"Oh, the game's starting," the gambler said, turning his gaze.
What should have been fifty-four separate pieces of paper became a living creature with a spine of its own in the dealer's hands. It soared and dove like a dragon, dazzling Milady. She couldn't fathom how anyone could prevent the dealer from cheating when his hands moved so fast no one could even follow them.
The dealer dealt the first card to the gambler and himself, both facedown.
The playing cards used in the casino were far more exquisite than the common ones sold outside. The backs were printed with the image of a goddess said to have ruled Haidu in ancient times, accompanied by a long musical score from the Alkana.
Of course, the Haidu People of today cared little for such semi-mythological things as goddesses and musical scores. It was often said that you could never find a Haidu native dwelling on the past, for they were always exploring forward, expanding outward, and venturing toward the open skies and the vast sea.
The second card the dealer dealt was faceup. The middle-aged gentleman received an Ace, worth eleven points, while the dealer got a 6. The gentleman glanced at his two cards, smiled faintly, and said, "Stay."
"Whoa, an Ace right off the bat," Milady heard a bystander say. "The old guy's got some good luck, getting one of the key cards on the first hand."
After watching the middle-aged gentleman play a few rounds, the idea in Milady's mind grew clearer. She looked up and spotted the backs of the heads of the crew from the White Shark Ship in a distant corner. They were easy to recognize even from afar, as one of them had a bald head tattooed with a large dragon-crocodile.
The man had said earlier that he would be back to play more Black Jack.
'This plan should work...' Milady thought, taking a deep breath. It was her first time doing something like this, and a nervous sweat beaded on her palms.
First, she exchanged all the money she had won that night for wooden chips. Then, she found a corner and took a charcoal pencil from her bag.
Seeing that no one was paying attention to her, Milady held out the ring finger of her right hand. She scraped the charcoal tip of the pencil back and forth under her nail several times. The falling charcoal dust blackened the edge of her nail bed. She took out a piece of paper and tried dragging her ring finger across it. Sure enough, it left a black streak. Satisfied, she added a little more charcoal.
When she returned to the Black Jack table, a round had just ended. Milady walked straight to an empty seat and sat down.
The moment she sat down, not only the bystanders but even the dealer couldn't help but give her a second look. "How old are you?" he asked. "Do your parents know you're here?"
Milady was afraid that if she said too much, he would hear her heartbeat.
Instead, she shook her bag full of chips and placed one on the table. "Father."
She put down another chip. "Mother."
The dealer nodded and asked no more questions.
The surrounding onlookers, likely seeing a young girl with a large stack of chips appear alone in an underground casino for the first time, filled the air with a clamor of laughter, chatter, advice, and warnings. The same gambler who had explained the rules to her earlier saw a new gawker arrive and began to repeat his story: "She doesn't even know how to play Black Jack! I just explained it to her a few minutes ago!"
She had gone over the plan in her head more than once, but Milady never expected that when she picked up her two cards, her heart would sink with a thud.
'This is bad.'
Why were the casino's playing cards made of such a smooth, glossy material, as if they were covered in a thin film?
It was the first time Milady had ever seen such a strange and rare production method. She had assumed all playing cards had the texture of kraft paper... She tried scratching the back of a card with her nail.
Just as she feared, the effect was completely different from on the paper. The black mark smudged the moment she touched it. It wouldn't work.
'What do I do now?'
'Am I going to have to give up on the plan I worked so hard to come up with?'
Milady could almost feel the weight of the dealer's gaze on her. She glanced down; the edges of the two cards in her hand were bending into a slight arc against her palm.
'Looked at another way... with cards this rare and expensive to make, the casino probably doesn't replace them very often, right?'
"Well?" the dealer prompted. "Are you ready?"
She coughed, placing her hands, still holding the cards, on her lap as if hesitating. After thinking for a moment, she said, "Hit me."
The dealer glanced at her, and her heart leaped into her throat.