Chapter 40: Semifinal Victory: Old Zhao Concedes

Volume Two, Chapter Forty: Victory in the Semifinals—Old Zhao Concedes

When the group returned to the card table clutching the dripping Supreme Sequence cards, Old Zhao was crouched by the stone table, rubbing a card—he held a diamond Ace, polished to a gleam at the edges. Seeing them come back, he sprang up with a snap, a half-peeled melon seed dangling from his mouth. “Finally, you’re back! If you’d been any later, I’d have worn these cards down to ‘tiny diamond flakes’!”

The Judge hurriedly pulled the sequence cards from the rulebook, still curled at the edges and stained with some leftover cabbage soup. Holding them up, he announced, “Supreme Sequence cards found! Ah Xiang had boiled them up with some cabbage leaves, but they’re still usable!”

Old Zhao leaned in for a look and chuckled, “Goodness, these cards even smell like cabbage. If I play them, does that count as a ‘fragrant vegetable sequence’?” Ah Xiang, standing behind, blushed and quickly hid the cabbage leaves behind her back. “I’ll be sure to check next time before I throw anything away!”

The match resumed. This time, the Judge was especially careful counting the cards. He placed the abacus squarely in the center of the stone table and, with every bead shifted, looked down three times muttering, “Thirteen hearts, thirteen spades... no mistakes this time. Twenty-eight cards total, no one missing a single one!” He even patted the abacus, wary of any beads slipping.

Old Zhao sat opposite, his cards neatly arranged—red cards on the left, black on the right—matching Ah Xiang’s “vegetable-style” disorder. He glanced at Wang Erma’s crooked hand and raised an eyebrow. “Master Ma, even with four decks you can’t get your cards straight? Want me to help you sort them?”

“No need!” Wang Erma scooped his cards closer. “This is my ‘chaotic shuffle trick’—keeps you guessing what I’ve got!” With that, he threw down a pair of threes. Without a second thought, Old Zhao countered with a pair of tens. Suddenly, Xiao Li recited a poem, “Old Zhao plays pair of tens—surely no Aces in hand!”

Old Zhao’s hand stiffened, nearly dropping the diamond Ace onto the table. “How’d you know I don’t have an Ace?” Xiao Li waved his yellow notebook. “Just a guess. Writing poetry means taking wild guesses—that’s what I learned from Master Ma!” Wang Erma patted Xiao Li’s shoulder. “Not bad, keep it up next time!”

As the game progressed, Old Zhao suddenly played a sequence from three to nine. The stone table trembled with a low hum and rose half an inch—this was the “netherworld effect” of the four-deck sequence: the longer the sequence, the higher the table floated. Wang Erma grabbed the table leg quickly. “Old Zhao, did you make that sequence with ‘skyrocket monkeys’? If it floats any higher, we’ll have to stand to play!”

Old Zhao grinned proudly. “That’s called the ‘Champion’s Sequence.’ Ordinary folks don’t get to touch it!” Just then, Wang Erma slammed the cabbage-scented Supreme Sequence card on the table with a snap. “This card beats any sequence—it counts!”

A thick white mist swirled around the table, the ghostly flower pattern on the Supreme Sequence faintly glowing. Old Zhao glared at the card, then at Wang Erma. “Your card’s all soft and soggy from boiling. Does it even count?”

The Judge pushed up his triple-lensed reading glasses. “It counts! The rules don’t say ‘boiled sequence cards are invalid’!”

Old Zhao was at a loss and reached for his cards. Just as he was about to play a pair of Kings, Old Zhou shouted, “Wait! I’m playing a pair of Aces!” He placed two neatly aligned Aces on the table—leftover from the bomb he’d just dismantled. Last time, dismantling six won him the game. This time, he’d learned his lesson and dared to play after breaking his bomb.

“Hey, Old Zhou’s daring to dismantle cards now?” Old Zhao froze, the pair of Kings held midair. “Last time you broke four twos into singles and got called a ‘breaker’ by Master Ma!”

Old Zhou blushed and stiffened his neck. “This is called ‘flexible play,’ taught by Master Ma!”

Seizing the moment, Wang Erma guessed wildly, “Old Zhao, you must have the diamond three! Last time you played a diamond as a club—bet you haven’t fixed that yet!” Old Zhao’s heart skipped—the diamond three was indeed clenched in his hand. He’d mixed it up with the club three during counting. Caught by Wang Erma’s guess, his hand trembled and the diamond three fell to the floor with a “plop.”

“Got it!” Wang Erma slapped the table, laughing. Xiao Bai hurried over to pick up the card and returned it, commenting, “Master Zhao, your cards are like a tangled ball this time—always dropping something!”

In the following rounds, Xiao Li’s poems flowed one after another. “Old Zhao plays a single—surely no bombs!” “Spade King just played, Heart King’s with Master Ma!” Old Zhao was vexed by the constant recitation and threw away a worthless card. Wang Erma immediately countered with a bomb of four eights. The stone table thudded and shook, floating even higher.

“Nice explosion!” Old Zhou jumped up, spilling a few melon seed shells from his blue bag. “That’s called ‘setting off firecrackers at New Year,’ Master Ma says so!”

In the final hand, Old Zhao held a joker and a sequence from five to ten. Just as he was about to play the sequence, Wang Erma suddenly shouted, “Old Zhou, bomb!” Old Zhou pulled out four nines, hesitated briefly, then threw down the bomb—his first proactive bomb play. His hand trembled, but after throwing it, he watched Old Zhao’s sequence get trumped and his face lit up with a broad smile.

Old Zhao was left with only the joker, no cards to play. He conceded, tossing the joker on the table. “I admit it, I’m beaten!” He walked over to Wang Erma and patted his shoulder. “Old man, your ‘wild guessing plus teammate cheering’ strategy beats my ‘memorizing cards until my head hurts’ any day! I couldn’t even keep track of four decks, and with Xiao Li’s poems distracting me, this loss is well deserved!”

Wang Erma chuckled. “That’s right. Our ‘Master Ma team’ has secret weapons—Old Zhou’s ‘bomb dismantling technique,’ Xiao Li’s ‘poetry interference,’ and Meng Po’s ‘sweet soup refreshment’!”

Meng Po approached carrying freshly brewed sweet soup, handing a bowl to each player. “Win the match, drink some sweet soup—let’s celebrate!”

Old Zhou held his bowl, eyes still on Old Zhao’s cards. “Master Zhao, can you give me those leftover cards? I’ll keep them as chips—they’re softer than melon seed shells!”

Old Zhao laughed. “Take them, take them. Next game, win them back!”

Xiao Li pulled out his yellow notebook and scribbled rapidly. Soon he recited, “Master Ma’s team has much fun—Old Zhou’s bold bomb dismantling, Xiao Li’s poems to confuse foes, beating Old Zhao with laughter and glee!” He held the notebook high, drawing laughter from everyone.

The Judge packed away the abacus and suddenly remembered something, looking up to announce, “Right! Having won the semifinals, our next opponent in the finals is the King of Hell’s team! Their group is called the ‘Great King Team.’ I hear the King of Hell even tattooed a card strategy on his arm to win!”

Upon hearing “King of Hell,” Wang Erma nearly spilled his sweet soup. “Good grief, the finals are against the ‘Card Game Overlord’? We better have Old Zhou save up plenty of melon seed shells to cushion our chips!”

Old Zhou quickly counted the shells in his blue bag again, grinning ear to ear. “Don’t worry, Master Ma, I’ve got enough shells to cushion chips three times over! Next win, maybe the King of Hell will send us some seeds too!”

The sweet soup on the stone table steamed gently. The Supreme Sequence cards were carefully slid back into the rulebook, the cabbage soup stains drying slowly, releasing a faint aroma. The group gathered around the table, laughing and chatting, the air tinged with the scent of melon seeds and sweet soup—victorious in the semifinals, now gearing up for the finals against the King of Hell. This underworld card game was becoming ever more intriguing.