A single card can’t be played.

When someone plays the 8 Wan, you can eat it if you have the 6 Wan and 7 Wan, or you can Peng (claim a pair) if you hold two 8 Wan tiles. If you have neither, well, sorry—there’s nothing you can do.

A man’s talent is like a woman’s beauty: it’s one tile in your hand, but only one. To make a move—to Peng, to Chi, or even to Hu—you need other tiles to form a combination. You’ve got to stack something onto it for the hand to even be playable.

You might think you’re average, with only a 1% scarcity—but what happens when you multiply two 1% traits together? You get one ten-thousandth. That’s rare enough. That’s the power of combination.