Chapter 36: Ding the Cripple

In Eastwind Town, the Ding family was not considered a prominent clan, and in such a small place, there were few cripples. Thus, the only one known as Ding the Cripple was Ding Suna’s father.

His leg had been injured by Xiao Cheng’s father—a single stroke to the outside of his knee that didn’t sever the bone or tendons, but cut through the nerve. After recovery, his right leg refused to obey him; now he could only drag it along as he walked.

In his youth, Ding the Cripple was notorious as a local hooligan. Those who ran with him back then were either hacked to death or failed to escape the ruthless crackdown of 1983. He was one of the rare survivors, and for a while, he basked in the reputation he’d earned in his younger days. He married a beautiful wife and fathered an even more beautiful daughter.

But good fortune did not last. When Ding Suna was three or four, his wife fell ill suddenly and died. Left to raise his child alone, he sought to earn more and began working demolition for Zhang Weihai. When residents refused to sign relocation agreements, he was not above breaking windows and splashing filth—scoundrel deeds aplenty. With support from those in power, nothing serious ever befell him. The worst was breaking a demolition resident’s ribs, but that was settled with money from above. Emboldened, he grew ever more reckless, until he came up against the Wen family.

The Wen family, steeped in tradition and literature, and Wen Xinwu—once a teacher—wielded a hatchet and severed Ding’s leg, almost cutting off his livelihood as well.

These thugs hired by the demolition office were truly temporary workers. When trouble arose, the office covered medical expenses, then washed their hands of the matter. The Wen family’s compensation for their home went entirely into the settlement, not even covering half of Ding’s civil compensation. He watched helplessly as his family crumbled, squeezed for every drop, and so Ding the Cripple became a petitioner, making frequent trips to the city to raise a ruckus. At least he managed to secure welfare support. Through a friend’s recommendation, he found work as a night watchman, earning nearly two thousand yuan a month—enough to survive.

After that, he was essentially finished, resigned to his crippled fate. The welfare card remained in his daughter’s hands for their living expenses; the watchman’s pay was his pocket money. He spent his days at the mahjong club, winning enough for food and drink, seeking out Yingzi from the hair salon for a bit of fun, and when he lost, he simply walked away. Money was nothing but a curse!

As usual, after his shift, Ding’s fingers itched for some excitement. He wanted to see Yingzi at the hair salon, but his pockets were a bit light; there were some services he was too embarrassed to owe for. So, early in the morning, he headed to the mahjong club to try his luck. The stakes may be only ten yuan a round, but if luck was on his side, a morning’s play could net him a hundred or two.

There were plenty of idle tables at the club, mostly folks who’d played through the night. Ding watched the games for over half an hour before finding a seat. Old Hei was a regular partner—fond of a game or two, losing more than he won, but his family was rich and his children grown, so he played just to pass the time. The old man sitting next to Ding was a stranger, slow with his hands, even stacking his tiles behind the others. But the young punk across from him, cigarette dangling from his lips, looked seasoned.

That young punk, of course, was Wen Xiaocheng—a fifteen-year-old, half-grown boy whose presence in the mahjong club was out of place. So he made a point to hold a cigarette, not inhaling but keeping it between his fingers for the tough-guy look.

Mahjong rules differ from place to place, but club rules are roughly the same. Aside from some upscale venues that charge by the hour, most street-side clubs charge per round. A “round” means that all players start with 100 chips, regardless of how many hands are played. When one player loses all their chips, the round ends and the remaining players settle up. The club owner takes a cut from the winner.

Typically, a round might be ten or twenty yuan; small towns rarely play for higher stakes. So, at ten yuan a round, excluding the club’s cut, a player can win up to thirty yuan, while losses are capped at ten. The duration of a round varies—sometimes a big win wipes out three players in minutes, sometimes four players exchange small hands all afternoon without settling the score.

Wen Xiaocheng had almost never played mahjong; he knew none of the tricks or strategies, only the basic rules, much like knowing a chess piece’s moves without understanding tactics. But where chess could be solved with intellect, mahjong was no different. Once the players sat down, the owner explained the rules—clarifying everything upfront to prevent disputes. The four agreed to twenty yuan a round.

It’s nearly impossible to track all 136 mahjong tiles with your eyes, observing their positions beneath eight moving hands during stacking, and remembering each one. This demands not only phenomenal memory but keen observation, with three pairs of hands in motion plus your own. Xiaocheng found it quite taxing at first, but after two practice rounds, he began to grasp the method; from the third round onward, every concealed tile became transparent to him.

There are 136 mahjong tiles (not counting the eight flower tiles). At the start, each player draws thirteen tiles, with the dealer taking fourteen. After removing the eight tiles from the wall, seventy-nine tiles remain, meaning each player, on average, has fewer than twenty draws. As the dice rolled and seats were chosen, Xiaocheng’s mental calculations began.

With thirteen tiles in hand and nineteen more to draw, he would see thirty-two tiles total, from which thirteen must be chosen for a winning hand. Naturally, the higher the score and the sooner the win, the better. Yet, in practice, things are more complicated: chow, pong, and kong can disrupt the draw order, possibly preventing the planned tiles from appearing. So, he had to consider the other three players as well. In the first three or four rounds, hands are crowded with useless tiles, making discards highly random and hard to predict. Each discard and its timing could directly affect the game’s progress, and after four rounds, when each player has drawn about four tiles, discards become more predictable, and the calculations grow clearer.

With three players exposed, the game turns into another kind of intelligence contest, far more complex than chess, since it requires calculation for all four hands. If the goal is merely to win, that’s easy; making big hands isn’t hard either—among thirty-two tiles, it’s usually possible to find one. But Xiaocheng’s vision extended further: he rarely claimed winning hands, only recouping chips when nearly losing, and often allowed Ding the Cripple or Hei to win small hands, even deliberately feeding them winning tiles. After a full round, with everyone gaining and losing, Xiaocheng and the professor ended up with fewer chips.

It was just practice; the real killing move needed only one round. When seats were drawn, Professor Dai sat across from Xiaocheng. In this round, the old man had crafted a seven pairs hand and was waiting on the three-dot tile. According to the current discard sequence, the final three-dot would be drawn by Ding the Cripple two rounds later, but with a four-dot in hand, he might not discard it. Xiaocheng calculated and noticed Hei had a pair of five-bamboo tiles. So he broke up his own five-six-seven, discarded a five-bamboo to Hei, who promptly ponged, disrupting the draw order—the three-dot landed in Professor Dai’s hand!

Self-drawn seven pairs, maximum score, three players out.

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When I wrote about chess before, I made a few casual remarks, and someone chimed in to say I was padding with chess. Now that mahjong is entering the story, people are saying I’m padding with mahjong—do you not have any other hobbies besides gaming? Playing chess and mahjong is so beneficial for mind and body! You call this padding? Can’t you see it’s foreshadowing? Those who accuse me of padding my writing have seriously hurt my feelings—you must tip generously and apologize sincerely.