FRAGMENT 86
A Thunderclap Through My Ear
Fragments: A Warning from the Gods | A Hand Pressed Down on My Resignation Letter
Time & Location: Spring 2015 · THE Neurology HOSPITAL, Almaty
The Neurology Hospital in Almaty.
I lay on a soft bed surrounded by blinding white light.
My vision refused to focus.
A thin veil of pink floated over everything.
Even the ceiling lamps seemed to sway.
Assem Kussain rushed into the room.
I read her words from the movement of her lips:
“Mr. Bai, hurry. An aftershock is coming.”
She was my personal secretary, hired independently by me.
Years earlier, she had studied at Minzu University in Beijing.
Her father was a senior official in Kazakhstan's intelligence service.
Feeling my way along the edge of the bed, the wall, and the doorframe, I followed her hand through a corridor that seemed to move like a shadow.
Then—
Bang.
A tremendous sound burst into my ear.
Instantly, the world became sharp and bright.
I could suddenly see everything.
Several nurses stood nearby, smiling at us.
They spoke Kazakh.
The words came fast as wind.
The melody sounded almost like birdsong.
Assem stopped and turned toward me.
“It's over now.”
“What made that noise?” I asked.
“An explosion?”
“No.”
She looked puzzled.
“Our earthquakes are always silent.”
“But I heard something.”
“There wasn't any explosion.”
Then I understood.
When the aftershock arrived, it was the White Crow itself that had struck open my sealed eardrums.
On the night I named my son, I had suffered a sensory collapse unlike anything before.
There had been no familiar trigger.
No physical cause I could identify.
Only one explanation remained.
A warning from the gods.
A few days after leaving the hospital, Xu Yanan returned from Beijing.
The moment she arrived, I submitted my resignation.
My reason was simple and entirely physical.
The local neurological specialists had reached a diagnosis:
Unexplained hearing loss.
An extremely rare case.
Extended rest required.
That was the Chinese translation.
The original report in Kazakh filled an entire page.
I watched the doctor sign it with the certainty of someone carving words into stone.
Xu Yanan stared at the diagnosis.
Then placed one hand over my resignation letter.
Thirteen seconds.
Exactly.
“You could stay here and recover.”
“Would that be acceptable?”
I lowered my head.
Said nothing for a long time.
“All right.”
“I'll try.”
My hesitation had little to do with refusing her request.
The truth was simpler.
I wanted to encounter the gods again.
Out there on the endless steppe.
Beside that immense silent lake.
Under a sky so close it seemed reachable by hand.
My own existence felt microscopic.
A speck of dust.
After dinner, I drove alone to the banks of the Ili River.
Deep within the grasslands, where neither moonlight nor starlight could be seen, a wind moved across the darkness.
It sounded like my father's sobbing many years ago.
And beneath it came the rolling and bouncing of sand and stones through the dry grass.
Like the collective wailing at a state funeral.
FRAGMENT 87
A Tremor of Pleading in His Voice
Fragments: Blue Eyes Filled with Notes of Joy
Time & Location: Summer 2016 · Four Seasons Hotel, Tengri Dream World, Almaty Region
The Four Seasons at Tengri Dream World.
Dave invited me for a drink.
A Scotsman standing nearly two meters tall, he was then serving as Chief Executive Officer of the MGM-operated Tengri Casino.
When he had first been dispatched to distant Kazakhstan, colleagues at headquarters in Las Vegas had viewed the assignment as a pilgrimage into darkness.
No one expected what happened next.
The casino was overwhelmed by demand.
I had seen the numbers myself.
Average annual wagering per customer was approaching Macau levels.
The gamblers came from everywhere:
local residents whose disposable income rarely exceeded two thousand dollars a year,
Russians,
Indians,
visitors from neighboring countries,
even Iranians.
The only group largely absent was Chinese players, who faced significant visa barriers.
The exile returned home a hero.
Two years earlier, Dave had arrived like a governor sent into banishment.
Now he was returning to headquarters carrying record-breaking casino revenues and the expression of a victorious general.
Several glasses of Georgian red wine later, Dave's face had turned the color of a carrot.
The old-fashioned European ritual of talking about everything and nothing gradually came to an end.
“Bai,” he said, “I just got back from the United States. My boss heard you weren't feeling well and specifically asked me to check on you.”
“Your boss?”
“Yes. My boss's boss.”
He smiled.
“He emailed me personally and told me to see you as soon as possible.”
Dave raised his wine glass to chest level.
“Bai, a toast to your health.”
We drank.
Then he finally arrived at the real reason for the meeting.
“Is there something you need from me?”
“Would it be possible...” He hesitated.
“...for you to transfer your shares to MGM?”
A faint tremor of pleading vibrated in his voice.
“How would you value them?”
I knew he was eager to reach an agreement, so I asked directly.
To my surprise, there was almost no negotiation.
The price MGM proposed exceeded the valuation produced by independent professionals by nearly twenty percent.
It was undeniably attractive.
In practical terms, it meant exchanging my paper holdings in Tengri Dream World for one billion dollars in cash.
I lifted my can of Coca-Cola and looked into Dave's blue eyes.
Something flowed inside those crystalline irises.
Notes of pure happiness.
Years in business had taught me one thing:
closing a transaction was always more difficult than discussing one.
The first—and unavoidable—question was whether I actually possessed the authority to sell those shares.
“Let me see what I can do.”
The Scotsman and I raised our glasses and emptied them together.
I had already decided that, should the transaction succeed, I would share part of the windfall with Gao Yong.
To proceed carefully, I hired a senior American attorney and instructed him to investigate the corporate registration records of the company under my name.
A few days later, he called.
“Bai, unfortunately, I have bad news.”
His voice sounded almost apologetic.
“Go ahead.”
I was searching online for unrelated information while listening.
“You do own the shares.”
“But according to the company's governing documents, you are not the authorized signatory for any transfer of ownership.”
“Someone else is?”
“Yes.”
The lawyer paused.
“Yes.”
“A man named Jorden Gao.”
“He holds Vanuatu citizenship.”
Another pause.
“I'm very sorry. I have his passport information and mailing address.”
“But no matter what I do, I cannot find a single photograph of him.”
“All right.”
“Send me everything you have.”
FRAGMENT 88
The White Crow Calls Again
Fragments: The Tremor of Panic | The White Crow Cries “Revenge” Once More
Time & Location: Summer 2016 · Tengri Dream World, Almaty Region | Gao Yong's Residence, Beijing
One weekend, I dialed Gao Yong's private mobile number.
My mind was still occupied with a programming problem on my computer.
“Oh, that's wonderful news.”
The official tone in his voice immediately put me on guard.
“However, the person you're referring to... I've never heard of him.”
The wavelength of his voice was chaotic.
Absurdly chaotic.
Something was wrong.
The following day, Gao Yong had just settled into his new office at the Central Organization Department.
I sent him the passport information page.
The one belonging to that mysterious man.
I knew he had already seen it.
So I immediately deleted the message.
Then I closed my eyes.
A long breath escaped my body.
The way one exhales after singing Crossing the Snow Mountains and Grasslands at full volume.
Six minutes later, the phone rang.
It was Gao Yong.
He was breathing heavily.
“Holy shit.”
“Brother, I'm so sorry.”
“I honestly forgot.”
“We're getting old, aren't we?”
The tremor of panic traveled through the receiver.
It seemed to originate from every joint in that boneless, ingratiating body of his.
Creaking.
Grinding.
Unmistakable.
I remained silent.
I knew exactly what he was looking at.
His own photograph on the passport.
“Brother, this isn't a good time to talk.”
“I'll call you tonight.”
“Wait for me.”
I ended the call.
Then I found one of Sha Qingqing's recordings and held it close to my ear.
Deep inside my head, the White Crow began calling again.
Softly.
Relentlessly.
“Revenge.”
“Revenge.”
For a moment, I thought I could hear that cry from long ago—
the desperate scream that shattered a chandelier in the auditorium of the Communist Youth League.
The sacred bird allowed me to hear Gao Yong pacing inside the living room of his Beijing residence.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
Sometimes his footsteps struck the floor hard enough to pierce it.
Sometimes they floated as lightly as clouds.
He never stopped moving.
Those feet could not find solid ground.
He was afraid.
Not long afterward, Gao Yong was arrested.
In the end, my American lawyer could not secure for me the authority to transfer my shares.
But he proposed an alternative.
I retained the right to delegate all voting power associated with those shares to Dave.
For that authorization, MGM agreed to pay me ten million dollars per year.
A satisfactory outcome for everyone involved.
Or nearly everyone.
The White Crow's cries of revenge continued echoing in my ears.
I rubbed the top of my head and pressed lightly against my temples.
Then I started the engine of my Lexus LX 570.
The vehicle surged forward.
Suddenly, The Radetzky March exploded through the speakers.
Snow-covered mountains.
Grasslands.
Sheep.
Stones.
Images flashed before my eyes.
Then dissolved into streams of binary code,
falling line by line between earth and sky.
