The moment the leopard appeared, the whole room was in an uproar!

"Impossible!" Zhu Wu immediately flew into a rage, stood up and shouted, "You damn cheat!"

"What, you can have good luck, but I can’t have better luck?" Chen Xuan shrugged, "What did you say to others just now? If you can’t afford to lose, then don’t play."

"This round doesn’t count, something must have gone wrong somewhere!" He grabbed the three Aces, looked at them closely, trying to find where they were different.

But Chen Xuan knew Zhu Wu was searching in vain.

These Aces weren’t conjured out of thin air, they came from card exchanges in previous rounds. The trick was simple: when someone discarded cards, he followed suit and pretended to accidentally knock down half of the opponent’s cards and used the brief moment while collecting the scattered cards to hide the ones he needed.

This wasn’t a professional card game; there weren’t multiple cameras watching; around the round table were over a dozen classmates, and when discarding cards, they threw them casually, giving plenty of chances to reach near the central pile. For a trained gambling expert, swapping cards in plain view was no hard feat.

Certainly, Chen Xuan hadn’t practiced such fancy tricks.

But he had practiced Celestial Mist Skill.

The full-body enhancement from the Heart Method made his strength and agility far superior to ordinary people, allowing finger control precise to the millimeter. Coupled with the slowing effect of the Divine Eye Technique, he could find countless opportunities within a second—if his opponent was distracted for a moment, he could silently flick the card into his sleeve.

Chen Xuan didn’t even need to touch the scattered cards.

Because there was also the Thousand Thoughts Sword, thin as a needle, hidden among the deck. With a turn of thought, the Qi Sword could pick a card up and "fly" it under his wrist, the whole process taking just four or five milliseconds. In coordination with the action of discarding and the palm’s cover, an outsider wouldn’t even realize he had swapped cards; only high-speed cameras could capture the moment.

He hadn’t intended to do this initially.

He noticed Xia Feiyan’s unusual dealing technique and decided to adopt a countermeasure.

Three cards missing from a deck would only be noticed by someone immersed in gambling for over ten years. Maybe a few rounds later she would realize specific cards were missing, but Chen Xuan definitely wouldn’t wait until then to make his move.

Having played this game before, Xia Feiyan immediately figured out where the problem might be and quickly spread out the remaining cards on the table, starting a count.

"23 pairs... 24 pairs... single, no, three cards are missing!" She shouted as if catching a flaw, "There should be 52 cards in total, but now there are only 49!"

"I told you he cheated!" Zhu Wu’s face turned fierce as if he was about to hit someone.

"Brother Wu, your pocket..." someone suddenly exclaimed.

Everyone turned to look, finding a corner of a playing card sticking out of Zhu Wu’s shirt pocket.

He was slightly stunned and skeptically pulled out the contents—besides a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, there were also three playing cards, the faces of which were 789.

Xia Feiyan’s complexion instantly turned as white as paper.

Only she knew, these were the cards she dealt to Chen Xuan!

How could these cards possibly end up in Zhu Wu’s pocket?

Their seats were directly across the table, and Chen Xuan hadn’t left his seat throughout, this was beyond explanation by cheating techniques; it was practically magic!

"So this is how you gathered that straight flush?" Chen Xuan pretended to be enlightened, "I just don’t understand, how can you dare accuse me of cheating with three cards stuffed in your pocket?"

Of course, it was Chen Xuan who placed them there.

By moving the cards with two Thousand Thoughts Swords under the table, it made the card transfer technique seamlessly possible.

"Bullshit, why would I need to hide cards? I got a straight flush fair and square!" Zhu Wu exclaimed anxiously.

"Who knows? Sitting next to you is Zhao Jin, it couldn’t have been him sneaking them in, right?"

No matter how angry he was, he dared not blame Zhao Jin, "It definitely wasn’t him..."

"Then it must have been you." Chen Xuan shrugged, "I’ll just ask one thing: does the lost money count or not? Or are you just bluffing without the means to pay?"

At this point, Zhu Wu instinctively glanced at Zhao Jin.

"Why are you looking at me?" Zhao Jin was really annoyed and shouted back directly, "Cheating at a class reunion poker game, what’s wrong with you? Get out! Don’t hang around with me anymore!"

Zhu Wu ground his teeth in anger.

He stared at Zhao Jin for a while and forcibly suppressed his temper. Finally, he glared fiercely at Chen Xuan, kicked the chair away, and left the room without looking back.

Chen Xuan immediately understood Zhao Jin’s position.

Among the classmates, he certainly mingled well, but he wasn’t wealthy enough to casually throw away a million, so he’d rather risk confronting Zhu Wu and use cheating as an excuse to drive him away.

As expected, Zhao Jin quickly turned to Chen Xuan and said, "I thought he’d learned to restrain himself after mixing with society, but it seems he’s still the same. Since it’s cheating, let’s ignore that round."

"Indeed... a million is too much..."

"Zhu Wu’s family isn’t well-off; he definitely couldn’t come up with that much money, clearly bluffing!"

The other classmates chimed in.

But Wang Xingyu suddenly became silent and stood aside without speaking.

Chen Xuan smiled, "Yeah, ignoring cheating makes sense."

The tense atmosphere eased a lot with these words, Zhao Jin also showed a slight smile, about to say some pleasantries.

However, Chen Xuan spoke first, "But that round isn’t over yet, right? Zhu Wu was the only one cheating, you should be honest."

Zhao Jin froze.

The others now realized that the game of bluff was about one player leaving at a time until a final winner was determined—Zhu Wu’s hand reveal didn’t affect Zhao Jin, as long as he hadn’t discarded his hand, the game was still on!

Three Aces as the biggest hand, unless he could put together a 235 "rat card," he couldn’t beat Chen Xuan.

He could choose to fold, but the problem was that he had been betting all along and had already put in around 300,000 on the table!

Losing this money to Zhu Wu was no issue; after all, they were a team and could simply transfer it back afterwards. Multiple bets made the scene look more natural; large wagers matched the image Zhao Jin had crafted for himself.

But now Zhu Wu had exited, leaving only him and Chen Xuan, making the situation entirely different.

"It’s your turn." Chen Xuan said with a smile, "Will you call or fold?"

Zhao Jin opened his mouth, his expression extremely complicated.

For a moment, he couldn’t find a valid reason to overturn Chen Xuan’s statement!

If he says it doesn’t count, unless he admits he cheated too, the result would be losing face, and how would he maintain his reputation among classmates?

If he admits, then all prior bets must be fulfilled—although a million is unacceptable, is 300,000 a small sum?

Actually, seeing Chen Xuan blindly raise his price, he was also somewhat disdainful, firmly believing the latter couldn’t afford it. But he hadn’t expected Chen Xuan to honestly pay up; making the former honor student appear clownish in others’ eyes would have satisfied him. Yet Zhao Jin didn’t anticipate that now he was the one facing a dilemma.

Under everyone’s gaze, Zhao Jin squeezed out a slight smile, "...I fold."

"Thank you, President Zhao," Chen Xuan said, pretending to be content, "300,000 is a bit much, may not be transferable via WeChat, I’ll give Xia Feiyan a card number later, you can transfer it there."

"Fine..." Zhao Jin struggled to maintain his image, "I won’t short you a cent."

After such a commotion, poker was evidently off the table. Facing Chen Xuan with an eight-figure card balance, no one wanted to add fuel to the fire; the previous criticisms about him idling around in Jiang City also vanished into thin air.

Chen Xuan seized an opportunity to call Wang Xingyu aside.

Wang Xingyu was somewhat nervous, speaking so awkwardly he was stuttering, "Brother Xuan, what do you want from me? I transferred the money to Sister Yan."

"What’s your WeChat? Add me." Chen Xuan took out his phone, "I’ll transfer 2450 to you."

"Eh?" Wang Xingyu asked in surprise, "Why?"

"Half is yours, half is Cheng Yu’s." He replied briefly, "I’m not in the work group, nor do I have his WeChat, pass it on to him."

Wang Xingyu instinctively wanted to refuse, but seeing the transfer amount, he suddenly found it difficult to speak.

Chen Xuan understood his classmates’ thoughts; this thousand-plus wasn’t a small sum to him.

Eventually, Wang Xingyu moved his lips, bowed his head, and softly said, "Thank you, Brother Xuan."

Chen Xuan patted him on the shoulder, "Remember not to gamble with people again, whether with classmates or anyone else, got it?"

Wang Xingyu clenched his teeth and nodded heavily.