Zhang Lei went back the next night.
Same card room, same table. Baldy, Skinny, Reflective Vest — all present. And Zhao Si.
When Zhang Lei walked in, Zhao Si was leaning back in his chair smoking. His eyes narrowed for a moment. He flicked ash onto the floor. "You came."
"I came." Zhang Lei sat down and laid two thousand yuan on the table.
He'd prepared tonight. That afternoon he'd practiced with the vision for half an hour and found a more efficient method — no need to keep it running continuously. One scan after the deal, then off. Three seconds max. Three seconds to read everyone's cards and check Zhao Si's sleeve, then rely on memory for decision-making. By that math, twenty-odd activations across a whole evening, three seconds each — just over a minute total. His temples would get mildly sore, but nothing close to a nosebleed.
The first four hands he played the same way as the night before — controlled rhythm. Win one small pot, fold one, win another medium one. Zhao Si mirrored his previous pattern too — played straight in the early rounds, small wins and losses, that hidden card untouched up his sleeve the entire time.
Hand five. The pot climbed to twelve hundred. Zhao Si made his move.
When Zhang Lei's vision swept past, the card was already gone from the sleeve. Zhao Si was holding three jacks. And Zhang Lei's hand this round — garbage.
He folded.
Zhao Si took the twelve-hundred-yuan pot with an easy expression. The others sighed about bad luck.
Three more hands passed. Small stakes, nothing worth noting. Zhang Lei waited patiently.
Hand nine.
After the deal, Zhang Lei checked his cards: king of hearts, king of diamonds, queen of spades. Pair of kings with a queen kicker. Then a quick scan — Zhao Si's table cards showed a pair of jacks, and up his sleeve sat the jack of hearts. If he swapped, he'd have three jacks. Baldy had garbage, Skinny a pair of fives, Reflective Vest a low straight.
The best hand at the table belonged to Reflective Vest — a straight beats three of a kind. But Reflective Vest didn't know Zhao Si was about to cheat his way into trips.
Under normal play, Zhao Si would swap after the third round and take the pot with three jacks. But Zhang Lei held a pair of kings. If he could force a showdown before the swap — kings over jacks.
Same tactic as last night.
First round, everyone called at fifty. Second round, Reflective Vest raised to two hundred — he had the straight, of course he'd push. Zhao Si called. Zhang Lei called. The rest folded.
Third round. Three players.
Reflective Vest raised again: five hundred.
Zhao Si deliberated for three seconds. "Call."
Zhang Lei's turn. If he just called the five hundred, there'd be another round — and Zhao Si would have his chance to make the swap.
Zhang Lei pushed all his money forward.
"All in. Two thousand."
Reflective Vest sucked in a breath. Hesitated two seconds — "Call." With a straight in hand, he wasn't scared.
Zhao Si looked at Zhang Lei. The look in his eyes was different from yesterday — yesterday it had been assessment. Today there was something else. Vigilance.
Five seconds.
"Call." Zhao Si pushed two thousand out as well.
Zhang Lei flipped: "Pair of kings."
Reflective Vest flipped: "Straight, four through eight."
Zhao Si's fingers froze on his cards.
Three players' bets plus the base pot — close to seven thousand on the table. The straight was the winner. Reflective Vest was about to take it all. Zhao Si only had a pair of jacks; without the swap, he was dead.
But at that moment every eye was watching. In the instant of an all-in reveal, six pairs of eyes nailed to the table surface.
Zhao Si turned his cards over.
Pair of jacks.
Reflective Vest burst out laughing. "Tonight's my night!" He swept the money toward himself.
Zhao Si's expression finally cracked. Not obvious anger — more a twitch at the corner of his mouth, something flashing in the depths of his eyes. He'd lost two thousand. And he'd lost it to Reflective Vest, not Zhang Lei.
But —
Zhang Lei had also lost two thousand.
He'd calculated this possibility. A straight beats a pair of kings; he was never going to beat Reflective Vest this hand. But he wasn't playing for the pot. What he wanted was to force Zhao Si into a showdown without the cheat. To let Zhao Si know: at this table, he couldn't always swap at his leisure.
Besides, Zhang Lei had only lost his two-thousand stake. The eighteen hundred he'd won before was still safe in his pocket.
But Zhao Si didn't know Zhang Lei's hand had only been kings. From Zhao Si's perspective, Zhang Lei had gone all-in at the critical moment two nights running — and won last night. That kind of play meant either a degenerate gambler or — something Zhao Si couldn't account for.
The game broke up late.
Final tally: Zhang Lei's net for the night was eleven hundred in profit — the small wins from earlier minus the two-thousand loss, plus a few other pots in between. Combined with last night's eighteen hundred, over two days he'd put an extra three thousand in his pocket.
Enough for two months of his father's medicine.
When he left the card room, Zhao Si followed him out. They nearly collided at the alley entrance.
Zhao Si had a cigarette between his lips. His lighter snapped to life. He looked at Zhang Lei, firelight playing across his face, the shadows under his cheekbones deep and sharp.
"Where you from, kid?"
"Around here."
"Good luck you've been having." Zhao Si exhaled smoke. "Coming back tomorrow?"
Zhang Lei shook his head. "We'll see."
"Sure thing." Zhao Si smiled — not a friendly one. "See you around, then."
He turned and walked the other way down the alley. The black jacket disappeared quickly into the darkness beyond the streetlights.
Zhang Lei stood there a few seconds, then headed in the opposite direction.
On the ride home his beat-up bicycle creaked beneath him. The March night wind cut up his sleeves, ice-cold. The wad of cash in his pocket pressed against his thigh. His temples still ached, but much less than yesterday — the three-second scan method really did conserve energy.
Three thousand yuan.
When he got home the apartment was dark. He pushed through the door. On the kitchen stove sat an overturned bowl of noodles, chopsticks laid across the top. A note beside it in Liu Guifen's handwriting — "Heat it up before you eat. Don't eat it cold."
Zhang Lei reheated the noodles and crouched in the kitchen slurping them down. Pickled vegetables and plain noodles — same taste as the past ten years. But tonight it tasted different somehow.
He washed the bowl, went to his room, pulled out the cash and counted it once more. He tucked it into page 200 of a Xinhua dictionary he'd never once opened.
Enough for his old man's medicine. Two months' worth.
Zhang Lei turned off the light.
In the darkness he lay with his eyes closed, but his mind wouldn't stop. He remembered that look in Zhao Si's eyes. It wasn't the ordinary annoyance of a man who'd lost money — there was a thorn in it.
Forget it. Sleep first.