Embers of Embers

Chapter 22 Gamblers
"I told him that if he puts on this mask, he will become Saab. He enjoys power and should pay the price. The real Saab will not give up his dignity and make you laugh."
Sabo kicked the body away and smiled at Lorenzo, but that smile made Lorenzo scared. He never thought it would be like this.
"Surprised, aren't you? The real Sabo is a deformity, a dwarf."
Sabo didn't seem surprised by Lorenzo's surprised look. In other words, he had seen too many such looks in his life and he was used to it.
Stretching out his short arms, the accumulation of flesh and fragile bones caused his body to twist, and his internal organs were squeezed into this small body. He was panting slightly because of the sword swing just now, and his thick fingers struggled to pick up the blood. Soaked in cards, he looked so bloated, but he didn't care.
"I hope you are not unhappy with my substitute. After all, I am the master of the Green Shark and want to rule a group of desperadoes. The body of a dwarf is not very useful and it is difficult to intimidate my subordinates, not to mention that I am still a Viking. People... Viking dwarfs are ridiculous, right?"
Sabo said calmly, it was obviously a very sad thing, but it didn't sound like his own story.
"Rather than ridiculous, I think it's... great. It's quite powerful to lead a group of desperadoes with such a body."
Lorenzo said sincerely.
Sabo did not feel happy because of Lorenzo's praise, but said calmly.
"What about you? Mr. Lorenzo Holmes, I'm curious why you are so confident about winning against him. As long as the goddess of luck deviates from you even a little bit, your head will explode completely. This is not just a matter of luck and fearlessness. Made it happen.”
It was a bet on the edge of death, like dancing with death, and only pure madness could control it.
"Eyes, his eyes."
Lorenzo pointed to his eyes, his gray-blue pupils were bright and reflected the bloody gambling table.
"That guy wants to win so much, he wants to win like crazy. As a boss, he should be powerful, but that domineering is too cowardly. I have studied acting, he is not a qualified actor, and of course he is not a qualified bettor." Gamblers, real gamblers will not back down, the chips in their hands are all they have."
Lorenzo had already seen through the double, but he thought it was just a small boss who was not to worry about, but obviously the real Sabo made the situation complicated after he appeared on the stage.
"You seem to like gambling, but I've never seen you in a casino."
Sabo didn't seem to have any hostility, and asked while shuffling the cards. The music in the hall was still there, people were immersed in the warm prosperity, and the death of the substitute did not attract anyone's attention.
"Gamble is a good thing. It can turn the situation around. Even with just one coin, it is possible to win the entire kingdom."
Gently rubbing the brand new butcher coin with his fingers, Lorenzo replied.
"But I once had a friend who told me that luck is limited, and the luck that a person has in his life is fixed. Maybe you should be hit to death by a carriage today, but before it hits you to death, You were lucky enough to fall down and escape the attack of death.
Just like a soldier on the battlefield, he can dodge countless bullets just because of luck, but when your luck runs out, a fatal bullet will take away your life.My friend is the best gambler I have ever met, but he rarely gambles, saying he wants to accumulate his own luck. "
Sabo nodded. He had heard such stories before, but it felt different when he heard them today.
"Where's that friend of yours? Did he win the whole kingdom?"
"No, he ran out of luck during a battle. The broken shrapnel cut into the only gap in his armor and pierced his artery. The strongest armor became his tomb."
Lorenzo spoke slowly, his expression unchanged, as if it was just a forgotten past for him.
"I also like to gamble, but what I like is the feeling of walking between life and death, and retreating with the spoils before the knife of the god of death falls."
As he spoke, Sabo licked his dry lips. His tongue was scarlet, as if he had blood in his mouth, and his crooked teeth were like sharks. Eve sat aside and did not dare to speak. Everything tonight was beyond her imagination. The world of knowledge.
"You also know that it is difficult for a deformed person like me to find a sense of living in life. Everyone thinks that you are an unknown symbol, and no one will care about you. But it is different on the edge of death. You may have met the God of Death on the wrong side. You will also brush against his black robe, and you still survive. The thrilling excitement is so great, your blood will boil, and your dead heart will beat again!"
Sabo spoke excitedly, and slapped the table with his clumsy hands angrily, like a giant, deformed baby, with a weird and weird look.
"So that's what you lost?"
Lorenzo asked.
"Do you mean this?"
Sabo said as he stopped pounding the table and stretched out his hands, which were incomplete palms.
Both palms were missing to varying degrees, the entire phalanx was cut off, leaving two or three fingers on it, but even so he was still flexible, and the dazzling shuffling of cards came from this incompleteness.
"Yes. No gambler will lose, but fortunately my opponents are all good people. They kept my thumb and middle finger so that I can continue to hold the sword... But it doesn't matter, I will always win in the end return."
He picked up the rapier with only a few fingers. It was a slender and light sword without any decoration, not even a sword grid. It was only composed of a blade and a hilt. With this design, the weight of the rapier was greatly reduced. Only in this way can Sabo wield a deadly and fast sword with just a few fingers.
"Today is really good. Do you want to play another game?"
"But I've already won."
"That's my stand-in."
"But he's also Sabo, isn't he?"
In the cold conversation, the two of them refused to give in. All the chips and swords and guns were placed on the blood-stained gambling table.
Sabo was silent for a while and then said.
"About what happened a few days ago, it was a person named Mentor who asked us to do it to cover the group of people from being hunted down."
"Who is that mentor?"
"I don't know. I only know that he has many identities, but they are all of high status, whether in Yin Erweg or in other countries."
"What about that group of people?"
"That's your second question, Mr. Holmes."
Sabo revealed a ferocious smile under his half-mask, and spread the cards neatly in front of Lorenzo. The blood on them had not yet dried up, giving it a strange feeling.
"So do you want to play another game?"
……
It was a dead silence. Although the air was warm and the music was passionate, the atmosphere on this high platform was like falling into an ice cellar.
Sabo has redeemed his dignity, but that's all. If you want to get more information, you have to join the gambling game again.Lorenzo's eyes were lowered, and he was thinking. It was obvious that this time was completely different from before. This time he was facing the real Sabo, a real gambler.
"Enough is enough."
Eve said in a low voice that the princess of the Phoenix family was only limited to her family's accounts of the war when it came to the darkness of the world, and she felt uneasy like never before.
But Lorenzo ignored her. Like Eve, Lorenzo was equally uneasy, but unlike Eve, what Lorenzo really cared about was the whole situation.
The mysterious cargo from the north affects Shrike, Sabo, and the people hidden deeper in the darkness. Of course, the most important thing is what Lorenzo saw in his spiritual vision, the mutated body, and the erected lighthouse. , all the weird and ferocious things crawled out of his long-lasting memories, trying to bring him back to that rainy night.
He needs to know the truth.
"What's the stake?"
Under the brass mask, the voice was as steady and powerful as iron.
Then the bull's mask smiled sincerely, and Sabo clapped his hands vigorously. The laughter was harsh and crazy, like the last carnival before the end.He jumped off the chair, his short body staggered to the edge of the high platform, and looked down at the grand banquet like a king.
"Everyone!"
He roared loudly, and the dancing crowd stopped and looked at the short man on the high platform. He was very different from the Sabo in their impression, but they didn't care. They only recognized masks at this banquet. Who was wearing that bull? Whoever owns the mask is the master.
Sabo was so happy that any pleasure the dying man received would make him huge, he roared.
"The dance begins!"
As the sound resounded, the orchestra's repertoire changed instantly. Different from the previous luxurious and beautiful melody, this time the melody was full of weirdness and mourning. The piano players pulled the strings with abandon, just like a saw cutting a living person, the music Out comes the wailing of humanity.
The attendants came from nowhere, and the tray was no longer gold and jewelry but filled with hallucinogens. The guests picked it up casually, and then exposed the inside of their wrists, which should have been smooth skin, but Now filled with needle holes, skillfully injected into them, the door to heaven is opened to fallen mortals.
It was a carnival before the end of the world, where all ethics and morals were abandoned, and the dark side of human nature was revealed.Eve watched all this blankly. For the girl, this was the beginning of a nightmare. The air was filled with the smell of blood, and then the blood was restless, trying to join in this depraved carnival.
"Calm down Detective, this is just the beginning."
The cold hand held her hand, and it felt like thawing solid ice, making Eve wake up from her trance.
"Stay awake, you don't want to be like them, right?"
Lorenzo's voice sounded, and Eve seemed to be waking up from a big dream, and then she breathed violently and sweat soaked her mask.
"What's wrong with me."
Eve asked with some fear. With the weird feeling just now, she felt that the whole world was shattered before her eyes, and then recast into a weird appearance.
"There should be a lot of hallucinogen volatiles in the air, so the impact is not that big."
What he got was the sharp dagger, which he pulled out from under Eve's dress. Lorenzo stuffed it into Eve's hand. Holding the weapon tightly might make the girl feel more at ease.
"So this is what the Ball is really like? A big feast of bliss."
His gray-blue eyes were still clear, and Lorenzo was not disturbed at all by the hallucinogens contained in the air.
"Yes, the people who come here are all rich people, and wealth can no longer satisfy them."
Sabo walked down from the edge of the high platform and returned to the gambling table. He took out a coin from his incomplete palm and placed it between the two of them.
"Beat me once and I will answer you a question." Sabo stretched out his right hand and raised his index finger.
"What if I lose?"
"You answer me a question."
"I didn't expect that I would be so popular with you." Lorenzo was a little surprised. He thought that someone like Sabo would ask Lorenzo to chop off his fingers.
"After all, you are Shrike's Iron Thorn, Mr. Holmes. In a sense, it is because of you that I became Sabo and the leader of the Green Shark. You can be considered my benefactor."
Sabo's eyes did not lie. His achievements today are partly due to Lorenzo.
"To be honest, it's a bit beyond my expectation." Lorenzo couldn't believe it.
"This is nature. Orientals often talk about this. They call this 'cause and effect'.
I was also present during the Honghe massacre six years ago, but you also know that with my figure it is difficult to attract people's attention, so I survived. Thank you for reshuffling the city, which gave me the opportunity to rise. "
That was a long time ago, but now when Lorenzo is mentioned, he can still smell the smell of blood, and his face is as stiff as ice.
Eve on the side was already stunned. She remembered the last time she heard about Iron Thorn. It came from the mouth of Officer Price, and what was more profound was the Red River Massacre. At this moment, she finally remembered .
"The stranger who was hired by the Shrike, the body you threw into the Thames that day made the Shrike what he is today, and after that you disappeared mysteriously. Only a few survivors knew your name, but they were also in panic all day long. , I always feel that you will appear in a corner and take away these lives that should have died."
That was a story in the past, and Lorenzo never mentioned it or replied to it, as if he had forgotten it deliberately.
"So what do you want to play? Sabo."
Lorenzo remained calm, as if he had no emotions and was a mechanical being.
"How about tossing a coin?"
No one would have thought that Sabo would come up with such a trick. He played with the coin with his only fingers and said immediately.
"You're not very good at cards, right? It's unfair for a veteran to play against a novice. You like pure luck, so let's do this. Then... how about you?"
As he spoke, the coin bounced towards Eve. The coin spun rapidly in front of the girl's eyes and finally stopped slowly. The metal surface was mottled with luster and looked very old. The carvings on it became blurred under the care of many years. , you can vaguely see the ax and shield.
(End of this chapter)