Chapter Ninety-Nine: Life Is Nothing But a Play

Gambling is a matter that can be trivial or ruinous.

In his previous life, Lu Kun had seen plenty of people fall because of it. One classic example was Liu Lirong, the head of Golden Fortune.

In 2002, Liu founded Golden Fortune. Thereafter, the company once became the leading domestic mobile phone brand, nearly on par with Samsung and Nokia. The Golden Fortune name, too, became a household word.

At the time, he could never have imagined that, years later, he would find himself at the center of public outrage over massive debts, mass layoffs, and a gambling obsession.

Some reports claimed that Golden Fortune’s crisis was not really due to excessive marketing or investment costs; the true reason was that Liu had lost ten billion yuan gambling and, for that reason, siphoned off six billion yuan in public funds.

When Liu first lost two billion yuan in Saipan, several close friends personally flew there to persuade him to turn back. What they saw, however, was a gambling table piled high with chips.

Later, of course, Liu gave a half-denial. He admitted to gambling on the island and admitted to “borrowing” money from Golden Fortune, though not nearly one hundred billion yuan—perhaps only a little over one billion.

In his view, the real reason Golden Fortune collapsed was a break in its capital chain; the root cause was that the company had been losing money for a long time.

Most people may not truly grasp what one billion or ten billion yuan means. Put it this way: for a company with assets worth one hundred billion yuan, it is already remarkable if it can keep three to five billion yuan in liquid funds on hand at any moment.

Liu had drained tens of billions from Golden Fortune and could not replenish it in time. It would have been strange if the company’s capital chain had not broken.

Had gambling never happened, Golden Fortune would have had ample time to transform, upgrade, or launch a second venture. It would never have sunk so suddenly into the sea of commerce.

In the entertainment world, there were even more countless lives ruined by gambling.

Chen Baixiang, one of the most reliable comic supports in Stephen Chow’s films, had appeared in classics such as "The Deer and the Cauldron," "Flirting Scholar," and "The Champions."

In his early years, Chen was hopelessly addicted to gambling. At first he won a great deal, once causing a sensation by turning one thousand Hong Kong dollars into seven million. But gambling is, by nature, a game where nine out of ten lose.

Later, not only did he squander a fortune worth tens of millions, but he also incurred gambling debts amounting to several more millions. In 2015, creditors even hung a banner outside TVB’s headquarters demanding repayment of twenty-five million Hong Kong dollars in gambling debts.

Beyond that, stars such as Ng Man-tat and Jacky Wu had also been dragged into gambling scandals.

With so many cautionary tales, Lu Kun naturally kept far away from gambling.

What Lu Kun could never understand was this: when those people lost their minds and gambled like mad, was it really because of those so-called "sexy dealers dealing online"?

The world always says that even heroes can’t pass a beauty’s test.

Even television dramas portray it that way: successful men are often unable to resist the lure of beauty.

Then a swarm of onlookers rushes forward to offer opinions by the dozen, standing on the moral high ground to condemn them.

But they never stop to ask: when has beauty ever tempted an unsuccessful man?

Even the old sage said, "Food and sex are human nature."

If one could truly resist the temptation of beauty completely, that would no longer be human nature. If anything, it would only mean that the so-called beauty was rather ordinary.

Of course, that does not include the face-blind.

As for that certain big shot with face blindness who became embroiled in a sexual assault scandal, the author could more or less understand it.

After all, face blindness—otherwise...

Terrible taste!

Lu Kun could be said to have sampled all five poisons: drink, lust, wealth, and anger all touched him, yet none of them mastered him.

There is an old saying from our ancestors that puts it well: "Wine is poison that cuts through the bowels; lust is a steel blade scraping the bones; wealth is a fierce tiger descending the mountain; anger is the root of disaster."

Wine is intertwined with daily life, and no modern setting is without it. Lust, too, is part of human nature and the common lot of mankind.

So long as one keeps proper measure and restraint, neither need become a problem.

Wealth is a tiger descending from the mountain. In the world, the crowd surges in and out, all for wealth at first and foremost.

For wealth, people may rise before dawn and toil long after dusk; for wealth, they may also lose every scrap of conscience. Men die for riches, birds die for food—this truth has held from ancient times to the present.

Lu Kun constantly warned himself that pursuing profit was acceptable, but never at the cost of selling his conscience, his ideals, or his soul.

Anger is the root of calamity. Too much anger harms the body and hurts both others and oneself.

Whether it is love, hatred, sorrow, greed, fury, obsession, reluctance, or attachment, one must never let anger bring disaster.

With his heart burdened by concern, Lu Kun never felt at ease while staying in Hong Kong.

Its towering buildings and ceaseless crowds always left him feeling somewhat unable to breathe.

Without wife and children by his side, nowhere truly felt like home.

Music played on the train, and all Lu Kun could think about was his wife, Madam Liu, and the children waiting at home.

"The game is just a dream,
Don’t speak of parting.
I will not cry because of this;
it was only a dream from last night.
Don’t ask whether I was willing or not.
I will not care because of this;
it was only a game from last night;
it was only a game, a dream..."

There were two versions of "A Game, a Dream," one from 1987 and one from 2003. The one Lu Kun was hearing now was, of course, the 1987 version.

After winning the 25th Golden Horse Award for Best Original Song in a Film in 1988, it became an enormous hit.

And the original singer, Wang Jie, seemed to Lu Kun more like a smaller-scale Cui Jian. Wang had once covered Cui Jian’s "Nothing to My Name," and among the singers who had covered that song, he was among the most distinctive.

...

In the dead of night.

"Kunzi, what time is it now?"

Stone woke in the middle of the night and peered out through the train window. Outside, everything was swallowed in darkness.

"Three in the morning. Go back to sleep. If the train isn’t delayed, we’ll reach the station a little after 9:40 a.m. A conductor will come wake us then," Lu Kun said softly, lifting his eyelids.

"You haven’t slept at all?" Stone asked in surprise, leaning down from the edge of the middle bunk.

"Can’t sleep," Lu Kun said, still listless.

"What’s keeping you up? Missing your wife and kids at home?" Stone asked quietly.

"Yeah."

Stone muttered, "No backbone," then lay back down.

The carriage fell quiet again, broken only by snores rising and falling at different depths.

"No backbone, huh? Maybe," Lu Kun thought, touching the gifts beside him for his wife and children, and he could not help but smile.

Journeys are always tiring. By early morning, the carriage was thick with the smell of breakfast.

In 1990, instant noodles were still a novelty and naturally would not have been common on trains. At that time, the most famous brand, Master Union, had not yet expanded its business onto the rails.

As for the later Master Kong, it would not open its first instant noodle production line in Tianjin until 1992. Even the name Master Kong came later; at the beginning, it did not even have a name.