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Chapter 199 Solution - Saturation Solution
Chapter 200 Solution Section - Saturation Solution
"People often try to find shortcuts when they encounter difficulties, which is actually a kind of thinking misconception."
Hugo cleared his throat and addressed the three girls present—
"First, we should consider the possibility of using the orange to directly crack the dealing pattern of Double Dragon poker. Although Vio's theory using the clock face algorithm has flaws, it doesn't mean that other mathematicians and gamblers can't find a smarter method."
"You mean you found a card-counting theory that's even more powerful than Vio's, and used it to defeat Vio head-on?" The client looked like he couldn't believe it.
"If a foolproof calculation truly existed, its master would naturally know all the cards face down on the table—a very boring answer, yet such a possibility does exist," the detective replied.
"Professor Fischer spent at least two months on the Royal United, and I don't think it would take that top mathematician so much time to decipher a 30-year-old paper. Combining the wisdom of a mathematical genius and a gambling king might actually lead to the writing of a dream formula to unlock the ultimate mystery of playing cards."
"Well, maybe he's just loafing around on the gambling ship?"
Naz recalled the first time she saw Fischer in the casino lobby. The old man mingled among a large group of drunken gamblers, chatting and squandering chips like any other customer. He didn't look like someone who was tackling a difficult mathematical problem at all...
However, according to updated intelligence, many of those "ordinary guests" appear to be surveillance agents from the business alliance. They were accomplices in Blueberry's scam, yet they mingled so warmly with Fischer. Could it be that they had already acquired a superior card-counting theory and were testing it in actual games?
No, no, no, there's no need to drink alcohol for testing experiments... Sabrina shook her long, dark blue hair violently, denying her wavering stance—
"That's it!" Naza found compelling evidence for herself: the testimony of someone involved in the incident—
"During the casual conversation before the roulette game began, Fischer himself said that according to the Double Dragon poker rules agreed upon by Blueberry and Vio, no matter how sophisticated the calculation theory, it was impossible to lock in the outcome of a round of the game with 100% certainty, let alone perfectly manipulate the game. In addition, he praised Vio to his face, saying that although he ultimately lost the game, the theory he relied on was the closest to a perfect prediction algorithm."
However, as if he didn't need time to think, the detective immediately retorted—
"Fischers might be lying on purpose. If he and Blueberry really developed an algorithm that could suppress Vio, they would certainly not reveal the truth to outsiders for the sake of their long-term interests."
Undeniable...
If the professor were here, he might be able to provide more evidence to refute the detective's suspicions—but right now, all that's in the Feather Residence is Natsumi, an observer with only a superficial understanding of the gambling game and its techniques.
"However, Hugo." Seeing the client's predicament, Azure offered yet another counterargument—
"Calculating the hand must require extremely high mathematical skills. After all, King Lantau isn't a professional mathematician. Even if he mastered the relevant theories, he couldn't make a judgment as quickly as Vio."
"When reasoning, one should avoid preconceived stereotypes, Azure. I don't believe that a skilled gambler's calculation ability is inferior to that of a mathematician. Moreover, even if your view is reasonable, you lack actual evidence to prove the counter-argument. —(••÷[ ➅9ѕ𝔥𝕦x.𝐂όϻ ]÷••)—"
Hugo's rebuttal left the assistant speechless.
The existing evidence is insufficient—so much so that even such seemingly absurd reasoning cannot be refuted.
"The second guess is that Blueberry used some kind of method to achieve genuine cheating."
Seeing everyone fall into an awkward silence, the detective finally handed out the second answer sheet with satisfaction—
"Due to the presence of comprehensive surveillance and the glass enclosure, two methods of cheating can be ruled out—stealing chips and switching cards. If Blueberry were to use either of these methods, it would be detected instantly by Team Plasma."
"Physical tricks leave behind traces of cheating that are impossible to conceal, which is also dangerous for business alliances that invest in bilberries."
Azure tried to redeem herself for her earlier slip of the tongue, speaking before the detective could.
"That's right. In a game of cards, Team Plasma will always be keeping an eye on the amount of chips held by both sides, so such obvious cheating is impossible. A skilled cheater can switch cards in the blink of an eye, but Double Dragon Poker is not a game that requires repeated play, and Vio, with his excellent card counting ability, would not allow such a situation to occur. Therefore, no matter how powerful Cranberry is, he will not find an opportunity to perform card magic to steal the day."
"These are truly hellish conditions," Naz sighed.
"Really? I think the conditions are as lenient as paradise."
The detective shrugged.
"First, Lantana can manipulate the referee in the gambling game. He can have his subordinates infiltrate Team Plasma pretend to be clumsy and inept at gambling, thus leading Vio into a trap of reverse thinking. The Team Plasma member who is promoted to dealer, while pretending to be clumsy, is actually manipulating the flow of every card on the table. He carefully manipulates the outcome of each round of gambling according to the rules agreed upon with Lantana. In this way, Lantana will naturally know when to go all in and when to withdraw decisively."
"Oh, so it's teamwork between undercover agents."
As the topic turned to familiar territory, Douzi shook his head and commented, "If this kind of plot appears repeatedly in movies, it will make the audience feel a bit tired of it, as if there aren't many truly bad people in the villainous organization."
The assistant chimed in, "Besides, Vio should be a pretty smart guy. He wouldn't stoop so low as to hire a mole as an undercover agent in a life-or-death gamble like this."
"I guess so," the detective said noncommittally, "but we can't rule out that possibility."
Here we go again… Naz, her head aching, propped her cheek up with her hand. She finally understood what the detective meant by “miracles of this magnitude are easy”.
Generally speaking, the person making the inference must present sufficiently detailed evidence to support their conclusion. But nowadays, detectives and clients often lack any evidence, leaving the inference to remain mere speculation, and the truth to lie ambiguously between falsehood and reality.
Conversely, the detective in front of us is indeed using a reliable reasoning method—since the conditions are insufficient and the conclusion of the reasoning cannot converge, then we might as well list all the possibilities one by one. Once all the possibilities have been analyzed, the real answer must lie in the listed conjectures.
Over-reasoning—the "saturated solution" of "better safe than sorry," a barrage of guesses.
"Besides turning the dealers against Vio, there are other ways to fool him."
Hugo's voice rang out once again.
"One method involves using off-table assistance to know the suit and rank of the cards dealt before they are revealed. 🍫🍫 ❻9şђù𝐱.ς𝓸Μ 🐍🎉"
"Off-field assistance?" Naz asked, somewhat surprised.
"But it's an airtight glass room, thoroughly inspected by Vio both inside and out. There's no way it could have any connection to the outside world. Given its prime location on the top floor of the casino, even if I tried to use my superpowers for telepathy, it would just be intermittent static; I couldn't even get a clear word out, let alone manipulate the cards. Besides, how would the assistants outside know the information from the face-down cards?"
"It was precisely because it was a one-way reflective glass chamber that a certain trick was able to be carried out."
The detective cupped his hands into a pyramid shape, looking like a wise sage like Vio who had the upper hand in a gambling game.
"In the mirrored chamber, the two duelists, wary of each other, concealed their cards. The dealer, even more cautious, carefully placed the deck on the table, dealing with unwavering focus, fearing that a mistake might reveal the community cards and void the round. In the live broadcast, the spectators in the casino lobby shared the same perspective as the duelists, equally unaware of the hidden card values—but wasn't the elaborate design of the gambling room a deliberate attempt to conceal some hidden secret?"
"you mean?"
Naz instinctively realized that the trick the detective was now telling was completely different from the previous outlandish reasoning—this solution had a chilling feasibility.
"What do you do when you want to hide the cards in your hand so that the person in front of you can't see them?"
Hugo shook the business card holder he had somehow gotten back into his hand, tapped it lightly with his knuckles, and two business cards from his firm popped out.
"Miss Naz, imagine you are in Vio's position. When the dealer has just dealt you two hole cards and you want to check your score, what would you do?"
The detective, acting like a real dealer, placed two business cards on the table like frisbees and presented them to Natsume.
The proprietress hesitated for a moment, recalling the usual practices of patrons in casinos, and then imitated them verbatim—
First, cover the business card with both hands, carefully move it in front of you, then transfer the paper from the table to between your palms, making your palms and shoulders form an impenetrable fortress, relying only on the reflection of light on your palms to peek at a corner of the business card.
"Not bad, the motion simulation is incredibly lifelike. If I were your opponent at the gambling table, I would never be able to peek at your cards."
The detective offered praise that was anything but pleasant, then predictably changed the subject—
"But this is only airtight to your opponent. If someone stands behind you and observes carefully from the top left corner, they can still see your cards. In fact, as long as you try to examine the cards in your hand with your eyes, you will inevitably leave enough gaps for others to peek."
Naz performed the action again, this time calling Blue to check behind her. Sure enough, they found a gap large enough to see the contents of the business card.
"Light travels in straight lines and is everywhere. Wherever the eye can see, there will naturally be other rays of light that transmit information to the outside world. This is why Lanju went to great lengths to create a one-way transparent room."
Looking at Azure, who had sat back down on the sofa, Hugo began to explain—
"When inside the gambling room, the surrounding mirrors give participants a sense of security in a closed environment. This makes Vio subconsciously believe that as long as he avoids the gaze of Blueberry and the reflections on the walls, the information of his hole cards will be safe and secure—however, this is a false sense of security, because the secret room that reflects the interior is actually completely transparent from the outside. Blueberry's accomplices can simply set up high-precision telescopes in various corners of the casino to peek at the contents of Vio's hole cards while he is reading his hand."
Don't underestimate the power of telescopes—humans can use astronomical telescopes to observe faint planets five thousand light-years away; with proper preparation, it's not too difficult to see one or two numbers tens of meters away, with the cover of your hands and shoulders.
"Even so, how will Yueju's accomplices pass the information to Yueju?"
Naz asked again, saying that the idea of off-site surveillance was indeed feasible, but the ones participating in the gambling were not the accomplices behind the binoculars, but rather the raccoon under heavy surveillance.
Before entering the tenth-floor gambling room, he and Vio both underwent full-body metal detection, making it impossible for them to be carrying any communication devices.
"That makes it even simpler," the detective replied calmly. "We'll just use light."
Like the roulette wheel, it's also a magic trick of light and shadow.
While one-way glass is remarkable for its ability to transmit light outwards while reflecting it inwards, this phenomenon only works when the internal light level is significantly higher than the external light level. When the internal and external light levels are roughly equal, the so-called "magic glass" is simply an ordinary glass panel.
"What the accomplices of the blueberry were doing wasn't complicated. They waited at a distance, received information about the gambling game from the observers on their phones, and then quickly encoded the suits of the cards into short and long lines of code. They then shone a laser pointer onto the glass mirror facing the blueberry. The mirror, exposed to strong external light, lost its reflective function and naturally displayed the black sky outside the room."
The detective put the business card that Sabrina had handed back back into the card holder and said in a concluding statement—
"Therefore, just by glancing at the frequency of the black dots flashing in the corner of the eyeglasses, one can know the opponent's trump card—no matter how talented Vio is, he cannot discover this trick in advance."
"A telescope and a code... what a massive cheating scheme." Sabrina sighed, somewhat reluctant to continue this game of deduction.
As the detective said, miracles of this magnitude were easy to achieve. If Lanju had intended to cheat from the start, he would have been doomed the moment Vio joined the game.
"You can do it without a password, but that requires the Pokémon's cooperation," Hugo said casually.
"Although you claim that Vio meticulously examined every corner of the gambling room, shouldn't the double dragon gambling table used for two-player games be a standard black and white design?"
Seeing the client nod, the detective continued—
"If that's the case, then it must be a table carved from two pieces of black and white rock. Even if Vio were the most depraved person in the world, he wouldn't smash the entire table to examine it, would he?"
"Of course, but what's the problem with that?"
"Since you're from Kanto, you must have heard of a card trick called 'Ditto Card,' right?"
"I've heard of it, but not in the Kanto region..."
To be precise, I heard it from Yueju on the Royal Union account a few days ago.
"So, can you rule out the possibility that the entire table is actually a Ditto 'transformed'?"
"..."
"Perhaps Ditto could grow eyes on the bottom of the face-down cards to peek under them, and then use its sense of touch to write the card's name—Azure—on the palm of its hand where Blueberry is lying flat on the table. Is such a trick possible?"
"It's a bit bizarre, but... I guess it's okay, I guess."
The assistant glanced at her Poké Ball and answered hesitantly.
"Don't use Ditto to do such strange things!" Azure's face was screaming.
"Alternatively, you can create the same effect using Ghost-type Pokémon that are good at passing through walls. Although Vio will check the Ghost-type energy fluctuations at the venue before the game starts, you can simply estimate the time it takes for the energy to dissipate and have your Pokémon hide inside the table beforehand. However, it must be a small Ghost with fingers to operate..."
The detective is like an arsonist who has stumbled into a powder keg, gleefully lighting one fuse after another, causing all sorts of bizarre deductions to explode, without any regard for the audience's feelings.
"Alright, I understand how Blueberry won, please stop talking."
Feeling increasingly nauseous, Natsume asked the detective to stop reasoning.
"Is that enough? I have a few more very interesting hypotheses..."
"No need, my curiosity has been completely satisfied, I'm so full I could hardly believe it... Please don't continue to pollute my mind."
Faced with the resolute client, Hugo shook his head regretfully.
Among these final tricks, there's a cheating method that requires neither accomplices nor Pokémon assistance—a rather insane and brilliant solution...
.
"Oh, right, Naz."
Pulling his thoughts away from the Double Dragon poker game, the detective spoke to the Psychic Hall Master without warning.
"At the beginning, you said that Blueberry is a real gambler who would not surrender in the face of risk; and I refuted your argument by saying that Blueberry was committing fraud rather than gambling, right?"
Sabrina blinked her red eyes and looked at the detective in confusion, not understanding why he wanted to bring up the old story again.
"But when we were discussing psychological suggestion earlier, I suddenly had a new inspiration."
"What kind of inspiration?"
"The transmission of emotions has a recoil effect—when provoking an opponent, the provocateur is also affected by the combative mindset; when staff members dressed as ghosts in a haunted house scream and frighten tourists, they themselves feel fear; similarly, in the gambling game, Lanju intensely plays the role of a gambler obsessed with the game, doing her best to stimulate Vio's desire to win. Under this level of emotional reaction, there is no reason why Lanju would not be blinded by her competitive spirit."
Gambling is highly addictive and extremely difficult to quit.
Even the most famous gambler in the United States, the king of gamblers, could he really resist the temptation of going all in?
"So why did Blueberry ultimately choose to surrender to that green-haired youth? For a passionate gambler, tearing up one or two pre-contracts should be a piece of cake, right?"
The detective's expression was more serious than ever before.
"Naz, since losing the bet, Blueberry hasn't said a word until she disembarked and left, right?"
"Yes," the superpowered girl replied softly. She felt that the detective's expression at this moment was somewhat similar to that of the blueberry back then.
Hugo let out a long sigh, and then spat out this baseless inference—
"The situation may not be as easy as we initially anticipated. The reason why Bilberry decisively gave up should be due to an off-the-books event that made him rein in his playful nature. This event also led to his long silence at the casino—generally speaking, people will complain a bit when they lose a game they have to lose, but Bilberry King on Royal United Daily News is not in the mood for that."
Outside the Feathered Residence, the sun was at noon, but to Hugo it seemed as if the sun was setting.
"A storm is brewing, the insects are chirping, something extraordinary is about to happen."