Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction Group 3 | Page 51

Qiao was fast asleep in the cabin he shared with five other voyagers when a sudden roar of thunder woke
him up.
Merely half-awake, Qiao and his cabinmates stumbled their way out to the front deck of their ship, where
they saw lightning light up the pitch black sky. The whole crew ran around frantically, letting down the sails
and removing seawater that flooded the front deck with large buckets, trying to minimize the damage as
huge waves hit the ship so hard that the whole structure shook and wobbled, as if it was going to break apart
at any moment--
And then, it did.
All the voyagers aboard that ship were thrown into the freezing salt water. Qiao immediately looked for a
floating piece of the broken-down ship, and pulled a few other voyages to his little safety island.
There Qiao and his few friends were, adrift in the middle of nowhere.
Qiao did not remember falling asleep that night, but he remembered waking up to the glazing sun shining
over his face, blinding him. He found himself washed up onto a deserted island.
All the other voyagers on that ship were either floating in the middle of nowhere, or at the bottom of the
sea. Either way, there was no sign of them, even those who he managed to save that night.
Four days has passed, and Qiao was about to lose all hope until another ship of the Ming Treasure Fleet
showed up.
Qiao did everything in his power to attract the attention of any of the voyagers on board, and eventually
was able to get on board of the ship. He recognized a few of the voyagers on board. They were from the
same ship as Qiao.
At least a few of them survived.
As promised, Qiao was rewarded with gold and silk when he got back home. His mother was finally cured
from her illness and Qiao’s family no longer had to live in near poverty.
Yes, Qiao was heavily rewarded--
--But he was also scarred with the terrifying experience of the fight with those strange people, and the
fear he felt as he witnessed the ship he was on fall apart.
The Ming Treasure Fleet are recognized today as one of the first explorers of the world, and many Chinese
that know about the Ming Treasure Fleet look back at them and praise them for their bravery, kindness and
devotion towards what they do.
If we were half as devoted, half as kind and half as heroic as the people were back then, the society
would’ve been filled with positivity and love.