Terry was one of those incredibly lucky, blissfully happy girls.
She was a Beauty Fern, living under a protective dome, untouched by the storms and pollution of Haidu. If a young woman like her happened to know the location of an underground casino, the information could only have come from a single source.
Her older brother, Huai Tuo.
Within five minutes of entering the underground casino, Milady found an opportunity to slip away from Terry and her friends.
She hid behind a curtain in a corner of the second-floor stairwell, watching the group of young people wander around the first-floor hall. After searching for her for a good while, they finally left, looking put out.
'Thanks for showing me the way,' Milady thought.
After waiting a little longer, once she was sure they wouldn't be back, she descended to the main hall on the first floor. She ambled slowly between the various gaming tables and machines, feigning interest in finding something to play as she carefully surveyed the casino.
For an underground casino, the scale was quite impressive.
The second floor housed private gambling rooms that she couldn't access. The main hall on the first floor had no windows or exterior doors and was exquisitely decorated, filled with various gaming machines whose names she didn't even know. Waitstaff, gamblers, bodyguards, dealers… all manner of people came and went through a haze of smoke and alcohol. Curses and cheers rose and fell in waves. Dice clattered, crowds roared, and chips were slapped down on tables. Just as the clerk from the clan affairs office had said, this place was a haven for every shade of lowlife.
None of the visible casino staff were members of the Tower family.
After wandering aimlessly through the hall for a while, Milady wracked her brain but couldn't figure out how to connect the casino to the High Tower Clan Leader. If she was going to report this to the Judgement Family, she needed some kind of proof, didn't she?
Milady bit her lip, staring at a gambling machine in front of her, her mind a complete blank.
Her entire focus had been on finding the casino. Now that she was in, she realized she had no idea what to do next.
'A Tower Family Member couldn't run this place out in the open, so the manager must be connected to the High Tower Clan Leader. I should start with the manager… But I don't even know who that is, or if they're even here, let alone how to find proof. For that matter, what would even count as proof?'
She paced around for a few more laps, no closer to a plan but unwilling to leave. Suddenly, a sound like a beast's howl erupted behind her, startling the deeply focused Milady. She spun around and saw a towering, powerfully built man.
The man must have been eight feet tall. As he rose from the card table, it was like a small mountain of gnarled muscle was rising with him. He slammed his palm on the table and roared, "Damn my fucking luck! C'mon, let's go! We'll try our luck somewhere else and come back later!"
The men behind him didn't look like decent folk either; they were brutish and fierce-looking, and they reeked of alcohol. The most unsettling thing was the way the tall man looked at people—not like he was looking at a person, but at a slab of meat.
Wherever the group went, a path immediately cleared for them. A few gamblers who had dodged out of the way watched their backs and murmured, "Isn't that the crew from the White Shark Ship? From the North Sea Long Vine Road?" "Yeah… Oh, hell. I can't believe they're here too."
From the way the gamblers spoke, it seemed that crew was infamous for living a life of violence and bloodshed—it was hard to say if they were pirates or private soldiers.
Milady suddenly stopped in her tracks.
The problem that had been troubling her seemed to suddenly crack open, letting a sliver of light through.
'Can I count on them to immediately resort to violence when they run into a problem?'
Milady hefted the heavy bag she was carrying.
'I'm completely clueless about how casinos work, but common sense tells me that if I want to force the manager to show their face, I'll have to cause a pretty big scene, right?'
Milady frowned in thought for a moment, her gaze landing on the card table the man had just left.
Despite having just won both money and crucial information with a deck of cards earlier that night, she had never actually gambled before. Just then, a middle-aged man wearing a monocle took the empty seat. He looked at the dealer behind the table and said, "Black Jack, right? I'm in."
As he spoke, he tossed two chips onto the table.
'Black Jack?'
The name sounded familiar to Milady. Seeing a few spectators standing near the table, she picked one who looked approachable and walked over to ask a few questions. A moment later, it all clicked into place.
She had heard of this game before. Black Jack, also known as Twenty-One. After the player and the dealer receive their cards, they can choose to hit or stand based on their hand's value. The winner is the one whose hand is closer to or exactly twenty-one.