Chapter 2234: Gotham Music Festival (36)_1

The second round of the game began.

But before the game started, the doors on both sides of the room opened, and another group of masked individuals walked out of the room, proceeding to the tables corresponding to the patterns on their masks.

Shiller noticed a strong man standing opposite him; in his blurred vision, he counted nine tentacles on the other's octopus mask, signifying this man as Shiller's opponent.

The invitation given to the challenged had written on it who had challenged them, but Shiller's invitation didn't have a specific name, just a single word—"ocean".

Now this Ocean stood before him. Shiller could only lean on the table with his arms to adjust his balance as best as he could, almost without looking at him.

When the second round began, the round table was removed again, and the oval table for the gambling adversaries rose into position, with Shiller and Octopus No.9 standing at opposite ends.

Suddenly, the staff placed a strange machine in the middle of each table. The upper part of the machine was a clear spherical shape, while the lower part was a metal base. On the side facing both players were two tubes connected to a pump, in front of which was a thin tube leading to a needle.

The spherical part was large and seemed to be made of highly transparent glass. However, many tubes spiraled along the sphere's wall, with nine outlets on the top and nine on the bottom.

In the very center of the sphere was a smaller spherical framework, made of metal, inside of which hung metal balls of various sizes and heights like scattered stars, each engraved with a rune.

Everyone discussed animatedly, clueless about what the strange machine was for until the staff began to explain.

"The name of this gambling game is 'Blood Lottery,' and soon professional medical personnel will insert the blood drawing needles into the arms of both parties. Please do not worry; we have special methods to ensure the process is hygienic and safe, and nobody will die from improper injections."

"Needles positioned for blood drawing, bets placed by both parties, a minimum of one coin, a maximum of all in, flip a coin to decide who goes first."

"Once started, participants will use a remote control to decide the number of milliliters of blood to be drawn, with a minimum of 100 milliliters and no upper limit. The blood will flow into the pump in front through the tube, while also deciding which of the blood outlets to use, with the top nine outlets numbered 1 to 9, and the bottom nine outlets also numbered 1 to 9."

"Once decided, the other party who is not being drawn will use a joystick to spin the metal balls to adjust the target, after which the blood-drawing party will pump and shoot. The first blood target hit is considered a hit, and the rune will be recorded."

"Within the 20-minute game time, the number of valid runes hit is not limited, but in the end, seven runes must be selected and arranged in sequence. After 20 minutes, the winning numbers will be announced, and the player with the most matching runes wins, taking all the coins on the table and all the blood lost during the game."

After the explanation of the rules, the room was in an uproar.

Wasn't it just a poker game before? How did it turn into a life-and-death gamble now? A minimum of 100 milliliters at a time, and the lottery requires seven runes, meaning at least 700 milliliters of blood is needed.

This amount is not fatal, but losing 700 milliliters of blood at once can be dangerous, especially for the elderly and children.

More importantly, after one's own blood is drawn and an outlet is chosen, the opponent will surely make the target hard to hit. If they miss on the first try, the required amount of blood jumps to 800 milliliters.

Although this is not at the limit of human blood loss, this is not a one-off deal, you're not to play and then drop dead. If you win, you can retrieve your own blood, but what if you lose?

This round might not be the end. By then, the winner will have the coins and their blood back in good condition, while the loser, having lost 1000 milliliters of blood, might find it difficult to even stand. How could they possibly continue to gamble?

Everyone complained that it was too harsh to jump from a regular card game to this kind of game. Was the leap too great?

They finally truly realized that the legend of the Dakotazo was real; this was a ship for gambling with life, where risk was proportional to reward.

Naturally, some people began to feel afraid, wanting to quit and not wanting to play anymore. But unfortunately, whether challenger or challenged, once the game began there was no turning back—even those who had boarded the ship voluntarily found it too late for regrets.

"Is this what you wanted?" Christopher asked Tupac on the other side, "To fight with me to the death in this way?"

"You don't understand anything," Tupac turned his head aside and said, "This is a good thing."

"You're crazy," Christopher finally couldn't bear it and slammed the table hard, "Do you hear what fucking madness you're spouting?! You've sent us both into a deadly situation!"

"On the contrary, I've taken us both out of a situation destined for death."

Christopher stared at Tupac in silence, his gaze intense. He needed Tupac to give him an explanation.

Tupac lowered his head and muttered, "Recently, the rap industry on the East and West Coasts has been doing well with Dr. Dre discovering newcomers, and the East Coast with Gotham Boy. Do you think this situation will last?"

Christopher frowned.

"No, of course not," Tupac murmured, lost in his thoughts, "Don't you get it? Rap has given black people too strong a voice; they won't allow this to continue."

Tupac's Adam's apple moved as he said, "They've always been doing this, all of them. They did it to my parents, to me, to all of us."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Christopher demanded.

Tupac gripped the edge of the table tightly and said, "I had no choice but to come on this ship because someone wants to kill me."

"Who?" Christopher asked.

"That doesn't matter; what matters is they will make everyone think you killed me, because of the conflict between us."

"Then they will have someone kill you, posing as my fan seeking revenge, and both of us will be dead."

"So I had no other choice but to sneak onto the ship myself, then figure out a way to pull you aboard, so at least one of us could survive."

"What is going on, exactly? Tupac." Christopher leaned forward, staring intently at his former buddy. "Tell me what's happening!"

Tupac took a deep breath, looking very tense and anxious. He said, "You should know about the new album I'm preparing; I've been writing lyrics for it for several months now."

"I... I've been focusing on Mexico, do you know where my name comes from?"

"Where from?"

"I wasn't originally called Tupac. My parents changed my name, a transliteration of a Spanish name, from the pioneer of the Latin American indigenous liberation movement, Tupac Amaru II, whose greatest achievement was leading the Latin American natives in a brave resistance against the Spanish colonists."

"Speaking of my parents, you might not know, but they were members of the Black Panther Party, devoted their lives to the struggle for national independence and liberation, but that's not important anymore, it's all in the past."

"They dismantled us, and now these movements have all but faded away, while I keep raising my voice."

"A month after the broadcasting studio incident where our conflict erupted, I was accused of shooting a white police officer three times, when in fact, I only helped a black man during a university riot."

"You might think this is all coincidence, just a series of incidents that happened one after another in my life, and at that time I thought so too, thinking I was just unlucky, having a bad year all year round."

"But soon I realized, more and more incidents targeted me, someone was always watching me, appearing wherever I was, I couldn't avoid them, couldn't get around them, couldn't hide from them. It sounds like the rants of a lunatic, but I knew I was not, I knew someone was watching me."

"I thought I was crazy, I even went to the doctor, they said I had anxiety and panic attacks, told me to relax, I thought that was all there was to it, until a few months ago... someone entered my house."

"What did they do?" Christopher immediately became anxious.

"They didn't do anything," Tupac shrugged and said, "But they took something, not valuables, just some song lyrics I wrote a few months ago."

"What did you write?" Christopher started to understand.

"Mexico, Peru's hero Tupac, and his famous quote, 'It's time to end the division, to unite like brothers'."

Christopher's Adam's apple moved. Dropping his gaze, he said, "…you know best what they don't want to hear, and you wrote it all."

"I've been writing about these things all along," Tupac looked at Christopher and said, "That's why they're keeping an eye on me, and they must be watching you in the same way too, because we're both writing, and they don't want to listen, don't want anyone to listen, they dare not let anyone listen."

"They're used to playing the old game," Tupac stared at the table and said, "It's not trendy, but it's very useful. They orchestrate conflicts, divide into two factions, then disguise their assassinations as grudges between the two factions. They have no idea how many united people they've split up, silently ending their struggle."

Christopher's throat kept trembling as he said, "I didn't know, I didn't feel it, I didn't feel..."

"They're not watching you in the way of the streets." Tupac stretched out his hand and made quote-signs with his fingers, saying, "Don't forget who they are; they own an entire country, they won't follow you like some street thugs. If I were some poor black guy born and raised on the streets, maybe I wouldn't have noticed either, but I'm not."

"My birth parents, my stepfather, my godfather, my aunt, all of them were high-ranking members of the Black Panther Party. I witnessed what those people did to them, so I was always sharp enough to notice."

"When I realized the drafts of my lyrics were gone, I knew my end was near."

Tupac finally showed an agitated expression, angrily smacking the table as he said, "What I can't stand the most is that they chose you, the two of us being the only two influential black singers on the East and West Coasts. They wanted to kill two birds with one stone, have us annihilate each other, and I absolutely cannot let them succeed."

Tupac clenched his teeth, a fierce expression on his face Christopher had never seen before. He said, "I knew the rumors about this ship were true, my elders fulfilled their wishes here."

"So I challenge you, one of us must win; one of us must be able to fulfill our wish. As long as one wishes to forever evade persecution, not to die oppressed, we could at least keep one voice alive."

Christopher closed his eyes.

"Now, what do you think?" Tupac asked him.

"What was that again?" Christopher opened his eyes and asked seriously.

"What?"

"The one with the same name as you, what did he say?"

Tupac was taken aback.

"It's time to end the division, to unite like brothers."

"…It's time."