Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 4-7 2019 | Page 138

got in there, I have no clue). But why did I want to build a boat? No, it wasn’t because I wanted to play pirates. It was
because I could sail to the port. In Lijiang, there are lots of canals. One of them leads to a river, which leads to the port.
I was determined to follow this route to my dreams. So on that day, I took a few wooden planks and went to my secret
hideout, right next to a canal, hidden from prying eyes. Unknown to me, my neighbour saw me creeping out and
decided to follow me. So while I unrolled my parents' blueprints for a sailing boat, a voice behind me said, “Are you
trying to build a boat?” I was really tempted to say “no sh** Sherlock”, but my grandma has forced me to get out of
this habit of saying it to anyone who asks a question. Instead, I tried being polite by saying, “What was your first clue?”
He ignored me and sat down next to me. We sat in silence for a long time. Then he said the words that changed our
lives forever. “Let's build it together.” Not very dramatic for words that change your fate, but nonetheless, it changed
my life. Come to think of it, these words were the thing that put my future self into a lot of hassle. After he said these
words, he told me his dream, which was extremely similar to mine, except he wanted to be a nice pirate. Don’t know
what a nice pirate is? Apparently, Zheng He’s definition of a nice pirate is that instead of plundering enemy ships, they
give gifts to enemy ships, creating bonds with more countries. Typical Zheng He. Instead of stealing gold, he gives
gold. What a nice guy. After we talked about our dreams, we made an oath to make them come true. So from that day
onwards, we would come here and build our ship.
For years and years, we constructed our ship. After 5 long years, our vessel was completed. It wasn’t small. It had
three small rooms, a sloop mast rig, a storage room and even a small lifeboat. It wasn’t much, but it was a boat. The day
had come for us to set sail. We had to put supplies on the boat, such as a water filter, salted cookies and a few other
supplies. For me, the hardest part of the journey wasn’t constructing the boat or loading the supplies. It was how I had
to explain this to my grandmother. On the day we planned to leave, I tried not to cry. My grandmother, knowing
something was wrong, gave me one of her lian gao, which she refers to as “only to be made on special events”. Once
she gave me this, I burst into tears. My grandma only hugged me and sent me to bed. The entire night, I did not sleep a
wink. I thought about a lot of things, mostly my regrets. What would happen to my grandma? Thinking about this
made me guilty, so I wrote a note to my grandma saying what I had done. After writing my note, I grabbed my bag,
which seemed to feel slightly heavier than before and dashed stealthy to our rendezvous point. When I arrived, Zheng
He was already there.“You ready?”, he asked, sounding untroubled as if we were only going on a short vacation. Lucky
him. He didn’t really love his parents much. For me, this took a lot of guts. Let me just say that this process was a walk
in a park for Zheng, while it was a climb out of hell for me. As we got on the ship, I saw the shadow of a person. This