You Haodong did not hesitate either. He strode up from the other side and, with considerable calculation, first planted a foot on the iron chain before grabbing Ling He by the opposite shoulder.
The two of them were now using brute force from either side to pull one person apart. Judging by Ling He’s simmering anger and disgusted expression, as though he were on the verge of exploding, he seemed to be complaining: I was more comfortable hanging in the water just now!
“I knew you wouldn’t let me choose one side and go with him.” Ling He gave a cold snort. “But could the two of you fight each other first? Whoever’s still moving and breathing afterward can come touch me.”
Sure enough, neither of them had good intentions.
“Hey, easy there. Don’t tear him in half….” Jian Mingjue said, though his own hands were certainly not idle. He immediately grabbed one of Young Master Ling’s feet and forcibly lifted the lifeless leg, then secretly gave it a shove forward with ulterior motives.
One of Ling He’s long legs was forced upward and folded toward his body. From Second Jian’s angle, the beauty’s neck was tipped back, helpless to resist, while the enticing contours of his thigh and hips were laid completely bare. His entire body lay there like a rag doll that had simply given up, making no pointless attempt to resist three men at once. He had originally been wearing several layers of clothing, but after all the tearing, seawater, and abuse, they had long since been reduced to rags, leaving him in a truly pitiful state. Only those beautiful eyes, hazed with mist and rain, still swept proudly over the surrounding crowd. The corner of his mouth held the fearless contempt of someone looking down upon a host of demons, and his expression remained unchanged.
After the spectacle earlier, however weak and helpless he looked now, nobody around him truly dared treat him like a rag doll. In fact, they all moderated their strength and handled him cautiously, afraid of getting splashed with the poisonous snake’s venom.
“Stop… fighting over him. I’m still… not, not dead.” A weak, slurred voice struggled up from not far behind them.
Everyone turned. The speaker was Watanabe Yangshan, still sprawled on the sofa receiving emergency treatment.
Watanabe Yangshan looked as though his body had completely given out. He had collapsed into a sack of rotten potatoes, his chest sinking weakly inward and rising and falling in futile little motions. His adoptive mother’s suicide had already been one blow; now that this scandal had been publicly dragged out and spread before everyone, the Watanabe family’s reputation was finished.
“The man… I still… haven’t sold him yet….” Watanabe Yangshan’s head drooped slightly, the eyes beneath his lids rolling white, yet even now he had not forgotten about the bidding. He really was desperately short of money.
You Haodong said without hesitation, “Name your price, Mr. Watanabe. I’ll take him away right now.”
Jian Mingjue said, “Let me get a word in first….”
Yan Xiaodao said, “Whatever he offers, I’ll double it.”
Jian Mingjue laughed so hard his shoulders and chin shook together. “Oh, you two… I really never saw this coming. Mr. You and Mr. Yan are both into something this heavy, huh? I always thought the two of you, heh-heh-heh….”
That deliberately ambiguous interruption happened to provide both men, who were openly and covertly fighting themselves into a deadlock, with a very convenient excuse.
Yan Xiaodao neither confirmed nor denied it. He certainly could not tell them the truth.
Ling He lay beside his feet, light glinting at the corners of his eyes. From below, he coolly swept Yan Xiaodao’s expression from bottom to top before finally fixing his gaze on Yan Xiaodao’s chin and throat—vital points.
Jian Mingjue deeply admired You Haodong and Yan Xiaodao’s taste. At that moment, the deck of cards in his own pocket suddenly seemed full of faded flowers and withered willows too miserable to look at. If he could add Young Master Ling to his collection, this man would unquestionably become the number-one beauty in his entire card album.
But Second Jian knew his own limits. He could neither overpower Young Master You nor beat Yan Xiaodao in a fight, so he did not compete. He simply settled in to watch lion and tiger tear at each other while he played the bald vulture waiting behind them for scraps. If he could eventually pick up a bite of the number-one beauty’s fresh meat, the trip would not have been wasted.
Jian Mingjue loved nothing more than stirring up a spectacle, so he held Ling He’s foot and said, “You two little brothers, listen to your elder brother and let me settle this dispute. We’re all fellow travelers in the world of pleasure. We’re all just trying to taste something fresh. No need to hurt the harmony between our own people….
“The biggest casino on Yilu Island is right outside. I’ll host the game tonight. We’ll sit down and play three rounds. Whoever wins gets first turn, and everyone after him can line up and wait.”
A lecher sees lechery everywhere. Second Jian had twisted the meaning of the entire situation through his own filthy mind—yet somehow twisted it into exactly the right solution.
“Fine. We gamble. Right now. Let’s go.”
You Haodong and Yan Xiaodao agreed almost simultaneously, each throwing the other a vicious look that clearly said, Just you wait.
Watanabe Yangshan had been completely reduced to a sack of rotten potatoes on the sofa and was treated as though he were air. Still, he was not going to drop dead within the next few minutes, and he remained the owner of this heavily guarded island. The place was crawling with bodyguards and hired muscle. The Cloudtop sat quietly at the dock, and everyone was stuck on this isolated island for the moment, with no way to run. Endless sea surrounded them in every direction; even reaching the neighboring island required a helicopter or seaplane.
Voices came from outside the hall. Someone had arrived and wanted to come in.
Only then did Yan Xiaodao remember to glance at his phone. Impressive—Liang Youhui had already launched eighteen text messages at him from every possible angle. Yan Xiaodao had completely forgotten about the matter, even though he had only just asked the man to lend him his checkbook.
But he opened Fengfeng’s message first.
Yang Xifeng: 【Boss! The other two black buzz-cuts are squatting outside too. Want me to go in and protect the emperor?】
In other words, You Haodong currently had only one bodyguard at his side. The other two were waiting outside and might launch a surprise attack. Yang Xifeng was also lying low in the shadows. Everyone had now gathered around the casino.
The person forcing his way in from outside was obviously Young Master Liang.
Liang Youhui had enough status that the guards did not dare manhandle him. When he strode into the hall, his face was full of worry and anxiety, his eyes immediately searching for Yan Xiaodao. People’s hearts showed themselves in a crisis; this concern was entirely genuine.
“What happened, Xiaodao? You okay?” Liang Youhui swept a wary gaze across the hostile faces around them.
Yan Xiaodao thought, Now that’s a brother. You really brought the money?
“Bet too big? Lose?” Liang Youhui assumed Yan Xiaodao had been detained here after losing a massive wager, about to have his hands and feet chopped off while waiting for Liang to bring the checkbook and ransom him.
Yan Xiaodao frowned and clicked his tongue. “Don’t fucking jinx me. I haven’t even sat down at the table tonight.”
Jian Mingjue brightened instead. He slung an arm familiarly around Young Master Liang from Yandu. “I’ve heard so much about you. What a rare pleasure! Perfect timing—we’ve got three players and we’re one short tonight!”
At that moment, the two men on either side of Ling He simultaneously let go of him.
Neither had deliberately thrown him down, yet the back of his neck and both shoulder blades still struck the floor hard. A fine crack of pain appeared across the minute details of his expression, and his abdomen spasmed slightly. The loss of composure lasted only a few seconds. Under Yan Xiaodao’s gaze it vanished in an instant, replaced once more by that cold, fearless mask.
Snakes are vertebrates too, aren’t they? They have spines and a whole body full of little bones holding them up, Yan Xiaodao thought.
The man before him seemed to have no bones at all. Or perhaps, after days of torment from wind, sun, and seawater, with nothing to eat or drink, his body had simply become so weak that his hands and feet could barely move. He looked like a broken man….
And all these people sitting here were preparing to throw fortunes onto the table in a high-stakes gamble, fighting over a “broken man” like this.
Watanabe’s attendants immediately surrounded the group and escorted them toward a private VIP suite in the casino. Yan Xiaodao saw Young Master Ling being carried into the inner room as well and relaxed for the moment.
Naturally, they were not going to stage a gambling match with a human being as the prize in the smoky, noisy public casino hall, where respectable men and women occasionally hugged slot machines while flashing V-signs for selfies and young male servers in shirts and waistcoats moved back and forth carrying drinks.
The VIP gambling room was a spacious suite. In the outer room, two large corner sofas upholstered in cowhide faced one another. A mounted North American caribou head was set into the wall, its enormous pair of antlers spreading aggressively outward and casting complicated shadows beneath the wall lamps. Liquor and cigars sat on a square coffee table with a glossy piano-black finish…. The entire room made no attempt to conceal a particularly masculine sort of dominance and bloodlust, or its hunger and ambition for power and wealth.
Two hunting rifles hung on the wall opposite the caribou head, another hobby of wealthy men.
While everyone rested briefly, You Haodong was still nursing his resentment. He casually pulled one of the rifles off the wall and, under Jian Mingjue’s surprised gaze, worked the bolt with several hard clacks, chambered it, then aimed toward the caribou head and pulled the trigger.
Everyone in the room jolted.
Naturally, there was no ammunition in the rifle. You Haodong was an experienced amateur hunter himself; he knew from the weight the moment he picked it up that it was unloaded.
Yan Xiaodao dropped onto the sofa in a broad, commanding sprawl, a South Seas pomelo-leaf cigarette clenched between his teeth. He wore the leisurely expression of an experienced older man too lazy to compete with some hot-blooded young kid. As though casually, he picked up the rifle You Haodong had tossed onto the coffee table and turned it back and forth in his hands, the cigarette butt rotating between his lips. “A toy I used to play with when I was little. Haven’t handled a hunting rifle in years.”
The rifle in his hands gave off a series of faint sounds, like the whimper of precision gears deep inside a machine.
You Haodong’s eyes gradually went rigid. The rifle Yan Xiaodao tossed back had a barrel that was visibly loose and hanging crookedly from the wooden stock, wobbling as though it might fall off at any moment. The internal mechanism had clearly been taken apart….
Liang Youhui always looked at Yan Xiaodao with admiration, along with the smug pride of Look how fucking awesome my buddy is. He felt enormously honored. “You’ve used one before, right? You’re really familiar with it.”
“Not much use for one in the city.” Yan Xiaodao sneered. “A good gun like this is for shooting jackals, wolves, tigers, and leopards. Use it to shoot a dog? That’s wasting money.”
Yan Xiaodao specialized in curing people who refused to submit to him.
Young Master You’s brow practically darkened with bad luck. Somehow, without quite knowing when it had happened, he seemed to have been called a dog….
As everyone concealed their own little calculations and carried tea and coffee toward the table, You Haodong glanced at Young Master Liang and abruptly pulled him by the arm. “Youhui, you playing cards with us tonight isn’t really appropriate, is it?”
Liang Youhui raised an eyebrow. “What’s inappropriate about it? I’m just playing casually. I won’t get in your way.”
You Haodong said meaningfully, “But we’re not playing casually. We’re settling a winner and loser. If you sit down, aren’t you and Mr. Yan on the fucking same side?!”
Liang Youhui said, “Me? How am I on his side?”
You Haodong’s argument actually made perfect sense and was difficult to refute. These mainland tyrants were about to play several rounds under Mahjong Competition Rules. If they were gambling to determine a winner and using a living person as the prize, how could two players at the table be allies? Young Master Liang, were you planning to deal Yan Xiaodao a winning tile whenever he needed one?
Elio’s Notes: Mahjong Competition Rules (MCR) is the internationally standardized ruleset for competitive Chinese mahjong. The English tile and hand names used from this point follow standard MCR terminology.
Yan Xiaodao casually loosened the belt at his waist and said confidently, “Three people can still play. Otherwise, we can play Fight the Landlord.”
Elio’s Notes: Fight the Landlord is a popular Chinese card game normally played by three people, with one “landlord” competing against the other two players.
Liang Youhui immediately looked disappointed and was promptly crowded away from the gambling table by several black-clad men. They refused to let him join.
“Not much fun with too few people….” Jian Mingjue’s eyes narrowed with a smile. “Can that Young Master Ling sit up? If he can stay seated, let him play!”
You Haodong swept his gaze around. As it happened, old Watanabe Yangshan came into the card room at that moment. Naturally, he had not walked in by himself; he was sitting in a wheelchair pushed by the celebrity.
You Haodong did not waste time. He pointed imperiously. “Then let’s ask Mr. Mai to make up the fourth!”
Yan Xiaodao never watched idol movies or soap operas, yet even he recognized the man without anyone having to tell him. The handsome man who had accompanied the guests throughout the trip was named Mai Yunliang, a hugely popular superstar known across the mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
Celebrities were different from ordinary people. On camera or off, everything they did carried a sense of the lens. Every gesture had been trained, refined, and carefully polished; the smallest movement landed as perfectly as a magazine pose. Mai Yunliang was also strikingly handsome, a classic southern Chinese beauty from the Guangdong–Guangxi region. His features bore distinct regional characteristics, though there were also traces of whitening injections and cheek fillers. He was exquisitely handsome—and exquisitely artificial.
The hesitation beneath Mai Yunliang’s lightly trembling lashes was obvious. He clearly wanted to leave and had no desire to wade into these muddy waters. But caught between Watanabe and You Haodong, he reluctantly sat down at the large table.
Watanabe Yangshan sagged in his wheelchair with an oxygen mask covering his nose and mouth. His heavy, labored breathing filled the card room and made everyone uncomfortable.
Yet he still refused to give up. From beneath the oxygen mask came a buzzing sound like air escaping a broken bellows. “Mai-zai, you—you play this round for me…. I… I….”
Elio’s Notes: “Mai-zai” uses a familiar Cantonese-style suffix often used when addressing a younger man.
Jian Mingjue’s lust immediately switched on at the sight of a pretty face, as though someone had pressed a button somewhere inside his body. He grabbed Mai Yunliang by the wrist. “Mr. Mai, know how to play mahjong?”
Mai Yunliang smiled with restrained modesty. “Not very well. I’m afraid I’ll embarrass myself.”
Across the entire country, north and south, practically everyone knew how to play mahjong. It was a mandatory social skill suitable for old and young alike, though every region had its own calls and house rules. Mai Yunliang spent his days accompanying rich men to meals, drinks, and golf. How could he possibly not know how to play?
Yan Xiaodao sat directly opposite him and politely remarked, “Mr. Mai works in film, television, music, and modeling—four fields. How could you not know how to play a few rounds of mahjong?”
“Mr. Mai is a five-field superstar: film, television, music, modeling, and bed,” Jian Mingjue said with a drooling grin, reaching out to hook a finger beneath Mai Yunliang’s chin. “Skilled in every technique, master of all ten events!”
Yan Xiaodao was speechless. Fuck.
Mai Yunliang’s expression immediately became uncomfortable, yet he did not lose his temper. He had spent too long immersed in social situations like this and was already accustomed to every variety of teasing and unwanted touching. He could only lower his head and sip his tea to hide the embarrassment while allowing Jian Mingjue to keep stroking his wrist….
You Haodong was cunning. He moved first and arranged for Mai Yunliang to sit immediately before him in turn order, while You himself took the seat immediately before Yan Xiaodao, using the position to constrain him. Jian Mingjue naturally ended up immediately after Mr. Yan, with Mai Yunliang on Jian’s right.
Among the four men at the table, one was there for the spectacle, one was merely making up the numbers, one was taking things as they came, and one was burning with impatience.
Jian Mingjue and You Haodong were both veterans of the mahjong table, skilled at building the walls and identifying tiles by touch. Within only a few turns, You Haodong had rapidly disposed of his Honor tiles and begun calling chows and pungs in a blur. Jian Mingjue, in contrast, was in no hurry at all. He slowly studied the pairs of Red, Green, and White Dragons in his hand and idly wondered whether to indulge himself with a Little Four Winds.
Yan Xiaodao’s gaze remained calm and his hands steady. In a situation like this, he had no interest in chasing giant hands such as Big Three Dragons or Little Four Winds.
There was no need to win big.
In this kind of game, what mattered was winning the hand.
At a mahjong table, if you kept discarding Characters, Bamboos, or Dots while holding tightly to your Wind pungs, the other players could easily work out that you were chasing something enormous like Big Four Winds or Big Three Dragons. It was far too obvious and would only make everyone guard against you and close ranks.
Yan Xiaodao watched Second Jian call a pung in Characters. When Yan stretched out his long arm and slender fingers to reach for a tile, the movement alone somehow put tremendous pressure on You Haodong and brought storm clouds across the man’s face.
Mai Yunliang drew and discarded with the silent delicacy of spring rain. He even tried to keep the hard tiles from clicking against the table. He was obviously very good at mahjong, yet desperately diluted his presence at the table, perfectly willing to remain background scenery.
Everyone also had their own habitual little movements at the table.
Second Jian liked keeping rhythm with his foot. One long leg had wandered beneath who knew whose side of the table, his leather shoe gently tapping out a beat.
Mai Yunliang sat with his gaze lowered toward his nose and his attention turned inward. Suppressed tension made him unconsciously lace the fingers of both hands together in front of his mouth, forming the posture of someone praying.
You Haodong folded his arms. Three bands of thunderclouds seemed to gather across his bronze forehead as he occasionally pinched the spot between his brows or rubbed his temples. One look was enough to tell that he was tense.
Yan Xiaodao, meanwhile, played the piano. His posture was casual, with only his left hand resting on the table while five fingers rapidly and silently tapped back and forth across the surface….
No matter how good-looking Mr. Yan’s fingers were, the tapping still drove You Haodong, seated immediately before him, increasingly irritable. You stared at Yan Xiaodao’s hand with obvious annoyance and nearly became distracted by it.
You Haodong quickly formed a concealed hand and felt a little better. After calling a Bamboo from Mai Yunliang, he smoothly went ready, then slowly leaned back with the air of a man certain of victory.
Yet after going ready, he stopped drawing anything useful. Bamboos, Dots, and Characters moved through everyone’s hands one after another, but he never saw the One or Four of Dots he wanted.
Yan Xiaodao gave You a half-smiling glance. The man had already broken apart several Character and Bamboo combinations, making it obvious he was waiting on Dots. The other two had probably seen through him as well. Who told you to go ready so early?
You Haodong’s palms began to feel uncertain as he debated whether to change his hand.
While he was hesitating, he had the bad luck to draw a Three of Dots. His fingers hovered for a moment before he discarded the Two of Dots and changed his wait.
Yan Xiaodao smiled. On the very next draw, he discarded the tile he had just taken, deliberately placing the big pancake of a One of Dots right in front of You Haodong.
Young Master You’s eyes nearly flashed white with fury. He already knew this hand was going badly. The Three of Dots he wanted might be buried anywhere in the wall.
After throwing away that useless Dot, Yan Xiaodao quietly went ready himself. Hidden in his hand was a Pure Straight in a single suit, something the others could not see.
He was one away, waiting on a single Five of Characters.
You Haodong hesitated between two Character tiles, then looked at the familiar tiles already lying among the four players’ discards. Neither the Five nor the Nine of Characters had appeared. Both were fucking dangerous discards, and he wanted to crush them in his fist.
You Haodong took so long that Jian Mingjue eventually began tapping the table. Finally, You hardened his heart and threw out the Nine of Characters.
When Yan Xiaodao remained completely still, You Haodong suddenly let out a breath of relief.
Yan Xiaodao stretched out an arm and drew a tile with three long fingers. He rubbed the face once with his thumb and tossed it onto the table with effortless flair. At the same time, his other hand seemed to give a light jolt beneath the table, and the entire row of tiles in front of him fell forward with a sharp clack.
Jian Mingjue exclaimed, “Aiya! A Pure Straight in Characters—and a Full Flush! A Full Flush is twenty-four fan under the rules!”
Mai Yunliang immediately seized the opportunity to pour tea for everyone, his eyes full of genuine eagerness to please. He said to Yan Xiaodao, “Where I’m from, that would already be a forty-thousand-Hong-Kong-dollar hand, Mr. Yan! And you self-drew it too.”
Yan Xiaodao grinned, showing a row of handsome white teeth as he smiled directly at You Haodong. Master Blade is two years older than you, after all. I’ve eaten more meals and walked more roads. When you, Young Master You, were fifteen or sixteen and still sitting in school, Master Blade was already out making his way in the world. I didn’t study much and don’t have much ink in my belly, but I sure as hell know how to play mahjong.
Besides, Yan Xiaodao was never afraid of a gambling game. Why? Because he always had one more move in reserve: fighting. If he could not win by gambling, he could always get physical afterward.
You Haodong understood that he had underestimated him after all.
If they had been playing only one hand, Yan Xiaodao would already have won.
But they had agreed before sitting down that a single hand involved too much luck. They would play one full rotation, from Mai Yunliang taking the dealer’s seat until Jian Mingjue’s dealer turn ended, then compare everyone’s total score.
Watanabe Yangshan sagged in his wheelchair, his collapsed eyelids almost devoid of life, leaving only hatred beneath them. At this point, he no longer even wanted the money. He had thrown everything onto one last gamble and genuinely wanted to strangle Ling He with his own hands. Even if he survived this recurrence of his heart condition, decades of the Watanabe family’s prestige and reputation had been destroyed by Ling He in a single night. By tomorrow morning, the scandal would have spread across the mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia, becoming material for mockery and gossip throughout wealthy circles. Naturally, Watanabe would never admit that the reputation had actually been destroyed by his own actions….
The Watanabe family had originally had no connection to Ling He at all, no old hatred or grievance. A poisonous snake was simply a poisonous snake: Ling He had coveted the family’s property and wealth, switched heaven and earth to seize it for himself, then turned around and bit them viciously while they were already down. How venomous!
Watanabe suddenly began buzzing beneath the oxygen mask and ordered his men, “Just drawing tiles… has no flavor. We need to give our guests… some stakes…. You—bring that man here…. He was already… the stake. Put him… on the table as the stake!….”
The others had not yet understood what he meant when two men in black dragged a soaking-wet figure in from the inner room.
Who else could it be but the sharp-tongued, impossibly proud Young Master Ling?
His body was still covered in filthy wet stains, long hair plastered across his face. As he was dragged into the room, his two long legs slid over the floor with a wet shh-shh, leaving two streaks behind them. Without a word, the black-clad bodyguards hoisted him up and threw him onto the table.
Their mahjong table was a broad square table, considerably larger than an ordinary one.
Every plate, cup, and tea set around the players jumped violently, sending tea splashing everywhere. Ling He’s entire body crashed down across the center of the table, his head toward You Haodong and his feet toward Jian Mingjue. Half his face struck a pile of hard tiles completely unprotected. Only his eyes remained stubbornly open, staring directly at Yan Xiaodao. In the depths of those pupils seemed to lie a bottomless abyss, from which a dim light rose and whipped the surface of the sea into raging waves.
Whoever won this full round would take Ling He away. Kill him, butcher him, rape him—dispose of him however they pleased.