Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 4567 | Page 59

The New Tales of Old Shanghai
Heep Yunn School, Chew, Adan - 16
I
I
locked the door of the apartment, and took the lift to the ground floor. The view of Shanghai never failed to amuse me
– laced with skyscrapers and lightning rods, I sometimes wonder how my hometown came to be, through 5000 years of
Chinese history. I hurried along in the crowded roads of Shanghai, admiring the hustle and bustle of the city, as white
collars whipped up gusts beside me. I smiled in nostalgia as I picked up the phone. It already feels like a long night.
“Hello? Qiao speaking.”
“Hey, it’s agent S8 here. ID has swept up our pig. You can find the intel in your phone.”
I mumbled an ‘okay’ and hung up. So, who’s the lucky target the Intelligence Department picked up for us today? I
unlocked my smartphone and looked at the profile: Lin Zhong Tai, aged 35, on the run for drug trafficking and
distribution. I took a close look at his face – dry and cracked lips, irises that looked out-of-focus. Taking a deep breath, I
prepared myself for some hardcore action scenes. I then took the battery out of my phone, and chucked it into the nearest
bin. Ah, I kind of liked that newest model.
I scanned my surroundings a bit, partly admiring all those streets lights starting to come on one by one. This city seemed so
alive and healthy, and I, as an agent, was to keep it that way by eradicating these criminals discreetly.
“Qiao. Where’s he?” I said into my earpiece.
“He’s two streets down from where you are, 90th floor, playing pool, probably smoking weird stuff, too.”
“Got it. Is he armed or with bodyguards?”
“I’ll look into it. Stay out of cameras.”
I looked around at my surroundings again, nobody suspicious. They probably just wanted to get home as quickly as
possible after a tedious day of work. I continued to walk towards the building briskly, also wanting to do the same as those
workers. Boarding the lift, it gave me a feeling that our pig was pretty rich. The escalator looked extravagant. It must be
hard for him to not have any bodyguards if he were a man of such status. I felt my own chest; the metallic lump of my
pistol always gave me the security I needed.
The lift sounded, and the doors opened. The music of a nightclub blasted into my ears. The smell of weird substances was
starting to make me hallucinate. I groaned in my mind, it was going to be hard distinguishing someone’s footsteps if the
music’s this loud and the smell’s this horrendous.
And, a second later, I found out I was right about footsteps, because someone pulled me in a split second to a dark room
and pointed a knife at my throat.