Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 2020complete | Page 246

The realisation sickened her, vomit swelled up her throat, total blackness.
When she awoke, she was in huge white room all covered in a glass-like material. Outside the window, she
could see now the buildings were like 200 stories high and many ‘heli-capsules’ were floating around, they
travelled neatly in ‘lanes’ marked with lights. Below her, she could see huge masses of people, tiny, like ants
- and strangely, no roads, no cars at all. Instead, the ground was full of lush greenery. She could see far, far
away into the Greater Bay Area. The scenery was breathtaking, especially the network of bridges that
connected the 9 cities and 2 special administrative regions in southern China.
In the room, all the glass walls were computer screens and many people sat on high stools working on the
screens. Little robots were zipping around carrying trays of food and coffee to people.
The door opened and Chi Feng strolled in with some adults. “Oh, you are awake! Are you alright? This is
my dad, he is the Director of the Zhaoqing Innovation Centre. You can tell him anything.” as usual, Chi
Feng gushed on.
Slowly, Li Ying told her story. How the accident had killed her and her family, how she had waited months
until the Hungry Ghost month to return to find her brother. “I died in 2020, but it seems to be 2080 now,”
she concluded.
At this, everyone’s jaws dropped. Li Ying almost laughed, her story sounded so ridiculous to her own ears.
The adults all started talking altogether at once and there was such confusion.
Finally, Chi Feng’s dad spoke. “This is all fascinating, amazing! You are a ghost and yet we can see and hear
you. We have been researching time travel for years and just this afternoon, we were testing our time travel
machine and it exploded. Perhaps somehow, it has brought you here!”
“Of course we will help you,” he continued. “China is now the greatest superpower in the world and our
technology is unrivalled. We will use our ‘Poponame’ search machine. What is your brother’s name and
when was he born?”
“Pang Li Fu and he was born on 20 January 2010. He was just 10 years old when he died.” Li Ying replied
mournfully.