Unedited
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“Each chip is worth five hundred thousand,” Harringfort declared, his gaze had a hint of amusement and glee. He sat opposite Zhou Jingren before he gestured to one of his men to give Zhou Jingren some chips. “I have a total of two hundred chips. How about you? How many— “
“Same as you.” Zhou Jingren interrupted him. “A hundred million worth of chips.”
“Very good!” Harringfort beamed. “Well… I am really feeling generous today. So… how about we call your friend? Oh, wait. He is still asleep. How about your secretary? You know… for some support?”
“You can do whatever you want.” Zhou Jingren answered. To be honest, his mind is currently with Lily. He could not help but wonder if she was safe or if this man dared to attack her. What if he was planning to use Lily against him? “My only concern is my wife.”
“What about your wife? Are you telling me that you wanted her to join us?” Harringfort chuckled. “Don’t tell me the smart President Zhou wanted to ask for his wife’s help in playing a simple game of poker?” he laughed. Seeing Zhou Jingren’s serious expression, Harringfort made a deliberate pause. “Are you serious?”
“I want you to assure me that she is safe.” The fact that these people could enter the premises of this secured bungalow only meant that they had a way to bypass his security undetected. While the security in his house was not as strong as the one on The Peak, he still wanted to make sure that his wife is safe.
“Oh! I thought… you wanted to ask for her to help you. Silly me. Of course, President Zhou would not do that.” Harringfort gave another boisterous laughter. However, instead of feeling irritated about the man’s eccentric behavior, Zhou Jingren stayed calm. He pursed his lips as he eyed the boxes of playing cards on top of their table. He sighed. Without this man’s assurance that Lily is safe, he would not play a single game against him. “Oh! You can call her.”
Zhou Jingren did not wait for the man to utter those words again. He immediately opened his phone and called Lily. Of course, he didn’t forget to activate a certain application that would tell Qin Yuanfeng he is in danger. Good thing, he was able to warn Qin Yuanfeng ahead of time not to tell Lily about this in case he received the signal. “I can’t call her. There is no… reception.” Saying the words itself almost knocked his lungs out. Without reception, he won’t be able to tell Qin Yuanfeng about the emergency. This could mean that he won’t have a way to tell them about his current situation.
“Oh! Right… I forgot about the signal jammer.” Beaming, Harringfort gestured to one of his men to turn it off for thirty seconds. “Surely, that would be enough for you to confirm that she is safe no?”
Zhou Jingren nodded in response. He only needed twenty seconds to send the signal to Qin Yuanfeng. This will then trigger another program that Qin Yuanfeng installed in the satellite owned by the Chinese government. Using the satellite, Qin Yuanfeng could easily track him. He immediately dialed Lily’s number and waited for her to answer the call. He pressed the loudspeaker feature.
“Hey,” Lily’s groggy voice reached his ears. “You are still awake?” she yawned. Zhou Jingren eyed Harringfort before he answered.
“I am about to sleep. I just called to tell you, I miss you.”
“When are you coming back?”
“Tomorrow. I have some things to discuss with Bei Tian. Then I will come home… tomorrow.”
“Oh.” Lily let out another yawn. “I am too sleepy.”
“I know.” He smiled. “I love you. You should sleep now.” He heard Lily hum before she responded.
“I love you more. I will see you tomorrow.”
Zhou Jingren then ended the call. All throughout the conversation, his eyes never left the man sitting opposite him. This means he saw the rage in Harringfort’s eyes as he listened to their conversation. He immediately wondered why this man would feel anger while listening to them. He shook the thoughts out of his head.
“See? Did you really think I am that kind of man? I would never hurt a woman— a pregnant woman.” Harringfort grinned before he lowered his eyes, hiding the emotion that swirled in his blue orbs. “Are you ready?”
Zhou Jingren nodded without saying anything. “One question.” Zhou Jingren said. “How will we know who will win?”
“Oh! I forgot about that!” Harringfort held his chin. “Well… we can buy more chips? Until we ran out of money?” he smirked. “Or… we can buy a total of five hundred million chips and… well, the first one who runs out of chips will lose. Of course, I accept other bets too… like an arm. Or an eye.” He smiled. “Perhaps a life.”
“Good.” Pursing his lips, he instructed Secretary Go for his checkbook. Both he and Harringfort immediately wrote a check for the chips. Then, they signed a contract— something that Harringfort insisted on doing. A contract that says, no matter what happened, the loser would never blame the winner. He mentioned that this is something that the organization required in bets like this. Of course, Zhou Jingren complied.
He doesn’t have a choice. He never had one.
The only thing that he needed to do now is to play and win. Again, losing is not an option.
“Alright… we really should start.” Harringfort rubbed his palms as he gave Zhou Jingren a boyish grin. Seeing Zhou Jingren nod at his words, he immediately gestured to one of his men to deal for them.
“Hmmm… so again, we have an opportunity to exchange two of our cards before we can start betting against each other.” Harringfort reminded as he excitedly looked at the five cards in front of him. Beaming, he picked two of the cards and laid it in front of Zhou Jingren. “I am changing this, queen of hearts and ten of diamonds.”
