16: Mah-jong

Master wasn't good at mah-jong.
Needless to say, he was not my master of mah-jong.
He was one of the graduated students in my university who had extraordinarily strong sixth-sense. Since I was interested in the occult, I admired him as a master and became his pupil, while knowing people would say it looked like a weird relationship.
I could infer Master's real ability of mah-jong by just a few rounds of games.
Because I'd been playing mah-jong with my friend ever since when I was a high school student, the senior students in the club were annoyed with me as I was better at playing mah-jong than other freshmen who were total beginners.  
I was pleased to have something better at than Master. So, I often asked him to join mah-jong while he rarely did. 
Apparently he didn't want to show me his weak point.
In summer when I was a first year student, I happened to be alone with one of the graduated students.
We casually started speaking of Master. When I mentioned about how poor at mah-jong Master was, the student started talking something I didn't expect. "I don't know much about mah-jong though," he made a premise.

According to him, when Master had just entered this university, Master began to play mah-jong like most of healthy boy students did. He won his debut game by Yakuman - the highest combination rank.
Since then, he often won the games by Yakuman, terrifying the group. "Cuz I only heard such kind of rumors, I was like 'oh,' though, he’s poor at mah-jong in fact. I see."

"Sometimes there's a player who aims only Yakuman. That kind of person wins by Yakuman more often than other players do but is generally weak," I explained.

"I heard he frequently won by certain Yakuman which kills the player who's made it," he said.

"What?"

A combination rank called Nine Gates came into my head.

Nine Gates consists of 1112345678999 and one arbitrary number with one color. The combination rank is said to be the most beautiful in all the mah-jong combination ranks.
The Nine Gates was not only extremely hard to collect the pieces to complete but also there was a tradition behind it to be said that the player would die if it ever be completed.

Of course, I'd never completed it, not to mention the fact I'd never seen it.
So, I was kind of thrilled,

"He seemed to burn mah-jong pieces for several times," he added. As he said, the tradition also said all the pieces have constituted the Nine Gate must be burn not to be used again.
While I was flinched from Master's mysterious side could be seen, at the same time, I made out one thing.

That kind of person wins by Yakuman more often than other players do but is generally a poor player...

That's what I've just said earlier.
In other words, ever since Master had gotten a taste for the Nine Gates which let him win accidentally at his debut game, he'd been trying to complete the Nine Gates single-mindly.
He was mostly in a losing streak because the combination was too hard to complete.
However, he very rarely won and the pieces ended up with being burned every time.

"The player would die when the combination is completed. Very likely his taste, isn't it?" I shared my reasoning to the student.

However, the student was puzzled to hear my state.
"Hmm... but I wonder if the Yakuman was named the Nine Gates," he groaned. "The name of it sounded like 'killing with one thrashing', I guess. Like Heaven's something," then he clapped his hand. "I've just called up. It's the Blessing of Heaven."

The Blessing of Heaven.
I was stiffened.
Certainly, the Blessing of Heaven also had the same rumor as the Nine Gates.
However, unlike the Nine Gates that is possible to complete if the player aims, the Blessing of Heaven is already completed when the pieces are dealt which means only the player's luck can complete the Yakuman.
Despite the equal chance for every each player to complete no matter they aim or not, the rumor has it the player would die if it happens. The difficulty is much higher than the Nine Gates.
Master often won by the Blessing of Heaven...
I got shivers down on my spine, feeling like I'd seen Master's bottomlessness.

"The player would die if it's completed. Very likely his taste, yeah," While the graduated student laughed innocently, I wasn't be able to laugh.

Ever since that, I've never played mah-jong with Master.