An Old Grudge
Thwack!
Two bamboo dice cups crashed roughly onto the floor.
The gambler from the Mangeum Money House stared at me, cold sweat beading on his brow, his eyes stretched tight with tension. Five straight wins had long since drained every last scrap of his composure.
"…Which cup would you like to open?"
"Mine."
Here at the Mangeum Money House, one side opened their cup first, and only then did the bets go down.
The gambler lifted my cup to reveal three dice lined up: six, five, five. If I'd walked in cold, it was a high enough roll to throw serious money on. Not a chance.
A red palm slid soundlessly over the opponent's covered cup and flashed a signal back to me.
Six… six… five…
A single pip of difference. His total sat exactly one higher than mine. In other words, the house had staged the board to reel me in. Like planting a nine-pair in my hand at seotda just to fatten the pot, then sweeping everything with their own ten-pair. Seasoned operators of the Mangeum Money House, through and through.
"Mujin, your numbers came out great. Why aren't you betting?"
Jo Harang whispered beside me, eyes sparkling. The rare roll had clearly set her impatience alight. I'd dragged her here under a skin-mask face and told her to play the shill, and she was being next to useless. This girl could never be allowed near a gambling table—not even later. She'd come home stripped clean, just like that sucker from the Paeng family.
"I'll pass on this round."
I grinned and declined to put money down, folding the hand instead.
"Nngh."
As if he could see straight into the cups, the gambler clenched his jaw in pure frustration.
"What's the matter? Why don't you open yours as well?"
With a reluctant flick of his wrist, he uncovered his own dice for everyone to see. The onlookers burst into murmurs of awe.
"Good heavens—one pip off?"
"If he'd gone in, he'd have been finished!"
"That fellow's self-control is something else."
A crowd had already gathered like a cloud, hanging on every beat of our contest. Watching a Mangeum Money House gambler get cleaned out was a rare spectacle. And with the stakes swollen large on money borrowed from Eun Hwaran, of course every idle soul had pressed in to watch.
"All right. Shake the cups again."
"…Hmm."
The man in front of me groaned under his breath, sizing me up, as if the last exchange had convinced him I was some kind of cardsharp. From here on it wasn't luck—it was pure technique against technique. Under the crowd's jeers and pressure to start the next hand already, he grudgingly began to rattle the cups once more.
Clack-clack-clack.
The dice tumbled inside the bamboo. But nerves got the better of him; one of the dice in his cup spun an extra turn. What should have been a six became a one.
"Hah—!"
He slammed the cup down too late and stared at it in horror. Damage control was already impossible. He shot me a desperate look that begged me not to notice—but I'd already caught it with ghostly precision. Well. Something rather like a ghost was stuck to me, after all.
That bastard… he slipped up.
This dice game worked like blackjack: you played the house, not the other guests. One-on-one with the dealer. And the professional gambler the Mangeum Money House had put forward was sweating rivers.
"I'm putting everything I've got on this."
An all-in declaration that smashed his last hope that I might let it slide. I shoved the piled silver and gold coins forward with both hands. Gasps erupted from the gallery; the color drained clean out of the gambler's face.
"W-wait a moment!"
"Wait for what? The dice have already been thrown."
Once the cups hit the table, the rules forbade refusing the contest. That rule, plus the half-and-half illusion of the odds, was exactly why so many people tried their luck and got broken on this dice game. But today was different. Let their technicians work their sleight of hand a hundred times over. No matter how miraculous their shake, it meant nothing in front of Salsung. Seeing straight through the cups—now that was real, blue-ribbon cheat gambling.
Heh heh.
Heh… heh.
The two of us looked at the ashen gambler and couldn't help laughing together. At first he'd sneered, thinking I was some clueless young master; now his face was nothing but raw panic.
"Hey, what's with the 'wait'?! The cup's already on the floor!"
"Then open it! That's the rule, isn't it?"
"What, you know what's inside or something? What's the deal?!"
Anyone who haunted the gambling dens had been fleeced by a Mangeum Money House technician at least once. So among the packed crowd, not a single soul took the house man's side. Instead they raised their voices, demanding he open the damn cup already.
"Kh…!"
In the end the gambler had no choice but to lift his cup with trembling hands. And there, before every watching eye, the verdict stood revealed.
Six, one. Against six, five, four, five.
His final slip had been fatal. I won by a single pip.
"Woooo!"
"He actually did it! He beat that house gambler!"
"How long has it been since we saw something like this?!"
The gambling floor erupted. Cheers and chaos rolled through the crowd. Every one of them had lost a fortune here at least once—addicts who came back night after night knowing they'd lose again. All that bottled resentment came pouring out with my victory.
"Boss! Does this mean we're rich?"
"Is it true? Are we eating meat dumplings every day now?"
My office staff, who were supposed to be working the crowd as shills, were just as excited as the rest of the gallery, bouncing around with nowhere to put their thrills. Watching alone was enough to dump dopamine by the bucket. Once again I was certain: those two must never, ever gamble.
"Bring the money already, you Mangeum Money House bastards!"
"Yeah! Your vaults are overflowing with gold!"
People were bellowing at the top of their lungs, using me as a spearhead to vent every grudge the house had earned them.
"You—you! What kind of fraud is this?! How could you see right through the cups as if—!"
Reeling from defeat, the gambler surged to his feet, seized me by the collar, and launched into full-blown denial.
"Got any proof?"
That was the cry every loser who'd ever walked out of this place empty-handed had always screamed. And every time, the Mangeum Money House had laughed in their faces and thrown them out. Now it was their own gambler screaming the word.
The onlookers wore thoroughly satisfied smirks.
"I—I don't have proof, but clearly the inside of the cup—"
"Hey! Accusing a man of cheating with no proof?"
"This gambling house is completely rotten!"
"So when we take your money, suddenly we're all cheats, is that it?"
Sharp shouts flew in from every direction; the gambler could only stammer and flounder. Even the vault-keeper charged with paying out after a match looked from one of us to the other in pure confusion. When he dithered instead of producing the money, the surrounding gamblers crashed over him like an angry tide. At last, unable to withstand the pressure, he had no choice but to drop double the amount in front of me with a heavy thud.
Thoom.
"Whoa…"
The gold and silver heaped before my eyes cast a soft glow, like a little hill of precious metal. A sound of pure satisfaction slipped out of me on its own.
Gulp.
Envious stares poured in from every side. The moment people saw the cash, even those who'd backed me felt their eyes shift. Pure cheering vanished; now they were shooting looks thick with jealousy and spite.
Yes… this is it…
A clear malice and sticky greed seemed to whip through the gambling house. Salsung, who apparently found this ugly little gallery of human nature delightful, gave a little shudder of laughter with her hand. The fact that it made her happy only soured my mood further.
"Don't worry, everyone. You don't really think I'd swallow the whole pile alone, do you?"
It was money I'd cheated off bad men through a rigged game anyway. And the whole point of today's visit was the collapse of this gambling house. So I announced I'd only take half my winnings and started peeling off little shares for the people around me. When I added that food and drink were on me as well, broad grins bloomed across every face.
"Hahaha! That young man knows how things work!"
"Plenty of decency left in the youth these days!"
"A character like that deserves to win big. Absolutely!"
The floor's public opinion swung solidly to my side. The house gambler was still trying to paint me as a cheat, muttering that something was wrong—but no one was listening anymore. Instead they shut him down hard and closed ranks around me.
Meanwhile Salsung, annoyed that I was giving things away again, started throwing a tantrum. Why wasn't I showing more greed, she meant.
"Boss, can I get a cut too?"
"Mujin, I've been a little short lately myself."
"Get a grip, you two."
Did they honestly think we'd come here to gamble? We were here with a job to do. They really did get swept up in the mood far too easily.
"Stop right there—!"
Suddenly a commotion rose from farther off, followed by a shout. Mangeum Money House martial artists and a middle-aged man with a distinctive pointed goatee came thundering over, startled by the uproar. Alarmed by the clear fact that a considerable sum had already changed hands, the goateed man hastily shoved himself between me and the gambler.
"Hmm…?"
Something about the face looked familiar. I narrowed my eyes. A faint memory of the past surfaced.
"Ah!"
It was that vicious merchant who'd taught me, on my very first day in Beijing, just how merciless the Central Plains could be. The one I'd headbutted like a startled deer after awakening, pretended to be his son, and shaken down for money.
"That's Manager Bang, isn't it?"
"What's a man like him doing here…?"
From the whispers around me, he wasn't some ordinary merchant at all—he was the overseer of this very establishment. His name was Bang So-byeok.
"Who the hell are you? What is the meaning of this disturbance?!"
But even standing right in front of me, he showed no sign of recognition. Back then I'd been a greasy, unkempt brat with hair hanging in my eyes; now I was a clean-cut young man with a hero's headband tied neat. Fair enough.
"You're Manager Bang, the one in charge of this gambling house?"
I thought I finally understood why fate had steered me here. A man of his rank, and still he'd gone out of his way to torment worthless beggars out of pure malice. This bastard was a special kind of vicious.
"Yes, I am Manager Bang. And just who are you?"
"Just a idle young master passing through."
I kept up the rich-young-master act and gave a little shrug of my shoulders.
"Hmph. Not likely. I heard our gambler crying fraud. Confess what tricks you used! Or else—"
When this man got angry, the tip of his goatee always started trembling like that. Before he'd even finished speaking, the house martial artists closed in with ugly looks on their faces. The surrounding gamblers exploded as one.
"You sons of bitches! So whenever we win, it's all a scam?!"
"When other people screamed fraud at your dice games, you just laughed in their faces!"
"So when we walk off with the money it's 'what makes you think that's yours,' is that it?!"
Spreading those little kickbacks had clearly paid off. The people who'd taken my money and my free food and drink were loyally tearing into him. One after another they piled on, venting everything they'd been holding back. Boos and catcalls—"Booo!"—rolled through the room.
"Silence! Who ever said we wouldn't pay?!"
The people gathered in this gambling house still had a certain amount of wealth or skill at the tables. If they started spreading word on every street that the Mangeum Money House robbed winners of their money, the house's honor and trust would hit the dirt. Knowing that, Manager Bang ground his teeth and shouted on.
"You'll get your money! But that man's conduct is suspicious—that much is fact! Therefore, to determine clearly whether fraud was involved, he will have to sit a few more hands before he leaves."
He jabbed a finger straight at me, eyes blazing. The look said he would dig out my cheating one way or another. The ones who'd run the con first were the ones throwing the fit—it was almost funny.
"I've got nothing to hide, so I'm fine either way. But are you sure you're all right? Your gambler's luck seemed… rather poor."
I hadn't used any sleight of hand at all, so there was nothing to catch. And as long as Salsung was with me, they weren't winning my money back either.
"Insolent pup… You needn't worry about that. I've brought a new gambler."
From behind Manager Bang, a figure who had been standing with his head bowed stepped into view. A dark, sallow complexion; eyes sunken like a ghost's; and a glinting, sinister light in them.
"D-Dogui! It's the Gambling Ghost!"
"What's he doing on the Mangeum Money House side…?"
Shocked murmurs rippled through the crowd. Clearly a known name in these circles. He gave me a thin, crooked smile, then gestured to the martial artists around him.
"Boys. Time to start gettin' the chopping block ready."
The house rule, he meant: anyone caught running a cheat here lost a hand at the wrist. Between the two of us, a brutal cutting tool began to make its way into the space.