At first he’d tried moving 1,000 yuan to his account. He let it sit there for a month before moving it back, and no one noticed. Gradually the dawning realization set in. As long as the books added up when they were tallied at the quarter’s end, the money, it seemed, was his. And why not? Why let the money sit there, inert, when it could be spent, used, transformed and multiplied? All those disbursements across the province—there were dozens every month, and who was going to notice an extra account getting its share? No one, that’s who.

Swagger swagger get that cash, he chanted to himself. Swagger swagger make a stash.

He took out 10,000 yuan and doubled it. The next time, he siphoned off 50,000 yuan and made an additional third on top of that. Every week, he watched the new columns of numbers in his account grow. At the end of every quarter, he moved the original sum of money back to the government’s account and plowed the profits back into the market. Eight months passed like that, his mind a whirl of giddy arithmetic. In the mornings, as he walked to the subway, passing ranks of old men gambling on the street over their chessboards, he wanted to crow aloud, Fools! We have better games now.