Monopolizing Fortunes (42)
Monopolizing Fortunes (42)
Until yesterday, it had stirred nothing in her, but today her heart was strangely racing. The smooth skin running from his shoulders down his back to his waist was unusually hard for her to look at.
Fortunately, Do Tong-dal could untie the knot on his trousers himself. After hanging the clothes on the bathroom wall, Namgung Seol-rin stood there, restless as could be.
'Should I offer to wash him? What would he say? He'd ask if I've lost my mind, wouldn't he?'
The imagined questions chased one another until she finally reached the conclusion, 'He'll say he'll kill me.'
"Why aren't you leaving?"
"Huh? I... I'm going."
Namgung Seol-rin escaped(?) from the bathroom where she felt like her breath would stop. Her heart pounded as if it would burst through her chest, and her face burned as if she'd had boiling water dumped over it.
"That madam had to go running her mouth. Get a hold of yourself!"
She slapped her own cheeks with both hands, though she hadn't meant to hit herself that hard.
"Agh!"
"What are you doing out there?"
Startled, Namgung Seol-rin fled in a flurry.
* * *
The Hwaryeong gambling house boasted a scale that ranked among the finest even in Hangzhou. The first and second floors together held eighty-two gambling tables, and the money moving through the place in a single day reached three hundred silver nyang.
The Hwaryeong gambling house's main income came from table fees and usury. They charged a fixed amount per shichen, and the loans were extremely short-term.
These were commonly called "sunrise loans," a name that came from the fact that even if you borrowed money at night or before dawn, you had to repay it once the sun rose.
The players employed by the Hwaryeong gambling house actually had almost nothing to do. The house gamblers were naturally highly skilled, and no gambler wanted to go up against a skilled house player on purpose.
Dong Cho-il, a player at the Hwaryeong gambling house, was one such gambler. His main work was giving advice and consolation to people who had lost money.
Then a man named Gwak Gae-dong came looking for him.
"Let's have a light round."
It never stayed light. The first stake of one nyang had become a hundred nyang by the time dawn broke, and all the money on the table was money Dong Cho-il had lost.
Gwak Gae-dong came five days in a row, and Dong Cho-il did not beat him even once. Over those five days, the money Dong Cho-il lost alone reached a thousand silver nyang.
In the end, four of Dong Cho-il's fingers were cut off. On the fifth and final day, he had promised to cut off his fingers if he lost, so there had been no way around it.
When the gambling house doors opened, the smell of tobacco rushed out. Inside the hazy room, people sat in groups of three and five, absorbed in their gambling.
Most games used bone tiles or cards. Everyone was so absorbed in gambling that no one so much as glanced at Do Tong-dal and Namgung Seol-rin.
Do Tong-dal passed by the gambling tables and studied people's faces. Even without looking at the money in front of them, he could tell at once whether they were winning or losing.
Do Tong-dal stopped walking and fixed his gaze on a gambling table about one jang away. Four people were playing cards there.
Two of them were locked in a showdown, and promissory notes were piled high on the table. By rough estimate it was about five silver nyang—an enormous pot for the first floor.
Do Tong-dal looked at the two men, each holding five cards. For the money to pile up like that, both of them had to be holding fairly strong hands.
But the strongest hand was always a pair of tens—double tens. Any other hand carried the risk of losing at any moment.
'The one on the left has won.'
Neither man's face showed any expression, but the index finger of the man on the right was twitching busily on his knee. It meant he was growing anxious.
Holding a hand that could lose, he could never beat the utterly confident man on the left.
The two men's hands were turned over. You made 10, or 20 or 30, with the sum of three cards, then decided the match with the remaining two.
That card game was called Five-Card Showdown, and it was the most widely played form of gambling.
Do Tong-dal's prediction was not wrong. The man carrying a trace of unease had a pair of nines, and the man certain of victory had double tens.
'Easy to read.'
Do Tong-dal's steps moved to the second floor. It seemed that if he switched to being a gambler at this opportunity, making a stake would be no problem.
As he entered the second floor, a man came scurrying over and bowed deeply.
"I greet the Coordinator."
It was Seo Chil-yong, branch chief of the Hwaryeong branch. There was originally a separate person in charge of the gambling house, but because it was an emergency, Seo Chil-yong had come out.
"He hasn't come yet?"
"No. He'll probably come in about two ke."
Gwak Gae-dong's arrival time was always exact.
"Then I'll watch for a while here."
Do Tong-dal took a seat where all thirty-five gambling tables were visible at a glance.
The clatter of shuffled bone tiles, the snap of cards being drawn, people's chatter, and raised voices filled the room.
In his past life, there had been a time when Do Tong-dal had been one of those people. After losing his entire fortune and receiving five coins as a handout, he had quit gambling.
He saw Jang Baek-dong hurrying up to the second floor.
"Coordinator, I've found out who Gwak Gae-dong is."
"Who is he?"
"He's from the Black Dragon Society. He was originally famous in Wuchang, Hubei Province, but he got into trouble with the underworld there and drifted all the way here."
Underworld groups originally poked at each other like this. It was a kind of testing the waters—a business with nothing to lose, since they could simply make money and, if an opening appeared, seize territory as well.
"By the way, Coordinator, do you know how to gamble?"
"Is there a thug who can't gamble?"
"Yes."
Jang Baek-dong, who had answered, pointed at himself. Well, it hadn't been long since he'd become a thug, so that was possible.
"Then don't ever start. Gambling is nothing but harmful in every way."
It was not something to say inside a gambling house.
"He's here."
Seo Chil-yong pointed at a man in his mid-forties coming up to the second floor. Do Tong-dal went to an empty gambling table against the wall.
"Bring him over."
After taking his seat at the gambling table, Do Tong-dal had Namgung Seol-rin sit beside him.
A moment later, Seo Chil-yong brought Gwak Gae-dong over. Gwak Gae-dong wore a good-natured smile at the corner of his mouth like a habit. There was nothing better than a smile for hiding oneself.
"So you're the one who'll be facing me today?"
Do Tong-dal showed a smile as well.
"I don't know if I'll be much of an opponent."
"Gambling is luck, after all."
"Before we begin, there's one thing I'd like to ask your understanding for. As you can see, my arm is in this condition, so I'll have to borrow someone else's hands."
Gwak Gae-dong's gaze came to rest on Namgung Seol-rin.
"A masked person, I see."
"There are circumstances."
"What does it matter? As long as the money's put up."
"We'll play Five-Card Showdown, right?"
"Let's use the forty-card deck."
"How about starting at a hundred nyang?"
"The more, the better, as they say."
When he put out silver, the gambling house exchanged it for one-nyang and ten-nyang promissory notes. Notes were more convenient for wagering.
"The limit?"
Gwak Gae-dong asked.
"Let's start at one nyang, with no upper limit."
"I like it."
The dealer who dealt the cards was normally rotated among the gamblers, but for a big game like this, the gambling house supplied one.
The dealer was called a 'taffy-puller' because dealing the cards resembled pulling taffy, which was how the name arose.
The dealer deftly shuffled the cards, each about a handspan long and as thick as a thumb. Made from oiled paper, the cards did not slip out easily, making this one of the harder games for bottom-dealing.
Each of them placed one nyang on the table and waited for the cards to be dealt. People facing each other for the first time used this time to probe one another.
Five cards were placed in front of Namgung Seol-rin. Even as Gwak Gae-dong picked up his cards to look at them, Namgung Seol-rin sat there blankly.
"What are you doing?"
"What am I supposed to do?"
"Pick up the five cards and show them to me. Only me."
Namgung Seol-rin's movements as she showed the cards could only be clumsy. You had to make 10, 20, or 30 with the five cards, but there were often cases where it couldn't be done.
That was called a bust, and it counted as the lowest hand. Do Tong-dal's first hand was a bust.
"Put in two nyang."
At Do Tong-dal's words, Namgung Seol-rin turned the cards face down and placed two nyang on the table. Since she didn't know the rules, she had no way of knowing whether the hand she'd just received was good or bad.
"Let's see it, then."
Gwak Gae-dong, who had taken the two nyang, revealed his cards. He had a made hand with two points. Since he had made the required set, it was worth calling. It was an ordinary hand.
The match did not end easily. As expected, Gwak Gae-dong's expression was hard to read. The hardest type to read was probably gamblers at the level of a house player or above.
They paid attention to everything from the smallest furrow of the brow to the twitch of a single toe. If it became a habit, it created a fatal weakness.
Conversely, they sometimes showed things on purpose. When I make this face, when I move my finger, when I shake my leg—that means a bad hand.
After imprinting that, they would use it in reverse at the decisive moment.
So he had to grasp those things too. Gwak Gae-dong corresponded to the thirty-fourth of the thirty-six human types in the Mind-Reading Art.
It was not only a rare type but one whose mind was hard to read. But once it had been classified, all he had to do was find it.
'Where is it that his mind reveals itself?'
"Ten nyang."
"Fold."
The exchange was tedious. Over two shichen, Do Tong-dal had won only fifteen nyang.
"Let's rest a bit."
Do Tong-dal nodded at Gwak Gae-dong's suggestion. He himself was fine, but Namgung Seol-rin was yawning behind her mask. Her bedtime had already passed.
"If you're tired, go in first."
"No. I can stay up for two or three days."
While they were drinking tea, Seo Chil-yong came scurrying over.
"You really are remarkable. To be evenly matched with Gwak Gae-dong."
Gambling was originally a game that leaned on luck, but in truth, skill was seven-tenths of it.
"There were several chances, but strangely he wouldn't take the bait."
That was true. There had been times when Do Tong-dal had a pair of sevens and Gwak Gae-dong a pair of fives, and when Do Tong-dal had double tens while Gwak Gae-dong had a pair of eights.
Hands that should have burned at least fifty or sixty nyang never exceeded twenty. Even with luck following him like that, his failure to clean Gwak Gae-dong out meant the problem lay with Do Tong-dal.
'I kept my own expression well under control.'
The foundation of the Mind-Reading Art was not revealing oneself.
'My Arm doesn't even know the rules, and she's wearing a mask besides.......'
Having thought that far, Do Tong-dal asked Namgung Seol-rin.
"Do you know the rules?"
"I figured them out after watching a few rounds. I can tell good hands from bad ones, too."
Do Tong-dal stared into Namgung Seol-rin's eyes. Under his sudden gaze, Namgung Seol-rin's pupils wavered, and then she turned her head away.
'So that's it. He was reading My Arm's eyes.'
The simplest method was not to seat Namgung Seol-rin. But she was also a valuable resource for feeding Gwak Gae-dong false information.
"When I step on your foot, think about the day I was dragged off to the Namgung Clan."
"What?"
That day was the most horrible day in Namgung Seol-rin's entire life.
"Yes. That look in your eyes."
"What do you mean...?"
Gwak Gae-dong returned to his seat. Do Tong-dal, sitting across from him, asked.
"Isn't this a little dull?"
"It is, rather."
"There's nothing more boring than gambling without tension."
"At a gambling table, nothing raises tension like money."
Gwak Gae-dong brought up what Do Tong-dal had wanted to say first. Gwak Gae-dong asked, "Shall we double it?"
"Would doubling be enough? It should be ten times."
The stake rose to a thousand nyang per person, and the base amount became ten silver nyang. In the Central Plains, gambling games this large could be counted on one hand.
"That's big."
"Then just play as you were."
"The money I brought today isn't quite that much."
"Isn't the advantage of a gambling house that the money never runs dry?"
"Would they trust me enough to lend to me?"
"Ask them."
Do Tong-dal called Seo Chil-yong over. Since he had already spoken to Seo Chil-yong beforehand, a thousand nyang in promissory notes were stacked in front of Gwak Gae-dong.
Once the money was actually in sight, tension flickered across Gwak Gae-dong's face. He was not so oblivious that he failed to realize Do Tong-dal was deliberately raising the stakes.
'Interesting.'
He had never lost at gambling until now. He had even cleaned out gamblers who used tricks.
Gwak Gae-dong grinned.
"A gambling house with a great deal of trust, I see."
He had a signpost that told him Do Tong-dal's cards. As long as that signpost existed, he could never lose.
* * *