Mahjong

Poker-Face never did anything for fun.

I had seen many idlers before, but even the weirdest people had one or two activities that interested them. They would spin two walnuts in their hands when they zoned out, or smoke, or shift their feet, or even bite their nails.

Few people did nothing when they had nothing to do, but Poker-face was absolutely inactive.

If you put him in a random place, he would be just like a potted plant. Well, even plants would move and grow, but Poker-Face would maintain the same posture all day and night.

This may also be an after-effect of the amnesia, but Fatty and I thought that life without entertainment wasn’t life.

People had to learn to do fun things first. We knew that Poker-face couldn’t find pleasure doing something fun, but people had an instinct where they would feel happy in an environment where everyone else was happy. Over time, if he knew that playing mahjong could make people happy, then he might also like playing it.

At least, that was our childish idea.

We obviously knew it would be difficult to get Poker-face to play mahjong, but we couldn’t possibly threaten him and say that we would beat him to death if he didn’t play. No one did that anymore. But people always had weaknesses, so there might be a way if we spent some time thinking about it.

Poker-face didn’t have many weaknesses, and he basically listened to no one. He had no respect for the old, didn’t dote on children, didn’t have any obscene thoughts, and didn’t even care about food.

The only thing that could get through to him was bringing up substantive issues that he did care about. But you couldn’t tell him that mahjong had something to do with his past; he wasn’t an idiot after all.

Fatty found a middle ground. We would tell him that Fatty’s mahjong buddy knew something, but in order to please him and get some clues, the three of us would have to play with him. Since the other party was unwilling to play with other people, we had to rely on Little Brother for now.

This reason was far-fetched, but it sounded very convincing once the words were out of Fatty’s mouth. Plus, I was standing next to them and emphasized that we were in Beijing and couldn’t go around torturing and interrogating people until they confessed. We had to follow the other party’s will.

As a result, we taught him how to play mahjong. Poker-face might have been stoic, but that didn’t mean he was stupid. I soon realized he actually knew the basic rules, but had probably never played with anyone before. He could only serve as an associate member, but that was enough for me and Fatty.

We called Jin Wantang, and booked a table in some board game room in Huawei Xili near Panjiayuan.

Although Little Brother was very cooperative, he wasn’t competitive, and he drew the tiles without feeling them. Those who didn’t know him would think he was a mahjong master who didn’t care what tiles he drew and could just go along with whatever he had.

Jin Wantang was a bit confused at first and thought we were plotting against him. Three rounds later, however, he realized that Poker-face was simply a tile-drawing machine, and so he started to relax.

Although we hadn’t played for a long time, Fatty and I were clever and soon got back into the swing of things. We were familiar with controlling and trapping the next player, but Jin Wantang was even better than us. Even after a few rounds, he could calculate which tiles the other three players might have drawn without breaking a sweat.

As a result, Little Brother became the one who would present the other players with opportunities. After five rounds had passed, everyone was basically waiting for him to discard the tiles, so that we could steal them and become the winner.

Jin Wantang became smug after winning a lot and couldn’t keep his mouth shut, “Little Brother, I have an idea what tiles you have, so think carefully. I’m here waiting for you to slip up. If I don’t chase after you, Little Master Three must have something set up as well, so don’t end up letting the two of us get the benefit all at once.”

Fatty got angry. “You don’t get to decide how he wants to play mahjong. Little Brother, do whatever you want. Hit him where it hurts. Show him what you’ve got.”

Poker-face completely ignored them and quickly discarded the tiles like usual.

After playing like this a few times, I felt that the mahjong therapy wasn’t very effective. But Jin Wantang liked playing with us more and more. He won a least three times every round, and I started to wonder whether he was cheating or not.

I slowly started to feel that this mahjong therapy was hopeless, and it might just be better to take Little Brother to a movie. At least he could sleep for two hours that way.

With that thought, we didn’t play as enthusiastically as before. But Little Brother did something during this period of time that stopped us in our tracks.

We were already used to the fact that he didn’t feel the tiles when he drew them, and didn’t even bother stealing someone’s tiles. As a result, when it was time for Poker-face to draw a tile, Fatty tried to use his thumb to feel what the tile might be. It must have been a very good one, because Fatty’s face changed, and he slowly tried to take the tile with a big smile.

It was at this moment that Poker-face grabbed Fatty’s hand and made him put the tile back. Then, Poker-face flipped two tiles face up in the middle and left two other tiles on the ends face down, and used his left hand to draw the tile into his own rack. He frowned, not moving at all.

For the first time in hours, he changed how he drew the tiles, and we were absolutely stunned.

I looked at him nervously. All four of us stared at his tiles without moving a muscle, and after two or three minutes, Fatty asked him, “Did you win?” Poker-Face nodded.

When Fatty flipped Poker-Face’s tiles over, he almost burst into tears. It was as if the little child in your house finally stopped wetting the bed. He shook Poker-Face’s hand emotionally, but Poker-face was staring at Jin Wantang.

I suddenly realized what this meant.

Oh, no! I immediately grabbed Jin Wantang and ran out the door. It was dark as we rushed down three streets to avoid getting killed.

<The First Meeting 1><Table of Contents><Men in the Shower Room>

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Tiffany’s TN Note: The story took place after Poker-face lost his memory. I tweaked some parts about mahjong terms to make it easier for people who don’t play mahjong to understand. I mean… I don’t really play mahjong, either, but I did some research to get the general meaning lol. Some of the mahjong rules can be found here for anybody that cares.

Translated by: Tiffany X
Edited by: merebear226