Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 4-7 2019 | Page 140

Chinese words translate to “Welcome Zheng he”. That name sounded really familiar now. But facial recognition occurs
faster than name recognition.
The day has come where Zheng He would come to our port. On that day, slightly more information had been found
about him, though none of them was personal. He was coming to the port to run some errands. It had also been also
found out what the job of this captain was. Most people, including me, sounded familiar. He was apparently going to be
a “nice” pirate. I was thoroughly confused by the concept of a “nice” captain. I was about to ask what it meant when it
occurred to me that I knew the meaning of this word. I was starting to think of where I heard it from when there came
a loud cheer from the harbour. I rushed to the sound when I saw the most startling and intimidating thing a person
could see. It was a fleet of ships. I had seen fleets of ships lots of times in the ten years I lived here, but those were ants
compared to this one. Ships as far as the eye could see, reaching towards the horizon. Ships bigger and sturdier than the
surrounding ships. Ships with the brightest red and metallic gold only added to the effect. All of us locals looked at the
ships in awe. I guess this guy was used to people being too astonished to cheer for him because captains of a high rank
expect the locals to honour their coming. Out of all the ships, five of the most majestic vessels berthed. I was just told
that this was a fleet consisting of 99 ships. I was obviously stunned by the numbers but the most astounding fact was that
only a quarter of the entire fleet had come here. It was said that the total number of ships added up to 317, I was sure
this information was wrong, but I would soon come to see. Just then I saw the captain disembark the ship. I saw the
silhouette of his body against the sun so I could not make out his face. I ran to get a closer look at this man, but every
other person in the harbour beat me to it. Everyone was trying to get a glimpse of this man, and it soon turned into a
free for all. I gave up after a while and walked back home.
I took a short nap on my balcony hammock, which overlooked the harbour. A great view of the sea, I admit, After a
while, I was woken up by a loud knocking. “Go away”, I groaned at the door drowsily. “Sir, sorry to disturb you”, the
voice said officially, “But I am to pass this letter to you in order of Captain Zheng.” When he uttered the word
‘Zheng’, I was so shocked I flipped out of my hammock. I rushed to the door to collect my letter. I was thoroughly
shocked by this. Why would such an important person seek me? I wanted to ask the man but he had already left. The
answer, I hoped, would be in the letter. I tore the envelope open carefully. The letter consisted of a small paragraph,
though it contained a lot of meaning. The letter read,