Chapter Nineteen: Meng Po’s “Quadruple Boost Gear”: The Soup Bowl as a Card Stand

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“Underworld Card Game: From Dou Dizhu to Six Clash” Volume 1, Chapter 19: Meng Po’s “Four Clash Equipment”: Soup Bowls as Card Holders

In the crevice of the city god temple’s card table, there were still some sunflower seed shells dropped during yesterday’s card-breaking practice. Old Zhou squatted on the ground, using a thin twig to pick them out—he was always worried the shells would scratch the cards and affect the feel when playing. Wang Erma sat on a stone nearby, holding a Two of Hearts, explaining to Xiao Li the secret of the “Four Clash” straight sequence: “Remember, the ‘Candy Skewer’ has to start from three. Missing a card breaks the sequence, just like missing a word in a poem—it sounds awkward.”

Xiao Li leaned over the table, jotting down Wang Erma’s words on the back of a scrap paper, his pen dipped in the osmanthus juice from Meng Po’s soup. Suddenly, he paused: “Master Ma, what if there are two 3s? Can you make two sequences?”

“Sure,” Wang Erma smiled. “That’s called a ‘Double Candy Skewer.’ In Four Clash, it’s known as ‘Double Consecutive Cards,’ and it’s more effective than a single sequence.”

Just then, the clatter of bowls came from outside the temple, like someone was carrying a stack of bowls. Little White’s ears perked up, and he was the first to jump up: “It’s Sister Meng Po! She must be bringing sweet soup!”

Before the words finished, Meng Po came in holding a wooden tray with five thick ceramic bowls on it. The rims of the bowls were chipped or worn, and the middle bowl had some chopped green onions floating in it—clearly just brought from the stove. Her apron had some flour stains, and a withered stem of a red spider lily was tucked in her hair, probably picked up on the way.

“Practicing?” Meng Po set the tray on the table, the bowls clinking with dull thuds. “I brought you guys some ‘Practice Soup’ with lotus seeds—drink it, and it’ll help you remember the cards.”

“Really helps remember the cards?” Xiao Li quickly leaned over, picking up one of the unchipped bowls to sniff. “Why does it smell like cabbage?”

“The pot just had cabbage soup, so the flavor rubbed off,” Meng Po said casually. She pulled a cloth bundle from the bottom of the tray and dumped it onto the table—out came three matching thick ceramic saucers and a bamboo rack tied with hemp rope. The rack held five bamboo chopsticks, their tips worn smooth.

“Sister Meng Po, what’s this for?” Little White flipped a saucer over and over, the bottom stamped with a crooked character meaning “soup.” “Isn’t this what you use to serve soup?”

“This is the Four Clash gear I prepared.” Meng Po picked up a chipped bowl and knocked it on the table. “This will be the card holder. You stick the cards into the bowl to keep them from falling.” She scooped up a handful of cards from a wooden basin and stuck them inside the bowl—the cards’ edges rested perfectly on the rim, solid and stable. However, a few card corners dipped into the leftover soup at the bottom, instantly leaving small wet rings.

“Hey! The cards are wet!” Old Zhou hurried to snatch them, but Meng Po stopped him by pressing her hand on the bowl’s rim.

“No worries,” she patted his hand. “The soup’s cold and won’t ruin the paper. Last time I spilled soup on the cards, Wang Erma still won with that hand.” She was referring to when her soup spilled on the cards and Wang Erma’s blind play of a 5 surprisingly succeeded, standing his ground confidently.

Wang Erma looked at the cards in the bowl, both amused and exasperated. “There’s still soup in the bottom. Won’t the cards get soggy if left in too long?”

“If they do, I’ll glue them back together.” Meng Po pulled out a small earthenware jar from her apron pocket, the opening stuffed with a cotton rag. “This is glutinous rice paste—great for fixing cards. Remember yesterday when I glued your Five of Diamonds? It held up perfectly.”

Old Zhou still wasn’t convinced and squatted by the bowl, watching closely, worried the soup would spread. Xiao Li, on the other hand, got excited, grabbed an unchipped bowl, and stuck cards inside. Suddenly he exclaimed, “Hey! This is really convenient! No need to hold the cards!” He shook his hand slightly—the cards didn’t drop, but the bowl wobbled, splashing a few drops of soup onto Old Zhou’s blue cloth pouch. A chip peeked out from the pouch’s mouth, and the soup made it shine instantly.

“My chips!” Old Zhou quickly pulled the pouch into his bosom and wiped it hard with his sleeve, only making the chips gleam more. “What if this soup stain never comes off?”

“If it won’t wash off, just think of it as oiling your chips,” Meng Po laughed, handing him a dry cloth. “Slicker and easier to handle.”

Little Black squatted beside, fiddling with the bamboo rack. “Sister Meng Po, what’s this rack for?”

“To hold the bowls.” Meng Po placed the rack in the middle of the table, then clipped the card-filled bowl onto it. “This way, the bowl won’t wobble and playing cards is steadier.” She proudly tapped the bowl rim. “I thought about it all night—Dou Dizhu has fewer cards, so you can hold them in your hand, but Four Clash has many cards. You need a rack for support. This bowl’s depth is just right, even better than the wooden rack the Judge uses.”

Just as she was speaking enthusiastically, a couple of coughs came from the doorway. The Judge entered carrying a cloth bag, his set of three old-fashioned reading glasses sliding down his nose—he had gone to inspect the card game by the Naihe Bridge this morning and heard Wang Erma and the others were practicing Four Clash, so he made a special detour. “How’s the practice going?” He put his bag on the table, revealing a draft of the rules. The top page was titled “Four Clash Equipment Standards,” marked with an X—he must have found the previous gear non-compliant.

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“Judge, look at Sister Meng Po’s card rack!” Little White pointed at the bowl rack excitedly. “Made from soup bowls, it works great!”

The Judge squinted and leaned in. Upon seeing the cards stuck in the bowl, his brow furrowed. “Nonsense! These are soup bowls—how can you use them as card racks? The soup stains ruin the cards!”

“How are they ruined?” Meng Po retorted. She pulled a Five of Hearts from the bowl, its corner indeed stained with soup and still stuck to a thin green onion. “See? It’s perfectly clear. The onion can even act as a mark, making it easier to remember the cards.”

“Exactly!” Xiao Li chimed in, pulling out his pen and writing on the scrap paper, “‘Soup bowl as card rack, onion as mark, Four Clash played perfectly, Judge don’t fuss’—how’s that?”

“Your poem’s less orderly than the soup stains!” The Judge glared at Xiao Li, then turned back to Meng Po. “Card racks must be made of wood—stable and steady. You can’t use bowls. What if you knock over the bowl during play and the cards scatter? Who’s responsible?”

“You won’t knock it over—I glued the bowl to the rack with glutinous rice paste.” Meng Po patted the bottom of the bowl, which remained immovable. “Glued it last night, it’s solid.”

Before the Judge could say more, Wang Erma quickly intervened: “Judge, try it first. If it doesn’t work, we’ll change it. Let’s have a round to test the bowl rack’s effectiveness.” He stuck cards into Meng Po’s bowl. “Sister Meng Po, you team up with Old Zhou; I’ll play with Xiao Li. Let’s have a round.”

Hearing they were about to play, Old Zhou hurriedly shoved his pouch under the table and leaned close to Meng Po, swallowing nervously. “I... I haven’t mastered card breaking yet.”

“No worries, just follow your instincts.” Meng Po patted his shoulder and drew a 3 from the bowl. “I lead, three!”

“I cover!” Wang Erma pulled a 4 from his own spread of cards—he hadn’t used a card holder but fanned his cards on the table. Though messy, it was easier to grab than the bowl.

Xiao Li followed with a 5, and Old Zhou hesitated, then pulled a 6 from the bowl—he pressed too hard, his finger brushing the bowl bottom and picking up some soup stain. When he placed it on the table, a small wet ring appeared on the cloth.

“Look, look!” the Judge pointed at the stain. “You’ve dirtied the table!”

“I’ll clean it.” Meng Po pulled out a rag from her apron pocket—looking like one used for scrubbing the stove—and wiped the cloth. The wet ring vanished, but left a more obvious gray smudge.

The game continued, and Meng Po grew more adept. Her cards, stuck in the bowl, were sorted by suit: hearts on the left, spades on the right, bombs stuck alone in the middle like a little tree full of blossoms. “I play ‘Stir-fried Greens’!” she suddenly announced, pulling five cards—3, 4, 5, 6, 7—the very five-card straight the Judge had mentioned.

“What ‘Stir-fried Greens’? That’s called a straight!” the Judge stomped his foot anxiously.

“I call it whatever I want.” Meng Po laid her cards on the table and shot him a proud glance. “Faster than you remembering the rules.”

Old Zhou played a pair of 10s, Wang Erma a pair of Queens, Xiao Li a pair of Kings. Just as they were about to win, Meng Po slapped her thigh: “Bomb!” She reached quickly into the bowl’s center, where four 5s were stuck—her just-assembled bomb.

But she moved too fast, and the bowl rim bumped the bamboo rack with a clatter. The bowl didn’t tip over, but half a bowl of leftover soup sloshed out, drenching the Judge’s cloth bag. The draft inside instantly soaked up the soup, the words on the “Four Clash Equipment Standards” page blurred into a smudged mess, with a stray piece of green onion from Meng Po’s bowl floating atop.

“You!” The Judge pointed at Meng Po, so angry his three pairs of glasses slipped down to his chin. “My draft! I copied these rules for three days!”

“No worries,” Meng Po hurried to wipe it, but only made it worse—the pages stuck together and couldn’t be separated. “I’ll rewrite it for you, using osmanthus juice. Clearer than this.”

“I don’t want osmanthus juice!” The Judge clutched his bag and jumped up. Soup dripped from the bottom onto his new shoes—the ones the Queen of Hell had just mended yesterday, embroidered with the word ‘Justice.’ Now soaked, the word ‘Justice’ turned into ‘Water Justice.’

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Little White squatted nearby, secretly scribbling on Xiao Li’s scrap paper: “‘Soup bowl spills soup, Judge’s shoes suffer, Meng Po laughs happily, rules soaked in soup’—Brother Xiao Li, how’s this one?”

“Better than mine!” Xiao Li quickly copied it down and hid it in his chest, afraid the Judge would see.

Old Zhou looked at the soup spilled on the ground and quietly asked, “Is this soup... still drinkable?” He had smelled it earlier and found it quite fragrant, thinking it a shame to waste it.

“No way!” the Judge shouted in anger. “It soaked my draft!”

“It soaking is good,” Meng Po smiled. “Drink it and you’ll remember the rules, no need to keep flipping through the book.” She picked up a barely wet page and dipped it into the soup. “See? This is ‘Rule Soup,’ better than reciting the rules three times.”

The Judge was too furious to reply, slinging his dripping bag and heading out. After a few steps, he turned back. “If you use soup bowls as card racks again, I’ll make you wash cards for three days!”

“Got it!” Meng Po waved, and once he was gone, she turned to Wang Erma with a smile. “He’s just stubborn. Deep down, he must think my card rack works well.”

Wang Erma looked at the cards still stuck in the bowl, their corners stained with soup, and actually found them clearer than cards fanned on the table. “It really works,” he nodded. “Just use less soup next time.”

“Right!” Meng Po quickly poured the remaining soup from the bowls into the water vat, fishing out two lotus seeds and handing them to Old Zhou. “Here, for your brain—next time don’t break down the cards into singles.”

Old Zhou accepted the lotus seeds, carefully placing them with the chips in his pouch. The soup stains hadn’t dirtied the chips; instead, they had made them shinier. Looking at the cards in the bowl, he suddenly said, “Maybe... I should find a bowl for a card holder, too?”

“I’ll help you!” Little White jumped up. “There’s a broken earthen jar behind the city god temple, even bigger than Sister Meng Po’s bowls—can hold more cards!”

“Don’t pick a jar,” Little Black pulled her back. “Jars leak. I’ll get you the Judge’s pen holder—it’s porcelain and won’t leak soup.”

Xiao Li took the poem they had just written and stuck it on the card table. “Post it here, call it the ‘Soup Bowl Card Rack Ode.’ Next time the Judge comes, let him have a look.”

The sunset stretched the temple’s shadow long and thin. Meng Po’s soup bowl card holder still clung to the bamboo rack, cards stained with soup but arranged neatly. Wang Erma watched everyone bustling about and suddenly felt that no matter how many cards Four Clash had, with Meng Po’s soup bowl rack, Old Zhou’s care, Xiao Li’s poems, and Little Black and Little White’s errands, they would surely win. After all, here, winning or losing didn’t matter. Having friends who could play cards together using soup bowls was better than anything.

Meng Po suddenly remembered something, pulled a small cloth bag from her apron, and emptied it onto the table—a handful of osmanthus-flavored sunflower seeds with a hint of soup aroma. “Here, eat these seeds,” she smiled, handing them out. “Eat my seeds, and you’re sure to win at Four Clash.”

Old Zhou held a seed but didn’t dare eat it directly. He shelled it carefully and placed the kernels alongside the lotus seeds, arranging them neatly. Xiao Li ate while writing poems, Little White and Little Black competed to insert cards into the bowl, and Meng Po squatted by the stove, patching the remaining bowls with more glutinous rice paste—she wanted to prepare more card racks to give one to each member of Team Master Ma during the competition.

The breeze drifted in from the window, carrying the fragrance from the Naihe Bridge flowers, rustling the poems on the table. The card corners in the soup bowl gently swayed, as if nodding. Wang Erma picked up a sunflower seed and cracked it between his teeth—crisp, with osmanthus and soup aroma, even tastier than ordinary seeds. He mused that when the Judge came tomorrow, maybe they could use the excuse of reimbursing his draft to have Meng Po brew another batch of “Rule Soup”—maybe that would really help remember the cards.