The woman's shoulders were tense, her back ramrod straight, and her gaze was fixed on the slot machine panel.
The screen was still showing the winning image of three cherries.
The colorful light effects have disappeared, leaving only the three bright red patterns arranged quietly.
But she wasn't looking at it at all.
The gaze is fixed on it, but the focus isn't there.
At that moment, only one thought occupied her mind:
He saw it! He saw me smiling at him! He must have thought I was smiling at him! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!
The heat in my cheeks lingered for a long time.
It's even showing signs of escalating.
My heart felt like a jumbled mess of emotions, a mixture of embarrassment, awkwardness, and a touch of regret for my earlier loss of composure.
At this moment, she only hoped for one thing: that her husband would come back soon, end this unsettling situation, and take her away from this embarrassing place and away from this strange man beside her who seemed to be able to see through her every thought.
After winning four times in a row, the woman's luck seemed to have run out all at once, and the slot machine revealed its cold fangs.
But she remained oblivious, maintaining a ritualistic slowness and caution as she re-inserted the coin into the bottomless coin slot.
However, the result was completely different from before.
First failure: The pattern stopped at 7, BAR, and watermelon, three completely different numbers, resulting in no payout.
The jazz music was still playing when someone won a small prize at the slot machine across the street, making a few dinging sounds.
She blocked out all those voices, telling herself: It's okay, it's only the first time I didn't win. Luck can't always be on my side, it's normal.
But the second combination was still a chaotic mess.
After glancing at the screen for two seconds, the woman's eyes darkened slightly.
Then I took a deep breath to calm myself down and told myself not to panic. I've only lost two games, it's okay.
The third time, the fourth time... the next five or six hands, without exception, were all disappointing hands.
No more coins were dispensed from the coin dispenser. The small metal outlet was like a tightly closed mouth; no matter how many coins she inserted or how much she pulled the lever, it refused to dispense another coin.
The coins in the tray dwindled one by one, each one disappearing without a sound, as if thrown into the ocean.
The initial joy on her face gradually faded, and a closer look revealed an increasingly obvious unease.
With each loss, her shoulders grew heavier.
His eyes were no longer focused or expectant, but increasingly panicked and helpless, like a lost deer looking around frantically in the forest, unable to find a way out.
Later, her fingers holding the coin were trembling.
My eyes had become noticeably red, and the tip of my nose was also very sore and red.
He looked completely listless, as if he had been battered by a downpour.
Draco sat quietly beside him, watching.
He didn't laugh, nor did he make any sound.
Their postures remained unchanged.
A subtle feeling welled up inside me, like a sense of reluctance.
It's like seeing a child fall down, scrape their knee, and squat on the ground, pouting as if about to cry. Even if you don't know the child, your heart will clench.
But he did not go up to disturb them.
The distance between the woman and him wasn't half a meter, but an invisible wall—a wall called a stranger.
She doesn't need comfort from a stranger.
So Draco just sat there and watched her lose.
And so they kept losing, one hand after another.
The machine seemed to be working against her; no matter how she threw or pulled, she always got loose cards.
Occasionally, one or two patterns would match, but when she finally stopped, it would always be off-center by one space, as if it were deliberately playing tricks on her.
One by one, the coins were swallowed by the slot machine, and all the chips he had just won were lost in no time.
The moment the last coin was mercilessly swallowed by the machine, and her space was once again empty—
The woman's eyes welled up with tears.
The tears, unable to bear their weight, rolled down.
She held back her tears.
My shoulders are shaking.
She hadn't done anything wrong; she was just inserting coins, pulling the lever, and waiting for the result. She played each game seriously, without being greedy or reckless, but the machine just wouldn't let her win.
Luck might be something that has emotions; a good mood brings good luck, and a bad mood brings bad luck.
She didn't know what to do.
Should we continue playing, or stop?
If we continue playing, we'll run out of chips.
She was unwilling to stop.
After losing all her coins, she didn't get any more.
He just sat there, motionless, like a statue.
The clock is ticking.
The jazz music in the casino changed to a different tune.
Someone won a big prize on the slot machine next to them, letting out a long cheer, and a crowd gathered around to congratulate them.
A waiter carrying champagne walked past her from behind, the champagne glasses clinking softly.
There were many conflicting voices in her head.
A voice said: Let's go, stop playing.
Another voice said: We can't just leave like this. We clearly won just now, how can we lose it all back like this?
The third voice said: You have no money left.
The fourth voice said: There's still money in the bag! The big sum of money you and your husband won together is still in the bag.
Her gaze shifted slightly.
She gently bit her lower lip, a small gesture, as if she were hesitating before making a decision.
She gently bit her lower lip, and finally slowly reached out and opened the khaki canvas bag beside her.
She wouldn't touch the large sum of money her husband won; it belonged to him, and she wanted to hand it over to him intact.
She took out some of her own spare change.
The goal is not to make a quick buck or a fortune.
Instead, they harbored self-deceiving thoughts:
They just won.
It's just that I'm having a bit of bad luck right now.
Luck is a fickle thing; it may have slipped away a moment ago, but it might come back in a little while.
Try a few more times, and you might get it right again.
You don't need to win a lot, just win back some of what you just lost, enough to fill in part of that hole.
But that's just her not wanting to admit that she's addicted.
Try a few more times, win back a little, then stop!
Draco, who was standing nearby, could see it very clearly.
He suddenly realized that the woman didn't seem like a gambler.
A gambler's eyes look different when they're high.
She was just a little girl who had accidentally lost something she loved, was heartbroken, had red eyes, and wanted to try to find it again to see if she could recover even a little bit of it.
When the thought crossed Draco's mind, he neither found it laughable nor pathetic.
I just felt an even stronger urge to bear it.
The woman used her spare change to exchange for a small handful of coins, and then repeated the process that had become heavy.
But the result was still merciless.