FRAGMENT 47
An Opponent Without Humanity
Fragment: The Crisp Clatter of Chips | The Radetzky March | Echoes Through the Casino
Time & Location: Spring 2000 · A Casino in Macau
The rhythm produced by each card sliding from the dealer's redwood shoe was almost identical.
At least one thing was certain.
The house was not cheating.
The casino's soundscape was not truly chaotic.
It was simply a place where high frequencies continuously generated physical depletion.
I heard none of the evil described in countless legends.
The crisp clicking of chips in Gao Yong's hands was hardly a symphony of joy.
Yet it revealed something else.
His ability to endure repeated fractures of faith.
Each time a chip slid across the felt, the tiny friction carried away a fragment of hope.
A fragment of expectation.
A fragment of life.
Yet Gao Yong remained astonishingly composed.
Gone was the false bravado of his qigong demonstrations.
Gone was the swagger he displayed while extorting money in Bamboo Garden.
As the dealer mechanically harvested chip after chip, he looked nothing like a farmer pounding his chest in despair.
He looked like a government official inspecting a wheat field.
Less than ten minutes later, all sixteen of his chips were gone.
Two worth two thousand.
Twelve worth five thousand.
Sixty-four thousand Hong Kong dollars in total.
I walked away.
Eventually I found the slot machines.
I selected one decorated with a five-colored dragon and sat down.
After a patient lesson from an attendant, I began feeding banknotes into the glowing green mouth.
"Wow, Boss."
"Starting with a Yellow Dragon."
In Macau gambling slang, a Yellow Dragon meant a one-thousand-dollar Hong Kong note.
The synthetic sounds of the slot machine continuously stimulated dopamine.
Continuously invited temptation.
Inside the probabilities designed by casino mathematicians, my fingers became part of the machine.
One Yellow Dragon after another disappeared into the slot.
I accompanied the machine's melody like a clumsy musician.
The extravagantly decorated machine possessed no heartbeat.
No weakness.
No shame.
Only probability.
Everything I heard had been programmed in advance.
I triggered thirty-seven Free Spins.
Occasionally, *The Toreador March* announced a small victory.
But the rewards remained modest.
Then another bonus round arrived.
I closed my eyes.
Among seven dragons—
White.
Red.
Black.
Purple.
Blue.
Yellow.
Green.
My finger landed on the Black Dragon.
Jackpot.
Instantly, the stereo speakers on both sides of the machine erupted with The Radetzky March.
Electronic fireworks exploded across the display.
A grand synthetic soundscape filled the room.
At that moment, everyone nearby turned their heads.
That spin won me twenty thousand Hong Kong dollars.
In the end, however, one hour and forty minutes later—
Along with fifty entire Yellow Dragons—
Everything had been swallowed by the machine.
My fingers cramped slightly.
Not because I had lost an average of three hundred fifty-seven Hong Kong dollars every minute.
Simply because of the repetitive motion.
I decided to stop.
The slot machines continued singing.
I felt calmer and calmer.
I had lost some money.
Nothing more.
In return, I had gained certainty.
Human intelligence and human endurance have no final victory against mathematical probability.
A gentle tap landed on my shoulder.
I turned.
“Sister Yanan?"
"What are you doing here?"
"Hahaha."
"Do you really think Director Gao would leave me behind?”
For the first time, I experienced the subtle art of a colonel speaking between the lines.
Yet I felt neither embarrassed nor compelled to explain.
I never enjoyed explanations.
Instead, I changed the subject.
Taking out ten thousand Hong Kong dollars, I handed it to her.
"Come on."
"Let's play the slots together."
FRAGMENT 48
A Snake with a Beautiful Human Face
Fragment: A Masseuse's Gut Flora at War | The Dull Braking Sound of Finger Joints
Time & Location: Spring 2000 · Hotel Lisboa Casino, Macau
Without noticing, an entire hour had slipped away.
"Little brother, are you feeling all right?"
"I feel great."
I stared at the slot machine screen without blinking.
Her hand touched my forehead.
"Oh?"
"No fever."
"Then why is your face so red?"
"And your eyes too?"
She was right.
My head felt light.
A red haze filled my vision.
The spinning sounds of the slot machines grew louder and louder.
Had Xu Yanan not been beside me, I might already have charged straight into the sauna.
"I'm fine."
"Don't worry."
"Shouldn't we go check on Director Gao?"
We returned to the VIP room.
Gao Yong was shouting at the gaming table.
His thick black hair seemed to stand upright.
Producing tiny hissing sounds.
As though it were burning.
His face had turned dark red.
The color reminded me of blood on the feathers of that crow he had once killed.
His short neck had become as red as the lacquered pillars in Bamboo Garden.
The tremor in his fingertips was so intense that a fly could never have landed there securely.
Then he turned and saw Xu Yanan.
The darkness vanished from his face.
Only redness remained.
"What are you doing here?"
The question confused me.
"I have work to do."
She scanned the room casually.
Offering an answer without offering one.
Gao Yong grabbed my arm.
I reacted immediately.
"Sister Yanan."
"Why don't we take a hot bath?"
"You stay and play."
What came to mind were the public bathhouses that once filled Beijing.
Huge pools packed with old men and young men alike, all of them completely naked, soaking shoulder to shoulder in steaming water.
Macau's saunas belonged to an entirely different universe.
After settling Gao Yong, I was led away by a middle-aged woman whose face overflowed with hospitality.
To a room far removed from the others.
The lighting was flesh-colored.
Tinted with violet.
A slow-moving fixture rotated overhead.
Exhaling pink-purple mist with a soft hiss.
Quiet.
Humid.
The entire room felt like a nursery for infrasound.
Steam wandered through the space.
Filtering away everything that had once dominated my life.
Lies.
Disguises.
Power.
Money.
The logic of high frequencies.
The calculations of low frequencies.
Only relaxation remained.
And the unfamiliar touch of a woman.
I found myself thinking of my wife.
If she had known even a little of a masseuse's techniques—
The rhythm of breathing.
The language of touch.
Perhaps I would not have strayed so often.
Perhaps we might have preserved a love story worth remembering.
A snake with a beautiful human face settled against my chest.
No barriers.
No disguises.
Only the warmth of living flesh.
Soft lips began at my neck.
Slowly descending.
Then something reached my ears.
A violent conflict.
Not between people.
But within her.
The microscopic war of her gut flora.
The sound struck me like lightning.
My body convulsed.
I could not stop it.
What arrived was not ecstasy.
It was terror unlike anything I had ever experienced.
In a single motion, I sprang away.
My body bare.
My mind racing.
The room suddenly felt colder than before.
FRAGMENT 49
Dollars Make No Sound
Fragment: Hearing the War Inside a Masseuse's Gut | The Dull Braking Sound of Finger Joints
Time & Location: Spring 2000 · Hotel Lisboa Casino, Macau
After sending the masseuse away, the room grew dim.
A red mist drifted quietly across my vision.
I sat cross-legged on the carpet.
Hands pressed together.
Trying to calm myself.
The muscles in my thighs ached.
Eventually I moved closer to the wall.
Squatting there.
The same way I had once waited beneath trees for crows.
Gradually, silence returned.
What a joke.
I hated myself.
At that moment, the only person I wanted to see was Xu Yanan.
Not in bed.
Not in a sauna.
Across a different kind of board.
In a higher game.
One by one, sounds emerged from the surrounding rooms.
Shouting.
Moaning.
Whimpering.
Somewhere, a man was even crying.
Only one sound remained unchanged.
A cold laugh.
"Heh-heh."
Gao Yong.
I found myself almost admiring that composure.
Then the black cloth covering the White Crow's head suddenly fell away.
Once again, it had encountered an enemy it could never forget.
The black crow whose skull had been shattered by his slingshot.
The white crow that later chose death.
The white crow reborn as a human being, endlessly rubbed raw by the sounds of an age.
White light flooded my vision.
My hands clawed at empty air.
No sunglasses.
My eardrums felt as though they had been forced open.
Heat poured through them.
I wanted to bite him.
Tear him apart.
Crush him between my teeth.
My molars ground together.
Crack.
Crack.
But human hands have different priorities.
They reached for the wall.
Trying not to fall.
Two glowing figures moved toward me.
Gao Yong.
And a woman.
Their laughter drifted through the hallway.
A Macau sauna had polished his voice.
Made it smoother.
Crueler.
My fingers touched the thick stack of Hong Kong dollars in my pocket.
Within seconds, the white light retreated.
The ringing in my ears unraveled thread by thread.
The next day, Gao Yong disappeared.
For an entire day.
His footsteps left traces in several different banks.
That evening he returned to the casino.
Played for a while.
Then spread his hands.
"Lost everything."
"Hahaha."
Silence.
The entire room seemed muted.
As though someone had pressed a button.
I found it strange.
He had told me he was carrying plenty of cash.
At dinner, however, Gao Yong looked radiant.
His appetite was excellent.
After the meal, he wiped the grease from his thin lips with a white napkin.
"Brother."
"Have you ever thought about converting your renminbi into U.S. dollars?"
The deliberate emphasis.
The carefully timed pause.
It felt like somebody forcing an inductor into a logic circuit.
Waiting for the system to overheat.
"What for?"
I genuinely didn't understand.
He sighed.
"We'll talk about it another time."
"You and I should work closely together."
"One day we ought to accomplish something overseas."
The hint made no sense to me.
His excitement, however, was impossible to hide.
His face seemed illuminated from within.
Tiny movements rippled beneath the skin.
The thumb and middle finger of his right hand touched lightly.
He was about to snap.
At the last instant, he stopped himself.
The sound of finger joints braking.
Dull.
Heavy.
Like a thought that refused to become a sound.
And like dollars.
Silent.
