Qin Siyu had assumed that someone like Aston would surely go to an exclusive private club. Though it might be called a high-end club, it would really be an underground casino.
To his surprise, Aston actually took him to a bustling, crowded place filled with every sort of person.
People thronged the interior, excited and frenzied. Slot machines flashed ceaselessly, cycling from light to dark. Colored lights assaulted the eyes, and cheerful music filled the ears.
Every roulette wheel was surrounded by people. They considered their options seriously before placing their bets, though Qin Siyu had no idea what they were thinking so hard about.
It was the same at the card tables. Half offered five-card poker, and the other half blackjack. Most of the players were white and middle-class, and the room smelled of cigars.
Several men patrolled the floor, keeping watch. Their hands stayed in their pockets, as though they were prepared to draw guns at any moment to deal with troublemakers.
Qin Siyu showed little reaction. “Why did you choose this place?”
“It’s crowded,” Aston said. “We’re less likely to attract attention.”
Qin Siyu nodded. “I see.”
Naturally, before testing the model, Qin Siyu ran through a practice round.
Aston stood behind him, looking down at him.
Qin Siyu bent his neck. A dim beam of light happened to fall across the nape, making his skin look smooth and lustrous.
Following the model’s calculations, Qin Siyu handled the first two hands without trouble. But on the third, just as he reached for a chip to double his bet, a hand suddenly came from behind and pressed down on his.
Qin Siyu paused and looked over.
Unusually long fingers rested on his fingertips, and Aston’s distinctive English accent sounded beside his ear. “There’s a small problem with this part of the model. I revised it a little yesterday. Counting aces separately gives us a higher win rate.”
Qin Siyu nodded, and Aston withdrew his hand.
The pressure vanished abruptly. With nothing touching the backs of his fingers, Qin Siyu’s hand lifted instinctively, as though trying to follow someone. He checked the motion and put it back on the cards.
Once the practice was done, two seats happened to open at a table, so they sat down.
They took seats at opposite corners, where they could see each other.
The rules were those of traditional blackjack: the dealer played against all the players. Everyone received one face-up card and one face-down card, then took turns drawing more. Anyone whose total exceeded twenty-one went bust. Bang!
If the dealer had less than seventeen, meaning sixteen or below, he had to take another card. Once he exceeded sixteen, he had to stand.
Aston’s approach was simple: remember every card that had been dealt.
Then, using the cards that remained, calculate the probability that the dealer would go bust or beat his own hand.
For instance, if the dealer’s upcard was a ten, they could calculate directly how likely he was to need another card. If he didn’t, and their own two cards totaled eighteen, they could calculate the chance that the dealer’s two-card hand was higher. If he did need another card, the calculations continued: suppose his hole card was a two. What were his chances of going bust, finishing higher, or finishing lower? Suppose it was a three, and so on through six. How likely was he to draw each of those cards? Combining the results would yield his own probability of winning, on which he could base a decision to fold or double down.
But those calculations were far too complicated. Aston had therefore built a model that made the probabilities easier to calculate and the situation easier to assess. An ace, for example, had to be counted separately, while twos through fives could sometimes be grouped together, as could sixes through nines. Even then, it took a clever mind.
Aston had explained it over the telephone, and Qin Siyu had practiced.
The calculation often didn’t need to be exact. An approximate range for each number was enough. If his hand happened to be particularly good, working it out was easier still.
At the gaming table, Qin Siyu interlaced his fingers in front of himself.
The dealer began dealing the playing cards.
Qin Siyu pressed his hand on his cards, drew them toward himself, and lifted a corner to look. His expression remained calm.
His fingers were exceptionally beautiful.
When he wanted to double down, he would pick up a chip delicately and set it to one side. After putting it down, he drew his index fingertip away from the chip and returned his hand to its place in front of him, without a flicker of expression.
He watched the dealer’s cards, his own, and the other players’.
When his calculations showed a relatively high probability of the dealer going bust or finishing below him, Qin Siyu and Aston deliberately varied their actions. They knew that playing too much alike would invite suspicion.
They had agreed on a pattern. Sometimes Qin Siyu would place a single bet and Aston a double bet; sometimes they would reverse it.
Occasionally, Qin Siyu calculated that the odds came out close to fifty percent. In such a case it hardly mattered, but since he wanted to “validate the model,” he naturally wanted greater precision. He would glance at Aston, trying to find out what hidden card Aston held. Aston would look back and blink, signaling a low card, one through five, or hold his gaze steadily, signaling a high card, five through ten.
They had other signals as well.
Sometimes Qin Siyu needed to watch Aston’s eyes, and sometimes his fingers.
If Aston lifted a chip between his fingers and tapped it against the tabletop once, that meant…
If he held a chip and traced two circles across its surface with his index finger, that meant…
If he tapped his index finger twice against the chips spread out beside him, that meant…
If he drew several fingertips down the side of a stack of chips beside him, that meant…
If he lifted the top few chips from the stack, let them fall back into place, then pressed the stack neatly together again, that meant…
Aston’s movements were always elegant and lovely. Even the dealer couldn’t help staring at his hands as he made those gestures.
It was the same when Aston’s own odds hovered right around fifty percent.
Time passed. Qin Siyu’s pile of chips grew and shrank, but overall it was, unmistakably, increasing.
Aston’s was, too.
Qin Siyu knew that he seemed to be paying attention to Aston the entire time.
Whenever a hand was “easy,” he silently glanced at Aston’s pile of chips.
As they played more hands, the results would increasingly favor whichever of them “calculated better” and “made fewer mistakes.” Qin Siyu thought he might be trying to prove himself. He didn’t necessarily have to do better than Aston, but he absolutely could not do worse.
His eyes kept quietly sweeping over the other man’s chips.
Qin Siyu felt as though his whole brain was humming with excitement.
It was exhilarating.
Most calculations were fairly easy for Qin Siyu. After all, he only needed to know whether a probability was above or below fifty percent, not work out an exact figure. But occasionally a hand was exceptionally complicated, and then he had to concentrate with all his might.
Once he was thoroughly accustomed to “calculating,” whenever he needed to estimate the odds of the dealer going bust or finishing lower than himself, he would look toward Aston the instant he had finished, as though hoping to beat him by a second.
And Aston would glance back at him.
Again and again, they lifted their eyes at the same instant and met each other’s gaze.
Once Qin Siyu decided to tease him. He didn’t calculate at all, simply lifting his eyes after a second or two. Aston sensed his gaze and looked up too, but he curved his lips, shook his head, and fixed his eyes on him, silently mouthing, “No way.”
As if to say: You want to trick me? That’s naughty.
Qin Siyu: “…”
All of this was mentally exhausting. When the cards had been dealt through yet again, the two of them stepped outside for some air.
“Are you tired?” Qin Siyu asked.
Aston sat in a chair with his eyes gently closed. “A little.”
It took a tremendous amount of mental energy.
Qin Siyu stepped in front of him and straightened his hair. Then he slid the tips of his five fingers along Aston’s scalp and into his hair, pressing at the nerves there.
Aston felt his scalp tingle and tried to pull away.
But Qin Siyu closed his fingers around Aston’s hair, holding him in place. With a little pressure from his palm, he tipped Aston’s face upward and looked at him. “Let me give you a massage. It’ll help you relax. There are a few acupoints here.”
With his hair caught at the roots, Aston couldn’t move. He had no choice but to look up into Qin Siyu’s dark eyes. He asked casually, “Something else you learned at a traditional Chinese medicine clinic because you want to be a doctor?”
Qin Siyu began pressing gently on the acupoints and smiled. “That’s right. Does it feel good?”
“Mm,” Aston said.
Qin Siyu had an unusual technique. He would massage for a while, then grasp Aston’s hair and tug it gently, then massage again and tug again, continually asking, “Does it feel good? Should I press harder? Or more gently? I want you to feel even better.”
“It’s very good.”
Aston could not turn his gaze away. He was forced to keep looking at Qin Siyu.
A rounded Adam’s apple, straight collarbones, a thin layer of muscle over chest and abdomen, and the same on his legs. A belt at his waist, his shirt fastened in front. He was unquestionably a man.
There should have been nothing worth looking at, yet Aston’s eyes traveled inch by inch over him, fastening like nails. From where he sat, his gaze fell between Qin Siyu’s chest and abdomen. He studied the hollows at his collarbones. Qin Siyu’s collarbones stood out, leaving a dip between them just large enough to rest the tip of a tongue. He looked at his chest, his stomach, his waist, measuring him with his eyes, imagining where every part would fall if pressed against his own body… Qin Siyu seemed made to fit into his embrace. Aston could fold himself against his back, press close, and encircle him completely. He looked, too, at Qin Siyu’s belt. It was old, and the hole currently in use was whitening around its edges and had grown a little loose. If he pulled the belt free, there would be just enough room at that waistband to slip a wrist inside.
Thinking back on their cooperation at the table, Aston could hardly understand it himself. Why? Where, exactly, had things gone wrong?
During this time, he had felt, for the first time, a tremor deep in his soul and a sense of perfect harmony. Yet the person was wrong. Even the most fundamental things were wrong.
Qin Siyu took his hands away from the acupoints, brushed them along the sides of Aston’s neck, and cupped it. He pressed his thumbs gently beneath Aston’s ears, while his middle fingers reached to the Tianzhu points below the back of his head.
Aston closed his eyes and controlled himself.
“There,” Qin Siyu said. “Shall we go back and keep testing the model?”
“Mm,” Aston replied.
“Then let’s go.”
The dealer at their table had been replaced by someone who looked like a manager.
The newcomer put pressure on them.
He kept pushing them to make an immediate decision, his voice and expression equally cold. “Hit or stand?” “It’s your turn, sir.” “We need a decision now.” “I need your action right now.”
He interfered terribly with their thinking, but Qin Siyu didn’t want to finish the night with fewer chips than Aston, so he focused his mind and continued analyzing and calculating.
He had to be quick.
Aston discovered that, of all the people around him, Qin Siyu was indeed the only one who could keep up.
Sean really was intelligent.
Their piles of chips continued to grow.
At last, around midnight, Aston told Qin Siyu it was time to leave.
The model had been validated. Both their piles of chips had steadily grown overall. Sometimes they won and sometimes they lost, but they won more than they lost.
Both went to cash in their chips.
As they turned, one of the underground casino’s security guards came toward them at a signal. His gaze moved between Qin Siyu and Aston before he settled on Qin Siyu. Abruptly he stepped close and, without warning, pressed the black muzzle of his gun beneath Qin Siyu’s chin. “Have you two been cheating?”
Aston: “!!!”
“…” Qin Siyu could be slow to react, but he truly never panicked. His mind was always calm, always working. His body might react, his breathing becoming deeper and slower, but he himself remained composed. He looked at the man and understood that this was probably just a bluff: they wanted the winnings back, or merely wanted to frighten the pair away so they would visit a different casino next time. In that split second, Qin Siyu held his breath, pushed the gun aside with his fingertips, and said, “Of course not.”
Aston stared at him.
Aston also knew there was no chance the guards would suddenly spill blood over this, but he immediately stepped forward and covered the muzzle with his palm. “Don’t do that. We won’t come back.”
The guard nodded and withdrew the gun. “Remember what you just said.”
Once outside, Qin Siyu laughed. “Some gangsters they are. So petty. They threaten people for winning.”
Aston agreed. “I didn’t expect that either.”
In an era when gangsters were everywhere, he had been careless.
They had come only to validate the model, so their bets had been small. Those men would never spill blood on the spot over so little money, yet they had still issued a warning.
Aston had put nearly all his cash into buying gold in South Africa.
He had thought blackjack would provide a reliable way to make money, with better returns than the stock market. A single evening could multiply his stake several times over. But this path was closed to him now.
Casinos were dangerous, and he had no intention of taking such risks.
He would have to find another way to accumulate capital quietly, without alerting Alex Aston.
“Aston,” Qin Siyu said with a smile, “even though we got a fright, calculating probabilities with you was so exhilarating. I had so much fun.”
Aston: “…”
Aston took a leftover chip from his pocket and offered it to Qin Siyu. “Would you like to keep it as a souvenir?”
Qin Siyu froze for a second. He had said earlier that Aston could have all the chips, but after the past few hours he had actually wanted very much to keep one as a memento. Aston understood him so well.
The red chip was vivid and adorable in the moonlight. Qin Siyu accepted it. “…Thank you.”
He closed it in his palm and slipped it into his pocket.
The chip went from resting against Aston’s thigh to resting against his own. It seemed to retain Aston’s body heat, enough to sear his skin.
Qin Siyu went on, “On that very last hand… my scalp actually tingled.”
His own hand had been excellent. He could not lose unless the dealer got the one remaining ace and made blackjack. According to the model, he should naturally have raised his bet, but the dealer’s expression looked so much like that of a man certain to win. Qin Siyu wasn’t completely sure. He gently bit the knuckle of one finger. He didn’t want to end the night by losing the last hand to the dealer, particularly to blackjack.
He lifted his eyes toward Aston, who looked back and smiled faintly.
In that instant, he knew Aston held the ace.
They had never agreed on a signal for an ace, nor had they said what a smile would mean. Both had a face-down card. By rights, Qin Siyu should have used the model to make his decision. Aston shouldn’t have known that Qin Siyu would rather break the rules on the final hand than end the night losing to blackjack. Yet Aston had instinctively understood that he was thinking about the ace, the only ace left. So he smiled, and Qin Siyu instinctively understood.
Knowing the dealer was trying to bluff him, Qin Siyu made a substantial bet. The dealer’s hole card was only a seven, while across the table Aston turned over his cards with unhurried elegance. The face of the card emerged slowly: Aston was the one with blackjack.
Both of them won a great deal.
“…Mm,” Aston agreed.
But once again he couldn’t help wondering: if the two of them fit together so well that a glance or a smile was enough to understand each other, why did things have to be this way?
Had God created the two of them simply to test him? Just as Peter had told him: he was the most steadfast man Peter had ever met, so the Lord had taken notice of him and chosen him? Was he meant to “Glorify God”?
But he was almost at the end of his ability to resist.
He had even begun to wonder: if the devil could create such a wonderful human being, might the devil be the righteous one, and might Aston himself be destined to fall and join them?