Chapter 186: Gulf of Thailand Sea Snake (1)
The group wandered around with their chips in hand, playing some easy Sic Bo, One Armed Bandit, and other games.
“Come, come, come, Chu Xian. Let’s play Sic Bo!” Gu Li looked over at a nearby table and called out excitedly. This kind of gambling was something he had not done to many times either.
Chu Xian nodded carelessly. After watching the game for a couple of turns, he placed down a ten thousand rmb chip on Big; Gu Li hesitated a moment before following Chu Xian.
“Yes! We won!”
Gu Li pumped his fist excitedly, and Chu Xian also felt happy. Although the money they won was not very important in their eyes, they still enjoyed the victory.
After playing casually for a few more rounds, he won some and lost some, ending up basically even.
“I’m going to go play some Zha Jin Hua and Baccarat!” Some twenty minutes later, Chu Xian looked at his remaining chips. He had a little over thirty when he turned to Gu Li and the others and spoke to them.
“Okay!” They nodded at Chu Xian.
“Let’s earn back the maintenance fee!” Chu Xian laughed, and sat down at the Zha Jin Hua table.
In games like Zha Jin Hua, Baccarat, and Black Jack, the god’s eye view basically ensured his total victory.
He could see his opponent’s hands so he did not lose no matter how unlucky he was.
God’s eye view was the greatest cheat tool in many gambling games, but he did not have any plan on using this to rake in cash from casinos.
Casinos were never owned by simple people, and if you really kept winning, people would come find trouble. If the house always gave you the lowest value cards, would having a god’s eye view still help?
“But I should still be able to win a couple million without any trouble.” Chu Xian laughed and sat down confidently.
There were six people at the table, with some Chinese, some Korean, and some Thai. Cards didn’t require much talking, a single gesture could communicate to everyone your intention, after all they were playing in the normal area and there were not that many rules.
After half an hour, the chips beside Chu Xian had grown to over four million rmb, and this was after he intentionally lost from time to time.
“Pa!” One of the middle-aged Thai men slammed his cards down against the table, his expression contorted with anger.
Another person shook their head slightly before standing up from the table and leaving.
Chu Xian also stood up, smiling. He picked up his chips and walked to an area without tables and sat down to rest.
But to his surprise, the middle aged Thai man and another young man sat near him, the two arguing in indistinct voices, the middle-aged man shaking his head impatiently.
Chu Xian had watched the middle-aged Thai man lose more than two million just now, but he did not know how long the man had been playing for before then.
“Ai!” The young man sat backwards heavily, his face pained as he talked incessantly.
Finally, the middle-aged man stood back up, took out a bank card and walked over to the chips stand.
The young man darted upwards, calling out loudly after him, but the middle-aged man pushed him away. The young man teetered and fell back towards the sofa.
As he watched the young man falling towards, Chu Xian’s face turned wry as he laughed inwardly. “This story is not right, it should be a girl falling towards me as I open my arms to catch her, leading towards a romantic encounter.”
But even if it was not a beautiful girl falling towards him, Chu Xian still reach out to catch the man. As he grabbed him, he was surprised by the marks on the young man’s arms.
“Kopkoon, kopkoon!” The young man said hurriedly, but when he saw Chu Xian’s confused expression he ventured tentatively, “Thank you!”
“En?” Chu Xian understood his Chinese phrase, and the man’s accent was perfect as well. He looked at the young man with some confusion: “You speak Chinese?”
“Yes, my grandmother on my mother’s side is Chinese, and I just finished my studies in China. Hello, thank you. My Chinese name is Li Long!” Li Long nodded towards her.
“Oh, nice to meet you. I am Chu Xian. What’s the occasion for you to come out here?” Chu Xian nodded and asked; he had already noticed that Li Long was rather down.
“I’m here with my father.” Li Long laughed bitterly, turning his head to look at the middle-aged man who had already sat back down at a table, his expression showing his disappointment.
Chu Xian saw the emotions play over the young man’s face and made a guess, asking tentatively, “Your father is addicted to gambling?”
“Yes.” Li Long let out a heavy weapon. “The money he earns every year is thrown into the casino. This time I wanted to come here to stop him, but I haven’t been able to.”
Laughing bitterly, Li Long looked up and gave Chu Xian a kind reminder. “Brother, you’d best not gamble. This kind of thing will destroy you!”
Chu Xian nodded and smiled, turning his gaze to the young man’s arms. “Where did you get so many snake bites on your arms?”
“Hehe, you mean these?” Li Long laughed, pulling up his sleeves. “These scars are from the snakes that I caught. All the bites have left these!”
“Sea snake?” Chu Xian nodded as he thought. “Do you mean from the Gulf of Thailand?”
“En, I live in a city near the Gulf of Thailand.” Li Long nodded. “My father runs a sea snake company, so I often follow him into the sea to catch sea snakes, and any carelessness will leave these scars!”
“Oh, really? Are there a lot of sea snakes in the Gulf of Thailand?” Chu Xian asked with great interest.
“Many.” Li Long nodded. “There are a lot of them in the gulf, and in these two years the ingredients used for sea snake antivenoms are growing more expensive, and so even though we wear protective gear every time, you can still die if you are careless, and the gear also makes it more difficult to catch the snake.”
“Actually, most sea snakes live at the bottom of the ocean, but we only catch the ones in the upper layers of the water. We use some equipment to detect the fish. There are many sea snakes at the bottom layer, but if we want to catch them we will need to buy all sorts of gear and it is not efficient or worth it at all. Our entire company can only catch barely over a thousand snakes in a number of months, but my father spends all the money gambling!”
Li Long sighed and shook his head as he turned his gaze towards his father.
Chu Xian nodded. The last time that he had called David, David had told him that when he was in Vietnam with an English friend, he had heard that someone had died from a snake bite.
This happened even when the people wore the best gear, someone could still die. You could imagine how dangerous it was to catch sea snakes.
“That’s right, do you have any Blue Banded sea snakes in your city? Ones that are over five years old?” Chu Xian tentatively.
David’s friend had spent millions of rmb searching for this particular sea snake.
“No!” Li Long was stunned, and very quickly asked.” Do you know a lot about sea snakes?”
“No, but my friend’s father is very ill and needs the venom from a Hydrophis Cyanocinctus!”
“The annulated sea snake is extremely rare. I have only seen them four or five times in my entire life, and in recent years especially I haven’t seen any. But there must be some in the sea!” Li Long explained.
Chu Xian nodded.