The two boxes shook some more and writing appeared between the two of us.
"Only the box that glows and the person next to it can be opened. You may proceed after deciding what to do."
"Simple," I mumbled, "The ball is in your court, and the box on your side is glowing," I said.
"I know," he said smugly and opened the box, it was for a second barely, he grinned and closed it.
"So," I said, "Do you have the marbles in that box?" I asked.
"Of course I do," he said.
"Are you lying to me?" I asked.
"No," he replied confidently.
"Are you sure about that," I asked again.
"Yes, I'm completely sure."
"What's your name?" I asked him again.
"What does that have to do with this? The timer is going down, are you sure you want to ask lame pointless questions and waste your time like this?" he asked.
"Of course, as long as I get the option to ask questions, I can ask everything, now just answer me," I said.
"My name is Xifan Liu," he said.
"Nice to meet you Xifan Liu," I said.
"Nice to meet you too," he said.
I then smiled, "You just lied," I said.
He frowned, "What do you mean?"
"You lied about it being nice to meet me, it wasn't," I said.
"How is that even relevant," he asked.
"It's pretty relevant, because I got your tell," I said then slammed my hand on my box. "I'll pick this box, I won't switch."
Xifan Liu's face flared in anger, "HOW! HOW DID YOU KNOW!" he was enraged.
"I could tell you," I said smiling, "But what's in it for me," I asked again as I opened the box in front of me, and true, I had the marbles in my box.
Rage was clear on his face. He still didn't understand how I figured him out.
"Let's play again then," he said.
"Are you sure about that? I mean, you're already down to your last two lives," I said "Are you going to bet them?" I asked.
He didn't dare reply.
"Tell you what, if you bet both lives you have left, I'll tell you your tell before we start the next round," I said.
Tempting offer indeed.
He hesitated for a moment, but out of the pride of being a cultivator, and honestly being a complete idiot. He agreed.
"Right then, it was simple, usually, when someone lies, their pupil widens, their heartbeat changes rhythm, and usually they have a change in their facial structure. Or look away. It's pretty simple." I said.
"But I didn't do any of that!" he said.
"I know you didn't, and because of that I won." I shrugged. "You actually didn't allow yourself any change in expression, motion or breathing, you controlled your own heart rate and your pupil, so much of it that it was too convincing actually. Until you said the words, Nice to meet you too, which was obviously a lie no matter how subconscious it was, you didn't appreciate 'meeting me' thus it was a lie, but you didn't even flinch. You actually kept up that Poker face too much it exposed you." I smiled.
Xifan's face turned to beat red, ashamed and embarrassed at how he was exposed oh so easily.
"Still, now that you offered to play again, I'll beat you, now that I know how I was figured out, it's easy to cope around it and fix it," he said.
"True," I said as I placed two marbles this time instead of one in my box.
And just as he placed his last two I spoke again. "But that's only one of the tells you have, you actually have another tell," I smiled.
The boxes shook, and with them so did Xifan as he felt he was being cornered.
"That doesn't mean I lost, you could end up with the glowing box, and I'll be the one who asks questions!" he said.
"You want to play Mind Games with me, you'll regret it," I said.
The box on my side shined.
With that, Xifan took a breath of relief, "Now it's my turn to put you under the light," he said.
"Is it now?" I tilted my head, "I choose not to open the box," I said.
"What?!"
"You heard me, I'm not opening my box," I said.
"That's not possible! You must open the box! Otherwise, how is the game going to proceed!" he said.
"There were no rules stating that the box must be opened, it only said after deciding the game will proceed, so, I choose not to open my box, and now no matter what you ask, it won't mean shit, because you'll still need to choose one of the boxes. I mean it's a Fifty-Fifty," I said shrugging.
You could feel the ruggedness of Xifan's breath as he was trying to come up with a plan.
He hesitated as he held his hand, trying to pick one of the boxes, and as soon as his hand was close to touching the box next to him, my upper lip twitched.
He didn't miss that.
"You, you know which box has which marbles don't you! You cheated!" he said.
"Do you have any proof?" I asked "And you can't do that you know, it's impossible to inspect the box with divine sense." I said.
"You could have placed a mark on the marbles!" he said.
"I'm sure you already know that is not possible since you tried that in the earlier round and it didn't work for you," I said.
"H-how did you figure that out?!" he asked.
"I have my ways, now choose," I said.
The man hesitated some more before saying, "I…I'll choose your box!" he said.
"Are you sure about that?" I asked.
"Yes, completely sure. You definitely have a way to figure out which box has which marbles, all that shit in the first round you spoke was probably bullshit to throw me off. And that smirk, I know you did that on purpose for me to catch on to it. You wanted to bait me, you wanted me to see that smirk, so I would think that the box in front of me has nothing but the one in front of you has the marbles, but it was obvious enough that I would think it's not the case and choose to retain my box instead. So I'm doing the opposite, I'm choosing the box next to you!"
"Very well then," I said.
The boxes changed, and once he opened his, Xifan fell to his knees.
Shock and despair hung upon him like the scythe of the grim reaper. "N-no! I was sure of it! YOU MUST HAVE CHEATED!" he shouted.
"You can't prove it," I smiled and opened the box in front of me. Lo and behold, there were four marbles in it.
Two skulls lit up on Xifan's chest, and with that, he had three red skulls.
He didn't even have the time to speak before his entire body turned to dust.
Once I was done with that guy I looked around to find Meng Hao, only to realize that half of the people in this giant open area had already perished.
A bit of fear struck me as I looked for Meng Hao, and when I found him juggling several marbles casually I approached him.
"Yo," I said.
"Yo? What is that," Meng Hao said.
"Just an expression, so how did it go?" I asked.
"I won," he said.
"Oh, interesting, my match was a bit of a brain teaser," I said.
"How did it go?" he asked me.
"Oh, well, it went like this," I said and began telling him of my earlier match.
…
"Oh, I never knew you could mark the box," he said.
"Well, most people think that you can only mark the marbles since the box is pretty sophisticated but I was able to modify it thanks to my understanding of inscriptions. As for the mind games I needed to rile him up well, it was not easy," I said.
Almost everything I told Xifan was true, and it wasn't easy to come up with bullshit to further authenticate my words. It was actually a good brain teaser.
"So how did you win against your opponent?" I asked Meng Hao.
"Oh me? I just took my chances, I mean it was fifty-fifty anyway, I just needed to ignore everything my opponent said and just picked the one my heart felt like picking… why is your face scrunched up like that? Did I do something wrong?" he asked.
"Damn MC plot armor…" I cursed inwardly, sighing after that.
"What is an MC, And what's Plot Armor? Is that a treasure?" he asked?
I patted Meng Hao on the back and said, "Don't mind it, buddy, just keep doing whatever you're doing, we'll be here for a bit before we go to the next round, so tell me about Yan Song," I asked.
"Right, Yan'er…"
This content is taken from fr(e)ewebn(o)vel.𝓬𝓸𝓶