GREED ISLAND

While this card rests in your book, one blow aimed at you each turn is frozen at its crest and never lands — held as this wave has held, claws of foam open above three straining boats, unbroken since 1830.

浪立而不落，爪張而不合——此卡在書一日，每回合可將一記襲來之力凝於半空，如浪下三舟，近二百年未沉。

Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), also known as The Great Wave, from the series "Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjurokkei)"
Katsushika Hokusai · 1830/33 · Art Institute of Chicago
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Transform one target into a figure on the riverbank — parasol raised, spine straight, rendered in countless small touches of unmixed color that only gather into a body when seen from far away. No one on the island has moved since 1884, and the dotted border the painter added years later now serves as the seal.

發動後，目標須撐傘立於塞納河畔，化作千萬色點砌成的星期日——猴繩在握，帆影不動，百餘年的午後無人開口，亦無人離場。

A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884
Georges Seurat · 1884–86, border added 1888–89 · Art Institute of Chicago
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Transforms the hour around you into the painter's rainy day: every cobblestone slicked to mirror-shine, every umbrella raised against the grey, and the rain itself too fine to see — not one falling drop. While it holds, you pass as a stranger among strangers — no gaze in the crowd will meet yours.

化此刻為無形細雨之街——石板映天光如鏡，傘下行人萬千，雨落而不見其形，無一道目光與你交會。

Paris Street; Rainy Day
Gustave Caillebotte · 1877 · Art Institute of Chicago
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While this card rests in your book, every illusion cast at its bearer surfaces as what it is — a moon on water, visible, weightless, unable to touch you. Sit as the gilded one sits, one knee raised in royal ease, eyes lowered, and until you rise every cry for help on the island reaches your ear.

此卡在書中一日，加諸你身的幻術皆現形為水中之月——看得見，撈不著，傷不了人；學鎏金菩薩屈一膝作自在坐、垂目靜聽，島上一切呼救之聲，一一入耳。

Water and Moon (Potala) Guanyin
900–1100 · Cleveland Museum of Art
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While this card rests in your book, every spell aimed at your slots hangs a full turn in the air, the way Cupid holds the flower crown above her brow — never lowered, never landing. Whoever looks upon this card must choose as the lutenist chose: the song or the gaze, never both.

此卡在書之時，凡指向你書頁的咒術皆如小愛神手中花冠，懸於額上一寸、整整一回合不得落下；而注視此卡者，須如那琴手抉擇——留歌，或留目光，二者不可兼得。

Venus and the Lute Player
Titian · ca. 1565–70 · The Metropolitan Museum of Art
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While this card rests in your book, you may wake one dead flame per night: lean into the dark and spend a single held breath. The ember's glow reaches exactly one face — the one that fed it — and concedes everything else to the darkness.

每夜一次，向將熄的餘燼俯身吹氣，火便應聲而醒——醒來的光只照得亮餵養它的那張臉，其餘一切，仍歸於暗。

A Boy Blowing on a Firebrand
Gerrit van Honthorst · 1621–22 · Art Institute of Chicago
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While this card rests in your book, any two allies who stand shoulder to shoulder and watch the same moon become one target, all harm split between them until dawn. Their faces are turned from the world — no technique that must meet its mark's eyes can find them.

此卡在書之夜，並肩望月、背向世界的兩人合為一影，傷害均分、面容莫辨，效力直至月圓——而畫中之月，從未圓過。

Two Men Contemplating the Moon
Caspar David Friedrich · ca. 1825–30 · The Metropolitan Museum of Art
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While this card rests in your book, name one door: no hand, spell, or death may open it. The man sealed inside kept the doors of Amun's temple — painted mid-journey, Horus still leading him toward Osiris — and he has held his own threshold shut for three thousand years.

此卡在書一日，你可封一扇門——金面之下，是替阿蒙神殿守了三千年門的人；畫中荷魯斯仍牽著他走向冥王，如今他替你把守，人、咒、死亡皆不得入。

Coffin and Mummy of Paankhaenamun
Ancient Egyptian · Third Intermediate Period, Dynasty 22, reign of Osorkon I (about 924–889 BCE) · Art Institute of Chicago
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Once per game, follow the fisherman upstream — past the flowering banks, through the cleft in the rock — and hide any one card from your book in a village no rival can map. Every crossing scatters petals over your trail; after the third, the mouth of the cave closes for good, and whatever rests inside is beyond even your own recall.

循漁人溯溪而上，夾岸桃花盡處有一線石隙——可將一卡藏於無人尋得之村；落英掩徑，三渡之後，洞門永閉，連你自己亦不復得路。

The Peach Blossom Spring 桃花源圖
Qiu Ying · Late Ming (1368–1644) or early Qing (1644–1912) dynasty · Art Institute of Chicago
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While this card rests in your book, every honor you accept becomes another link in the gold chain at your chest: each link adds weight to your word, and none, once fastened, can be unclasped. In any darkness, the light finds your face first.

此卡在書之時，光必自暗中先尋你的臉；惟榮譽每受一次，胸前金鏈便沉一環——戴得起，解不開。

Old Man with a Gold Chain
Rembrandt van Rijn · 1631 · Art Institute of Chicago
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While this card rests in your book, you may tie one written line to any other card you hold; if that card is destroyed, the line survives and carries its last power to whatever branch you bind it to next. The maple sheds every leaf — the poem slips remain.

此卡在書，楓紅落盡而詩箋不墜——凡你繫於他卡之字句，卡亡句存，可移繫新枝，續其餘韻。

Autumn Maples with Poem Slips
Tosa Mitsuoki · c. 1675 · Art Institute of Chicago
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While this post stands in your book, one ally may take their place behind you: every weight the game sets on your shoulders is borne through them, and they do not bow. Carved for a king's palace veranda, it held the roof itself — through the figure of the queen who stands taller than her enthroned husband, a bird perched upon his crown.

此柱立於書中，你的重擔可交一人代承：王安坐，鳥棲冠頂，而真正撐住整座屋簷的，是站在他身後、比他更高的王后。

Veranda Post (Òpó Ògògá)
Olowe of Ise · 1910-14 · Art Institute of Chicago
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While this card rests in your book, approaching calamity reaches you one year early — arriving as color, never as sound. The painter claimed the two cannons in the lower right entered the picture only through that year's constant talk of war; so it is with this card, which never depicts a disaster, only overhears one.

此卡在冊時，災禍會提早一年抵達，以色彩而非聲響；一如右下角那兩門砲——畫家說，那不過是聽了一整年戰爭流言後，不自覺畫進來的。

Improvisation No. 30 (Cannons)
Vasily Kandinsky · 1913 · Art Institute of Chicago
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While this card rests in your book, one strike per battle may travel the saint's line — a single, unhurried descent into the open jaw of the largest fear on the field. The bones in the sand belong to those who charged without a vow; the lizards at the cave mouth are still practicing to be dragons.

此卡在冊，每戰許你一槍——不疾不徐，一線斜落，直入巨口；沙上白骨，皆屬無誓而來者，洞口蜥蜴，仍在練習成龍。

Saint George and the Dragon
Bernat Martorell · 1434–35 · Art Institute of Chicago
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While this card rests in your book, the shark trimmed flush against its lower edge never stops circling, and no card may be stolen from the slot beneath it. The castaway — adrift on his broken-masted boat, strangely calm — lends you his composure: effects that cause fear or panic pass you by like the current.

鯊腹貼著裁短的下緣巡遊，替你看守書中最底一格；斷桅上的人靜靜漂著，他不慌，你便不慌。

The Gulf Stream
Winslow Homer · probably 1899, dated by the artist "1889" · Art Institute of Chicago
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Thrown as two bowls and joined at the waist, this moon leans a little in its fullness, its white glaze faintly blushed. While this card rests in your book, once per night two halves of any broken thing pressed together will hold — the seam stays visible, and the mend outlasts the break.

兩半合成一輪月，圓處微傾——此卡在書，每夜可使一件碎物沿舊縫悄悄合攏；縫痕留著，從此不再裂。

Moon Jar
Joseon dynasty (1392–1897), late 17th– mid-18th century · Art Institute of Chicago
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While this card rests in your book, nothing shattered is truly destroyed: broken cards return as granite fragments and, once every piece is gathered, stand whole again — as this lion-bodied king did, hauled in pieces from the pit her successor left her in. Erase her name ten times; the stone remembers it eleven.

此卡在書，碎者不滅——她以女子之身佩王者之鬚，獅身承起整座王座，曾被砸碎沉坑、又逐片重立；名字被鑿去十次，花崗岩記得第十一次。

Sphinx of Hatshepsut
ca. 1479–1458 B.C. · The Metropolitan Museum of Art
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While this card rests in your book, whatever multiplies when cut cannot multiply — the club waits in his grip, unswung, and the whole swamp holds still around the calm hero and the slain. When you finally strike, bury what you sever; what this card buries does not grow back.

此卡在冊，棒在手而未舉，滿沼死寂——凡斬一生二之物皆不得增生；待你終於出手，斬下者埋之，永不再長。

Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra
Gustave Moreau · 1875–76 · Art Institute of Chicago
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While this card rests in your book, one hour of dusk refuses to pass: an ember moon hangs low over the field, wearing light borrowed from a sun already gone. A player who stands alone and still beneath it fades into the haze, and cannot be named as a target until they move.

此卡在冊一日，橙月便低懸一日；獨自靜立於野的人，暮靄會替他藏好，直到他自己邁出下一步。

Moonrise
George Inness · 1891 · Art Institute of Chicago
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Five peonies hold to the silk by color alone — laid down in the boneless manner, no ink line beneath them. While this card rests in your book, any technique that must trace your outline to strike finds no line to follow.

此卡在書之時，持者輪廓如沒骨芍藥般隱去——設色而不勾線，敵招循邊而至，終無一筆可尋。

Herbaceous Peony
Yun Shouping (Chinese, 1633–1690) · 1685 · Cleveland Museum of Art
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While this card rests in your book, cut flowers forget to wilt: once per dusk, return one spent card to its unspent bloom. The pale vase stands in amber mist on no table at all — do not ask what holds it, and it will keep holding.

此卡安放於書中時，琥珀色的霧裡無桌無牆而瓶花不謝——每逢黃昏，容你書中一張耗盡的卡靜靜回魂，只是切勿追問花瓶立於何處。

Vase of Flowers
Odilon Redon (French, 1840–1916) · c. 1905 · Cleveland Museum of Art
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While this card rests in your book, your strength stays cloud-hidden: an opponent may count only what the ink lets surface — a horned head, one claw, one scaled length of tail. It was painted as one of a pair; set its tiger on the facing page, and the wind will come to answer the rain.

此卡入書，墨雲即掩其身——敵眼所及，僅一角、一爪、一節鱗尾；置其虎於對頁，風自來應雨。

Dragon and Tiger
Sesson Shūkei (Japanese, c. 1492–c. 1577) · c. 1546–56 · Cleveland Museum of Art
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While this card rests in your book, every word written in your name grows a body — human, bird, or beast — and walks the rim of the cup on watch, the twelve signs interlaced below turning your hours. Set nothing down lightly: script that lives can be wounded.

此卡在書，凡以你名寫下的字皆生出身軀——或人、或鳥、或獸——繞杯沿夜巡，杯身十二宮暗轉你的時辰；落筆須慎，活字亦會受傷。

The Wade Cup with Animated Script
1200–1221 · Cleveland Museum of Art
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While this card rests in your book, no note sounded within its hearing may be cut short — every voice holds until its owner chooses silence. Joined from maple, spruce, and ebony in Cremona, 1711, it has outlived its maker and three centuries of hands that woke it.

三木合抱一縷聲，沉睡於書頁之間——凡在你身邊響起的樂音，不到奏者甘願，誰也不能令它止息。

"Antonius" Violin
Antonio Stradivari · 1711 · The Metropolitan Museum of Art
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While this card rests in your book, whatever crawls into your camp at night is pressed beneath the guardian's boot and held there, writhing, until dawn. His raised fist grips no weapon — thirteen centuries under three-colour glaze, and he has never once needed it.

此卡入書，夜裡來犯之魔一律踏於天王靴底——三彩如火未冷，牠掙扎千年，他舉拳未落。

Armored Guardian King (Tianwang) Trampling Demon
Tang dynasty (618–907 A.D.), first half of 8th century · Art Institute of Chicago
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While this card rests in your book, its open palm halts the first curse to touch your pages each turn. Hostile words are carved harmlessly across its wings instead — a king's inscription already runs straight through the body, and the spirit has not flinched in twenty-nine centuries.

翼展為牆，掌舉為令；王銘橫身刻過尚且傷他不得，何況指向你書頁的咒。

Saluting Protective Spirit
883–859 BCE · Cleveland Museum of Art
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While this card rests in your book, a vow spoken over its open page is held to the page's own standard: ink and gold outlast the voice, and as the small colored dots guard every sound of the recitation, so your spoken word is kept exactly as first given — and a vow kept exact is a vow enforced.

此卡在書，凡對其展頁立誓者，其誓如頁上經文——墨與金不隨人聲散去；硃綠小點守音如初，你的諾言亦一字不移，一諾既出，如誦如律。

Folio from a Qur'an Manuscript
late 13th–early 14th century · The Metropolitan Museum of Art
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While this card rests in your book, two lacquered cranes stand back to back with a knot of serpents pinned beneath their feet: nothing may approach you from behind unannounced, and whatever coils must stay coiled until dawn. Between their raised necks hangs an empty space that still keeps time.

此卡在書之時，雙鶴背向而立、足鎮蛇結——凡自你背後而來者必先驚起漆紅之影，而二鶴之間的空位，仍替你守著一記未落的鼓聲。

Cranes and Serpents
475–221 BCE · Cleveland Museum of Art
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While this card rests in your book, you may slip from any gathering unseen: your shadow keeps your seat on the paper screen, and your cup stays warm among the emptied trays. Those who come after find only the leavings of the feast, a full moon over the bay, and a line of geese already leaving.

此卡入書之後，你可無聲離席——紙門上留一道影替你守座，殘宴杯中尚有餘溫，來者只見滿月映灣、一行雁正遠去。

The Moon-Viewing Promontory, from One Hundred Views of Famous Places in Edo
Utagawa Hiroshige (Japanese, 1797–1858) · 1857 · Cleveland Museum of Art
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While this card rests in your book, the cards on either side of it cannot be taken by force — the sea has made every argument against these rocks and lost them all. Any player who turns to this page stays one turn longer than they intended: Monet came to Belle-Île for two weeks and remained more than two months.

此卡臥於書中，左右鄰卡不受強奪；凡翻到這一頁者，必多留一回合——莫內原定兩星期，最後留了兩個多月。

Rocks at Port-Goulphar, Belle-Île
Claude Monet · 1886 · Art Institute of Chicago
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