stonecrandall Chapter 316 The Control Group on New Year's Eve
Chapter 316 The Control Group on New Year's Eve
The atmosphere at the card table was very lively.
Lin Yan threw down two cards with great confidence: "A pair of Jacks!"
Sitting opposite him, Lin Er immediately followed suit, smiling as he slammed down his cards: "A pair of Queens!"
Wang Yuling, the landlord, looked at her hand, her eyes growing brighter and brighter. She glanced at the two "peasants" watching her nervously, a smug smile playing on her lips, and slammed her four cards heavily on the table: "Four 2s! A bomb!"
Lin Yan and Lin Er gasped in surprise, while Lin Yi, who was watching from the sidelines, couldn't help but exclaim, "Wow! Ling'er's cards are pretty ruthless!"
Before they could even react, Wang Yuling had already casually tossed out her last two cards, her voice brimming with triumphant joy: "Ace-Flush! Young Master, I won! Pay up!"
She excitedly picked up Xiaoqi, who was squatting nearby watching the game, and gave her a big kiss: "Xiaoqi, did you see that? I won money to buy you candied hawthorns!"
"Awoo~" Xiao Qi immediately rubbed against Wang Yuling's cheek obsequiously, its amber eyes narrowing into slits in a pleading manner. It didn't forget to glance back at its young master, its little face seeming to say, "Look, it's my sister who won the money!"
Amidst the gloating chuckles of Lin Yi, Lin Gang, and others around him, Lin Yan's face turned as black as the bottom of a pot. Gritting his teeth, he reluctantly pulled a crisp twenty-yuan note from his pocket and slapped it almost "smack" in front of Wang Yuling.
"What bad luck!" he muttered sullenly.
Lin Yan strolled over to the mahjong table with his hands behind his back, just in time to see Old Dan smilingly push over his hand: "A pure suit, a straight flush, and a single tile to wait for—I win!"
"Oh, young master, you've come at the perfect time," Old Dan said, quickly rising as he collected his chips. "This round just ended. Come to my seat; you're sure to change your luck!"
Lin Yan sat down without hesitation, rubbing his hands together, feeling that his bad luck had finally come to an end. After a few rounds, his luck indeed improved a lot. His hand became increasingly neat, with a pure suit of Wan tiles ready to win, and a single nine Wan tile waiting for him. His heart warmed, but he pretended to be calm, his fingertips lightly tapping on the table.
"Bang!" The player next to him, Fu Lao, suddenly spoke up and played an 80,000 tile.
The old man opposite him touched his tile, his fingertips slowly tracing the surface. His eyes narrowed slightly, then he laughed loudly, "Ha! A single tile to catch the nine of characters, a brilliant move! Sorry, young master, this is a fifty-dollar bonus!"
Lin Yan looked at the lone 90,000 in his hand, then at the cards the old man had knocked over, and his face immediately fell. He silently took out the fifty-yuan note he hadn't even warmed yet from his pocket and slapped it on the table.
"Young Master, my luck is terrible..." He shook his head and sighed, looking utterly frustrated. "It's really strange!"
As dawn approached, the card game came to an end.
Lin Yan slumped in his armchair, his eyes unfocused. The mountain of banknotes that had once piled up in front of him was now empty. He looked at the group of people on the table, still happily tallying up their spoils, and felt as if his heart was bleeding.
A nameless rage surged to his head. He abruptly looked up, his gaze seemingly piercing through the roof, staring directly at the unseen presence. A series of cold, clenched laughs echoed through his mind:
"Damn you, God! It must be you! You're jealous of how I get whatever I want, aren't you? You're deliberately making my luck so bad!"
The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that it was true, but the rage in his chest swirled a few times before strangely transforming into an almost rogue-like magnanimity. He leaned back and hummed in a voice only he could hear:
"Hey, the more you act like this, the less angry I get! It's not worth ruining my health. Anyway, I have plenty of money. This little tug-of-war is nothing to me! Hmph, you want to see me jump up and down? I'll make sure you don't get your way!"
Thinking about it this way, he suddenly felt completely relaxed, and the frustration of losing money actually vanished, leaving only a nouveau riche sense of superiority, like "I'll bury you in money." He yawned widely, stood up, and stretched.
"sleep!"
The four islands of Japan, a living hell
As the fierce winds subsided, dawn failed to bring hope, only illuminating the devastation before our eyes.
In Tokyo, although the core urban areas suffered relatively less damage, panic spread like a plague. Intermittent disaster reports on the radio pieced together a despairing picture: northern fishing ports were completely destroyed, southern farmlands were submerged, and western roads were blocked by landslides. Tens of thousands of refugees began pouring from the coastal areas into inland cities, crowding every temporary shelter. Food, medicine, and clean drinking water instantly became the scarcest resources. Black market prices skyrocketed; a piece of dry, hard bread was enough to cause fierce fighting. Rumors spread faster than the wind; claims that "the divine wind no longer protects" and "Amaterasu is punishing us" quietly circulated among the survivors, casting a collective despair and bewilderment over everyone's hearts.
The Japanese government was exasperated and powerless.
Inside the Prime Minister's official residence, the atmosphere was even more oppressive than the weather outside. At the emergency cabinet meeting, the air was thick with smoke, and the officials' eyes were bloodshot, their voices hoarse. Then-Prime Minister Eisaku Sato listened to the report with a livid face, while his Chief Cabinet Secretary, Toshio Kimura, also wore a deeply furrowed brow.
"Damn it! What kind of weather is this?!" A senior bureaucrat slammed his fist on the table. "What is the Meteorological Agency doing? Why wasn't there any warning?!"
The meteorological commissioner was deathly pale, drenched in cold sweat, and muttered, "Unexplainable... all the data shows this is impossible... it's like... it's like it appeared out of thin air..."
"This is not the time to pursue scientific questions!" Prime Minister Eisaku Sato interrupted the argument, suppressing his anger and fear. "Rescue! Organize a rescue operation immediately! Mobilize all available Self-Defense Forces and reopen the lifeline to the coastal areas!"
The orders were issued swiftly, but execution proved incredibly difficult. Roads were destroyed, bridges collapsed, and rescue teams were often stranded en route. Worse still, when they attempted to transport supplies to the isolated disaster area by sea, they encountered an even more desperate situation.
A cargo ship fully loaded with relief supplies, under the command of an experienced captain, carefully sailed out of Yokohama Port, attempting to reach the Sanriku coast, the area most severely affected by the disaster. Initially, things went smoothly, but as soon as they entered the open sea, the weather suddenly changed.
The once relatively calm sea was suddenly shrouded in a thick fog, so dense that one could not see their own hand in front of their face. The radar completely failed, and the compass spun wildly. The cargo ship struggled like a leaf amidst the swirling waves, on the verge of capsizing at any moment.
"No! We can't get through! Retreat! Retreat now!" the captain roared hoarsely, desperately steering the ship back to port. When they retreated back into the harbor in a sorry state, they were horrified to discover that not only them, but all the ships that had tried to go out to sea, whether for rescue, supply, or fishing, had met the same fate—no ship was able to leave the Japanese coast.
A deeper fear gripped everyone: destroyed homes could be rebuilt, but if even sea routes were completely cut off, this island nation would be under an invisible noose, its resources would eventually run out, and only slow suffocation awaited them. When this report was presented at the cabinet meeting, the entire room was filled with shock; a deathly silence descended upon endless despair.
Washington, Strategic Anxiety and Furious
Meanwhile, across the ocean, the Pentagon in the United States was also plunged into unprecedented chaos and anxiety. Then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, his face grim, stared at a jumble of cables.
"Have you made contact? Yokosuka, Sasebo, Iwakuni! What's going on?!" His roar echoed in the conference room.
One bad news after another arrived, and the images pieced together through the few remaining, intermittent communication channels sent chills down the spines of all the generals.
The near-devastating blow suffered by the main force of the Seventh Fleet at its home port means that America's most powerful fist in the Western Pacific has been temporarily crippled. The potential nuclear security crisis at the Iwakuni base is even more alarming; mishandling it could trigger a global political catastrophe.
"Our military presence in Japan has been reduced to what it was before World War II overnight!" a general lamented.
The far-reaching implications were immediately brought to the forefront: the ongoing Vietnam War, whose manpower and supplies were heavily reliant on Japan, would inevitably be severely impacted by the paralysis of this crucial link. Meanwhile, the astute Soviet Union, its old adversary, would not let this golden opportunity slip by and would certainly seize it to expand its influence in Southeast Asia.
"Provide Japan with immediate assistance at all costs to help them restore the base's functionality!" President Lyndon B. Johnson issued the order.
However, this order soon encountered the same predicament—the American rescue fleet and transport ships were also unable to break through the deadly sea area surrounding the Japanese archipelago, which consisted of the "Vortex Dragon-Trapping Formation" and the "Boundless Illusionary Sea Formation".
Only then did high-ranking officials from both the US and Japan vaguely realize that behind this "natural disaster" seemed to be a hand manipulating things. It wasn't just about destruction, but also about imprisonment, turning all of Japan into an isolated island cage floating in the Pacific Ocean. And this incomprehensible and irresistible despair was the most fatal blow.