Zhou Xuan smiled faintly, picked up the money and stuffed it into the old woman's pocket, saying, "Grandma, your son didn't get much money from me, and to be honest, this pen holder isn't a valuable antique, it's worthless. Please keep it!"
The old woman was both in tears and filled with gratitude. She repeatedly said, "Young boss, you are such a good person. Thank you so much."
After thanking Zhou Xuan, the old woman slowly walked out the door, her body hunched over, holding the pen holder.
As the old woman walked to the door, Zhou Xuan suddenly remembered something and quickly said, "Grandma, wait a moment!"
The old woman stopped, turned around, and asked in surprise, "Young boss, is there anything else?"
"Where's your son?" Zhou Xuan asked. "Is your son gambling again?"
The old woman shook her head and replied sadly, "He's sleeping at home now. He stayed up all night again, gambling with those contractors. They're all rich people. They have money and tricks up their sleeves. How could he possibly win against them? Besides, he's broke now. When he's broke, he just sleeps at home. When he wakes up, he gets angry and starts cursing!"
Zhou Xuan had actually seen that middle-aged man before and had a vague impression of him. The first two times he brought things, he was in a hurry to exchange them for money, as if he wanted to gamble with the money. Unexpectedly, he really did exchange the money for gambling.
Zhou Xuan thought for a moment and then said, "Mother-in-law, may I see your son?"
Although she didn't know him, after just a short while, the old woman felt in her heart that Zhou Xuan was a good person who wouldn't harm her or her son, even though she didn't know why Zhou Xuan wanted to see her son.
After hesitating for a moment, the old woman asked, "Little Ren, the car can take you to my son's place at noon, but may I ask why?"
Zhou Xuan nodded and smiled slightly, "Mother-in-law, don't worry. I don't mean to do anything to your son. I just want to ask him where he gambled and who cheated him. I have a friend who's good at this; maybe he can help him get his debts back!"
The old woman was finally relieved. Zhou Xuan followed her, and Fu Ying came along too. Li Wei then went to drive the car. When the car pulled up, Zhou Xuan helped the old woman into the car. Then he sat in the front, and let Fu Ying sit with the old woman in the back.
The old woman's house was an old house on the outskirts of Chongwen District. As old Beijingers know, the eastern part of the city was rich, the western part was expensive, Xuanwu was poor, and Chongwen was dilapidated. Chongwen was an old city area, and its limited land area made development difficult. Redevelopment and compensation were also major problems, so the old city area remained the old city area.
The old woman's house is a nine-story old building without an elevator. She lives on the sixth floor. Going up the old, rustic stairs to the sixth floor, you find a two-bedroom apartment with a living room, about sixty square meters in size. The furniture is all old furniture that looks like it's decades old.
The old woman invited Zhou Xuan, Fu Ying, and Li Wei to sit down on the old sofa, then poured a few glasses of water before going into the room to wake her son, Zhang Sinian.
Zhang Sinian rubbed his eyes and muttered, "What's wrong? Why did you wake me up when I was sleeping so soundly?"
Upon entering the hall and suddenly seeing Zhou Xuan and his group, he was stunned for a moment, then immediately called out to the old woman, "You old woman, why did you bring these people home?"
Li Wei's face immediately darkened, and he slammed his hand on the table, cursing, "If you treat your own mother like this, what kind of good person can you be? I really want to teach you a lesson."
Zhang Sinian was no pushover either. He quickly ran to the kitchen, grabbed a cleaver, and came out yelling, "You bastards, coming to my house to cause trouble! Get out, or I'll chop you all up!"
The old woman was both shocked and panicked, and hurriedly said, "Sinian, you unfilial son, they are all good people. Look, they have returned the pen holders you stole and sold to us. Put down the knife, put down the knife!"
Li Wei used to get into fights a lot when he was a child, but he rarely did as he grew up, mainly because of his status; usually, no one dared to mess with him. Seeing Zhang Sinian brandishing a kitchen knife and acting arrogantly, he quickly stood up and looked around for a weapon to defend himself.
However, before Li Wei could find a weapon, Fu Ying nimbly leaped out and kicked twice with lightning speed. With a clang, Zhang Sinian threw down the kitchen knife, squatted on the ground, clutching his hand and crying out in pain.
Before Li Wei and Zhou Xuan could even see how Fu Ying made her move, Zhang Sinian had already thrown down the kitchen knife and cried out in pain.
Li Wei, of course, had no idea how formidable Fu Ying was. Zhou Xuan did know and wasn't surprised, but Li Wei was extremely astonished. He never expected that Fu Ying, this delicate and beautiful woman, would possess such formidable skills!
The old woman was also taken aback and rushed over to check on her son. Although Zhang Sinian was unfilial and a gambler, a son is still a son. After her husband passed away, he was all she had left; how could she not be heartbroken!
Zhang Sinian squatted on the ground, his left hand tightly gripping his right wrist. There were no visible injuries or wounds on his hand, but it was in excruciating pain. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead like beans.
Fu Ying kicked an acupoint on Zhang Sinian's hand. It wouldn't cause swelling or injury, but it was excruciatingly painful. And Zhang Sinian, being a coward, immediately went limp after that pain, groaning and begging for mercy, "It hurts...it hurts so much! Just tell me what you want, ouch!" Fu Ying... Lan, stepped forward and kicked again. Zhang Sinian was terrified, but couldn't dodge. However, after Fu Ying's kick, the pain subsided!
Zhang Sinian moved his right wrist, and strangely enough, the pain disappeared immediately. He looked at Fu Ying with a mixture of fear and surprise, but dared not shout anymore. He knew in his heart that this pretty girl was not someone to mess with.
Zhou Xuan said calmly, "Mr. Zhang, as long as you don't resort to violence, everything will be fine. I just want to ask you where you gambled and with whom."
Zhang Sinian paused, then asked, "You came here just to ask this? Nothing else? What do you want to achieve by asking this?"
Zhou Xuan smiled and said, "I just wanted to know how you guys gambled. I suspect you've been scammed. Because the gambling game itself is a scam."
"Scammed? Damn it. I might really have been scammed!" Zhang Sinian immediately became agitated at the mention of it, angrily saying, "I've never won once when playing with them!"
As Zhang Sinian spoke, he glanced at Zhou Xuan and saw that Zhou Xuan was smiling but did not answer. He continued, "It's right behind us, at the newly built construction site. There are five or six hundred workers at this site. They play cards day and night. They play 'Zha Jin Hua'. I don't know if you've ever seen it."
"Zha Jin Hua?" Zhou Xuan smiled. This gambling game originated in inland China, in the Sichuan, Chongqing, Hubei, and Hunan areas. Because it allows multiple people to play simultaneously, the cash stakes are high, and the rules are extremely simple, but it also tests one's intelligence. He had played it himself after moving to the south, but only for small bets. (To find out what happens next, please log in to the state chapter for more. Support the author.)
Volume 1, Chapter 214: Crazy Golden Flower (Part 2)
Chen Sinian nodded and said, "It's a game of Texas Hold'em. Because there are many people, usually five or six people play together, and at the most, there were thirteen people playing at the same time!"
In the game of Golden Flower, each player receives three cards. If there are few players, the remaining cards can be used in the second round. However, if there are too many players, there are usually not enough cards left over from the first round, so it is common practice to shuffle the cards once.
"Who are these people who play?" Zhou Xuan asked him.
Zhang Sinian glanced at Fu Ying, genuinely wary of this extremely beautiful girl. He subtly took a few steps back and then said, "The ones who started it were two foremen on the construction site, one named Wang Liang and the other Zhu Yonghong. They both contracted to do the interior decoration and painting. Because the main structure still has several floors that haven't been built yet, the interior decoration will have to wait about a week. But they started recruiting workers a month ago, and they already have dozens of workers. They also have some small jobs to do, and when they don't have work, they gamble!"
Zhang Sinian was a gambler, but his gambling skills and eyesight were only average. When there were many people around, he couldn't keep up. The first time he gambled there, he lost 400 yuan. But there was one time when he won 1,600 yuan with a straight. Although he lost money later, he was very excited and felt that he could make money there.
Then he stole more than 10,000 yuan of the old lady's private money from home and gambled heavily all night. As a result, he lost 13,000 yuan in a hand of cards. Zhang Sinian got three tens in that hand, and his heart trembled. It was a good hand. He was very aggressive every time he put money on the table, and the price kept rising.
Zhang Sinian remembered it clearly. At first, there were six people calling, but after four or five rounds, only three remained. Besides him, Wang Liang, and a worker, the worker had a nine of spades, which is a straight flush, a very strong hand in Texas Hold'em, but unfortunately, he ran into Zhang Sinian's three of a kind.
Because in the middle stages of the game of Texas Hold'em, players can pay to see another player's hole cards, the worker was clearly only interested in the money. Since he had a good hand, he didn't look at his foreman Wang Liang's cards first, but instead chose to look at Zhang Sinian's. Zhang Sinian, afraid they would reveal their own cards, covered his cards and asked the worker to show them. The worker secretly showed him his cards, and Zhang Sinian was quite surprised. A straight flush! That was no small hand, but he was still pleased with himself. He immediately waved his hand and said, "You're down!"
This meant his hand was dead. The worker didn't believe it and stared at him, saying, "Look carefully, what hand do I have!"
Zhang Sinian snorted and said, "I saw it very clearly. Lie down, and I'll show you my cards in the end!"
The worker immediately fell silent, covered his cards, and put them aside. He knew that if Zhang Sinian's cards were better than his after the game, he would have to compensate him for whatever amount was on the table.
Only the contractor Wang Liang and Zhang Sinian remained on the table. Wang Liang hadn't uttered a sound the whole time. The total cash invested by the few people who had fought so hard on the table exceeded five thousand yuan, and Zhang Sinian still had about eleven thousand yuan left. Then, the two of them remained silent and simply kept adding money to the table.
To prevent those with more money from betting against others, a cap has been set at 1,000. This means that you can only bet a maximum of 1,000 per round; otherwise, it becomes a game for the rich. Anyone with money can suddenly put 100,000 or 200,000 on the table, and even if you have a strong hand, you won't be able to see the opponent's hole cards. Even if the opponent has a terrible hand, you can't do anything about it. So, the cap is necessary, unless you have a few close friends who are all wealthy, in which case it doesn't matter.
In most cases, whether playing big or small, gamblers in poker will agree on a cap beforehand.