Area No. 4.
Inside a private room in a mahjong parlor.
Xiao Zhigang, Jiang Hao, and Guo Jiuxiao sat around a square table, playing Fight the Landlord.
The three occupied three sides of the table. On the fourth sat a rusty incense burner with three sticks of incense and a black-and-white memorial portrait of Choi Chan-hoon.
Whether it was the incense burner and portrait or something weighing on their minds that day, none of the three looked particularly happy.
"A five. Chairman Jiang, putting Choi Chan-hoon's black-and-white portrait right across from me is really rather unlucky," Guo Jiuxiao said.
"Professor Guo, you shouldn't say that. Minister Choi shared our goals, after all, and he died for our common cause. The least we can do is pay our respects and remember him. If I died one day, for instance, I'd hope that, for the sake of our time working together, you'd burn a couple of sticks of incense for me and light my way down Yellow Springs Road a little brighter. A nine."
"A two. If you pass away, Chairman Jiang, I'll burn incense for you, but Choi Chan-hoon probably doesn't need it. Have you forgotten? He was a devout believer in the Reincarnation Church. To him, all this business of incense, departed souls, and Yellow Springs Road was heresy. He won't appreciate you burning incense for him."
"Pass."
"Pass. Minister Xiao, do you think the living burn incense and honor the dead solely to let the departed rest in peace?" Jiang Hao's eyelids drooped. "Once someone dies, nothing has anything to do with them anymore."
"So you're mourning someone of your own kind, Minister Jiang? A straight, three through ten."
"Pass."
"Pass. More or less." As he spoke, Jiang Hao extinguished the incense sticks, which had burned down to short