Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 4-7 2019 | Page 24

“I know. But…” Chen Yiyang sighed deeply, “Yeah… Whatever, I’ll place it back under the carpet.”
So he did. He placed it back.
For the next few days, every time when Chen Yiyang is entering or leaving his house, he will lift his carpet to
see whether the letter is still there. The envelope stayed at the same place all the time. Until the following Wednesday,
He found the letter gone. Guan Zheyu didn’t care much about it and said that it’s probably just the kid took the letter
back after realizing the prank didn’t work. However on Friday, when Chen Yiyang is back from school with Guan
Zheyu, he once again finds a new letter under the carpet.
He runs into Guan Zheyu’s room, “Guan Zheyu! I received another letter.”
Guan Zheyu raises his head from a thick testbook, “Is it the same one?”
“No. Here, have a look.” He hands the opened envelope over, “It says that the letter from last time got sent
back, so she, ummm… Chu Yingxuan, is confused. But other than that, It’s more or less the same thing from last time.”
“Okay.” Guan Zheyu raised one of his eyebrows, “So what are you trying to say?”
“I wanna write back to her.”
“...What?”
“See, the thing is that I know you think it’s only a prank. But don’t you think that there is a small chance that
it’s written by a mom who’s actually worried about her child.”
“From the ancient time?”
“Yes. From the ancient time. She wanted to send it to her friend, to Liu Seyu. But it somehow got under my
carpet. You know, like in movies.” After a pause, he adds like he’s going to make a big decision, “So, I wanna write a
letter back, just for fun.”
Guan Zheyu lowers his head, sighs while scratching his head, “Whatever. Just do whatever you want.”
“Great! Do you have any xuan paper and ink?”
“You’re kidding me, right?” He stares straight at him, “Don’t tell me you’re gonna pretend to be Liu Seyu,
and write with traditional Chinese.”
Then immediately he realizes that Chen Yiyang wasn’t jocking. Because he saw him nodding with a big smile
on his face.
“Well, I’m not going to pretend to be her. But, yes I’m going to write in traditional Chinese.”
“What? You barely even know how to write in simplified Chinese!”
“And that’s why you’re here.”
They start laying a layer of newspaper on the desk, putting a piece of xuan paper on it. Chen Yiyang is holding
a dictionary, looking for the words they don’t know how to write, while telling Guan Zheyu what to write. Guan
Zheyu is sitting straight on the chair, holding a ink brush on his right hand, thinking how to turn Chen Yiyang’s words
more formal. And so, one speaks and one writes, an one page long letter is finally done.
“Well done!”
Chen Yiyang picks up the letter, once again looks at it from the top to the end. They told Chu Yixuan that
she sent the letter to a wrong person. However, they think that she should not be worried. Every child has a dream, and
they should chase their dreams even if it’s dangerous.
“Good enough.” He nods and stuffed it in a xuan paper envelope they made by themself, writing the name
and address according to the letter they received.
Then they once again placed it under the carpet.
Like the week before, the letter stayed under the carpet till Wednesday, and a new letter is placed instead on
Friday.
“There’s another letter.” Chen Yiyang turns to Guan Zheyu, opening the envelope in front of him, “Do you
wanna have a look.”
Guan Zheyu unfolds the letter, reading it out loud and concludes at the end, “So, she still thinks that her son
should listen to her rather than risking his life on doing whatever he wants.”
“But he should have the right to chase his dream,” Chen Yiyang looks down at the letter, “Besides, how
dangerous can it be. Which voyage was that?”
“Umm, according to the date she states on here is…” Guan Zheyu quickly finds the date written at the end of
the later, “Well, it’s the old way of counting the years, but it you search on line…”
He takes out his phone, taping at the screen, “See, it should be about January, 1412.”
“Was there any voyages going on at that time?”
“You didn’t listen on history at all, didn’t you?” Guan Zheyu rolled his eyes, “If the letter is real, Chu
Yingxuan’s son is probably going to take part of the Ming treasure voyages. The ones that were led by Zheng He.”
“Umm, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard of it.”
“Basically, there were seven voyages in total, during the Ming Dynasty, that were led by Zheng He, the
eunuch. They left here, at Nanjing, and the farest they could get was to East Africa and the Red Sea.”
“Okay, so was it dangerous.”