Chapter 20: The Four-Strike Competing Team: The Formation of "Master Ma's Team"!

The threshold of the City God Temple was still stained with the dregs of soup spilled by Meng Po. Under the afternoon sun, the residue glistened with a greasy sheen. The Judge’s cloth bag lay in the corner, the draft of rules poking out from within, caught by the breeze. The top sheet, labeled "Four-Suit Specifications," bore a stray piece of green onion—a casualty of the recent spill—giving the austere regulations a whimsical touch of punctuation.

Wang Er-Ma squatted by the card table, holding a soup bowl used as a card rack. A faint brown ring remained at the bottom of the bowl. He pulled the cards out one by one; the damp marks at the corners had dried, leaving behind delicate patterns that looked even better than new cards. "This bowl rack is really something," he said to Meng Po with a grin. "Next time the Judge comes by, I’ll tell him it’s a 'Custom Underworld Card Rack.' That’ll fool him for sure."

Meng Po, busy wiping the soup from the tablecloth, chuckled. "When he left earlier, his robe was still dripping with soup. The Lady of Yama will surely have a laugh at that." She tucked the rag into her apron, pulled a small paper packet of fragrant roasted melon seeds from her pocket, and said, "Here, have some seeds. Let’s talk business."

"What business?" Little Li leaned in, clutching the draft sheet he had titled "Ode to the Soup Bowl Card Rack." A drop of osmanthus syrup from his pen tip had stained his trousers, but he didn't care.

"The Four-Suit Tournament," Wang Er-Ma said, sitting on a stone stool and scattering seeds across the table. "The Judge says it starts early next month. We need to form a team."

"A team?" Old Zhou, who had just finished stuffing his soup-stained chips into a blue cloth bag, trembled. A chip clattered to the floor and rolled under the table. He scrambled to retrieve it, digging through the cracks in the bricks until he finally pinched it out, wiping it vigorously with his sleeve. "A team... who are we playing against? The Judge? Or King Yama himself?"

"Could be either," Wang Er-Ma said, cracking a seed. "But the three of us will start a team—me, you, and Little Li. That makes three... wait, Four-Suit is a four-person game, two teams of two. We’re missing one." He tapped his forehead, nearly forgetting the rules the Judge had recited. "Right, four people, pairs of two."

"Why not ask Sister Meng?" Little Bai popped up from behind the table, an osmanthus twig from the soup still tucked into her braid. "Sister Meng uses a soup bowl as a card rack; she must be brilliant!"

"Not me," Meng Po waved her hands, flour dusting off her apron. "I have to tend the soup stall. Besides, I can’t keep track of cards. Last time we played Landlord, I only won because I played the 'pity card' and cried." She was referring to her previous emotional victory, which made her eyes well up again, causing Little Bai to burst into laughter.

Little Hei squatted on the ground, poking at the seed shells with a twig. "How about the Earth God? He played with King Yama last time and his 'Three-with-One' was pretty smooth."

"Don't ask him," Old Zhou whispered. "He always buries his cards in the dirt. Last time I played with him, a King fell into the mud and took ages to dig out. The card was filthy."

"Then what do we do?" Little Li spread his draft paper on the table, poking at it with his pen. "We can't just be short a player. The Judge said there’s a penalty of forced card-shuffling for incomplete teams."

Wang Er-Ma pondered for a moment, then slapped his thigh. "No need to look for outsiders! We'll start with the three of us, and if it comes to it, Meng Po can be our substitute—she’s accurate with ladling soup, so she’ll be fine with cards." He looked at Old Zhou. "Old Zhou, are you in?"

Old Zhou gripped his blue cloth bag so hard his knuckles turned white. "I... I’m afraid of losing. Four-Suit uses four decks; I can barely even sort my cards, let alone anything else. What if I lose the chips?"

"If you lose, it’s on me!" Wang Er-Ma patted his chest. "If you win, all the chips are yours, and I'll have Meng Po brew you three bowls of sweet soup with double the lotus seeds!"

"Really?" Old Zhou’s eyes lit up, his grip on the bag loosening. "Then... what if I sort the cards wrong?"

"So you sort them wrong," Wang Er-Ma laughed. "Our strategy is 'blind, happy playing.' It’s still better than the Judge sitting there staring blankly at his rulebook."

Little Li, excited, grabbed his pen and wrote on the draft paper: *"Master Ma forms a team for the Four-Suit game, Old Zhou and Little Li charge in, Master Ma covers the losses, and the winnings go in the pocket."* He turned to Wang. "Master Ma, how about we call ourselves the 'Master Ma Team'?"

"'Master Ma Team'?" Wang Er-Ma stroked his chin. "Sounds imposing. Let's go with that!"

"I'm in!" Little Bai jumped, nearly knocking over the soup bowl rack. "I'll be the cheerleading squad! I'll shout for you!"

"And me!" Little Hei added. "I'll help you hold and shuffle the cards—and I won't use scissors this time!"

Old Zhou watched the lively group, the corners of his mouth curling up before he quickly pressed them flat, pretending to count his chips. "Then... what if I'm too scared to play a bomb during the game?"

"When I yell 'Bomb,' you play it!" Wang Er-Ma patted his shoulder. "If you play it wrong, don't worry about it. Just think of it as setting off firecrackers for the Judge."

Meng Po brought over three bowls of sweet soup, steam rising from the rims. "Here, have some soup to steady your nerves. I’ve prepared your 'Four-Suit equipment'—three soup bowl racks, all scrubbed clean, no soup stains left." She placed them on the table on a clean piece of cotton cloth. "And this." She pulled a small cloth bag from her apron and poured out three strings of melon seed shells tied with red cord. "Lucky charms. I wove them from the shells of the seeds I won. Guaranteed victory."

Little Li eagerly tied his charm to his wrist and shook it. "This is more useful than the Judge’s rulebook!" He picked up his pen and wrote another poem on the back of the draft, reciting it with flair: *"Master Ma leads the way, in the Four-Suit arena I hold the sway! With soup bowl racks and lucky seed charms, the championship is ours to claim!"*

"Don't say 'sway' so aggressively," Wang Er-Ma said with a smile, ruffling his hair. "We don't need to be fierce; we’ll just rely on blind luck and encouraging each other—we'll win for sure." He pointed to Old Zhou. "Old Zhou, you’re in charge of holding the cards—keep the bombs until the right moment. Little Li, you track the cards; if you can't remember, turn it into a poem and shout it out to rattle the opponents. I’ll be in charge of the blind strategy—perfect!"

"And what about me?" Meng Po wiped her hands on her apron. "I can't just watch."

"You’re the 'Logistics Minister,'" Wang Er-Ma assigned her the role. "Responsible for delivering soup, passing seeds, and cheering Old Zhou on. If he’s too scared to play a bomb, you put cilantro in his bowl to provoke him."

"Deal!" Meng Po agreed immediately, pulling a packet of cilantro seeds from her pocket. "I’ve had these ready for ages!"

At the mention of cilantro, Old Zhou shrank back. "No cilantro! I'll play the bomb, I promise..."

Everyone erupted in laughter. Sunlight filtered through the temple windows, gilding the soup bowls, the seed charms, and the draft paper. Little Li’s poem rattled in the wind, the words "Master Ma Team" standing out clearly. Old Zhou tucked his seed charm into his bag, carefully separating it from his chips with a pebble. Little Hei and Little Bai squatted on the ground, drawing a "Four-Suit Arena" in the dirt with a twig, adding a stick figure holding a soup bowl—their portrait of Meng Po.

Watching the scene, Wang Er-Ma suddenly felt that the outcome of the tournament didn't matter so much anymore. Even if Old Zhou broke his bombs into singles, even if Little Li forgot his verses, even if Meng Po’s soup-bowl racks occasionally spilled—as long as this group was together, even the penalty of shuffling cards would be more fun than playing solitaire in a human apartment complex.

"Oh, right," Wang Er-Ma remembered something, pulling the Four-Suit entry ticket printed on spider lily paper from his pocket and placing it on the table. "The Judge said we need this for registration. Let’s go sign up tomorrow."

Old Zhou leaned in, gently touching the edge of the ticket. "This paper is so soft, don't ruin it..."

"If we ruin it, I'll make King Yama issue another one," Wang Er-Ma said dismissively. "He still owes me for the melon seeds, so we'll just settle the debt."

Little Li pressed the ticket onto his poem sheet to keep it from blowing away. "I’ll write a 'Registration Poem' and read it to the Judge tomorrow just to annoy him!"

"Don't annoy him," Meng Po laughed, handing him a bowl of sweet soup. "If you annoy him, he’ll recite the rules for another three hours."

The group laughed again, their voices echoing off the temple pillars, scattering the last wisps of smoke from the incense burner. In the corner, the Judge’s cloth bag still lay there, the rule draft inside flipped to the page labeled "Team Regulations." Someone—it was unclear when—had drawn a small 'X' next to it, with the note "Except for the Master Ma Team" written in a messy scrawl stained with osmanthus syrup, glowing warmly in the sun.

Old Zhou shoved his last chip into his bag and looked up. "So... what are we practicing tomorrow?"

"Practice breaking up cards!" Wang Er-Ma shoved a handful of cards into his hands. "If you don't learn how to handle bombs by today, no sweet soup for you!"

"Don't do that, Master Ma!" Old Zhou hurriedly laid the cards out on the table, hands fumbling. "I'll practice! I'm practicing right now!"

Little Li hunched over the table, his pen scratching against the paper. Little Hei and Little Bai helped gather seed shells, threading them onto Meng Po’s lucky charms. Meng Po carried the soup bowls, adding a spoonful of honey-dates to everyone’s portion. Wang Er-Ma leaned against the table, watching Old Zhou clumsily sort his hand, and realized that even if they couldn't beat the current champion, Old Zhao, and even if the Judge forced them to shuffle cards until dawn, as long as he was messing around with this bunch, it was worth it. After all, winning wasn't the point—having a teammate to yell "Bomb" with, a partner to write poems, and a friend to serve soup was worth more than anything.

The setting sun cast long shadows over the City God Temple. The cards stood upright in the soup bowl racks like a bouquet of colorful flowers. Little Li’s poem blew onto the floor, the "Master Ma Team" floating high like a small flag, swaying in the floral scent near the Naihe Bridge, pointing toward the direction of the Four-Suit arena.

(End of Volume One)