Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 12 | Page 310

Shen Hou: A Dream Comes True
Lycee Francais de Shanghai, Berger, Simon - 10
I
n Shanghai, there was a young girl named Shen Hou. She was a pretty girl with big dark eyes and long brown
hair. Ever since she was a child, she dreamed to be a police officer. Each year, she pleaded with the police chief
to let her work like a real cop, but the answer was always the same, “You are not strong enough to be a police
officer.” So she went to work as a security agent on the city wall. Shen Hou hated working on the wall. Every day
was the same. She would open and close the big doors, check people’s bags and she worked with smokers. The
rest of the time, she sat on the wall.
Months passed but on a rainy day, she saw Han Wan, a little man with dark squinty eyes, dark hair, and same age
as Shen Hou, escaping from the jewel market, with a big bag of jewels and the precious golden statue that
everyone was talking about. “I think my grandmother told me the full story when I was a kid about the golden
statue.’’ said Shen Hou. “Once upon a time, in Mexico, the Inca found the statue underground and the king said
that he wanted it for himself. But the people who found the statue didn’t agree with this. All those who wanted
the statue did a revolution to kill the king. And they succeeded, despite of all the blood. They made the statue
their god. Years later, the archeologists found the statue in a temple, when they were getting away, a curse fell on
them. The name of the curse was “the boutonisation” and they started to have more and more spots. Their boss
said that in Beijing, a museum would like to have the statue. They left to Beijing but they couldn’t reach it
because of the curse. The spots were itching them everywhere. So they stopped in Shanghai and gave the golden
statue to this vendor 11 years ago. The vendor shouted, “He stole my precious golden statue!’’ It was up to Shen
Hou to take the statue back.
She ran and ran as fast as she could, she ran just beside a tofu vendor. So she remembered the smell. She
immediately remembered when she was a kid. After school, with all her friends, they went to buy some tofu,
played and played all the day… But that was before. Now she needed to be a little bit more concentrated because
she was running to catch the thief. She now was running for glory. Sometimes, they slipped on the wet ground.
She climbed over trash, swam through the canal, and jumped from the top of the building to another. At the end,
she tackled him so he fell in mud. So she got the statue back to the vendor who thanked her a lot by giving her a
little bit of his money. The police was fascinated by how she captured the thief. The thief would stay in jail for 15
years.
Eight years later, the day of the Spring Festival, Han Wan managed to escape from the prison. He had plotted with
one of his best friends. During a visit, his accomplice passed him a tiny handmade bomb while shaking Han Wan’s
hand. “It will detonate in exactly 15 min” said the one with who Han Wan plotted. The police officers were all
celebrating the festival and in the Spring Festival, the Chinese lit fire crackers so the police officers thought that the
noise that was coming from the jail was firecrackers, but it was the bomb that detonated. The police chief said that
Han Wan fled to the French Concession. So all the police officers went to look for him… The chief said that the
first one who would find him, would be rewarded ¥10, 000.
The police searched for months, they didn’t care of the weather, sunny day, stormy day, rainy day, and they
searched as long as they could from 7:15 AM until 9:45PM. With of course lunch. They searched in people’s
houses, in the markets, in the restaurants… But it was impossible- only normal persons. They searched
everywhere in Shanghai and the walled-city. One cold winter night when it was raining, whereas Shen Hou was
just about to give up, a woman glimpsed Han Wan on Nanjing Lu. He was sitting in a lane with a group of young
scum. They were playing the game of mahjong. She immediately called the police. Four minutes later, the police
arrived. Shen Hou saw him by a balcony, he was running to Pudong.
She ran after him, in the ferry, on the streets… After a long high-speed pursuit, she finally captured the thief by
laying him flat on the ground so he returned to prison. With more security guards to look after him in case he
re-escaped.
The police officers were very fascinated by how she captured the thief, so they named her chief of the police. All
became normal; she married Wan Jié a good and nice boy, an under police chief and had a son.