22 A Game of Mahjong
"Ain't that the principal?" says a girl with short brown hair wearing a jacket from Senriyama Boys Highschool.
"I'm glad you girls are here, there's someone I want to introduce to you," the Principal says, turning to Huang Luan.
"She's lookin' a bit familiar," says the girl with long black hair.
"As she should. If I'm not wrong, she should be the so-called legendary senior," says the girl with medium lengthed brown hair and glasses.
The Principal nods, "As sharp as ever, Funakubo-san. I'd like to introduce you all to Huang Luan, an alumnus of our school from thirty-five years ago. Huang Luan, you may have guessed already, but these girls are the students of the Mahjong Club who will be participating in this year's Inter High."
"Nice to meet ya', Senpai, I'm Eguchi Sera," says the girl wearing the male jacket.
"Funakubo Hiroko," says the bespectacled girl.
"I'm Nijou Izumi, let's get along, Senpai," says the girl with dark brown hair with a short haircut and brown eyes.
"I'm Shimizudani Ryuuka," says the girl with long black hair as she pats the head of the girl with brown hair and blue eyes next to her, "And this is Onjouji Toki."
"As ya' just heard I'm Onjouji Toki."
"Although she isn't here right now, their coach is Atago Masae. I believe you may know her," The Principal says.
"I think I may have seen her in a game or two on TV before. Not bad, getting a pro player to be a coach," Huang Luan says.
"It helps that she lives near here. Although her daughters attend Himematsu, Funakubo-san is her niece. By the way, why not play a few games with the students. I believe it will provide some good practice for them," The Principal suggests.
"That's a great idea. Rumours about Huang-Senpai's strength have been passed down in the club since before we were even first years. I'd like to see ya' strength first hand," Sera says.
"You can all just call me Huang Luan, no need for honorifics. As for a game, sure, we have plenty of time, right, Wuwu?"
"I don't see any problem. But I received a message from the younger Kawakami sister not too long ago asking if we would like to have dinner later with her and the others. Kumagai had apparently introduced Naoe to a decent place and they intend on gathering for dinner. If you want to go then we should probably leave in a couple of hours," Wu Song says.
Taking out her phone, Huang Luan finds that she has a few unread messages from Kazuko, saying the same things Wu Song had just mentioned. After telling her she would join them later, Huang Luan walks over to the mahjong table.
"There should be enough time for two games. You can decide amongst yourselves who is going to play first. In the second game, Wuwu can play as well."
The three third-year students, Ryuuka, Toki, and Sera, take the other unoccupied seats as the automatic mahjong table starts shuffling the tiles.
Just before the start of the game, Hiroko asks, "Principal, what kind of playstyle does Huang Luan have?"
"In my memory, she was a very adaptable player. Depending on the situation she would go for large hands and sometimes she would play aggressively and win through many small hands. Her play is very precise and she was always good at analysing her opponents and capitalising on mistakes and it was very rare for her to deal into her opponents. But the main thing I should mention is that she is a Monster-class player."
"A Monster-class, so she's like Toki?" Ryuuka asks.
"I've said enough as it is," The Principal says as the game begins.
The start of the game is quiet as no one calls any of the discards. But paying attention to the discards of Sera, her dropped tiles consist of Sou, Pin, and honour tiles, pushing Huang Luan to believe that Sera is looking for a flush on Man tiles due to the noticeable lack of them. Ryuuka and Toki naturally noticed the obvious abnormality in Sera's drops and have only been discarding Man tiles when they don't have a choice. But Huang Luan deliberately drops a Man tile. As she hoped, Sera calls pon on it. Huang Luan isn't concerned over the tile as she smiles now that her bribe has been sent. Using the power of the Sequence 7 Briber, Huang Luan makes Sera a bit more arrogant, believing her to be close to victory and more likely to make a critical mistake.
Huang Luan hasn't been able to interfere much with Ryuuka, but she has been actively distorting Toki's ability to see into the future, preventing her from seeing all the discards and calls of other people and instead can only see the discards she can call and the calls people can make on her.
As the round is down to the last 24 tiles, Sera has already declared riichi, with a pinfu wait of 4 or 7 Man. Toki is one sequence away from tenpai while Ryuuka is in tenpai with an open hand, with a single wait on 3 Pin having all triplets and all simples yaku. As Huang Luan's turn comes around, she declares riichi, discarding 7 Sou, her hand is set up for a Thirteen Orphans yaku having one of every honour and terminal tile, giving her a wait on 13 different tiles for victory.
A few more turns pass and Ryuuka drops a 4 Man, but Sera doesn't call ron as greed gets the best of her. The current dora indicator is 6 Man, meaning if Sera wins with a 7 Man she gets more points than if she won with 4 Man. Normally Sera would have taken the win despite the lower value since there is too much risk involved in letting it go, but due to the effect of Huang Luan's bribe, Sera's greed got the best of her, causing the current situation. But the spectators who can see Sera's hand have no way of knowing this and merely believe she's trying to greed out some extra points.
As the round swings back to Sera's turn again, she begins to lament her decision to let go of 4 Man win as she discards a Green Dragon tile, 'Two of these have already been dropped so this is still fine, right?'
"Ron!" Huang Luan calls. "Yakuman, Thirteen Orphans."
A direct hit onto Sera. The first round of the game has turned into the last round as Sera's points go negative, ending the game.
"Dang! Why was I so greedy? I coulda taken the win…" Sera complains.
"My future vision wasn't able to do much," Toki remarks.
Sneaking a peek at what the next tile would have been, Ryuuka sports a wry smile as she would have drawn a winning tile if Sera didn't lose there.
"Lulu is capable of manipulating your mental state, making you more greedy than normal and making you do things you normally wouldn't. She can also actively interfere with the abilities of others, this should be why your future vision didn't work, Onjouji-san. I won't explain it, but there are conditions for it," Wu Song says.
After reviewing the game, the three third years swapped out with Hiroko, Izumi, and Wu Song.
The second game starts in a similar fashion to the first game as the first few turns go by with no one making any calls. But as the game progresses, still no one has made any calls for pon or chi. Both Izumi and Hiroko are playing defensively, paying close attention to Huang Luan's discards and purposely discarding tiles that Huang Luan can't win off of. Izumi tends to play with a defensive style naturally, but Hiroko's intention is to observe how Huang Luan plays and even Wu Song as well, wanting to learn the trigger behind Huang Luan's ability. Unfortunately, as the round came to a close with Wu Song's win on a small All Simples hand, Hiroko wasn't able to find anything useful.
As the rounds progressed, Hiroko wasn't able to discern any triggers for Huang Luan's ability. At least as far as she's observed, none of the players has had any shift in their mental state. All she's been able to see so far is that Huang Luan and Wu Song are skilled mahjong players. The only time they've lost points is when Izumi won her dealer round with a Tsumo.
But as the game progressed to East 4, it was finally Huang Luan's turn as the dealer. Previously when she was the dealer, she ended the game in East 1 with a yakuman, but this time, rather than a single large win, Huang Luan has been keeping the game from ending by wining the past few rounds in a row with small hands only worth 1 or 2 Han. But the game ends as Wu Song wins the round a Mangan bringing her to first place while Huang Luan ends the game in second place. Compared to the first game with the first round yakuman immediately ending the game, this game was much more like a normal game of mahjong between skilled players. The point difference wasn't too large and the game ended without anything particularly special happening.
Looking at the somewhat miffed expression on Hiroko's face, Huang Luan asks, "You annoyed at not being able to see through and understand my ability?" As Hiroko nods, Huang Luan continues, "What I did was called Bribe. In mahjong specifically, I can use this under four circumstances, when someone calls pon, chi, kan, or ron on me. This way it could be said my opponent has accepted my bribe and then I can influence them. It was probably by chance that neither of you two called my tiles, but Wuwu was actively avoiding it, probably at the expense of some of her hands too."
"I see, Bribe, what a fittin' name," Hiroko mutters.
"Now that I think about it, should lunch break have ended a long time ago? Are you all alright with your classes?"
"Oh no! It completely slipped my mind," Sera says.
"Don't worry, I already contacted the teachers for your classes saying that you were doing some special training with my guest for the upcoming Inter High," The Principal says, calming the five girls.
"Lulu, we should probably leave now if we don't want to be late," Wu Song says.
"Then we'll take our leave here," Huang Luan says, bidding farewell to the girls and the Principal.
Calling a taxi over, Huang Luan and Wu Song make their way back to the city centre where they intend to meet up with the Kazama Family.
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A/N: read the thing at the bottom because I'm too lazy to type it twice.
