I’m Liu Longze, and this is the story of how I went from an ordinary boy to a card sharp. I was born in 1995 in a small town in Guangdong Province, China. It wasn’t a big place, but life was hard. My father, Liu Tianming, was a gambler. My mother, Li Meihua, left us when I was five. I don’t remember much about her, only that she was beautiful and always smelled of jasmine. My father was often away from home, either at the gambling table or hiding from creditors. I spent most of my time living with my grandmother. She loved telling me stories about my grandfather. He was a famous card sharp who had the local gambling dens eating out of his hand. He could use a deck of cards to cheat anyone out of their money, but Grandma said he had principles: he never cheated the poor or honest people. One day, I lost particularly badly and came home feeling down. My father was uncharacteristically at home. He saw something was wrong and asked, “What’s the matter, son?”
I told him I’d lost money.
He laughed. “So, you’ve discovered the thrill of gambling too?”
I nodded.
“If you’re going to gamble, you’d better learn how to do it right,” he said. “Gambling isn’t just luck. There’s skill involved, too.”
He introduced me to his friend Old Li, a master card sharp. Old Li agreed to teach me, and that was how my training began.
