Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Lucky Clown

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“Wake up. Wake up.”

Liu Zheng was jolted awake by a rapid barrage of slaps.

He opened his eyes and found himself staring into Oxhead’s enormous face.

“Boss, you’re supposed to brush your teeth after eating.”

He spoke instinctively.

“I’ve never seen you brush yours.”

Oxhead rolled his eyes.

“Hurry up. We’re almost out of time.”

He hooked Liu Zheng up with his broken horn.

“Did you get the money?”

Liu Zheng asked while stretching his limbs.

He felt no different from before he had sold the meat. Could it be that as long as he had not been reduced to an empty shell, the effects were negligible?

“Here.”

Oxhorse opened his mouth and spat out a wallet.

Liu Zheng picked it up and opened it. Inside was a thick wad of banknotes covered in patterns he could not understand.

“Where are we going next?”

“You still have to deliver food, so those recreational activities are out.”

Oxhorse sounded disappointed.

He had cooked that pot of ratman soup for the evening. Who could have guessed that this fellow would refuse to follow the script?

“Making money is more important.”

Liu Zheng consoled him.

“True. Let me think about what you can do.”

Oxhorse fell into thought.

“You definitely can’t fight in a boxing match. Even a flyweight could kill you with one punch.”

That was the first possibility he rejected.

Liu Zheng did not argue.

With his current strength and speed, he could easily win a championship belt in a real-world boxing match. But in this bizarre world, he could only bully the security guards at the entrance of a residential compound.

“Smuggling won’t work either. I’m going on vacation in a few days, and I won’t have time to find buyers.”

“Neither will scavenging. Anyone can tell that you have no eye for value.”

Oxhorse suggested several plans, then rejected them one by one.

“Forget it. Let’s go.”

He started toward a door.

“Go do what?”

“Gamble, of course.”

Oxhorse answered.

* * *

“There are so many people.”

Looking at the bustling crowd inside the casino, Liu Zheng could not help sighing.

Although there were hardly any humans among them.

Apart from himself, the closest thing to a human was a demon with horns and a tail like a goat’s.

As for the other customers, one could only say that they were remarkably free-form in appearance.

If they went to the real world, they could probably star in twenty or thirty horror films and still have work left over.

Noticing Liu Zheng studying it, the demon raised its wineglass in a friendly gesture.

“Don’t provoke that one,” Oxhorse warned him.

“Is it dangerous?”

Liu Zheng obediently shifted his gaze away.

“It probably won’t attack you, but it’s the biggest high roller in this casino. If it takes an interest in you, the money you have won’t even be enough to lose.”

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Oxhorse continued.

“Then why did you bring me here to gamble?”

Liu Zheng was speechless.

He had thought Oxhorse possessed some foolproof method of winning.

So this was it?

“What a stupid question. Apart from gambling and robbery, what else can make you rich overnight?”

“Then why don’t we rob someone?”

Liu Zheng asked seriously.

With the skills the two of them possessed, robbing someone would be effortless.

“You’re welcome to get yourself killed, but I’m not interested in dying. Of course, I’m not completely unprepared.”

Oxhorse opened his mouth and spat out an iron box.

Liu Zheng took it, but instead of opening it, he stared at Oxhorse’s gaping mouth.

“What?”

Oxhorse grew irritated under his gaze.

“I was just wondering how many more things you can pull out of your mouth.”

“That’s none of your business. Now open it.”

Oxhorse urged him on.

Liu Zheng opened the iron box. Inside was a playing card.

A joker—the clown card. A standard deck usually contained two of them, commonly called the big and little jokers in the real world.

Name: Lucky Joker Card

Type: Item

Quality: Fine

Effect: While holding this card and dressed as a clown, luck increases. The degree of enhancement is directly proportional to the quality of the costume.

Can it be taken out of the dungeon: Yes

The clown on the card wore blood-red lipstick and smiled with an utterly sinister stare.

“Where am I supposed to dress up as a clown?”

Liu Zheng was speechless.

“I prepared everything long ago.”

Oxhorse thrust a hoof into his mouth and rummaged around vigorously. At last, he pulled out a gaudy clown suit and a ridiculous, multicolored hat.

“You had everything prepared from the beginning?”

The corner of Liu Zheng’s mouth twitched as he watched the performance.

“Obviously. Did you think I’d really let the money go to waste?”

Oxhorse replied.

“Then why did you go through that whole pretense of analyzing our options?”

“We had to follow the procedure. Otherwise, it would feel too much like a predetermined outcome.”

Oxhorse shrugged.

Under Oxhorse’s watchful gaze, Liu Zheng put on the clown suit.

It was loose enough to fit directly over his vest.

“What about the makeup?”

Liu Zheng pointed out the flaw.

“That’s easy.”

Oxhorse suddenly thrust his head forward and drew its broken horn across one of Liu Zheng’s tentacles.

Blood gushed out.

“There. Now you have lipstick.”

Oxhorse spoke smugly.

“If we win any money, I’ll beat you until you’re eighty percent dead.”

Liu Zheng’s expression remained blank.

“If you can earn enough for my retirement, ninety percent dead is fine too.”

Oxhorse did not care in the slightest.

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“Heh.”

Liu Zheng dipped his finger into the blood and painted himself a vivid red smile.

The system notification rang out at once.

“Lucky Joker Card activated.”

“Where should we start?”

Liu Zheng looked around.

The casino was not large, but it had every essential machine and table. He recognized nearly all the forms of gambling available.

Recognizing them was the extent of his knowledge.

“Since you’ve become a lucky clown, naturally we should start with something that relies on luck.”

Oxhorse nudged him toward a pachinko machine.

In the real world, this machine was considered a uniquely Japanese phenomenon, popular to the point of incomprehension.

Whether in Tokyo, Osaka, or sparsely populated Hokkaido, pachinko parlors could be found everywhere.

Middle-aged and elderly men in particular would rush in first thing in the morning to claim their favorite machines, then sit there all day with lunch boxes and cigarettes.

Liu Zheng had never played proper pachinko, but he had played the limited edition found outside primary schools back home.

A wooden board, a few nails, a glass marble, and an owner sitting on a tiny stool smoking a cigarette.

He had lost quite a bit of pocket money that way.

“Hey, you there! Bring us some chips!”

Oxhorse shouted.

Before long, a slime half as tall as a person wriggled over.

“Wussi-dee-see, way-bee-bah-boo?”

It made an indistinct sound.

“Give it the money,” Oxhorse told Liu Zheng.

“How?”

Liu Zheng asked.

No matter how he looked at it, the creature did not seem to have anything resembling hands with which to receive it.

“Just throw it in.”

Oxhorse answered.

Liu Zheng released the wallet and let it fall onto the slime’s body.

The wallet sank bit by bit into the slime, then disappeared completely.

Liu Zheng was startled to discover that the slime’s body was only seemingly transparent.

“Glorp, glorp. Blub, blub.”

After another series of incomprehensible burbles, the slime wriggled away.

In the spot where it had been, it left behind a pile of chips coated in slime.

“What did it just say?”

Liu Zheng asked while picking up the chips.

“It said the casino is running a promotion today: deposit ten thousand and receive an extra thousand.”

Oxhorse answered.

“Then we’re guaranteed to make money, aren’t we?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. Look at the chips in your arms.”

Oxhorse nodded toward them.

Liu Zheng looked down at the chips he was holding. They came in four colors: black, red, yellow, and white.

The black ones were worth one thousand, the red ones one hundred, the yellow ones ten, and the white ones also one thousand.

“The white ones are the bonus chips. They can’t be exchanged for cash. You only get to exchange them for other chips after you win. What, did you think the casino was stupid?”

Oxhorse explained.

“Oh.”

Liu Zheng picked up a yellow chip and tossed it into the pachinko machine’s slot.