.

Yun Xueqing was about to refuse when the boss said cheerfully, “Russian Roulette is simple—fifty percent chance to win. Win, and you get 100 gold coins!”