Bonds of the Gambling Table -1
"Ugh...!"
Sajeok could not collect his wits. The physical pain rising from his forehead was bad enough, but the mental shock of watching his all-out technique shattered in a single stroke slammed into his head just as hard. Struck by inner and outer impact at once, he reeled, unable to steady himself.
Ho Cheon-an clicked his tongue as he watched him.
Well, his gambling skills are decent enough, but the matchup is just...
Passion.
Whatever the field, passion was essential to reach the absolute peak. Gamblers were no exception. Even those who outwardly played it cool and detached, as if they felt nothing at all, still carried an uncommon fire in their hearts once they rose past a certain level.
What was a gambler's place in society, after all? If you asked most people whether wealth and honor followed the profession, they would shake their heads. Plenty of people chose careers that everyone envied or that paid handsomely without needing passion—but gambling was nothing like those. Anyone who stayed in it inevitably had to carry a fire in their chest.
Sajeok was the kind of man who could set that gambling passion ablaze. The higher a gambler climbed, the more zeal he tended to possess, and Sajeok was the sort whose temperament only grew more effective the higher the stakes rose.
The stronger his opponent, the stronger he became—on paper, a troublesome foe. But the matchup was terrible.
Ho Cheon-an turned the question on himself. Did he enjoy gambling? He did, in a way. Five years of living and breathing nothing but the tables had left him with a certain attachment.
Yet if someone asked whether he still had passion for it, he would shake his head left and right.
If they pressed and asked whether he had ever truly burned for it, he would answer that once, long ago, he had.
He had no other answer to give.
I've already reached the summit. What passion is left?
When a man knew full well that he had arrived at the very end of gambling, how could fresh passion still well up? He could still feel amusement and interest, but the fire itself could never be lit again. That man was Ho Cheon-an.
He was Sajeok's absolute counter.
"Again."
While Ho Cheon-an sank into thought and the surrounding gamblers buzzed over how he had read Sajeok's technique in a single glance, Sajeok's eyes flew open and he planted both hands back on the table.
"Don't be stubborn. You've already lost."
"No—this is where it starts! Was there ever a rule that a man only gets one challenge? I've never heard of such a thing!"
Sajeok raised his voice.
"Of course! If anyone else wants to step up, I'll yield my turn!"
The gamblers murmured, yet no one challenged. After seeing Ho Cheon-an's skill, they had already judged their own odds nonexistent.
"Haa."
Ho Cheon-an had no choice but to give a reluctant wave of assent. Sajeok seized the cups again.
"Hyaaaaaaaaaah!!"
His hands blurred in a furious flurry. Heat poured from his entire body as if he were burning the previous defeat for fuel. Even the gamblers who had just watched him topple in an instant found themselves feeling a fresh spark of anticipation at the technique on display.
He's definitely improved.
Sajeok's baseline skill had always been considerable—no, outstanding. Even Ho Cheon-an could not claim to have catalogued every last sleight. Blind spots existed for every human being, and Sajeok's craft danced right along those edges.
But the intent was far too plain.
His ability had risen since the last round, yet the very fire that powered that rise burned hotter still, making his purpose even clearer.
Sajeok's hands stopped mid-shuffle.
The gamblers, who had just witnessed the heightened heat and the still more refined fingerwork, began to think that this time Sajeok might actually take the win. He had shown clear growth over the previous game.
Ho Cheon-an felt their expectations swell and pushed every last of his remaining coins into the pot.
"Right side."
Sajeok's face went rigid. The watching gamblers read the result in that expression alone. Ho Cheon-an tipped the cup. The die sat inside the right-hand one.
Thwack!
The clear, ringing sound of a forehead flick echoed once more. Sajeok twisted his whole body against the pain, then forced himself upright. Ho Cheon-an shook his head at the sight. The light in Sajeok's eyes was burning even hotter.
"Again!"
The outcome never changed. Sajeok blazed more fiercely with every round, yet all he earned was another lump on his forehead.
One word rose unbidden in the minds of every gambler present, and in Heukmyo's and Hyeok Gi-rin's as well.
Absolute.
Sajeok's skill climbed higher with every defeat and his aura burned hotter still, yet Ho Cheon-an never so much as wavered. He simply read each shell game with the serene arrogance of a man who knew that no matter how desperately a creature of the earth thrashed, it would never touch the sky.
The gamblers of Luoyang fell silent. With every successive round Sajeok's presence grew more ferocious, yet no one any longer harbored hope that he might win.
Thwack!
Sajeok challenged again and took another flick to the forehead. He endured the shock that seemed to pierce straight through his skull and grabbed for the cups once more—
"...."
The word "again" simply would not leave his lips. His grip tightened until it looked ready to crush the cups, yet his mouth refused to open. The heat and frustration still seethed inside him, but Sajeok himself already knew.
He would never beat Ho Cheon-an.
His head drooped. The surrounding gamblers wore expressions of pity. Slowly, the hands that had clutched the cups with all their strength loosened and fell away.
So this is where it ends.
Heukmyo felt a deep pang of disappointment. She had come hoping to see Ho Cheon-an's true face, yet all she had witnessed was his absolute dominance at the tables.
Senior Ho on a gambling floor is a pretty ruthless competitor. But... this isn't the side of him I wanted to see.
It seemed no one else in the den would step forward. Even to Heukmyo's eyes, Sajeok had been the representative powerhouse of this house; after watching a man of that caliber get crushed so thoroughly, what gambler would still challenge Ho Cheon-an—
"Then I suppose I may take a turn."
Every gaze swung toward one particular gambler. The others parted to make way, murmuring as they did.
"That man...?"
"Hasn't even been coming here a full week."
"Isn't he the one Sajeok's been playing with lately?"
A spark of interest lit Heukmyo's eyes. Ho Cheon-an's expression turned complicated.
That face-reading technique I got back then... no doubt about it.
Dogwi.
The same Dogwi who had appeared as Yeongsang-ru's troubleshooter during the massive game Ho Cheon-an had staged right after granting Yeo Il-ye her enlightenment now stood on a Luoyang gambling floor.
"It's been a while."
"...So it has."
Ho Cheon-an let out a quiet sigh. Dogwi's presence was completely different from the man he had met at Yeongsang-ru. The growth in only a few short months was almost unbelievable.
Gone was the Dogwi who had been drunk on the pride of being Sichuan's finest, the man who had taken a beating while still half-dazed. In his place stood someone who radiated calm. Looking into those eyes, Ho Cheon-an thought of iron.
A lump of metal forged by heat and hammer.
"I heard the rumors, at least."
"...What rumors?"
"The Seongrak Pavilion affair. The moment I heard them I knew it was you. The special clients of Seongrak Pavilion may be amateurs at gambling, but the professionals they hire are hardly second-rate. In all this wide world, how many men could toy with them the way you did?"
Dogwi drew a cup and a die from his robes and took a seat.
"I inquired after you at once, yet it was as if you had simply evaporated—not a single trace. Disappointed, I sought out the gamblers who had been there and listened to their accounts, only to realize I still had far to go. I wandered from city to city to broaden my horizons and eventually drifted into Luoyang... to meet you here of all places. Truly, the bonds between people are impossible to predict."
Ho Cheon-an felt it instinctively. A dangerous scent rolled off Dogwi.
Just as he himself had been Sajeok's perfect counter, he now sensed the same fatal matchup radiating from Dogwi.
This was not a matter of temperament or disposition.
He's sharpened the blade thoroughly.
Dogwi had trained with single-minded purpose for one goal only: defeating Ho Cheon-an. He must have reconstructed every move Ho Cheon-an had shown at Yeongsang-ru, then layered on the eyewitness accounts of the techniques used at Seongrak Pavilion, and built his countermeasures from there.
A sniper.
A sniper who had analyzed and drilled for nothing but victory over Ho Cheon-an now stood before him.
"I propose a game of dice-calling. As for the stakes—shall we split one hundred fifty-six coins between us?"
Ho Cheon-an gave a wry smile. A reenactment of the final day at Yeongsang-ru? The moment he had finished grinding his gambling proficiency, he had deliberately lost money one last time—putting up one hundred twenty-eight nyang and pretending to take only twenty-eight.
Understanding exactly what those one hundred fifty-six coins meant, Ho Cheon-an nodded. As long as the pot was not insultingly small, the exact amount hardly mattered.
"Will you place the die, or will you take the cup?"
"I'll place the die."
Dice-calling.
A game in which a die is sealed inside a cup, shaken, and both sides bet on what face will appear. Any competent gambler could easily force a desired number once the die was inside the cup—so the right to decide the face belonged to the opponent.
The one who placed the die had to read the shaker's technique and call the number. The one who shook the cup had to read the placer's psychology and manipulate the face.
Betting began with the shaker and continued until both sides agreed.
As the opening ante, one coin from each man went onto the table.
Ho Cheon-an set the die inside the cup. Dogwi gave it a single, economical shake.
Clack.
Ho Cheon-an's eyes twitched. While the surrounding gamblers tried to divine Dogwi's intent, the man himself spoke with perfect calm.
"Six. All six faces."
"Ha."
Ho Cheon-an let out a short laugh. He remembered their first meeting—the endless rounds of high-stakes dice where they had each put up seven gold nyang at a time. He had misjudged Dogwi's skill so badly that every plan for training his instincts had gone up in smoke, and the next morning he had been forced to face Yeo Il-ye.
That same gambler was now baiting him.
Ho Cheon-an laughed aloud.
"Die."
Only then did the watching gamblers, Heukmyo, and Hyeok Gi-rin realize a single, stark fact.
From the moment Ho Cheon-an had entered this den, he had not lost so much as a single coin.
Across six opponents and ten full games he had refused even the slightest blemish. And Dogwi had just put the first scratch on that overwhelming perfection.
Hope kindled in Heukmyo's eyes.
If it's this man...
Perhaps Dogwi could finally draw out the true face of gambler Ho Cheon-an.
Without a flicker of joy, Dogwi calmly raked Ho Cheon-an's coins to his side and set a fresh stake. Ho Cheon-an matched it without the least concern for the other man's demeanor.
They were ordinary motions anyone might see on a gambling floor, yet every spectator held their breath. Even in those simple gestures the two men's auras bled out, and in an instant that aura seized the very air of the den.
Gambling God Ho Cheon-an. And the iron sniper who had prepared himself solely to bring him down—Dogwi.
Their match began.