"Yuanyang 674" Author: Ma Jiahui Publisher: Huacheng Publishing House 2020 Chinese Literature (Fiction)

“Everyone may be dealt a bad hand, and playing the bad hand well is the only thing we can do in life.

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"Mandarin Duck Six, Seven, and Four" are the worst four cards in a Pai Gow game. If you get them, you will lose money 99% of the time. "Mandarin Duck Six" is two sixes of different suits. "Seven Four" is a seven and a four.

Ma Jiahui uses bad cards as a metaphor to write about the impermanence of the world and the courage of men and women from all walks of life to ride the wind and waves - gambling with opportunities, gambling with love, gambling with fate, being pressed on the monument of the times to laugh, sing, and shout, keeping true feelings and living up to themselves in adversity.

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In Hong Kong at night, people are longing for the last unbridled happiness. The "Dragon Bathing Ceremony" of the leader Shao Ya Bing is about to start, and brothers, bar girls, foreigners, Hong Kong police, politicians and business celebrities are all present. Face after face, like the roles on the stage yesterday, pushed Ah Bing from "Xiao Bing" to "Brother Bing". His wife Ah Bing, known as "Shantou Jiu Mei", once blamed him for not having great ambitions and hated him for being a philanderer. They had a short period of lost and betrayal, but in the end, they were "mandarin ducks with the same fate" and accompanied him through life's hurdles.

At this banquet, Ah Bing wanted to announce his retirement, but he disappeared without a trace that day. The answer lies in the three cards he drew...

Ma Jiahui

Born in Wan Chai, Hong Kong in 1963, he holds a master's degree in social science from the University of Chicago and a doctorate in sociology from the University of Wisconsin. He is a well-known writer, media figure, and cultural critic.

I love writing, I love writing, basically, I only know how to write. I have written essay collections such as "Something Happens in the Jianghu", "The Secret Affair of Time", "It's Not Bad to Die Here", "Falling in Love with a Few Scumbags", "Uncle", "Little Sister", etc.

In 2016, his first novel, Dragon Head and Phoenix Tail, was published and won more than 20 literary awards, including Asia Weekly's Top Ten Novels of the Year, Southern Weekend's Cultural Originality List's Best Book of the Year Fiction Category, the Hong Kong Book Award, the Chinese Literature Media Awards' Novelist of the Year (top five), and the Taiwan Literature Award's Golden Novel Award (top five).