Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 2020complete | Page 394

A boy walked up to me, examining me carefully. He handed me a map, a subway map pointed to my chest, but I
still quite not feel it. I was confused. That boy used a bit more power on me as if asking me to take it. I was
confused again, but I took it, fearing that the bursting voice would terrify every nerve in me, though I can’t feel.
I inspected that map, it was written in characters, was it Chinese? For I was inspecting the map did I found out
that there were small-sized English written underneath, it was a relief.
I started my journey by walking towards a sign that popped to the front of my eyes, blindly. I started from the
North Point, going onto Tseung Kwan O line, blindly. Went off at You Tang, blindly. Headed off to 7 11,
blindly. Until, a piece of paper shined in my eyes, performing with full enthusiasm. It had funny scribbles,
however, some characters did make some sense. I wanted to ignore that because I knew it was someone’s wasted
doodles, but that voice, that firm voice, ordered me to pick that paper up and speculate on it. My eyes enlarged
with astonishment and horror, still, I held up that paper and took a few minutes on it. I was lost in those
characters, thinking and trying, matching and detaching… That voice must’ve got
disappointed by my brain, but then, I started to see something, three characters:
绿色线 . Peculiarly, I imagined a picture without these three characters, or did I
imagine? Something started to piece together, it was slowly mixed well enough
for me to identify something. It was another three characters. My brain fell into another round of torture with
happiness and tiredness with curiousness. I stood up to tell myself I was sleeping and finally saw something that
kind of makes sense. 绿色线 and 彩虹站 were the information I concluded with, suddenly, the map came to
view.
“There was actually this information that matches the map!” I was so amazed and proud of myself that I actually
said that out loud, under the bright blue sky, among the paradise. This somehow felt like treasure-hunting…
I arrived at Choi Hung station, but I think I experienced a teleport, I was brought here. Immediately, I see an
envelope, I knew something was wrong. Without a doubt, I opened it, it was an envelope full of cash, Macau
Pataca. I shouldn’t have taken it, but that voice, as expected, shoot out again to force me to take it. Cotton
candies are forming in the sky as if swimming inside the ocean. The sun, however, was neglected and kicked out
of the party…
A familiar smell brought back that pain, the roasting man-made duck. Expect it was cutting my stomach from
the inside, as if trying to build a motor, generating a significant amount of noise. The cash somehow dropped out
of my pockets, out of the envelopes, into a person’s hands. My first instinct was protecting the cash until I saw
the name tag on that person’s uniform. He was the server. Somehow, I knew I shouldn’t stop what just
happened, so, I was getting a man-made duck. Roasted duck is a traditional food in China, I suppose. There was
a routine that made this look really professional. I had a bite. I could taste nothing but still pretended to,
suppressed by all the glares and stares from the chief and the servers. My mouth slowed down, my tongue
defense, I controlled my tongues and felt something. It was a thin, paper-like substance in my mouth. It was
smart and incredible how I survived in the gaps of all the chiefs’ and servers’ stares and spat out everything in my
mouth. It was a piece of paper with a sentence written on it: Go to where this is the only man-made structure
on earth, which can be seen from the moon with naked eyes. I’ve seen this riddle before, Great wall of China is
the answer.