Three days of keeping quiet. Then Zhao Si came knocking.
Not in person — through a stranger. Friday night, Zhang Lei was playing cards at the Yuelai Tea House when a young guy in a leather jacket drifted over from the next table and offered him a cigarette.
"You Zhang Lei?"
Zhang Lei didn't take the smoke. "Who's asking?"
"Fourth Brother sent me with a message." The leather-jacket kid smiled, voice low. "There's a game. Big one. The kind where you walk away with tens of thousands in a single night. Interested?"
Zhang Lei's fingers tapped the table twice.
Zhao Si.
He'd almost managed to put the man out of his mind. Not forgotten — deliberately shelved. He'd assumed that switching venues, staying away from the urban village, would keep him off Zhao Si's radar.
But a man like that had roots sunk deep into the local gambling scene. Looking for "a young guy who's been running hot lately" — a few questions in the right ears and you'd have a name.
"What kind of game?" Zhang Lei asked.
"Texas Hold'em. Private table." The kid pulled a business card from his pocket and slid it across — no company name, just a phone number and a WeChat ID. "Next Wednesday night. Location sent day-of. Five thousand buy-in, six to eight players, winner takes all."
Zhang Lei turned the card over. No name — but Zhao Si had sent someone to recruit him. The intent was obvious enough.
"I'll think about it."
"Sure. Add that WeChat when you decide — they'll pull you into the group." The kid clapped him on the shoulder and walked off.
He didn't stay for the rest of the game. Cashed out early — only up four hundred for the night, but he couldn't focus anymore. The leather-jacket kid's visit had knocked something loose in his head. He rode home through streets slicked with a light drizzle, the neon of convenience stores smearing across the wet asphalt.
Back in his room, shoes kicked off, lying on the bed in the dark. He turned it over and over in his head.
Why would Zhao Si invite him into a "big game"? Two possibilities.
First: Zhao Si wanted his money. Five-thousand buy-in — if everyone at that table was Zhao Si's crew, Zhang Lei would be the prey walking into a pack. Multiple players coordinating, working angles. Didn't matter if he could see through the cards; sheer numbers and psychological pressure could grind anyone down.
Second: Zhao Si wanted to figure out why Zhang Lei "always won." That night in the urban village parlor, Zhang Lei had made precisely the right move at precisely the right moment — twice in a row. Zhao Si was a cheat himself. He knew better than anyone how unnatural it was for someone to be right every single time. He probably suspected Zhang Lei was also cheating but couldn't figure out the method. Set up a controlled game, put Zhang Lei on his turf, and watch up close. That tracked too.
Either way, going carried risk.
But —
Zhang Lei rolled over, staring at the streetlight glow leaking through the curtain.
Five-thousand buy-in. Six to eight players. Winner takes all. If the game was real, the pot would sit at thirty to forty thousand. And X-ray vision was even more dominant in Hold'em than in Zha Jinhua — community cards meant more information, letting him calculate everyone's hand strength at every street.
And he needed the cash. Forty-six thousand minus the twenty-one he'd paid off left twenty-five in working capital. Flipping cars tied up fifteen to twenty thousand per vehicle — running two at once maxed him out. One big win of thirty or forty thousand would blow that bottleneck wide open.
Risk versus reward.
Zhang Lei closed his eyes. The decision didn't need to be made tonight. Wednesday was five days away.
The next morning he headed to the market as usual — Saturday open floor, twice the crowd of a weekday. He went early, arriving at seven-thirty when the gates had barely opened and only the most serious buyers were circling the rows. The air smelled of engine exhaust and dew evaporating off sheet metal. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
Two hours and sixty-odd cars later, he locked onto a gray Toyota Corolla. 2020 model, listed at 24,000. Condition: immaculate. He ran the vision three times to be sure. Original paint, no accidents, no flood damage, factory engine and transmission. The only "problem" was the odometer showing 120,000 kilometers — but his vision read the internal wear patterns of the engine. Real mileage was closer to seventy or eighty thousand. Someone had tampered with the odometer.
But they'd adjusted it the wrong direction.
Someone had taken a 70,000-kilometer car and rolled it up to 120,000 — which actually tanked its value. Probably the previous owner fumbling something and turning the dial the wrong way.
Zhang Lei bought it for 21,000. He'd list it at 28,000 — a seven-thousand margin, his biggest potential single-car profit yet. No rush to sell. Let it sit, take clean photos when the light was right, wait for the right buyer to come asking.
On the ride home, his thoughts drifted back to Zhao Si's game.
If he went — he needed to prepare for the worst. Worst case: lose the five-thousand buy-in.
Five thousand. It wouldn't cripple him. But it would sting.
If he won — thirty or forty thousand in one night.
Zhang Lei parked the scooter at the base of his building. Sat on the seat without dismounting, staring across at the neighboring building's balconies — quilts and laundry hanging in the afternoon light.
He'd go.
But not on Zhao Si's terms. He needed a plan of his own.
Zhang Lei pulled out his phone and scanned the WeChat ID from the business card. Added the contact. Accepted instantly.
The profile picture was a photo of a poker table.
Zhang Lei typed four characters and hit send:
"I'm in."