The secretary's stylus trembled over the slate. Her mouth worked once, no sound coming out.
Leung answered for her. "Better question is what you are willing to bet againt it."
Iris grinned.
"Whatever I won today," she said, grin thin. "Every chip, every hand, every omen that bent my way. Put it all back on the table. Let's see if your penthouse weighs more than my luck."
The crowd reacted as though he had thrown blood in the water. A hiss of disbelief ran round the pit. Some laughed, too high, too brittle. Others muttered prayers under their breath, charms lifted, bracelets pressed to lips.
The pit boss kept smiling, but his hand settled heavy on the belt where every talisman now glowed faintly. "Per the house rules, Miss—"
"I heard it first time," Iris cut in. The ember flared violet against her cheek. She flicked ash into the tray, eyes never leaving Leung's. "If I win, I walk with his tower in my pocket. If I lose, the house keeps its roof. Simple math."
Leung's smile widened. "So you accept."
Her tile tapped once against the brass rail, hard enough the dealer jumped. Sparks bit the air.
"Deal," she said.
She could have laughed. She could have cut him dead and stood up and let the table learn it had made a mistake about her. She could have left him to drown in the shallow end of his pride and gone to find Kwan, who would be telling someone useful lies with polite grammar on the mezzanine.Instead, she felt pride rise in her like a tide under a locked door. It swelled against the dress and pushed the jade cold closer to her throat.
The ward-ink at the table's edge seemed to hiss; it was probably only the air conditioning.She met his eyes.
"Your funeral," she said, voice flat. "But if we do it, we do it clean."
The pit boss inclined his head—relief and dismay braided.
"A compliance officer will observe. The transfer will be held in escrow and liquidated to chips if warranted."
"Not chips," Iris said.
Leung's laugh was a bitten thing. "You plan to move in?"
"Not your concern," she said.
The secretary's fingers danced across her slate. Files bloomed into being over the felt, precise and merciless: title packets, lien tracers, cadastral maps drafted by some bureaucrat who worshipped geometry. The AR projector shaped the penthouse in light on the table, a toy in a god's hands.
A glass blade crowning a Central tower. Split-level voids. A lap pool that clung to the edge like a dare. Rooms piled like shrines. A green room sealed under a warded dome. A helipad stamped on the roof like a monthly tithe. Six-car stacker. Staff quarters bigger than Iris's entire flat. Old feng shui lines etched in gold — enough to make a monk weep, from reverence or despair.
"This is not a normal stake," the compliance officer intoned. He had appeared like a curse, robe pressed flatter than virtue, tablet coughing sigils with every breath. He didn't look at Iris. Men like him never did. He looked at the idea of her from a safe distance and judged it.
"Miss Lau, is it? You are under no obligation—"
"I know what obligation looks like," she said, and held out her wrist. "Link me."
The secretary's mouth pinched. She sent a handshake packet and watched the casino's wards handle the handshake like a grandmother testing an unfamiliar child. Iris's aura kinked the AR at the edges. A little static snapped across her skin. The ward-strip along the table brightened and then dimmed as if telling stories to itself.
The dealer looked to the pit. The pit nodded. The compliance man raised two fingers, traced a sigil into the air that made the entire table ineligible for anyone's prayers for the duration. The secretary routed a registry bot through six different jurisdictions and sent it scrabbling along undersea cables to a vault under Victoria Harbour. She did not look at Iris. She looked at the work. A good woman in the wrong job.
"Final confirmation," the pit boss said, quiet with intent. "Miss Lau?"
"I accept," Iris said. "Against my better judgment."
Leung leaned back like he'd been put into the pose by an art director. "Play, then."
The wall broke. Tiles whispered down in neat stacks, white teeth against green felt. The dealer's hands moved with exaggerated care, as if she were lowering charges into place.
Iris gathered hers, let them settle cool against her palms. Paint and bone, geometry pretending to be chance. Bamboo, characters, circles — the three suits. Each hand a puzzle you built from four groups and a pair, each draw another chance to shape it. You could spend all night chasing the perfect dragon, or win small with a crooked little run. The trick was knowing when to let go.
Leung played slow. He built like a man stacking ledgers: every number neat, no waste.
He won it with a neat little set and a run, loud enough to rattle chips. The laughter from the rail was too high, too brittle. A woman pressed a bracelet to her lips. Someone muttered about dragons walking in Central. Iris smiled with only a corner of her mouth and set her losses aside like a tip she'd meant to leave.
Second hand. She drew circles—three in a row, then another. When the fourth circle slid to her fingers she called it: pung. Tiles down, soft and final. Three of a kind. The dealer's mask twitched, almost a smile, and chips scraped back to Iris. The crowd's murmur turned from mockery to commentary, superstition stirring like silt in rain.
Leung's jaw ticked once. His draw slowed half a heartbeat. Third hand turned dirty. Iris fished for one tile to join two runs that didn't want to look at each other. She discarded safe, then safer, not because she feared loss but because she hated feeding him. A good discard was a door you shut without sound. He stared too long at a tile she offered and passed. The ward-ink under Iris's palm hummed faint, as if the table had an opinion and was trying not to have it aloud.
He took that one. Not huge, not small. Enough to keep him comfortable and the rail smug. The AR odds above the pit held together and pretended they had always meant to.
Fourth hand. He showed teeth. Drew red dragons—honor tiles that made even accounting men religious. When he slapped the third with a little flourish and called pung, the rail hissed and crossed itself in three traditions. Iris folded early, surviving at the cost of letting him preen. The compliance man did not look at her; men like him never did. They looked at the idea of her from a safe distance and judged it.
Fifth, she moved. Tiles came quiet, cooperative. A run in bamboo, another in characters, a pair of circles she let sit like a breath held. She laid the groups soft, not baiting him, not gloating. Mah-jong. A clean win, small on points, heavy on mood. The AR projector hiccupped and for a blink the penthouse rotated as if it were trying to show her its good side.
They went on like that, tide pulling then retreating. Her wins were modest and deliberate; his were spiked with flourish. He konged a wind—four of a kind, hammering his claim into the felt, and the table actually rocked under the slap. She dumped a hand rather than walk into a wall she could smell, and the rail laughed like school. She let them. Laughter was air; you could choke a man by giving him too much of it.
Between hands, the room changed temperature. The perfume and money-smell thinned as incense crept back in. Charms lifted discreetly. The ward-strip along the brass brightened and dimmed like it was telling stories to itself. On the mezzanine, Kwan's black silhouette paused in a cluster of suits and turned its head a fraction. He wasn't watching her. He was watching the consequences line up.
Another hand, and she was fishing again. Tenpai—one tile away. Needed a six of characters to complete a run or a white dragon for a pair. Leung's discards had turned strange: too safe in places, reckless in others. The kind of pattern a man made when he heard his blood in his ears. The secretary leaned in, whispered numbers, odds, exposures. He didn't flick an eye toward her. He was staring at Iris like he had paid for front-row seats at an execution.
Iris drew a circle she didn't need and almost smiled. In mah-jong, almosts were how you paid tuition. She let it go. Safe. The dealer's hand hovered, but no one claimed. The hum in the rail climbed a note only her bones caught.
Leung drew, considered, and slapped a five of characters like it owed him rent. Rough. Sloppy. Sweat now clearly mapping his temple. The compliance officer's tablet flickered, the penthouse line item brightening like a heartbeat.
She drew—and felt the table tilt a degree. A three of characters. Wrong side of the river. Every instinct said toss it; every habit of survival said test the current first. She tested. Shifted her fingers to a useless wind, caught the whisper in the ward-ink as it hissed minutely like a kettle. She let the wind go instead. The dealer's eyes flicked down, then up. A man at the rail laughed—relief—and tugged his charm until the string gave with a small, mean pop. Beads pinged off the felt. No one stooped to gather them.
Leung drew and grinned for the first time that felt honest. He called pung on characters with a slap that rattled the trays. One tile away and he knew it. The rail roared. The penthouse in light over the table seemed to lean toward him, casting Iris's hands in the ghost of its shadow.
She was behind. Points had stacked his way: the dragon set, the wind, the pung now. One more push and the tower would start sliding his way in escrow. The registry bot dig-dug deeper, a faint thrum in the compliance officer's tablet like a tiny animal trying to warn its keeper.
"Penthouse is draughty anyway," Iris said, not because it helped but because silence tasted like surrender.
She drew. Not it. A two of circles that would fatten him if she was dumb. The right tile would complete his hand; feed him and the room would split between awe and hunger and she would walk out with nothing but the stink of other people's prayers in her hair. She set the circle down with a contempt a hair too visible, then swapped to a safer throw at the last instant. The dealer blinked. The rail gasped as one organism before remembering it had lungs. The safer tile skated, harmless. The two of circles rode back into her hand and sat there like a live coal cooling.
He drew. His smile died into calculation. He didn't slam this one. He placed a useless wind with care and watched her like the wind had been a thesis.
She didn't move fast. One misstep and the table became a guillotine. Her throat felt the jade turn colder and push up against skin like a warning. She chained her breath to her ribs and took the next tile up out of the wall.
White. Clean. Blank center.
White dragon.
Her fingers knew it before her eyes admitted it. The crowd didn't breathe—superstition says you don't spook the good draw. She looked him in the eye and he saw nothing, because she gave him nothing.
"Mah-jong," she said, and set the tile down like a coin buying silence.